In Continuum.

Cab rides home, they are oftentimes two degrees colder than it should. Cab drivers have it the hard way I suppose, driving their cabs up to sixteen hours a day with no breaks in between and no holidays in the year. It is difficult, which is why I do not complain about the temperature or the godawful smell from the air-refreshening device attached to their dashboards and their air-conditioning vents. But it is cold at the back of the cab, and I'd usually turn my attention out to the passing vehicles and buildings after debating with myself as to whether or not I should strike up a conversation with the driver. It is late, and driving in the middle of the night is a lonely job. Yet, I usually stick to myself and my thoughts, and the embrace that I comfort myself with. From the cold, for one, and to remember how it felt like when I was given the last embrace a few moments ago, for the other. It is as if hugging myself would make the feeling last a little longer, like the little children chaining themselves to pipes or something like that. That'd be strange, but I do have a brain of strange analogies sometimes. Anyway, that is what I do at the back of cab rides: I hug myself and think about things.

I don't listen to music on cab rides home anymore, because my in-ear headphones tend to come in the way of hearing questions from the cab driver. You know, sometimes they turn back or look through the rearview mirror to ask you a thing or two about your way home. Expensive headphones are very cool, but the fact that they block out all the sounds can be quite a problem when someone is trying to converse with you. So I have given up the habit of plugging myself in when I am on a cab home, I try to focus my attentions on other things to kill time. I think about a lot of things in place of music, like how the day went with the significant other. Images in my mind of the places that we have visited, the taste of the good or the bad meal, and the jokes along the way that we make. I'd close my eyes to remember the places, lick my lips to remember the taste, then smile a little bit with my hand over my mouth to prevent any forms of embarrassment. Those are the kind of things that happen out of reality, I'd think to myself. Those are the kind of things that happen when you leave reality behind for a couple of hours, and you immerse yourself in the part of your life that does not involve your life at all, if you know what I mean.

I think we all have "a life" that we stick our neck out for, you know. Especially so for the working adults, or people out in the workforce. The life that you know, or the reality that you understand, is the one that involves going to work in the morning and then coming home from work afterwards. All the times spend with your family, your friends, your loved ones, all the times that you spend not dealing with that reality, is another reality altogether. Like an alternate reality, you know, like some kind of sci-fi parallel universe type thing. I don't think humans can survive on one single thread of reality. I think we need to have a few realities for us to distract ourselves with. It doesn't matter what form your other realities come in, and it is completely up to the choices that you make. When the going gets tough in one of them, it comforts you to know that you have another life, or reality, to go to somehow. For me, that alternate reality lies with the time that I spend with Neptina. Of course, I have other realities as well, like the times that I spend with my awesome friends from school, or with my family. But with Neptina, this sense of an alternate reality just seems a lot more real somehow. It really drives it home, you know.

Some people would tell you that the beauty in music is not in the notes, but in the pauses and the breaks in between. I suppose to a certain degree, that holds true somehow. The same can be said about these realities that we create for ourselves, the way humans do not register the value of moments until such moments are lost. The beauty of my reality with Neptina gets a home run once I am leaving on those long cold cab rides home. Suddenly, as I am at the back of that cab, it dawns on me that I am back in reality - that other reality. I am back in the life that I know, the life that I have to "deal with things", so to speak, whatever they may be. It'd be harsh to say that meeting with Neptina is an escape for me, like she is some kind of an excuse. She isn't, but I do feel a sense of escapism somehow. It's not an act of cowardice when I feel like running away, but the lure of comfort and love that drives me away from the reality that I am responsible for. For the most part, we toil through our most familiar reality with our heads bowed and our helmets buckled tight underneath our chins. We try to brace for the crashes through the walls, but it always hurts by the time you are through. Reality sucks sometimes, the main one that is, and all you want to do is to jump ship and go to the yacht.

You know how reality is, and when it sinks in, it sinks in deep. You have to deal with everything that life throws at you, you know, and that can be a horrible thing. Think of that reality, the one that involves your personal problems and your job, the taxes and the bills, as a department in an office. You are the head of this department, and anything that goes wrong in this department is going to invite the boss to drill down on you. So you want a little breather out of your cubicle, and every once in a while you want to make a trip to the water cooler because you get to walk pass the secretary, who is really cute. That is how I see things anyway, times spent with Neptina is like a short but precious trip to the water cooler. It calms me down, and it reenergizes me for the rest of the day in the office. But you know how it is once you turn back from the fake walk to the water cooler, after you walk by the cute secretary, everything goes back to square one again. The boss is in your face, your have a bunch of projects piling up, and everybody is waiting on you to start their work. Oh, the stress, they really come on to you once they get a chance to connect their heads and butts. Reality sucks your life right out, and you just feel like going away at times.

She is my buoy in the middle of the ocean, she is my harbor in the middle of a storm. I sail to her in times of need, like some kind of old beat-up fisherman. If I have a boat, I'd name it after her. The times that I get to spend with her, I secretly tell myself how surreal it all seems at times. I feel distant, not from her but from everything else in my life somehow. You feel the gap, at a safe place, a place that is far enough to forget your worries, even if it is just a little while. It doesn't matter if it is me hanging out at her place, in the void deck, or just her voice over the phone in the middle of the night. Any kind of time spent with her is some kind of time away from the reality that I have to deal with on a daily basis, if I had not met her last August in the very first place. To think that I'd have one less alternative when it comes to my choices of reality frightens me at times. But now that I have this other option, I cannot help but feel that the one that I have right now stretches tight around my neck at times. School is fun for the most part, but then the assignments and the exams start to happen - happen, like some kind of natural disaster. But it does feel that way at times, but I pick up the phone and ask her if she wants to hang out.

It may seem cowardly, but I hope it isn't. It's just the disparity between that and this, the fall that I suffer after each meeting. It feels so great, a fall that you wouldn't expect yourself to survive. I step out from that cab after paying for the ride, and then tell myself every time that I am back to reality, that I have to take out the little clipboard to do a little reality check again. But you feel that the lingering warmth in your chest, you feel the little children turning back the hands of time. You are reminded once again of that reality that you just kissed goodbye to, and you feel like crap all over again. You don't know the bitter until you have tasted the sweet, and the bitter tastes like death in comparison - sometimes. But it is all about perspectives, isn't it. It is all about how you perceive things, how you look at things. One goodbye is another hello coming closer. One passing day without that special someone is another day that is coming around the corner. And so I cheer myself up that way on my way home, to tell myself that every reality doesn't last very long, the good and the bad ones. I feel better, and then I go about my responsibilities all over again with a smile on my face. A smile, because there is a book in the bathroom that my mother has placed there very strategically. The title in english translates to "Smile, When the Life Falls". So I smile when life seems bleak, and then I smile some more because in the midst of the darkness, I find the beacon in my buoy all over again in a matter of time.