On the Way to Work

I am a regular witness to a lovely scene along EDSA, in the stretch of Wheels-to-Go, between Robinson's Hyper Mart and the Guadalupe Bridge. It is an especially refreshing sight for me since I am in the last part of my travel to work, having spent the last twenty minutes in the jeepney, enduring the pollution and traffic jams along the way.

Around eight in the morning, a motorcycle would stop at the EDSA entrance of the Hyper Mart parking area. Although the occupants, a man and a woman in their early twenties, may be relatives, I prefer to think of them as a couple. He sports a pambahay casual look with his jacket, T-shirt, shorts and sandals (maybe he goes to work later in the day) while she is in her office attire: blazer over blouse and skirt or pants. She alights and changes her footwear from comfy to corporate, then after the perfunctory goodbye peck on his cheek, she walks down the entire stretch of Wheels-to-Go. She turns left before the bridge, taking the riverside road that would presumably take her to her workplace in one of those factories and warehouses that line the bank of Pasig River in Mandaluyong City.

Meanwhile, he does not turn and leave like an ordinary family driver would. Instead, he stays by the entrance, standing, watching over her as she treks by EDSA. Only when she turns left and out of his sight that he rides his motorbike and goes perhaps back home.

Her Chinese-mestiza looks make her attractive, and this must be why he guards her, lest danger might befall her or she be taken away from him. Oh, that would be selfish reasoning. Maybe he simply cares for her. It's simply love. But how would I know; I've never been in such situations: to love and be loved back, to feel the care and the joy I give being returned to me.

I wonder when I would be in that situation.