It was a clear and warm night. The city was busy as usual - the view was almost the same boring representation of malfunctioning Manila technology. What made this boring routine interesting were the stories I used to hear from people first hand. I took time to talk to Alelei every night. She's a soul that added to my routine.
The city hussle makes my life dull traveling from QC's North Avenue to Makati's Guadalupe Nuevo. The MRT ride boosts up my chronicles of solitude. Not until I found Alelei. Forget what I said, but she adds color to my black and white city life.
She is one of the usual sights in the public places at dusk. I knew she is like that but something in me wanted to know her better than anybody could. It is not that I would have taken the advise of my Lolo but his machismo liberated teasings did not take effect on me the time I saw Lei.
It was one of the ordinary nights when I approached 'my girl', she knew what to do in situations like this. But I knew there was something in her daring outfit that spelled to me like innocence. I knew many men had taken her for granted, it was not a taboo that she is sending souls to where they think is heaven. But what ended up that night was genuine friendship. During our acquaintance talks, I saw in her pretty face the eyes which I long suspected hide a story. It was hours of chats after I saw in her cheeks the sparkling drops reflected by the healthy lights of EDSA. It was, according to her, the first time since she opened her inner self to a stranger. She disclosed her background to me, a total stranger. She had been standing at the same site for almost every night for a month now. She was a victim of injustice in her own town. She is 25, and once she was an honor student of STI College. But things turned out to be what she did not expect. She discovered she is an adopted child of a guess relation officer, I took pity while she was stuttering those words. She is a good daughter, but her parents treated her the 'legal' way they should. They did not actually hate Lei, but she is seen not as a family...
My heart was stirred the moment I already saw this woman break down in front of me. I know what people would have thought about what I was doing in the footbridge with a woman like this. But I just did not care. I was so carried away that I joined her in gazing at the sky which would have been bright but labeled with smog.
She wasn't able to continue her story about her life. I did not how she entered the world of darkness. And I did not even know why she was doing the work.
It was hours, and we barely noticed the gradual decline of city noise. I did not know how we bid goodbye. The night on my bed I thought of her, and how her life would have been if she stayed with her family. But then again. And then darkness forced me to quit thinking.
-a close to heart encounter with Alelei of Cainta, Rizal, a 'soul' worker used to station herself at the Guadalupe Overpass -
