Vanned!

By Emmanuelle

This is a true story. Maybe it’s yours.

She was the last passenger in. Actually, she was not supposed to be allowed in. The van was too full with Monday riders and their baggage. If it were not for her soulful eyes which she used shamelessly on occasions like this. And of course, if it were not for her being first in front. 

The driver, as he signed-in at this particular terminal, looked idly around. He caught a full dose of those eyes, and he was boneless putty. He relieved her of her heavy backpack, he bent his head towards his van. Wala ni puesto para sakey ya too. (I have room for just one.)

There was none, sa totoo lang. She was fourth in a row to seat only three. No grumbles from the three, though. She thought her eyes were still working overtime. Andi manaya. (Not so.)

The passengers were gazing front and up. At the sign: Keep inside the van clean.

The sign, in bold font, was pasted above the air-conditioning vents suspended on the roof between the front seats and those of the passengers. She, too, can’t help but focus on it, her attention held in fascinated grip. 

As the van proceeded to its destination, the passengers would start conversing to each other, then stop, gaze front and up. She saw foreheads pucker into deep worry folds or puzzled knots. She could almost hear their thoughts. She was hearing their thoughts!

A couple seated at the back discussed the sign loudly all the way to the end of the trip. They were in their late thirties, with Texan accents, obviously balikbayan.

Deah, what do you think it must mean?

Am not shuh. I guess it means we keep inside the van because it’s clean?

But, deah, we’ve got to step off the van sometime, yeah?

I guess it means not everything outside the van is clean. Only inside the van.

You mean, just the inside of this van is clean?

I guess it means we can only be shuh of the cleanliness inside of this van.

You mean, outside everywherelse is not shuhly clean? Yach!

I guess Keep inside the van clean means Keep inside this clean van.

Then deah, darlin, we have no other choice. Buy this van!

At the end of the trip, she of the soulful eyes had her eyes not only crossed but walled.        

This next story is true, too. It was the middle of the day during the middle of a week. At the Dagupan-Baguio van terminal, there was a sprinkle of passengers: a sprinkle of students, a sprinkle of business-suited briefcase-carrying yuppies, a sprinkle of mothers to visit unexpecting daughters, surely not sons.  

A writer-friend, she of the sharply intelligent eyes, found herself assigned to a Toyota van which would seat 16 to 18 in a tight squeeze.  She was congenitally courteous, so she always found herself last in line. She ended up one of the four seated at the back. As the heavy-loaded van plowed and groaned along the highway in the heat of the day, she got stuck and unstuck from the neighbors’ sticky sweaty, muscled or bony bare upper arms. Elbows poked into her middle privates.  Heavy hips ground against her hips.

Really, it was not an ideal situation to find one’s self squeezed in.

It was too hot. It was too tight! She can’t breathe. She panicked. She stood up. She shouted. Open the windows! Am claustrophobic!

Screams! Blam, blag, slam! The van stopped. Sticky sweaty people unstuck their pokey grinding selves from inside the van. They rushed out in one impossible sweep! Some weep!

The sleepy ones asked: What happened? Bakit? Akin? Apay?

An Ilocano passenger shouted: Nakabulos isuna kanu, psychotic kanu!

The writer-friend never forgot. She never vanned again either.     

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/)

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