Nap Time Rocks!

Fresh from a perfect vacation at one of the sparkling beaches of Thailand and a cultural soak at one of Asia’s best, you take the first step into reality. You’re back in Manila and, well, you miss fresh air already. The moment the monotonous voice over the PA announces that you have landed, you have switched on your cellphone and have found a hundred messages streaming in to your dismay.

Is it not possible that your boss won’t miss you for a couple of days? You silently complain to your carry-on luggage, your only companion on the trip. You were suddenly pulled back and you realized that the name tag on your carry-on was caught in a snag and had fallen off. You didn’t pick it up anymore since you had no need for it anyway.

As you continue your check out from the airport and into a hectic life and survey the surroundings, you smell a different kind of smell. It was of cement just recently laid on the walls and floor, of fresh paint, and of something malevolent in the air. You thought you were hallucinating, when for a split second you think you also smelled something decaying nearby.

You quickly dismiss the thought that something so big and shiny and new could be unkept by the airport administration. It was impossible because they had just reopened Terminal 3, the infamous port named after Ninoy Aquino. It had been a decade before it was finally ruled to be opened by judicial courts; before that a number of legal disputes had erupted contesting its legality. And you were one of the lucky commuters who have just used it.

Nobody was waiting for you outside the arrival gate because you hadn’t bothered letting anyone know when you were flying back. It had been a surreal event, a month ago, when you had abruptly told your boss you were going on a one-month leave and your parents that you simply needed to go away.

It’s just stress, ma. I’ll be more relaxed if I just get on that plane and spend some time alone. You had told your mother who was perpetually worried about your health and the long nights in the office.

As you neared the exit sign, at one side, the smell of burning candles and a slight aroma of flowers made you turn to your right where it was seemingly coming from. There was a makeshift memorial for some people who died. As to who, you didn’t know, and you did not bother to find out. You are just anxious to go home and get a good afternoon’s rest.

———–

The television flashed the grotesque images of three gunned down bodies, the two near their home seemingly, and one in front of his. One was a known magistrate who ruled in a case against some corporation. Foul play and blackmail, the police were saying. It would not be the last news bit for the networks were replaying unsolved massacres of old involving the infamous Terminal 3.

The tv in the living room continued to flicker while the inhabitants of the house regarded it with faded interest. The floral cream-colored wallpaper changed its colors as the hues of the television changed in each flash. Meanwhile, a cold draft seeps in through the slight gap between the door and its frame. It was the middle of summer but the inhabitants of the house shuddered.

———–

After a well-rested sleep, you take a cold shower to wash off the residues of vacation from your mind. You were thinking that it might probably help prepare you for work the next morning. In the shower you smile at the fading memories of your trip, and you suddenly feel someone had entered the bathroom.

Hey. You say to nobody in particular. Maybe you’re still dreaming. You go back to scrubbing your back but there’s still that nagging feeling that someone was indeed looking at you through the shower curtain. You pull the curtain back with a jolt; nobody was there. Silly, paranoid, you thought. Must have been the cement in the airport that was still wafting in the air when you arrived.

You finish your shower quickly and decided to open your computer to check your mail. Your inbox must be bouncing off emails already. The computer boots up and takes a million years before the blue prompt screen shows up. You check the CPU. The LED light that’s supposed to say the computer is still reading has stopped. You wait for a few minutes and nothing happens. A bit irritated, you turn off and on the AVR to restart.

Even the computer missed me, you muttered to yourself. Staring at the black flat LCD screen, you notice a slight movement in the reflection. You turn around and see that everything was in order: nothing moving back there, you say. You sighed. You realized you must be really tired for imagining these things.

You settled then on leaving the computer alone for a while and scanning the three day-old newspaper left on the living room coffee table. You see nothing of great importance. After all, it will take a report on natural calamity to get your interest piqued at any breaking news. You just weren’t the politically-conscious type. Who needed to hear about squabbles of selfish men masquerading in barongs and briefcases?

But one particular headline caught your attention: “NAIA Terminal 3: Cursed Airport?” Curiously, you clicked on the link to read the whole story. The opinion column was criticizing the slow movement of investigation of unsolved cases, particularly those of two distinguished government officials related to the NAIA Terminal 3 controversy. And now, the ceiling that caved in for the second time since its construction.

You continued to read on because you had just come from that airport and you remembered if the memorial outside the arrival gate were connected to that. You find out that a major beam that supported one area of the terminal’s ceilings had collapsed, taking down with it several passengers. The reconstruction had still been weak and probably faulty (since it had caved in earlier in its construction phase), despite the government mandate that the defect be fixed before being expropriated to Philippine management. However, a legal hodgepodge of technicalities had bogged down whatever improvements were needed on the structure, until the issue was pushed into the hindmost of court hearings. There were about 141 passengers and personnel who died that day, many of which were destined for Thailand.

And so because of this, the column writer had concluded, Terminal 3 (very aptly named) had taken its latest victims, as if punishment to the ones responsible for it.

———–

Ewan ko ba, Jun. Para bang kinilabutan ako nung pumasok ako sa kwarto ng anak mo. Narinig kong nakabukas yung shower, pero hindi naman. Tapos yung computer parang nakabukas din, your mother says glancing towards your bedroom. She had just gone in to get her your framed graduation picture to display by the coffin.

Your death had not been easy on your mother, or any of your family, but she had to fulfill her duties. Your father gives her a tight hug and clutches your frayed name tag on one hand.

———– Since its commissioning in 1997, the abandoned airport terminal had accumulated several wrongdoings to its name. Some have died, trying to question the legality of its contracts. True enough, the Philippine justice system have found that its country was done wrong by its main contractor for the project, Philippine International Air Terminals Co., Inc. (PIATCO). The contract was declared null and void, and a year later Judge Henrick Gingoyon, who presided over the government’s expatriation decision of the terminal, was found dead. A year after that, Solicitor General Nestor Ballacillo and his son were also gunned down. The older Ballacillo was also one of those handling a case against PIATCO.To date, Terminal 3 is still abandoned. No conclusion as to who and why the two were murdered can be found in any news archive as of yet.

This story is fictional. However, the deaths of the 2 government officials are a fact, as well as the series of legal events that the Terminal itself went through. The second caving of an area of Terminal 3’s celing is fictional.

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© 2007. Read my other shorts here. Please credit the author and site if you want to share this post.