The Road to Tantalus

The jeep crawled itself like a lazy slug to the station.

Perennially haunted by the idea that whenever I miss first the train and the sliding door closes before me, one possibility of life which might be instrumental to my destiny would be lost forever - yes, the movie Sliding Doors- I squeezed into the already bulging train and disappeared from the sliding door.

Then, I found myself in a throng of corporate slaves. They were sleek in their wrinkle-free designer suits and shoes. They reeked of Ralph Lauren fragrances, shimmered in their designer watches and latest gadgets. I felt like I was Patrick Bateman in the movie American Psycho.

In a flash, I passed the same route again. The train like the scheming serpent in the Genesis passed through the road between Ortigas and Ayala. I gawked and I lustily reached through the billboards like giant trees virtually laden with all my dreams in life: shop-all-you-can Citibank credit card, Ferrari, house and lot in a posh village, signature wardrobes, savvy watches and mobiles, designer pharmaceuticals endorsed by flawless models, picture perfect family dining in Pancake House, “Live your dreams” promise of an insurance company, Vicky Belo's guarantee of perfect body.

Borgy Manotoc, KC Concepcion, Kris Aquino, Gretchen Barretto and Paris Hilton were inviting and enticing everyone in their gleaming paradiso.

But I was the helpless Tantalus. Their branches moved away from me. They eluded my every reach.

Past Taft Avenue, the serpent train shed its skin, metamorphosed into a giant maggot: the LRT train. Then it nipped through the rotten street of Manila. This time I found myself in a different class of people; I smelled the stench of the pawis of the proletariat worming their way to the factories.

I was one of them. I am one of those faceless thousands who plod through life with anonymity, resignation and retarded ambition.