Perched from my lofty seat, I spend my time watching the scenery, and the people who play part in it. Thousands of faces, thousands of lives, thousands of stories for me to interpret. This is why I have always loved traveling; it allows me an outlook on life in general, spontaneously.

I am but a spectator. Separated from my subjects by a thick pane of glass, I can only watch them play out their lives in a pantomine. I cannot hear what they are saying. I can only see their actions and reflect on the states of their lives.

I fancy myself as a ghost. If anything, the people I watch would only see a blur of me, if they stare back. A flicker of motion, gone in an instant. Or maybe they would not see me at all, for to many of them the vessel that I ride on is the attraction to see. Not a nameless face staring at them, trying to make a story out of their present predicaments. They cannot touch me, and vice versa. A fraction of a second is but what brings our lives together.

More often than not, I am saddened by the sights that I see. An old man warms his feet by a fire concocted presumably from refuse. Dozens of impoverished families, stalking their way along the sidewalk, heading for their destinations. Streetchildren glancing up on my bus in a heartbreaking expression of downtrodden hope, envisioning a day when such a magical vessel takes them off their feet to some paradise. And a whole lot of people, wanting to board the bus, right arms raised in a futile effort to secure a ride.

I wonder what would my life be if I switched places with some nameless person my eyes had chanced upon. Would I be content with a scrap of a real meal, then? A pair of sandals to provide a buffer between my sore feet and the scorching concrete? Money? A home? I could not help feel sad at my thoughts. It seems that misery is the main face of the world. When will we find the light?

Occasionally we disembark to eat. I become part of the world again, and not imprisoned in a metal shell on wheels. All the better to see life up close. I look at the traffic jam and frown. The trip is long, and my head is starting to hurt.

I look back, tilting my head to the faraway mountains that had once been my temporary home. Baguio, a paradise where I could retreat to every year, with its cool breezes and delicious food. Where all the taxi drivers are kind and all the smiles are true.

The cities are different, however. Gigantic two-dimensional people greet me as the sky promptly turns dark. Their smiles are pasted and are therefore fake. I tear my gaze away from them and their imaginary worlds. But it seems that everywhere I look, despair and apathy prevail. Grim-faced people look up imploringly on their betters, begging for mercy. Folks walking by without a sidewards glance at their underprivileged counterparts. The old lady smiles toothlessly at the well-dressed man engrossed in his top-of-the-line Nokia cellphone. Perhaps she knows something the man does not. I will never know.

Ten hours of traveling and we arrive at the bus terminal. I am tired to death, yet the wheel of life turns on and on endlessly. I cannot afford to stop.

Yet.

The moment I sat on that special seat, I knew that my life would change. No longer would I be passive, contemplating my life on the run. The instant I heard the noise that told that everything was all right, I felt power. The wheel that gave me power to steer this hulking beast filled me with wonder. I felt like a god. I felt how it was to have power over the lives of others. I could save lives; I could end them. The only one who held me back was my advisor, coaxing me into what his idea of the right direction was.

I never really knew true power, until now. I could transcend the normal limits of space, reaching a place in hours what a horse could cover in days. Months, if you consider the possibility of running your horse to death, and heading off into the nearest stable to find one.

Ah, the wonder of technology. It would take me years to finally master this automobile, to familiarize with its working parts and to learn about its proper grooming. I thought my life as a passenger was the best thing in the world, as it allowed me, the thinker, to lose myself in my passions.

Once I finally become a master and commander of an earthborne vessel, I could live them instead. Oh, just wait.

The wanderer goes from place to place, never settling down. He is always on the move; he is blessed by the blood of the hunters who had lived ages before him. Sharp eyes and keen ears swivel from side to side as he walks, soft boots only touching the ground lightly.

Little imprint is seen wherever he passes. People forget about him as soon as he is out of their sight, more of a conscious effort than magic. He is a vagabond, a tramp, a scorned treasure-hunter seeking the Land of Dreams. He has no place in their lives.

The wanderer knows this. He is not oblivious to the sentiments of his fellow people. They shun him because he is different, because he chose to wander, instead of finding a nice piece of land to cultivate. They call him a good-for-nothing crook who could not even feed himself, choosing to depend on the hospitality of his neighbors.

He fears that he may never see the Land of Dreams he had long been searching for. He fears that his life will go the way of the many: unsung and lying in an unmarked grave. If he ever gets a proper burial.

But the wanderer is emboldened by faith. Wracked by humiliation, he manages to pick up his hat that had been displaced from his head by an errant rock. Eventhough his intellectual betters have managed to disprove the supernatural and the glorious, he still believes in finding the land his mother had told him about, in memorable stories young and old. He thinks that believing is enough to make something through. Even if he faces failure, he shall still laugh and say that the Land of Dreams was the best quest he had ever undergone in his life.

And that alone keeps him going on. He does not know where the search will take him, but in the end, he will know. For today, he is content for one thing:

Searching.

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