A View from the Top

I work above the 20^th floor of a building, and since this is much higher than ground, it’s not surprising that I can see the sky (outside the window) without needing to look up. 

I haven’t seen a blue morning sky for a long time now, as when June began the sky has become covered all over with clouds. We are having a rainy season, and that’s why Ortigas, Pasig City - as can be viewed outside - looks like it is covered with steams. And by how, I love this sight! With clouds obstructing the skyline, Ortigas doesn’t appear warm; it appears detached. I get reminded of film noirs, where cities are as smoky as jazz bars and as gray as its denizen’s moral ambiguity. I can then fancy myself as the city’s vigilante, leaping from building to building, walking stealthily from one dank alley to another, extracting information from moles, driving Cadillac, saving damsels, and fighting criminals until I die. 

Alas, I am not equipped with fedoras, trenchcoats, handcuffs and handguns. I do not have a private quarter where I can write typewritten investigatory reports, and I do not like going to bars to drink cheap boozes or going to cheap motels to sleep with sympathetic prostitutes. All I can do is to make this sleuthing fantasy stay a fantasy, but then again, aren’t most fictions products of Walter Mittys? 

So I’ll just go ahead and call Ortigas, Pasig City “Steam City”, and then give myself a cool alias like “Nightwalker”. Occupation: private eye. I’ll dig up your dirt. 

Pardon my boredom with my humdrum life.