Their Days of Nights

14 : Stroll

December 2010

Benjamin

I finish the coffee. It's my second cup for today, and I've been up for only less than four hours now. I left the house exaggeratedly early and arrived here an hour before I'm supposed to meet her. I ordered one while I let time pass.

I'm in the McDonald's outside the National State University's main campus. It's eight forty-five p.m. on my watch, and I continue watching the northbound side of the highway from the glass window on my left.

Buses. Trucks. Jeeps. Taxis. Cars...all sorts of cars.

The sidewalk is clear of vendors and peddlers now, unlike when I went to school here. It's like a circus here back then.

An old couple walks on the far right and near the exterior walls of this place. Their backs are both hunched, they have white hair, and the old man is half-bald. The woman walks with a cane, and the other hand is holding on to the arm of her—I assume—husband as he slowly leads the way.

Do people still aim for this kind of companionship? Wrinkly and sluggish and still together hand in hand? I once did. Maybe I still do.

This is Kim's idea. She wanted to watch the annual Parade of Lanterns around the acad oval, which the University schedules before the Christmas break. But that's held on a Friday, and we both start work at night, so we couldn't go. I suggested that we still go here and stroll around one of these days. We'll just talk because that's what friends do. And that's what we are. She agreed, and now I'm here.

My phone buzzes. It's nine-ten on the timestamp.

Kim: I'm here

I look up and around. She just enters the glass door. Her curly hair is brushed to the front of both her shoulders. She's wearing a black hoodie jacket on top of a black and white striped shirt, black jeans, and her black Converse. She removes her earphones and unplugs them from her phone. Then she surveys the area.

I stand up, leave the table, and walk across the middle of the room until she sees me.

"Oh, hey! Sorry, I made you wait."

"It's okay. I was early," I shrug. "Do you, uh, want to grab a bite first?" I point at the order counter.

"No," she says. "I already ate." She puts her phone with the earphones tangled around it inside the bag on her right shoulder.

"Okay."

I step forward and to her side, and we walk toward the door. I open it for her, and we go outside.

"Nice shirt," she says to me with a nod.

"You listen to Arctic Monkeys?"

"Sometimes."

The December air is announcing itself. I didn't bring a jacket, but the chills I'm feeling are from under my skin.

"You're one of those people now, huh?" she asks once we're seated inside a campus jeep.

"What people?"

"Those who wear band shirts."

"Just the bands I really like."

We hop off on the corner of University Avenue.

It's Sunday. The acad oval is closed to vehicles every weekend. So, it's relatively quieter when we cross the road going to the pathways around it.

These pavements used to be mossy, uneven, and cracked. But they're made of red and greenish bricks now. The University renovated them two years ago after their centennial celebration. This part of the campus is also well-lit during the Christmas season. And aside from the Mercury-powered lampposts, the old and huge trees around are covered in lights that hang from their branches.