Always open

It’s five in the morning, and I’m sitting in front of computer number 54 at Alva Computers Shop.

It’s easy to find. You take the UP jeep to Philcoa and get off in front of Mercury Drug. You turn left into the alley behind McDonald’s. It’s the building with ChowKing and BookCorner (the name is perfect, as its grand total of roughly fifty titles are hidden away in a little corner of the store). You’ll hit a set of stairs with silver handrails and white wrought-iron railings. Take that to the second floor, and then turn right. The storefronts will be dark, but have faith, there is light at the end of the tunnel: Alva Computer Shop. Bright green and white sign gleaming, "We’re Open" perpetually nailed to the door – it’s enough to make my desperate little writer’s heart go pitty-pat.

I heard about the place a month ago, when my friend EA was talking about cramming a paper at four in the morning. The Holy Spirit must have momentarily possessed whoever thought up the idea of all-day-all-night computer rentals. As I’ve already wished upon a star and looked somewhere over the rainbow, I figure that God is just biding his time to send his angels with a laptop (preferably the 12-inch 4.6 pound Apple PowerBook with 512 MB of memory). In the meantime, Alva’s will work just fine.

It’s a huge room, with green-painted walls and close to a hundred computers. Fully air-conditioned, it’s never more than a quarter full – reasonable, as I’m only here when the rest of the country is snoring. There’s a guy sitting at the study table behind me, cheek pressed against his plastic-covered French book, mouth open and fast asleep while visions of French verbs dance in his head.

The first time I found myself in Alva’s, my eyes landed on the glass-walled shelf stocked with cup noodles and chips. I’m a big fan of instant just-add-water noodles – it’s a major food group, along with Snickers, strawberry Jollyshakes and black coffee. During my mid-column break, I skipped happily towards the counter; only to find out they ran out of hot water. So close, yet so far.

That first time, bleary-eyed, starving and half-dead, I e-mailed my draft to myself, signed out and crawled to Jollibee for a bathroom break (they have the most well-maintained fast food bathrooms I’ve seen). The staff was pretty perky for three in the morning, may they be blessed a thousand fold.

In the interest of doing my job well – writing does take a lot out of you – I ordered two Tuna pies and a strawberry JollyShake. Of course they weren’t available (what kind of idiot orders JollyShakes at three in the morning anyway?). As a compromise, I ordered a one-piece Chicken Joy meal, a Burger Yum and coffee. I would have ordered another burger, but I’m told ladies are not supposed to look like they haven’t eaten in weeks.

So I went to McDonald’s (We’re Open 24 Hours) and ordered a Sausage and Egg McMuffin. Oh, and a hot chocolate.

For the next hour I sat in a corner, munching away, happily reading Johanna Lindsey’s Surrender My Love. It is the year 876, and Lady Erika, the honey-haired lady of Gronwood, is held captive by the Viking Selig. "He is bound and determined to break the spirit of his captive ice queen, and to conquer her with passion’s sword (I’m sure the pun was unintended) never dreaming that his own heart will be vanquished by sensuous desire…and victorious love."

I was right up to the part after Lady Erika is buried alive underground (while the sweaty and heavily-muscled Selig races around on his horse) when my alarm went off. I looked out the window, and horror of horrors: daylight! And 400 words to go. I jumped up, stuffed Selig and poor, suffocating Erika into my bag, jammed my jacket on and made my way out.

It was pretty unnerving walking out of McDonald’s and passing by its front windows. Inside the brightly lit restaurant, bodies were slumped over tables among empty coffee cups, dark-haired heads facedown on gleaming white tabletops. I had the sudden urge to run for my life, for fear that the creatures would, Sadako fashion, rise and make their staggering way towards me. (There was this one night I woke up to a pale-faced girl looming before me, with bedraggled hair hiding her face. I screamed a full minute before I remembered there was a mirror across my bed). I scurried my way up to Alva’s and pounded away until 8 a.m.

That was weeks ago. Right now, it’s 10 minutes to 10 a.m., and in spite of caffeine, I’m repressing the impulse to drop my head on the keyboard and nap. I have a ten o’clock class, debate at noon and work at two. I’ve consumed what probably amounts to a million calories, and three chapters of The Captive Bride. Here "beautiful Christina Wakefield is made prisoner by an unknown abductor who carried her off to his hidden encampment." Ah, but if she only knew, for "soon she learn to want him as he wanted her – to share his soul, his being – her body aching to be his alone in the trembling ecstasy of everlasting rapture."

Christina and I have a date tonight, in the meantime, I will make a promise to all and sundry. I will not cram, I will write my columns during the weekend, not hours before the deadline. I will stay away from fast food, and I will cut back on caffeine.

And as I’ve made that promise every week for the last eleven months, the chances of its happening are as probable as my making it to class.

For as long as there is light from the Golden Arches, and Jollibee’s guard says "Welcome po," for as long as Alva’s on Philcoa has one computer running, I’ll be fine.

Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

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