when

I wish I could say that many things have changed in the course of 6 months, but nothing much has changed. I was just thinking the day before that instead of searching along the streets of booze and decadence and lanes filled with the raucous laughter of the drunk, I now search along the housing estates, past the men in thin cheap white shirts crying for their livelihood, cajoling others to stop and take a look at their durians, or the various fruits of the seasons. I walk past the men togged in white shirts and ties, barely past reaching adulthood, a stack of leaflets in hand, resorting to fake smiles and cajoles as a trade off for their time. I walk past the ladies with painted faces who sit and varnish their nails as they wait for customers to arrive, customers who browse unceasingly through the pile of clothes, nitpicking, and who vanish as quickly as they come, hopes of earning a quick buck from the sales of the items hopeless vanishing, evaporating.

Instead of looking at bright lights and fast cars, I now look at clothes hung on bamboo poles, billowing in the wind, a testimony to air molecules moving, rushing past each other in a dance of love. I now look at bright lights of a different sort - they blind the eyes and you've to be careful not to look directly at them. When in the past bright spots were tandem to the night sky and the bright lights flashed and swarmed before your very eyes when music blared in the background, the fluorescent lights now only serve to hurt your eyes.

When in the past I grabbed my gym bag and headed to the pub alone after a solitary dinner and watched the words "absolut" rotate unceasingly across the walls and bored waiters trip over themselves as they tried to serve me and bouncers asking me what was in my huge red bag and advising me to up my protein intake before exercising (think soy products and egg whites), I now search the neighbourhood streets where medicine men tout their latest products and men and women of different ages with degrees of varying interests in the products stop by to watch the medicine man break glass bottles with a thin piece of paper, sweat dripping across his forehead and rendering the cheap thin shirt to be plastered to his back in a layer of sweat.

When in the past I never thought much of the old man with his little grandson who chuckled shyly at the many glances towards him cast by so many teenage boys and girls whenever his grandfather brought him to the exercise corner in my college, now I wonder whether the old man still exists in this world and what has become of that young boy.

When six months ago I was still in the classroom with almost 35 seven year old children and trying hard not to scream at them, a seafood dinner followed in the dingy coffeeshop well-known for their crabs. I remember licking the spicy gravy off my fingers and the place that we sat at and how we had to wade into a stall in order to make use of the wash basins situated inside the stall.

And while it was sweet while it lasted, I no longer think about you, not even when I was away and watching the sea in a foreign land or in my stupors along life, tumbling over the abysses and finding my way up again.

"I am on another flight away, away from Singapore once again. I wait in the departure lounge, reading yet another Murakami novel. This time, it is Dance, Dance, Dance. A science fiction novel that outlays the boundaries of realities and makes me think of fiction in a new light. I board the plane and get to a window seat. I sit next to an old man and his wife, they are huddled in blankets and remind me of what winter in England must be like. I only have a cardigan on.
And then I see you. On a flight to Tokyo."
Perhaps you recognize me, perhaps you do not.

"It is like an ordinary day and the wind streaks through the cold air, streaming through leaves. Like fingers weaving through unyielding coldness.
On a humid and cold morning as such, the sky seems water-painted. Clear visions of colour are passing before my eyes. The tree outside my window thinks it is spring and time to bloom and it is right. On such a morning, it is difficult to imagine that the world is moving, that people are in motion and that clouds are drifting lazily by.
You are but an imagined concept, one that is built up upon dreams, visions, hope and a tiny bit of reality. What transpires may never be fulfilled."Perhaps not, or perhaps I don't want it badly enough to.

"Perhaps it shall provide me with a clue as to whether it was a deliberate one or an accident. not that it really matters. i guess i just need to find out. was he crying with fright at all the noise? was he in a hammock hung down from the ceiling? did they make sure he was in a different room?
i imagine the house without any air-conditioning, a bright day or perhaps a humid night. the leaves were not flying in the wind due to a lack of it. the sheets would be stained with sweat. a pink nightgown or perhaps shorts and an oversized top. the rotating fan causes a slight breeze in the room. and something magical occurs."

When once I searched the streets of decadence, I now search the faces of the common people, the grief-stricken ones, the ones clad in cheap shirts and flat slippers.