Swim Against the Tide

My daily commute to work is, at most times, uneventful. Often I'd take the one-tricycle, one-jeepney ride to go to New York, Cubao (my stop), and then walk about a minute or so to get to the Obispado. (It's been a joke among friends that I'm a New Yorker, only that I work near New York Street in Quezon City. The streets around the office are names after some North American cities, like Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, Maryland, Denver, among others.)

This morning I took an FX from Rotonda. (An FX is a term used for non-metered taxis, named after the 1986 Toyota Tamaraw FX model of multi-purpose vehicles.) I sat at the back, where it was comfortable. Beside me was a woman probably in her 50s. Across from me were two young male students. In the middle seat were three more young men, and a woman. In front, beside the driver, were two women who wore uniforms I recognized as from a bank. The male passengers, based on their conversation that the rest of us could not help but overhear, are students of a university that we'll pass along the route to Cubao.