Yard Time

Hi, welcome to "the yard" at the office. This is where I usually go for my cigarette break or if I need to do some heavy thinking. I call it the yard because it somewhat resembles the prison yards that I see in the movies, where inmates go to get some sun, smoke, socialize with the other convicts, as well as occasionally stick an improvised ice-pick into another con's kidney. I suspect that the resemblance is deliberate, a sublime reminder that the ultimate goal is really to get out of this place as quick as you can... alive.

The yard is on the top floor of our 3-storey building, same floor as my office making it really convenient for me to take five when I need to. It's an open deck where we prisoners... I mean, employees... can converge for office evening parties, do tai-chi, pray to Mecca (if you were Muslim, that is), or just hang out should our office be submerged by 2 meter floodwaters again.

If you'll take a closer look, you can see the South Luzon Expressway, right along the tree line. Then there's the roof of the huge warehouse on the left, where the big trucks go to unload and store empty Coke bottles before they are sent to be cleaned and sterilized.

There's also that giant billboard which usually cuts the dark, starlit evenings nicely, making the yard an ideal place for a making-out. Unfortunately, my persistent advances on our cute former-receptionist never led me here to try it out for myself. (I did get a floral-scented restraining order once from her, though.) The billboard, on one occasion, featured a hot sexy starlet modeling lingerie for a month, which coincided with the same month I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day.

And speaking of smoking, I believe this is also the official smoking area of our building, because why else would they put all those orange, terra-cotta ashtrays with the green leafy things on top of them? Awfully considerate of them, huh?

If you go near the edge, you'll see the field right behind our building:

This used to be a rice paddy, until the whole area was re-zoned to be industrial lands and it became boxed up this way. Even if you wanted to plant rice there again, you'd be spending a fortune pumping up water from deep underneath it doing so as the irrigation canals have been cut off by the roads and buldings that currently surround it.

There is still an awful lot of wildlife that inhabit it, though. Every once in a while, snakes and large lizards are known to slither and crawl through the thick brush. Personally, I haven't seen one in the wild yet, but I know they're there because the field's caretaker has been roasting giant lizards and snakes in his backyard every once in a while. There are also lots of birds who swoop down there during clear days, catching field mice and other game. I've seen ravens, the occasional field owl, and some migratory birds here, all of them lucky enough that I still don't own a BB gun nor a Perigrine Falcon.

I find it quite odd, though, that the caretaker goes through the trouble of gunning his weed-whacker and having at the brush. He's got an army of goats and a herd of cows grazing on a similarly vacant field not too far away. He should simply let them loose here and watch them chew and chew and chew all year round until the urge to have steak and kebab becomes overwhelming. Here you see the exact line when he lost all interest mowing down the grass or ran out of gas in his weed-whacker. I'm pretty sure he's gonna be back with a blow torch one of these days to finish the job.

Of particular interest to me, however, are these termite mounds:

There are several myths which I want to try out.

1. Termite mounds have excellent thermal qualities, maintaining a constant inside temperature of 32 degrees Celsius whatever the conditions outside, even if you set the exterior ablaze.
2. Each mound contains exactly one queen and one queen only.
3. Termites are excellent producers of Hydrogen gas... so each mound is actually a nice little Hydrogen bomb waiting to happen.
4. Termites are tasty critters.
5. Termite mounds harbor earth spirits, real live dwarves and gnomes. I've been wanting to get a garden gnome for ages.
6. Peeing or trampling upon termite mounds upset these earth spirits. You get sick real fast and die.
7. If you ask permission before peeing on said termite mounds, though, nothing bad will happen to you.
8. Termite queens are horny as hell.

I'll admit, its gonna be hard separating myth from facts (especially if you decide to try out #6 first and die). Equally hard will be keeping a brave front when faced with a real live lizard or snake which are very probably in this rainy season.

Besides, it's gonna be hard plotting my escape from this prison in the first place.