Burgis

I have my venti frap and a packet of Holy Kettle Corn in front of me. The computer screen beside my daily staples. And the window on my right side tells me the sun is about to set and I remembered why I'm here so early.

You see, we don't have any electricity at home because Meralco's transformer got busted, yet again and I just thought I could probably head to work instead of sweating my butt off there. At this point, I could already hear my college Masci friends calling me burgis. They love that word back in the days. I'd hear it left and right, I even used it at times when I felt like being annoying.

On my way here I could not get the voices of the tambays playing pool at our garage out of my head. I was thinking, what do they do on a regular day? Play pool? What about on weekdays? Play pool and drink? On holidays? Play pool and get really drunk? Where do they get the money? Then I got myself all hot and foaming when I remembered that at times when we're in really loud arguments, my parents would usually tell me to shut up and stop shouting because "nakakahiya sa mga tao sa labas." That makes me shout even louder! I'm inside my own home, I'm having an argument with my own parents and I have a job~ And they are in our garage, playing on out pool, listening to our arguments. Sinong nakakahiya again? I don't see it. I don't like making appearances. At all.

Then as I was waiting for a cab out in the main road, I realized that people are just staring a lot at me. Some would pass by me and then take a look back after a few steps. Some would stare from inside the jeepneys and even when I stare back at them with "why the hell are you looking at me" expression, they'd just continue to look. I was thinking, maybe they're just lost in thoughts and just happened to have fixed their stares at me. Then again, a lot of them are fixing their stares at me. That got me pissed yet again. For no reason. Yes, I admit, for no reason at all.

I was inside the cab when some girls playing at the sidewalk suddenly kicked something on the windshield. The driver gave them the eye and I simply wondered, "why are they playing out in the streets where the big vehicles are at?" Then I looked around for a parent who might be watching the girls and I found no one. And that made me really angry. And slowly, as my anger became more tangible by the minute, my awareness become more vivid as well. I see the traffic, the worn out faces of the drivers and commuters, the peddlers on the sidewalk, the shanties flanking the streets, the kargador, the peons and I thought, "this is bad."

Saying that I have mixed emotions would be an understatement. I was caught in a myriad of feelings that somehow I could not even tell each apart. Hinde ko alam kunf kakaawaan ko sila, kakagalitan, kakainisan o kung anuman. I want to be apathetic and yet I want to be sympathetic. I want to help but at the same time I want to condemn them.

Now, as I sip my venti frap and munch on my "special" (as one of my colleague claims) popcorn, I realize that my friends were wrong. I am not simply a burgis. I am blessed and cursed both at the same time. Blessed because I'd always be better than some, but cursed because I'd always look back and feel the guilt of being where I am, with or without any excuse.