I love sitting inside the small loggia past midnight, smoking silently in the dark, before retiring to bed. It is always a magical time for me. The only illumination around me comes from the front porch of the compound office, two doors away, from the street lamps on P. Tuazon Boulevard, from the lighted windows of the Cyberpark buildings in Araneta Center, from the top floor of Regalia Tower across EDSA, from the upper stories of the police trainees' quarters on Camp Panopio Compound, and, of course, on clear nights, from the moon and the stars and the silver-gray clouds. Yes, I have Posted about this magical time several times before, except for the following:

I must give up this practice because it renders me an invisible man. Compound tenants reporting to night-shift work pass by, fully dressed for outdoors with backpacks strapped to their shoulders, looking like they wished they had kinder jobs. A young woman dolled up for some party pauses at the gate to wait for a taxi--where is she going and what will she be doing in the wee hours of night? Lovers hold intimate conversations, believing that only the dark can hear them. An anxious man with eyes glued to the bright screen of his cell phone paces to and fro as though hoping that someone would finally come home; he then unzips his pants and takes a leak between two parked cars in the driveway, confident that no one can see him.

Whenever these things happen I hold my breath and keep still, pretending to be a potted plant, lest they suddenly see me and think I am a ghost who has materialized in the night and come to frighten them.

Ah, my neighbors are so different in the daytime and so different at night, and they often make me wonder if I also am!