Skip to main content

Cube Dwellers



The end of the work day starts with the fifteen minutes ride in the train. She considers that space as an extension of her cubicle in her office. Taking the same car at the same time, she will end up with the same home bound cube dwellers, perhaps doing the same ritual that she does at the end of the day. The white dignified lady, the two African American women who sits together, the middle aged passenger who she presumes is mentally challenged, for when she gets in the train and her favorite spot ,the first 2 seats nearest to the door are occupied, she would turn beet red and start silently cursing, prompting the dignified looking lady to request the unsuspecting occupant to give the cursing lady her pre-ordained seat. Every one have its designated spot, settling in and doing their business on how to pass the time on the train, some opening their dog eared books ready to lose themselves in the unfolding storyline, others will drown their thoughts with their IPODs or immersed themselves on their phones.

This predictable sphere of activity unfolding like clockwork gives her a certain affinity to the other passengers. She is part of this afternoon tableau, and they are in an ensemble to carry out this unwritten established procedure in order to put a completion to their working day. She is idle on the train, reading gives her motion sickness and she prefers to hear the sound bytes that goes with her afternoon tableaux. Often, she spends her time preening on the window, looking at the passing scenery, wondering why the yard is overgrown, trying to figure out the meaning of the artsy and ugly graffiti, billboard baiting men to call a number of another man.

These 15 minutes, she uses to de-clutter her brain from the entropy that ensued in spending eight hours in the cube. Resetting her state of mind to the quotidian task ahead in the domestic front. One afternoon, her yearning for home unwelcomely crept in. It was early fall, tress have specks of egg yolk yellow on their leaves but not enough to drown the greens. She caught herself saying to herself, Santol (fruit native to her country) is ready for the picking at this time of year. She was imagining those yellow leaves to be that fruit that she had not eaten for years. How she would just savor its hairy seeds and fleshy inside of the fruit, making dish out of the meaty part when there was abundance. In her vision, the oaks, elms and evergreens were magically converted to mango, sampaloc and acacia trees. The train driver's announcement for her stop lured her back from her revelry to the reality that she was not there but here in America and she realized how much she missed her home.

 The utter longing for her native country was overwhelming at times, making her physically lethargic and emotionally creative. That when she looked at the foliage framed by the picture window in her den, she was seeing the most darkest green leaves of the mango tree, the petals of Ylang ylang hidden among its branches, the sweet faint aroma wafting into the room. Everything was vividly bright, greens were verdant, yellows more enticing, skies radiantly bluer.

 Nostalgia for home made her value any chance encounter with her compatriot. She finds it liberating to speak in her own tongue, a confabulation with stranger marked with familiarity of shared language and culture. She do not need to be anxious of her accent, the agreements of subjects and predicates, interchanging of he or she, misuse of utterances that needs to be only read on books and not on daily discourse.

Her yearning to hear her own language in her early years in her adopted country was satiated with an imaginary conversation with her husband's 11 year old dog. With the dog not asking the whys and whats, by just being there and looking at her earnestly, she can deliver an oratorical passage on the subject of her choosing in her own language. But she found out, its never the same.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Kermit and Mickey Mouse , Sad

I am a sucker for old fashion cartoons that I can proudly admit that I saw Snow white and the Seven Dwarfs more than I can count my fingers and toes; unabashedly cried when the great King Mufasa died and Simba tried to wake him up, commiserate with  Miss Piggy in her unrequited love for Kermit and other emotional display of affection to these animated personalities that I won't mention for it will totally make me look beyond silly . I n May of 1990, the creator of the Muppets, Jim Henson died.  I saw a tribute from the Disney artist of a drawing of Kermit the Frog being consoled by Mickey Mouse on the death of Kermit's creator.  That drawing created an imprint on my mind the idea of  raw sadness associated with death. Ironic that non living cartoon characters could invoke such  cogent feeling in me, on issue of death.  Here is the photo I am talking about:  T here is a colored version of this but I was still digging up the Internet and up ...

A question is a question and forever a question

I was the last child of my mother, she died when I was a baby at the age of 40. Being motherless and with other 9 siblings to contend with ,ain't no fun.  People, successful or the opposite of what a succes should be are often asked, would you change the story of your life  if you are given the chance? Answer of  course would be relative, who would want to be a hobo all their lives; Bill Gates will say no, I am betting my last dollar on it.  After ruminating the events that had transpired from the day I saw the daylight (not even sure if I was born on daytime or at night) to where I am right now (a happy married life, good health, loving family and friends; and a demanding cat) there is only one thing I would change. I wish my mother had not died young.  But I believe there is no such thing as untimely death. If its your time its your time, no ifs and buts.  My siblings and I often wonder the scenario if...

The queen washing dishes?

A friend of mine admitted to me that she had an extreme aversion to washing dishes.   She would rather iron laundry as crumpled as crêpe papers than execute that somewhat mundane and so ordinary chore.  I can watch the episode of  Anthony Bourdain's No Reservation while scraping and soaping the china (that is if  I feel like being  environmentally responsible by not using the dishwasher which is not very often). It's one of the devoir that you can carry out without requiring an extensive ability and let's be frank about it, it is one of the most boring task to do around the house.  There are no variations or any deviations that you can engineer to make it more exciting . It's so starkingly and painfully simple task and yet  how come a lot of people started developing phobia (I still have to search for the name) to it.   Some household are resorting to using disposable eating  utensils instead of their exquisite porcelain or the so ordinary melamine dinnerware  (tsk tsk ...