The wind was cold along Sumulong Highway in Antipolo. It was two in the morning, and Mang Carding was on his way to the garage. His whole body was tired from the jeepney ride, and he just wanted to go home to sleep. But before he turned off the engine, he had a habit of peeking into the back of the jeepney to clean up the mess left by the passengers.

When he pointed his flashlight at the farthest seat, he saw a small object. A piece of paper folded neatly. When he opened it, it contained old coins—two twenty-five centavos and one old peso with the face of Jose Rizal. The exact fare from the eighties.

Mang Carding was terrified. This was the third night in a row that he had seen such a package in the same place. What was surprising was that he did not remember any passengers boarding on his last trip. From the terminal in Cubao to Antipolo, he was alone.

“Is there anyone riding that I cannot see?” the old man asked himself as he rubbed his arm because of the standing hair.

The next day, at the terminal, he told his fellow drivers about it. Some laughed, but others said that maybe the ghost of a passenger who had an accident on the highway was paying. He was advised to put garlic and salt on the dashboard. But Mang Carding was not a superstitious person. He wanted to use logic. He wanted to solve this mystery.

That night, he prepared. He placed an additional small mirror above his head so that he could clearly see the entire length of the back seat. At one in the morning, he sped the jeepney from the terminal back to Antipolo. There was no one on board. The road was quiet and only the hum of the engine could be heard.

When he stopped at a dark intersection near an old factory that had been closed for a long time, he saw through the mirror a shadow slowly climbing.

Page: SAY – Story Around You | Original story

Mang Carding held his breath. It was not a ghost. It was an old woman, wearing an old dress and carrying a small abaca bag. The old woman sat at the very end. She did not speak. She just looked outside silently.

The driver’s heart beat faster. How had this old woman been riding without him noticing the past few nights? Perhaps it was keeping up with her stopping at the stoplight, very fast but very quiet.

He continued driving. After a few kilometers, in front of a quiet subdivision, the old woman knocked on the roof. “For the side, Arturo.”

Mang Carding frowned. Arturo? He stopped. When the old woman got out, Mang Carding quickly got out to follow her. He saw that she had indeed left the folded paper on the seat.

“Grandma! Wait a minute!” Mang Carding called.

The old woman turned around. She smiled very sweetly. “Thanks for picking me up, Arturo. My shift at the factory is long today. My hands are so tired from sewing.”

Mang Carding became even more confused. “Grandma, my name is not Arturo. It’s Carding. And the factory down there has been closed for almost twenty years.”

Before the old man could answer, a car hurriedly stopped beside them. A woman in her forties got out, crying and clearly panicked.

“Mama! My God, you’re just here!” The woman hugged the old man. She looked at Mang Carding, apologizing profusely. “I’m sorry, Manong. He got out of our gate again while we were sleeping.”

“What’s going on, Mrs.?” the driver asked in surprise.

The woman took a deep breath. “My mother has severe dementia. She thinks the present is 1985. Back then, she worked at the textile factory downstairs. My father, Arturo, was a jeepney driver. Every night, my father would pick up my mother from the factory and bring her home. My father died ten years ago. But in my mother’s mind, he was still alive. So every morning, she would escape from us, walk to the old factory, and get on the first jeep that stopped there, thinking that my father was driving.”

Mang Carding looked at the old man, who was now quietly stroking his son’s hair. The driver’s shoulders slumped. What he had thought was a scary ghost haunting his journey was just another soul living in the memory of so much love. The coins wrapped in paper were the exact fare that the old man always kept to give to his wife as affection and support.

The fatigue and fear in Mang Carding’s system disappeared. It was replaced by a sharp pain in his chest. Sometimes, the mysteries in the dark are not stray souls who want to hurt. Sometimes, they are just people looking for a way back to a time when they were whole and happy.

From that night on, Mang Carding never saw the old man in his jeep again. But he hid the wrapped coin on his dashboard. It served as a reminder on his early morning journeys that on every dark road, there is a story of true love waiting that time or pain can never erase.