This being Halloween season and all, it seemed appropriate for us to close October on the scariest horror ride we’ve ever found outside of a theme park: one of the oldest, most decrepit, smelliest taxis in the entire metropolis. Possibly the entire planet.
We hopped into the cab (Val & Vangie; TVW 918) after a morning of errands at Trinoma; it was the first in the taxi queue and there were no other passengers but us, so thank you, Ye Capricious Gods of the Taxi Fates.
The moment we sat down, a cloud of noxious gases puffed out from where our butts made contact with the seat. And no, we weren’t the source, beg pardon. It seemed as though the seat covers hadn’t been washed since the Martial Law era, and bore the mingled aromas of smog, cigarette smoke, beer and the bodily secretions of thousands of passengers before us. It became clear to us that the lines on the seat covers weren’t the straight up-and-down of the corduroy they were made of, but the jagged scratches of people who, like us, had valiantly tried to hold their breath for as long as humanly possible, clawing desperately at the fabric all the while.
The seat belts were frayed, and the interior of the cab was dotted with empty holes where the screws and rivets of seatbelts, window cranks and safety handles had come off. The compartment between the driver’s and right-hand passenger’s seat was peeling and rusting, and the carpeting looked like the patchy fur of a mangy askal.
The rubber mats underfoot were as warped as any senator’s or congressman’s sense of decency; they writhed about our ankles like malevolent jellyfish that had missed breakfast and skipped lunch. Between their sharp edges and the mosquito that no doubt had been born, bred and raised to bloodthirsty ferocity within the microcosm of the taxi, we must have come away with half a dozen tiny open wounds.
But closer inspection of what lay beneath the rubber mats yielded the real treasures: bits of foam and debris and dust bunnies that very likely had gained sentience in the decades they had been evolving in their moist, filthy environment.
The saving grace of this horror ride was the driver, who drove with a safe, sure, steady rhythm that matched the 1950’s-`60s pop playing on his car stereo (we recognized Nat King Cole, and Burl Ives singing what seemed to be a lurid song about love and revenge in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan). We texted a friend of ours who has as highly developed a sense of the ridiculous as we do, and told her of our plight. But in the interest of accurate reportage, we also informed her about the upside: “The cab might fly apart if he drives even a smidge faster.”
She texted back: “At least you’ll be safe.”
“Not from tetanus we won’t.”
She answered with a frowny face, and we replied: “This cab may very well be incubating the seeds of the zombie apocalypse.”
At this point, we arrived safely at our destination in Quezon City. We scrambled to the shower and doused ourselves with the strongest disinfectant we could find. We haven’t decided yet whether we should burn our clothing, but in the meantime we’re asking if any of our friends owns a flamethrower.
We can’t help but wonder why our land transport authorities still allow taxis as run-down as this to operate. There’s a cynical part of our minds (we admit, every part of our mind is cynical) that suspects that some degree of corruption is involved. As paying customers, we don’t think it’s too much to ask for safe, clean, well-maintained transport options. But then again, we’ve been paying and asking, asking and paying for as long as we can remember – and nobody bothers to listen.
