Remembering a Night in Ayala Alabang

At 8:30 in the evening the night was still young.But not in Ayala Alabang Village, at least that night when together with a daughter, I did my usual brisk walking around Maria Cristina Street.

The whole surrounding was eerily quite. There were no boys playing at Narra Park. There were no dogs barking along the way. The reflections produced by the intermingling yellow and white lights resulted to a dreamlike brightness that surrounded the mango trees.

We didn't encounter other brisk walkers that night though the wind breeze brought forest freshness and the starry skies promised a bright tomorrow. We felt like ghosts ourselves, walking within a cemetery among white painted tombs. One hump-backed man leaning quietly in one corner exacerbated this.

Then a growling cat passed the street. It must be looking for its partner. Its noise gave a little life to the otherwise sepulcher silence of the village. Farther away we saw another cat lazily walking as if full of loneliness. Could it be the missing partner of the growling cat?

The houses all looked very neat and each one cloistered by itself. Only God knew what were going on inside. Were they full of decomposing bodies like those found inside the tombs? I wondered how many immoralities and illegalities were going on inside.

Thank God, before we reached home, as we turned at the corner, we heard loud noises: sh outings and laughters of children playing.

Sounds of life, sounds of hope.