Manila Typhoon – Part 1: Storm Warning

A typhoon traps two officemates overnight.

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The warning came at four in the afternoon. By five, the windows of the Makati office tower were streaked with rain, and the sky over the city had turned the colour of bruised plums. Traffic on the avenue below had stopped. Umbrellas blew inside out in the wind, and a plastic chair cartwheeled across the car park like a runaway.

"Everyone out," the building manager announced over the speakers. "Head for the ground floor now. The lifts will stop at seven."

Bea was already packing her laptop. She had a flight to Cebu in the morning, a presentation to finish and a bus to catch that was now certainly cancelled.

She looked up and found Paolo standing at the window across the room, staring at the storm with his hands in his pockets.

They had sat across from each other for two years. They had argued politely over spreadsheets, shared coffee on the bad days, and exchanged small jokes in the lift that had become, over time, the highlight of her Mondays. She knew how he took his coffee, that he hummed when he was concentrating, and that he always stood by the window at the end of a long day, as if he were waiting for something to arrive.

She did not know anything else about him, and she had never asked.

"You're not leaving," she said.

He turned, startled. "I thought you were already gone."

"The lift is closed. The stairs are flooding on the ninth floor." She gestured at the door, where a little pool of rainwater was spreading across the tiles. "The guard said the road to the car park is underwater. We're stuck."

Paolo sighed, then laughed, a short, surprised sound. "Of course we are."

"You could have said something earlier."

"I did. You were too busy colouring your charts."

"I was not colouring them. I was highlighting them."

He grinned at her, the first real, unguarded smile she had seen from him in a long time, and her stomach did something unexpected.

By seven, the building was empty. The security guard had locked the front doors and gone home to his family on the lower floors. The air conditioning had shut off, and the office felt suddenly quiet and close, with only the roar of the wind outside and the steady drum of rain against the glass.

Bea wandered to the window and looked out. The whole of Makati was a blur of wet light, the towers of Ayala and BGC rising through the storm like lanterns. The Manila Bay was a dark, heaving mass on the horizon.

"It's beautiful," Paolo said, coming to stand beside her. "In a terrifying way."

"Like you," Bea said, before she could stop herself.

He went very still.

She turned, and found him watching her with an expression she could not read. Then he smiled slowly, and it was softer than she had ever seen.

"Is that a compliment?" he asked.

"Maybe," said Bea. "Or a warning."

"Which one?"

She shrugged, feeling her cheeks heat. "I haven't decided."

He reached into the drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of red wine, a little dusty, with a label she did not recognise.

"Found it in the pantry," he said. "Someone's birthday, I think. I was saving it for a special occasion."

"And this is a special occasion?"

"A typhoon night, two people, the lifts shut off." He looked at her steadily. "I think it qualifies."

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Next: Part 2, The Long Night. A bottle of wine, the city in the rain, and the conversation that the storm finally makes possible.