On the view from the fourth floor balcony

From where I sit on the cafeteria balcony, I can see a part of the metro tracks, suspended between the towering white facade of the Malayan and the stand of trees lining the ADB compound. Every so often, a train comes thundering past: a shock of blue that appears and disappears just as quickly.

Well, it doesn't exactly thunder past - this far, four blocks away, you can't really hear anything. But I can imagine the muted rumbling as the train cars flicker by in the soft rainy day haze.

"There goes the metro," I say to Greg. "And inside of it, how many souls and how many souls in love and how many souls bored?"

Most of my conversation is like this. Repetitive and rhythmic and ultimately rot.

"I'd guess a few hundreds. Half of them think they're in love and half are bored and those may be the same halves."

I chew on the straw of my soft drink while I ponder on this answer. I can't make sense of it.

"You just know everything don't you?"

"No. For instance, I don't know what you're thinking."

"I'm not really thinking right now."

"You know that's not what I mean."

"Ha, I don't know half the fuck of what's going on most of the time."

"Tsk, Drew, I've seen that act a hundred times too many. The Noble Savage should have ended its run several seasons ago."

"Everyone loves an oxymoron. Making fun of actual morons was too easy."

"Well I'm sick of figures of speech. Nothing nowadays is ever straightforward."

"Nothing and no one but you, is what you mean to say."

"It wasn't always that way. I remember when you were too, once." There is a wistfulness in his voice when he says this and the words carry an inevitable finality.

I am silent as I finish my cigarette. Its smoke curls upwards and is lost in the fog.

In the distance another train.