it still remains on the pedestal, mocking me.

i've flipped through the calendar countless times on, the memories of a night spent sleepless, trying to get a flight out, but to no avail. uncertainty pervaded, the scent of a million people in throes of dreams brushing past my skin. i recall forgetting to bring along my book and thinking to myself that perhaps i could get norweigian wood at the airport. i can hardly remember anything else, save the busy people milling about the train station waiting for their turns to board, to move, waiting for that one single bus to charter them to that next destination in life.
i was one of them, uncertain as i was, single-minded in my one desire to be away. everything seemed perfectly normal the day i left. the bus downtown was not crowded, as usual, on a weekday morning, the young at school, the adults far else away, the odd people on the bus. spaces, voids, empty places and a wealth of seats available for me. strangely, everything seemed familiar, as if things have been written on the stars at the beginning of time and all we have to do is play out our roles in motion.

a cup of coffee at pacific and i start to think of life in all its' normality - how i wake everyday at the same time, feel that same sense of dread at leaving the house and getting to that tiny cubicle where i waste almost half my life away, switching on the radio and listening to the familiar voices on air at the same time every morning - small things provide us with comfort. or how a familiar voice beckons out to you that you belong here and now, that there are people who recognise you for who you are, that you have been classified and fitted into this tiny portion of society, that you are able to recognise the roles you should play, the things you should do and not. that essentially, you know your place and where you belong. lost in this knowledge, there's still room, however, for your thoughts to wander. for what is life if enclosed behind the facade of belonging all the time. yet, hidden comfort, hidden comfort! in simply belonging.

my dreams all around me, i crossed the glistening floors. i watched old men fall asleep time and again on hard plastic chairs, unknowing of whatever unfolded in front of them. a plane takes off and then another. behind the glass shards, one can hardly hear anything.

in a nutshell, i am sick of many things, routine, however comforting, is still one of them.
i make small talk, i cross my legs, i speak politely.

and yes, i flew to hongkong again, this time, not a sense of nostalgia beckoning me over - for heavens' sake it's only been a friggin' 4 months!
i am never taking a morning flight that departs at six forty a.m in the morning. ever. again.
i felt dead and deprived of oxygen in the plane. words in my murakami novel swarmed before my eyes and i stared at the empty seat next time, conjuring a world of possibilities in my mind. i checked into the low budget hostel at mirador mansions that i'd booked, and was horrified when i ascended the building in the creeky lift - the noisy doors opening up to different faces of hongkong that i'd never seen before - sickly patients on one floor on stretchers with feeding tubes attached to them, chinamen in cheap, thin shirts, negroes with kinked hair and large builds, fair-skinned indians who gave me the once-over. the room was a tiny one, so tiny, yet comforting in the abode it was to me.

***

my history - in messages that are sent fast and furious over the internet. messages that i hardly recall we've sent. incongruous messages that i hardly remember reading through. delving through history is a strange way of remembering time itself.

i waited today at the bus stop for half-an-hour while buses of all kinds whizzed past me. even the dismal-looking bus with the words "duck tours" painted on it whizzed past me. i hadn't realised that the numbers at the bus stop told a lie - that the bus didn't pass by that stop at all.
in the time that i was there, i spied people, returning from work, downcast faces, an endless waterfall, ties and shirts, SUVs.

and the mundane friday returns. i often wonder how is it that a day can cause so much unhappiness. yet, after all, you could be dying and another person could be laughing.
it's all so ironical, as we play out our parts here on earth.

a restless friday night last week, one with promises of bright lights in the city, hands, togs in black, unknowing, omnipresence, the closure of eyes against light, the beat of the music, sway, alcohol slipping down your throat, madness. the endless gleaming cabs in the city, on the way back, the way back, and you don't feel happier than when you first stepped out of the door.

i wonder how people live. satisfaction at their lives? i've been reading the zahir by coelho during these 4 days of the PSLE marking and with the usual questions of what the fuck are we doing with our lives, i've come to be annoyed with the questions. the searching and never finding, and not even knowing what we're all looking for. how could we ever hope to find something as insipid and as flighty, as evasive, elusive, obscure. and perhaps it's something only artist who can hope to understand this. others get by their lives fine and dandy the way they do, they meet up with friends, lead normal lives at the offices, attend meetings, fag and go to the bar for drinks ocassionally after work, they get married to pretty and desirable women who desireness fade with the sands of time, scattering, placidly. then the dreams start, with the words, i could have, but all's too late and soon, they resign themselves to the plain ole' story called life.

well, if everyone's life isn't the same.

what do i remember about last week? i remember nothing. slipping past traffic on a dreary and hazy night. the traffic was light, the roads clear for a friday evening. the expressway - did we pass through the tunnels? i'm not quite sure.

cheap thin fabrics. lying face up. hairs on the pillows. a key made of paper. rattan fans that are used to keep nocturnal insects at bay. i was Kiki the callgirl in the Dolphin Hotel.

The hotel envelops me. I can feel its pulse, its heat. In dreams, I am part of the hotel.
I wake up, but where? I don't just think this, I actually voice the question to myself: «Where am I?» As if I didn't know: I'm here. In my life. A feature of the world that is my existence. Not that I particularly recall ever having approved these matters, this condition, this state of affairs in which I feature. There might be a woman sleeping next to me. More often, I'm alone. Just me and the expressway that runs right next to my apartment and, bedside, a glass (five millimeters of whiskey still in it) and the malicious — no, make that indifferent—dusty morning light. Sometimes it's raining. If it is, I'll just stay in bed. And if there's
2
whiskey still left in the glass, I'll drink it. And I'll look at the raindrops dripping from the eaves, and I'll think about the Dolphin Hotel. Maybe I'll stretch, nice and slow. Enough for me to be sure I'm myself and not part of something else. Yet I'll remember the feel of the dream. So much that I swear I can reach out and touch it, and the whole of that something that includes me will move. If I strain my ears, I can hear the slow, cautious sequence of play take place, like droplets in an intricate water puzzle falling, step upon step, one after the other. I listen carefully. That's when I hear someone softly, almost imperceptibly, weeping. A sobbing from somewhere in the darkness. Someone is crying for me.
The Dolphin Hotel is a real hotel.