|
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
It was early evening. The warm summer breeze was wafting through the city street he was standing on the side of. He could smell the exhaust fumes mingling with the fresh sea breeze. He was finished with work for the day.
Thank God, another lousy day is done, he thought to himself. He sees himself as and actually is in all sense of the word, a corporate drone. Whoring his time out to the only buyer available and does inconsequential, routine tasks. Day in, day out. After two years doing the job he still feels like yesterday was just his first day. No surprise there, he’s still doing the same tasks he did on his first day.
He wasn’t in a hurry to go home. He didn’t want to subject his family to the angst he has accumulated at work. They don’t deserve it. He has to find a way to let loose of the angst. That’s what he does on the jeepney ride home.
He has two routes to home. One takes fifteen minutes the other half an hour. He always takes the longer ride especially when the workday was particularly angsty. Today was a particularly angsty day.
The jeep has finally arrived, and as he boarded it, some inconsequential blues music plays through his earphones from his cheap Chinese Ipod knockoff. He always listens to the blues on the way home. For some unfathomable reason, he loves the cliché. The jeep lurches, puffs a dark exhaust that would surely violate some environmental law and proceeds on its normal route. The detoxification from work toxins has begun.
The jeepney was full. Nine persons per side sat irregardless of waist size. He sat in the middle, on the driver’s side. He looked at the exhausted faces of employee and student alike. Everybody just wanted to go home. There was a girl wearing a uniform from a well known Catholic high school just seating across from him. She was lugging two heavy bags. A backpack and one of those small replica’s of wheeled luggage. He imagined her lugging the bags to and from school, he thought of the tons of home work she must do before sleeping, the puberty she was obviously going through and he was thankful he was finally through with the hell that was high school. A few minutes into the ride and he was feeling better already.
His eyes wandered in the dimly lit interior and saw a student from one of the generic colleges in his city. The guy was obviously a freshman as he kept trying to look cool for the high school girl. His hairstyle and manner of clothing was a mass of contradictions as he had emo hair with all the trimmings but he was dressed like those “pogi” rockers that think being in a band was all about getting girls. What’s with emo anyway he thought. Why do they always whine about everything when they haven’t really gone through shit? Why do they amplify every single feeling they express? What happened to men just keeping their emotions to themselves? The concept of manhood is dying he thought. With death blows coming from unrealistic chick flicks, unreasonable feminists, and desperate men who would do anything just to have female companionship. God, how he hates them.
His eyes go back to the college kid. He thought about his own freshman year in college. The factions, the stupid ass professors, the airhead cockteasers, the dumbass jocks, the arrogant nerds, everybody trying so hard to show how cool they are so their miniscule existence in this world could be validated. He thought about the helplessness he felt in the hands of power tripping professors, the embarrassment of four semesters of ROTC being ordered around by people who couldn’t function in normal society, and finding ways to make money to keep himself in college. At least he wasn’t as clueless as the emo guy when he was in college.
They jeepney was now cruising down the highway. He’ll be home in fifteen minutes. More blues music was still playing in his ear. His head turned to the sound of a small cough and he saw woman around his own age dressed in the uniform cashier of one of the huge malls in the city. She looked sick and exhausted. Her uniform looked old and worn. The heavy make up was wearing away. Her eyes were closed and her head resting on her arm that was holding on to the railing. She coughed again. He thought of her job. The long hours standing around, handling vast amounts of money that isn’t yours, being worked to the bone, abused by customers and supervisors alike, all that in exchange for a salary that is barely above minimum wage. All of a sudden, his job felt like a walk in the park.
He looked out the window, a few passengers have already alighted, some just got on. But the jeepney wasn’t that packed anymore. The high school girl got off a few minutes ago, lugging her heavy bag. He expected the college freshman to go after her and offer his help but he guessed the guy was just too chickenshit. Fucking posers, all talk and no walk. he thought to himself.
Right beside the jeepney door, a short balding man, way into his late forties sat and stared out the window into nothing. He was carrying a long umbrella which he handled like a cane as he was sitting in the jeepney. The man had an identical bag to what he was carrying. He figured him out to be a government worker. Now that was a sweet gig. Relatively higher, regular and guaranteed pay, management more concerned about keeping the status quo rather than improving the bottom line, simple, single person work shared by two or more people, and cool uniforms. But he looking at the guy, he saw a somewhat dead person. Obviously the man had the worker drone stuff polished to a shine brighter than his head. All passion is gone, creativity dulled to the point of being useless, his days all the same. The man turned and looked at him with dead eyes. He gave the man a nod and a weak smile but the man didn’t seem to see it in the dim interior. Or he just ignored it.
He imagined himself turning up like the man on the jeepney door. Being a drone for the rest of his life. Nothing but a carbon based machine. No creativity, no sense of purpose, no passion. Realities force us to accept things but that doesn’t mean we have to destroy our humanity, he thought.
He wondered why he was sticking with his job. The answer came immediately, realities. Realities he has long ago accepted has forced him to keep the job he hated. But he vowed it wouldn’t consume him. He tries so hard not to let the job get to him. He needs the money and he couldn’t get the money doing what he does anywhere else. The work is easy and the pay is ok, it’s just that it sometimes really pisses him off.
Oh well, he told himself. It’s much better than having no job at all. Or having a more lousy job with lousy pay. He knows he is not the most miserable person in the planet. There are at least five people he knows that really love him. His health is ok although he sometimes smokes too much, but hell he likes to smoke. He keeps looking for a better job and by the law of averages, he should about be able to come up with some. He feels better now. He even appreciates his job more. But he knows it wouldn’t last.
He calls the driver on his stop, he gets off the half empty jeep, walks a few meters and enters his home with a smile. He happily joins his family for dinner. Another day is done…
 Add as favourites (7) |  Quote this article on your site | Views: 423
Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register. Powered by AkoComment Tweaked Special Edition v.1.4.6
AkoComment © Copyright 2004 by Arthur Konze - www.mamboportal.com
All right reserved |
') 
