In Continuum.

Midnight Traffic

Oh I can hear you breathing
You’re picking up my scent
You’re trying to hunt me down
In the hope that I’ll give in

The roads at night are like rivers after a drought. No more water to speak of in the river channels, just the remainder of the river's glory before the dreadful drought arrived. The running water left behind deep marks in the banks and potholes in the riverbed, and those were the only hints left behind by the raging waters. The dry season arrived swiftly after, taking away the glory of the river that once was, leaving behind just that tiny thread of water streaming down the middle of the channel. At the peak hours of everyday when the commuters are either getting to work or going home from there, the roads remind me of rivers after a massive rainstorm. The cars pack the roads from shoulder to shoulder and fender to fender, all trying to get to somewhere, all trying to make reach their destinations in time. But when the night comes - when the drought arrives - you don't see cars on the roads anymore. No more blaring horns from every angle, no more windows being winded down and middle fingers being pointed at other inconsiderate drivers. At night on the road, everything is peaceful and serene.

You won't find the river carving deep into the riverbed at night, not at that hour anyway. Just a hint of what was, a few cars speeding in opposite directions on the two-way street, waiting patiently at the traffic light despite the empty crossings. The blinking pedestrian light, like a stubborn firefly looking for a mate, or a secret code passed between battleships in a storm. The only sign of life on the roads at night comes from the traffic lights, directing invisible cars and imaginary pedestrians, reminding them to remember the traffic rules and regulations. In the distance, an ear-piercing screech rings through the calm night air. The sound of tires being scratched over the tarmac road. Someone, somewhere, tried to beat the red light but thought against it at the very last minute. Breaking through the silence of the night, like the sound of white chalk being scraped over a blackboard during an examination. Nobody cares too much for an accident in the middle of the night, nobody cares if your car has just slammed into a lamp post because you were trying to beat the red light. Because at night, the river wears thin to the fury of the drought, and only one type of car survives the night's overwhelming loneliness.

But I know these tracks
Better than I know you ever could
You’re breathing down my neck
But it will only make me win

Nobody wanted this
Not after all these years

At this hour, the only cars on the roads are cabs. A phrase my friend told me while he was over at my place a week or two ago near midnight, as I asked if he needs me to call a cab for him on the phone. He was optimistic about getting a cab in front of my house at that hour, though getting a cab in front of the guard house at my place is as good as trying to find a Mercedes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. But still, cabs do come by every once in a while, and that friend of mine was right about the cabs. On the roads at night, the only vehicles on the roads are indeed cabs, the king of the roads in the wee-hours. They probably have their own rules in the night, which company dominates which section of the island, where each territory begins and which territory ends. After all, I do suppose it is rather difficult to have all the different companies to dominate the same stretch of road, especially when the number of customers at night are few and far in between. This is probably the only way to prevent a fight in between those cab drivers, which may cause them to earn a fine and a hospital bill at the very same time. Cab drivers, I wonder if her father is on the roads right now, at this hour. Driving through the empty streets, avoiding invisible lines marked out at th edge of every heartland. Oh, yes. That's right, he works in a different shift, he toils in a different world. Like her daughter, who lives in another world from my own.

Three O'clock in the morning, nothing much ever happens at this hour of the night. At least from my bedroom window, that is how it seems like from here. Just a lot of cabs, trying to find customers on the lonely streets, lonely people trying to get to lonely places at lonely hours. Everything about this time of the night makes me feel like shit, something about the number three, it just makes everything darker and sadder for some reason. It must be the silence around the house, or the emptiness on the roads. I wonder how it is possible for Sherry to take those midnight jogs and not feel like breaking down in the middle of the pavement. Perhaps that is why I have yet to step out of my house at this hour for a long time, afraid to let those cab drivers see my emotions on public display. The last time I took a walk at this hour, I walked a little too far and dragged the pieces of myself home from there. I wonder where people find the courage to go onto the roads at night, it's just too sad a time to be alone anywhere.

Still the darkness draws us deeper
In just like a trap
But now I’ve got you here
I’ll never lead you back

On my table, I had a strange analogy worked out in my head, after thinking about what my friend said by the window concerning the cabs. The truth is, I think cabs on the road at night are like these unwanted and unnecessary emotions that are eating us from the inside out. At this hour - like cabs - the only emotions left on the road to our minds are these unwanted thoughts of the past, these residue of emotions left from the day's brain work. Haven't we all asked ourselves the same unanswerable question of why we are having these thoughts at this hour, of all hours. We've all asked that question in the same period of time at night, when everybody in the house is sleeping, and you hear only the sound of your heart beating against your chest and the occasional car passing by the road in front of your house. We've all had experiences like that, and it is safe to say that none of us really have answers to that at all. These emotions rule the night like the cabs rule the road, and they have the power to set the course of your journey into the unknown. Like the cab, you can go to anywhere with your unwanted emotions bouncing everywhere in your mind, and that is a scary thought if you think about it. To allow your emotions to take you wherever it leads you, who knows when you might be trapped somewhere and never to return?

At this hour, you only wish for the morning to come a little sooner. You wish for the rain to come in the desert, you wish for the river to regain its past vitality. So that the cabs wouldn't be so lonely anymore, accompanied by other cars on their way to different places around the island. The day gives me a reason to think about other things in my life, an excuse to have different feelings and emotions to fill in the gaps. Because in the day, we have so much to do and so many other things to think of, a million different ways to distract yourself. That is something in absence at night, something which we all need but can never get. It is that constant distraction in the day, the only way our mind can run away from those wild emotions that we all harbor in our hearts. At night we become helpless victims to ourselves, like a cat stranded in the middle of the road and waiting for a truck to run over its body. It's so hard to sit through these hours, especially in this time of the month, at this time of the year.

For the garden’s end
Is where wilderness begins
You dug a hole for me
That I’ll bury you in

Christmas is a month away, and I hate it. I liked it for a year, but I hated the other nineteen Christmas that I have had. I don't suppose that I am going to like this upcoming one either, because it is just too happy - too jolly - for my taste. It brings back too many memories, those unwanted memories that I mentioned earlier. Every single day that passes in November and December, is a year from what we were doing happily together, in the past. That thought alone kills me, and that is not to mention the thousand other thoughts that stream into my mind like a bad midnight rerun on television. If only there is a way to bury these thoughts in a garden, a garden in the middle of a nuclear bomb test site. In that way, everything would be incinerated, wiped away from the face of the earth. It is so silly of me, so damn stubborn to be speaking of the same things. I have been doing the same things over the past eight months, and still I cannot stop talking about it every once in a while on my blog. It's just difficult I guess, especially when three in the morning comes everyday, and the cabs on the roads are always going to be the lords of the night.

A car crashes in the night, someone falls asleep at the wheel and runs his car into a brick wall. Paramedics arrive, some curious drivers stop by the side of the road to watch the mess. The driver is being carried off into the ambulance, and the siren wails in the night although there aren't any cars on the road to block their route anyway. It's standard procedure, it is the rules. At night, this is what happens to people who falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into brick walls. We come and we carry away the body, while some other departments would take care of the rest. The wreckage is cleared, the blood stain on the road is washed away by water from a hose. The debris being swept away by road cleaners, and everything goes back to normal when the day comes.

And if you raise the dead now
I might lead you back
And if you cut your hair
I might leave a map

Isn't that what happens during the midnight traffic in my head as well? You are the driver of this emotion, and sometimes you get lost within that emotions and your car crashes into a brick wall. You get tossed out of the car, your body is broken by the side of the road. You are still alive though, but the pain in every inch of your broken body is excruciating. You feel like dying, but then you think about all the people that you are going to miss if you give in right now, the next pair of arms you are going to dive into on a comfortable Sunday morning. You try to hold on, and you wait for the paramedics to come. You find ways to deal with the pain, even if it hurts so bad at night that you just want to bury your face in the sheets and cry. You deal with it, because that's why life teaches every one of us to do. You deal with the emotional wreckage in your head, and life goes on in the morning when you wake up. You don't dwell on the same problems anymore, you move on. The peak hours are still going to come in the morning, and people are still going to have to drive to work or to school. The world does not revolve around you, and it is not going to stop just because you are feeling like shit. She is not going to look back, because you are feeling miserable. So pick yourself up, move on from where you are. Move on.

It is interesting what a single phrase a person said can evoke so much thoughts. But I guess, these random and useless thoughts are just some of the ways I distract myself from those unnecessary midnight traffic in my head. Now, all I have to do is to survive the period of time between the publication of this entry, and the moment that I fall asleep when I leave everything to my dreams. Just survive that short period of time and I will survive the night as well. That shall be the battle plan for every night, every night until...the inevitable. It is going to happen, it is going to happen for sure. Even at this hour, some cab is going to stop for you no matter where you are, and no matter where you are going. But with those long stretches of empty road, your destination just seems so terribly far away.

Nobody wanted this
Not after all these years
Nobody noticed you
But now they’re on to you

You say you’ll have the last laugh

But the winters coming
And the snow will cover tracks
And I’ll be watching
Because I’m hunting you

And nobody’s buying it
Not after all these years
But somebody’s noticed you
And now I’m on to you