interspersal

that i do miss the smell of freshly laundered sheets and towels and the common print of comforters and the silent hum of the air-conditioner and the padded footsteps of restless children running along carpeted flooring early in the morning and late at night. and i do miss the blare of the TV and the seemingly thin walls that separate one room from another that makes it easy for one to listen to conversation going on in another room. i miss waking up in a place that seems foreign and to be living there only for the moment, to reach for the digital watch placed asaunder on the bedside table, which would contain, among other things, the hotel phone, a map of the city (whichever it happened to be), the novel that would accompany me through the night, the purse that contained my rosary (i am prissy about carrying it around in a foreign country), a bottle of water and my glasses.
i yearn for the possibilities that a fresh new day brings, to learn and to glean from experiences. to watch the masses and to know that i don't belong here, that i am apart, i am different, just as i am.

I cycled close to a bougainvillea plant today and didn’t remember that there were thorn on such plants – scratch went the thorns, red welts appeared on my skin and soon enough, thin, shiny, red lines began to appear.

I recalled then, a time when we were carefree and lost and she hadn’t moved into your apartment and a time when you were alone and we seemed like one, big, happy family. The time when we played cards. And of course the moment that the bougainvillea plant reminded me of – your brother and her on a double bike – she wanting to make something of a U turn and thus reversing and not remembering that she was on the front portion of a double bike, reversed. and your brother gave a wail at his posterior being wedged into a rose bush. Ten years ago, this day, perhaps.

The welts on my arm are better now and will heal nicely with time, just as how time seeks to heal a great many other things. Angst ridden, I refuse to be.

Lost memories. Of a young girl. Of the city. Of walking on glass.
Sheets in the city.
Footsteps.
Vodka in a glass, a thin black straw.

***

tarry, tarry me. a note left on the floor saying that i'd gone to play mahjong at a pal's home and then i left, the keys jiggled somewhat and i unlatched the door and i was out in the cool breeze of the night. i tarried about where to go or what to do, the only thing was to get out into the open, the streets empty save for cabs.

***

it is a sight to behold. the ornate staircases, dim lights shining and leaving sparkles of glimmer everywhere. i think i look out of place. i stare down at my silver sandals which were purchased in HK just 2 weeks ago. i think that it is lucky that i didn't bring any luggage along - what i needed, i would buy. the bag just contained essentials, as in, essentials. a few clothes rolled up. some worksheets that i was supposed to mark during the flight and when i had nothing better to do in the hotel, work being work, brought all the way back to HK. i wish i had a stamp that read : been to HK and back and then i'd stamp it all over their worksheets.

***

i walk to the bus stop and there is a group of grannies waiting for the bus. i wonder what they have been doing to be still up at this late hour. the feeder service arrives and one of them get on the bus, waves at her friend and is whisked away.
i wonder if the bus to town will be coming. after a long wait, i decide to cross over to the bus stop on the opposite side of the road. the bus to some place comes and i break into a run for the bus, stopping halfway though. i had no idea why i stopped, i didn't want to get on that bus and drop halfway at some obscure portion of singapore, memories rushing up to hit me as i look around and spigments of thought assaulting my brains - i have had enough of thinking.

***

thanks, i say as i slide into the passenger seat. i remember the time when i almost fell as the vehicle is higher than most. i remember what he had said about the vehicle being a quiet one and how he now could get headaches from being in cabs in manila because they allowed too much noise in. i regret the time that i picked something that looked like a coin from the ground, a tribute to another lover who always noted that finders' was keepers'. i felt foolish.
you never told me that, he said.
there are many things you don't know about me. doesn't that preserve that aura of mystery about me? i laughed.

then there was the time when i had told him about some of my ex-loves, sleeping with a woman and flying to taiwan on a whim. i jacked up my legs on the leather seats and i remember his consternation at my feet on his leather seats. ah, men.

***

Cutty Sark came by to my cubicle today and said that i'd been looking better than ever. so, dating anyone lately?
i racked my brains and thought about the word, dating. it's strange how people can answer a simple question in a simple manner, just a yes or no, whereas my damn brain refuses to see things in black and white, pushes for an expansion on the term - dating while the other person in the conversation becomes wary of me cooking up some lie or some strange story.
dating?
finally, i said, i think so. and i gave her one of those ironical looks.
oh good, she said.
so you like him?
well, i really had difficulty with this one.
well, OK. i answered in the end.
she gave me a "i-don't-know-what-to-do-with-you-look".

***

i'm finally on the bed, lounging around. the view is a nice one, overlooking the harbour. my feet are bare on the carpeted floor and i think if i should change into something more comfortable. this in turn leads me to thinking about how i should spend the day, one of the precious two days that i am spending in HK.

i slip into the covers and look at the ceiling. there are no spots and no cracks. i close my eyes and inhale deeply. i smell, carpet, handsoap, and the smell of freshly laundered sheets. i listen to the quiet hum of the television and i heard the pad of footsteps outside the door.

why am i here? i had no answer to that.

perhaps i needed respite before the start of hell again. perhaps i needed companionship. perhaps i thought highly of myself and my ability to detach my soul from myself. i thought i could, previously, but was proven wrong. perhaps i've grown enough this time round.

i remember the stars and the planes that ceased in the night sky, waiting for their turn to land.

***

i boozed. i'd no idea that tuesday was ladies night and so i asked the bartender how much a glass of vodka ribena cost.
he gave me the eye and said that it was ladies night.
all for the better, i thought, and downed my glass of vodka in a few mouthfuls.
next i ordered a gin tonic, and it tasted bitter. a similarly bitter smile crossed my face as i recalled expecting a gin tonic when i took a sip of the drink and only found the unyielding blandness of iced water.

the last time i had a gin tonic, it was along the changi coast where i could see the planes in a line-up, waiting for their turn to land from wherever they'd come from.
never, never land, perhaps.
i like to watch men who are driven speak on topics that they are driven upon.
they become fixated. and somehow, more real. like unwittingly, they are stripping off some sort of a disguise.
it's really strange to take a sip of something and then realise that it is just plan water, that it lacks the taste of what is expected. and then you try to reconcile to the taste and then the water accquires a different kind of taste.

it was only when i'd drank half of the water in the glass that i said, "i do believe i'm drinking water."

it is also strange when someone whom you've locked lips with before chooses to take a sip of water from the glass itself, rather than from the straw that you've just used.
brings a new meaning to the word, strange.

***

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn’t something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn’t get in, and walk through it, step by step. There’s no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That’s the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You’ll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.
And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That is what this storm’s all about.

- Murakami, Kafka from the Shore

***

He comes back in the evening while I am reading a book. I bought Murakami’s Norweigian Wood at the airport terminal. It is not easy to buy good novels in Hong Kong. The last time I checked the Yau Mei Tei bookstores, they only had Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore in stock. I was reading about Toru being drawn to Midori when he came in. My legs are entwined with the sheets, my hair down, falling past my back. I watch my reflection in the mirror for a while and marvel at the fact that I am where I am. He loosens his tie – how typically male, and sits at the foot of the bed.

***

I once had a girl,

Or should I say

She once had me.

She showed me her room,

Isn’t it good?

Norwegian wood.

She asked my to stay and told me sit anywhere,

So I looked around and

I noticed there wasn’t a chair.

I sat on a rug

Biding my time,

Drinking her wine.

We talked until two,

And then she said,

‘It’s time for bed’.

She told me she worked

in the morning and

started to laugh,

I told her I didn’t,

and crawled off to sleep

in the bath.

And when I awokeI was alone,

This bird has flown,

So I lit a fire,

Isn’t it good?

Norwegian wood.

-The Beatles

Wan Chai

on the plane back to singapore, i sat beside this lady with a protruding mole on her ear and i wondered if anyone, like me, had ever mistaken it to be a black ear stud. her daughter sat next to her, and cramped as jetstar planes are, i had to squeeze past their feet to get to the toilet - the perils of having a window seat instead of an aisle seat - you'd to hold your bladder.
she took out a tiny notebook halfway through the journey and began to jot down things, saving a finer manuscript for writing in a larger notebook. i tried not to peek - i was bleary from nodding off in my cozy corner and had mistakenly thought that the mother and daughter pair had swapped places sometime while i was asleep and half berating myself for not having gone to the loo at the exact same moment that they had swapped places - making it easier for me to move through two seats.
i'd no idea what made me come to that assumption - that they'd swapped places, but anyhow i later realised, with a start, that it was the mother who was writing next to me. i'd no idea what to do - was i supposed to notice that she was writing? most people i know wouldn't write on planes. would one writer know another?
i've no answers to these questions, but seeing someone actually writing a great deal made me feel less special.

the trip back to the airport was a heartwrenching one. i stared at the neon lights initally, wanted to remember them as they were and as the neon lights gradually gave way to the more pleasing view of the city as the shuttlebus went across a long bridge, i thought of the short time i had spent in Hong Kong. a ticket bought on a whim, when i was still unsure, a forced click on the mouse, and more than three hundred dollars was transfered to the airline company. it never fails to amaze me how much can be done in the comfort of anywhere - as long as you have internet connection and a working computer/laptop. i booked my hotel online as well, not a decision that was made with a great amount of care or research, but one that came with necessity - oh where the fuck am i going to sleep tomorrow night? a call was made to some tour agency which happened to be the first i saw when i flipped open the newspapers, as i returned, half-dead from camp. a call later, a return fax with a signed copy of a payment slip, and i was assured of a place to spend the night for the next day. out of convenience, i booked the same hotel for the next 2 nights and it was a decision that i did not regret. the rooms were tiny, yes, but the staff did have a way of making me feel at home, and perhaps, it was the novelty of being in a new place all alone - a place that offered possibilites for me to be totally free from everything, and even perhaps the person i'd thought i was.

the weather was wonderful for the few days that i had spent in Hong Kong - breezy, cloudy with a hint that it might rain, but the umbrella that i had packed along for my trip was left unused in my luggage bag. i wanted to travel light but ended up lugging loads of stuff around in that fred perry bag of mine - bless its' soul - which had provided a perfect solution to go along with any outfit. there was the makeup that had to go into the bag for touchups, a camera to take pictures to remember the moments by, my glasses in case my contact lenses popped out suddenly - no it never happened -, the wallet, the handphone, a book to occupy myself during meals, a notebook and a pen to jot down any sudden inspiration, and yada, yada.

i went wherever i wanted - time being of no consequence to me and neither was there the desire to please a travel mate - my only desire was to please myself - sounds well, whatever, but true. i woke early most days, took a look out of the window, and upon seeing that the sky was still a milky blue hue, turned the other way and fell asleep into my sheets again. i woke when i wanted to - most of the time around 10 and then took my time to wash up, maybe read a bit, if i desired.

the first day, i'd gone to tsim sha tsui and had a meal there, then shopped and had my highlights done - oh, i have red highlights now. blimey, how am i going to rid myself of them before school returns? miss punk-teacher? but i don't care about all that now. it's as alien as book checking was to me, lying supine in the sheets in the tiny dorsett hotel room.

the day i was due to fly back, there was a terrible storm, in return, perhaps, for the fine weather that i'd experienced there so far. the airport was on red alert and no planes flew from the airport. the boarding gate for the airline that i was to take, was changed, a consequence of the storm and all of us passengers, had to take a quick one and a half minute train ride to reach gate 43 from gate 12. i was tickled by a sign next to the train doors that said - Relax, the train will be here in three minutes - that was how i'd gathered that the train ride took one and a half minutes - you mean you thought i had timed the entire thing?

the plane remained on the ground for a very long time before it finally took off, once more, a testimony to how nature can always wreck her fury upon us - look at the earthquakes for inspiration!
when the plane took off, the airbus rattled with such intensity that i thought it might fall apart. then, the plane took off into the stormy clouds and for a moment, all i could see was a white light, a bright blinding white light that was almost epiphanic - as if we had all died and the plane was taking us all to high heaven - literally. it hurt to look at the white light that glowed outside the windows and for a moment, i regretted taking the window seat.
i remembered what i had thought about while waiting at the departure lounge, that if the plane crashed - and i have this morbid thing about always thinking that the plane i am about to take might crash, that i died living my dreams and then i would think to myself in the final moments that the plane would take a downward spiral - of the possibilites of a life not lived - of a boy lying in a fitful fever against the headboard of an old bed, of me in the classroom once again, of my parents, of old friends and companions. and i realised in Hong Kong, that there really wasn't much that i could possibly think about in the course of my lifetime that i could want to recall when i was facing death.

i've always not known the phrase - life is but a dream, but over the past few days, in trying to capture each moment as it is, in trying to narrate each moment as it occurs to me, and failing, i see how life really is a dream - i can never capture each transcient moment in its posterity, as it is. and i will never be able to.

my song

i dream of black ants that moved together on white tiles, strange though that there was no food present that could attract them.

i dreamt of that faceless boy again yesterday and i looked down upon the empty hall and thought of shadows being flung against the brown tiles of the school hall.
i think i dreamt of him again, having an ice cream from those old-school ice cream motor carts. i sat down from a distance, watching him again as usual and he was looking in my direction, looking but not seeing.

i listen to an indie tune and it makes me think of an accident.

an accident that takes place at the happiest moment of a boy's life. he performs and perfects his stance and then pauses for a while.
at that exact same moment, a girl was crossing the road, not knowing how and why to live her life any further. the car inches closer steadily and she would never know why the horn was never sounded.
the impact sends her flying upward, but not for long as she begins her descent downwards towards the car, her back hits the front bonnet of the car in a sickening crunch. her head dangles over the edge of the bonnet for a while and then the weight of it pulls her body downwards to the ground and there is a sickening thud as her body hits the ground.

the song has ended and no more. the driver exits and the onlookers swarm. sound is strangely absent, as if everything is happening in a vaccum.

at this very same moment, it is announced that he is the champion and his face lights up.

***

the decision to go to Hong Kong was a rather sudden one, spun up from thoughts of wanting to kill myself, frustration at wasting 3 precious days of my life in a stupid Brownie camp - on hindsight, it made me realise that time IS precious, and i just wasted 3 days of my life there, and so, instead of looking back in regret - which i am still doing - i am more determined than ever to live everyday of my life as if it were my last. yeah. as if.

so in line with that, i booked my air tickets to HK on a whim on that saturday morning at 830am, just before we went to that fateful camp where the girls pissed the hell out of me by being so excited about every single thing in the world and asking extremely stupid questions which i shall not care to recount over here in case my blood pressure shoots up and i die before i reach HK.

girl guides. a mystery to me, always and forever. i can't see what's with the spirited cheers, the cooking of food, the using of axes, the telematches and the games that are reminiscent of JC orientation days which i was once crazy over - hell, i was even an OGL before *dies in shame* but those days were fun ones.
perhaps the passing of the times have jaded me, shaped me up to be more prepared for the hard knocks in life.

***

i can't help but keep thinking of that song. the start of the song sees paramedics swarming around, deathly silence prevails, save the song that was playing eerily in the background.

a boy walks out of the school gate with his sister and they turn towards the scene of the accident. the boy is captivated, and so is his sister, but his sister thinks of dinner, piping hot, served at home and after a long day of training, just wants to get home. she walks away and then turns and calls out the name of the boy captivated by the scene of the accident. i can still see him in my mind, the brows creased in concentration, fixated, staring, captivated by the possibilities of whatever lay on the stretcher, on that white sheet, and then turning to look at his sister who called his name, turning back again for a final glance at the scene and taking decisive steps in the direction of his home, turning back to face another direction only when his feet had carried him some ways ahead.

i did dream of walking along tsim sha tsui dressed in a spag top and pedal pushers perhaps, pockets being a necessity, i for the present moment having a strange affliction for pockets - oh, to simply put my hands in them and swagger along the streets.
so plans are in store for loads of shopping, a haircut, hairdye - i have decided, streaks of red - highlights, perhaps a spa, facial and eyelash extensions - whatever, whenever, at my own time. and afternoon naps in the tiny rooms of the dorsett hotel too, screw all those i've travelled with who say naps are a waste of time - it's my holiday and my life.

so hong kong later and i'm living my dreams.