Revisited: Vigilante

They have been going on like this for several hours now. He in mad pursuit of the other man who leads him circling around, into the intricacies of rush-hour traffic along EDSA and the boulevard to the dreariness and filth along the road beneath the LRT tracks, to the maze-like streets of the Manila Metropolis. Blaring horns, shimmying motor cars, passengers sweating profusely waiting for the vehicles to move on with eyes fixed nowhere, with the heat of carbon monoxide fumes mixed in mélange under an overcast sky. Everything is a damned vicious cycle of frustrated pursuit. Whenever he would run at an accelerated speed good enough to collar the other man, the latter showing slowness in its pace, when opportunity stares at him in the face, when an outstretched hands could grab the other man by the shoulder, pull him to a stop, or thrust him, aikido style, the other man's momentum flinging himself to stumble, it is just then that there happens an automatic reversal in their speed, inversely proportionate; as his speed plummets the other man gains speed. It is as if everything were scripted, controlled, written and directed by an invisible hand, and the specter could be hiding somewhere behind the mass of gray clouds above. A couple of times he has lost sight of the other man, and each time he would dart, a great jump, onto corrugated iron roofs of houses and top decks of buildings, reconnoitering under the bleary, dim sky, always spotting the other man far ahead, towering a hundred feet over miniature houses and buildings. The moment he spots the other man, the moment all things around the other man start to swell centrifugally, hiding the latter from his view once more. But by then, he knows already where the other man is, and on again the damned pursuit. This time the other man has led him to a dimly lighted asphalted street, barren of cars and plying jeepneys, and sparse with people. Night and darkness has enveloped the city; the sky's hue pitch black. Along the side street, an old white-haired Chinese businessman stands behind his two sons pulling down the metal shutters of their cheap recording store. The old man turns around, and gives him a death-like stare, mocking and sarcastic. The other man has slipped into one of the narrow alleys. He follows and finds the path leads to a wet and dry market. He catches a glimpse of the other man, across the closed stalls, veering toward one the narrow aisles. With the time gap between him and the other man, the other man could have had managed to get away and escape his sight, totally leaving him, but why is the other man run like as if goosing him, as if the other man, though running away, were making sure he does not lose sight of him. With his service .45 caliber pistol cocked now, he sprints along the market aisles carpeted by mud to where the other man has run. He ends up at the back entrance of the market, opening to a cramped, crowded squatter residential area, where children, men and women squatted on the gutters, huddled in groups and giggling in a devilish grin. The other man is nowhere in sight. He scans the direction the other could have gone, but what attracted him is the wake in the middle of the narrow street, the brass-colored coffin lies at the center. The yellow-green canvas perched on top, covers it from a soft evening drizzle. He strides toward the coffin, as if magnetized by it, as if his questions could be answered with what lies in it. He peers cautiously at the coffin. His balls tightens, prostate aches in pain, as he sees himself, or what could be his clone, lying prostrate in it; blanched, mouth agape that shows a stiff tongue, and has the smell of --- Death.