In Continuum.

The Taxi Driver

Driver," You just ended your class?"
Me," Oh, no. I just sent my girlfriend home."
Driver," Oh, girlfriend. How old are you?"
Me," Twenty-one."
Driver," Oh, well it's sweet."
Me," What?"
Driver," Being in a relationship at your age, it is sweet."
Me," Haha, yeah. It sure is. It can be sweet at your age if you want to."
Driver," It's different I guess. We have our problems, people your age don't have much of those to worry about, just fall in love."
Me," Nah, I don't think so. We have our problems too, just different ones. Falling in love at THIS age is one of them."

*

There is something about night shift taxi drivers that I love. Somehow they always seem to be able to pick up a chat with me on the way home. I remember that old man that gave me some road advices on driving once, and also the other Malay man that talked to me about his son being in NS, so much so that he drove me to NanYang Poly instead of NanYang Junior Collage. He didn't charge me anything extra though, and I was really grateful for that. Of course, there were other incidents with the cab drivers as well, but all and all I just prefer my experiences with the late night drivers than the ones in the day.

I remember asking one of them why he wanted to work night shifts, since it is the time when people are usually sleeping or, the time when you are more likely to get drunk passengers that might potentially puke all over your car. Not to mention gang robbery and so many incidents of taxi drivers being stabbed to death for a couple of pathetic dollars. One of them told me before that at night it is more relaxing and of course, the rates are higher. You don't really get the stress and the rush of day passengers and of course, the traffic is way better at night. We discussed the goods and bads of driving on the road at midnight, and managed to save myself a cent or two before I got off. "Keep the coins," he said. "It was nice talking to you."

I guess there is a sort of respect I have for taxi drivers, the way they live life on the roads like that. It is a tough job, tougher than most people might think because of the minimal wage that they get. Most people might just assume that they have one of the better working environments because they are in an air-conditioned vehicle most of the time, not to mention free-times you get to take voluntarily anywhere and anytime. But I think being a taxi driver is a tough job really, and in a way I do respect these drivers with such occupations, especially the ones who are casual with me and treats me as a friend or a companion on the road instead of a customer.

Today as usual, I took a cab home from her house, and on the road we had the conversation above. He is probably the youngest cab driver that I saw, probably no more than thirty-five years of age. Usually when I talk to drivers, they are either bad in English or they use mandarin to speak to me. But this man actually spoke rather perfect English, and that was a sort of rarity by itself. Which in a way, made it kinda depressing to see such a person as he was, driving a cab in the middle of the night, taking comfort in a random passenger on the street. Especially when I mentioned about him being able to make relationships sweet even at his age, there was a glimmer of depression in his eyes somehow, as if he was trying to tell me that those times have come and gone in his life, that he is going to be stuck in that job for a very long time.

Which got me thinking as I told him to have a good evening ahead, and took a short stroll back home. It is tough to maintain a relationship with their families if they have one, and the least they can do is to take comfort in that short period of time when they get to interact with their customers. It is as though they cannot get those back home, and that they have to seek that warmth in customers instead. I'm sure not all cab drivers have a life like the one that brought me home tonight, but it's the devotion of all cab drivers to their job that impressed me, the way they sacrificed their own lives for the convenience of others. That guy probably was the saddest cab driver I have ever met, and in a way I just wanted to have him keep the change really. But I only remembered that halfway up to my house.

Still, I guess in that hour of the night and within the confined space of the car itself, if not for each others' comforting words, who else can we depend on? Love is sweet at this age my good man, but love doesn't need to seize with the passing of this age either. In a way I hope I do not turn out to be like him, not believing in love any longer. Because really, the greatest human emotion in this world, should not and cannot be ignored by anybody just because they have succumbed and accepted their fate. Love never dies, it just falls into a deep sleep sometimes.