January 15, 2011
The place is empty save for the staff, and the cat who has no idea I'm supposed to leave the place in about ten hours. I sit on the familiar couch reading a magazine at 3 am. This time, I'm the only one home. This time, it's just the yellow light, and the amber-colored beer.
I flip the magazine open to a random page where Roy Lu's article is – he's talking about the then-newly opened gallery of Turtle's Nest. I flip to the front page and find that it's a 2006 edition, right about the same year when I started hanging out here.
Looking up from the magazine to the empty café, it's hard not to imagine the old folks sitting at the long dining table, bottles of beer in between them; the old crowd trickling in, the crowd who weren't necessarily friends with each other, but who knew who was which or what time they usually arrive at the little quaint café, staying for hours never mind if blaring on the radio was "Sana Dalawa ang Puso Ko" like it is now; because sometimes, everyone suddenly bursts into song together like in musicals because growing up wherever we did, no one could ever escape the labandera's AM radio music, the karaoke next door, or the Hot FM songs to which the jeepney driver is humming along. Looking at the small annoying gang of skimpily clad teens in tank tops and and boys in razorback shirts at the dining table, I start to think that not one of these new ones really understands what this place is about anymore, especially that they're drowning out Janno Gibbs with Justin Beiber. I'd offer that pretentious idiot to Heaven in exchange for Jimmy Hendrix anytime if I could – that is, if the Lord (or the devil) doesn't get equally annoyed.
So I march up the stairs. Adding insult to injury, I've been badgered out of my favorite seat by pesky little prepubescents to go sleep my last sleep in this place. At least I still have half a beer.