silence over the phone line, the silence that lasts an eternity before you give up and hang up the phone before the familiar ring tone begins, the ring tone that brings to mind the ability to make some noise in the world. some noise that could perhaps, in some mad way, connect you to wherever the phone rang there and then.
there and then, the moment, the past, vestiges of them replaying over and over in some lost space in time itself.
as a child, i traced the patterns of the moissac tiles in the kitchen. wondered about the grey inlets and whether they'd always been grey.
a breath of fresh air today, a refreshing one from the past. latches of memory that latch me onto the past as a baby latches onto mother's breast.
a smile, a smile within a smile.
a smile that finally reached to the eyes.
in this crazy world, i'm glad i finally saw a smile.
the darkness, so bleak. coloured by the chrysms of red that filled the air, it was almost a joke.
water, water, floating past me. i grabbed a green apple along the way, ate it, threw the core away and hailed a cab, as if i knew where to go.
the polished floors of the ladies room of the posh hotel. the tiny contraption of a dustbin surprised me. down went my foot and up went the lid of the dustbin. into the bin went the muffin.
into the wind. a collection of short stories done ten years ago in convent pinafores. a story of romance, crosssed romance between people of different races. objections. desire, lust, of leaving.
of lust and then leaving. to master that art. it is an art, you know?
a special belt that i'd thought was first to be worn as a form of identification. the form of identification that then took the guise of a circular lightstick. how very much like a puppy, i thought with some disdain.
the long walk back to what was my home for a few nights, alone.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Thursday, June 07, 2007
hazy morning
a hazy morning, after a hazy night spent at the neighbourhood pub. haze, because of the smoke filtting around, smoke emanating from the burnt ends of cigarettes. the familiar acrid taste of beer, bitter a brew as any could be, the taste a memory from yesteryear when i'd last had beer. beer mixed with coke, a lemon or two, sliced and infused into the mixture. black straws, indiscriminate small glasses, a girl or two clad in a tiger-beer bluesuit. mismatched black lacquered tables, creaky high stools, put some of these together and you get my pub.
accompanied by the ballads of yesteryear, and we watched pot-bellied old men belt out hits from the time that we were not born yet, cringe at the shrill pitches trying to climb note after note, unsuccessfully, yes. that was my night. but there were nice songs too, the usual jay chou ballads, and whoever else you have, pleasant radio-friendly dittys that stay in your head long enough to allow you to remember the words and want to mouth them over and over again when the songs are being played.
dreams. part reality, part fiction. sometimes i dream of the last person i've thought of that night, never dreamt of my grandmother though. a grandaunt claimed to have dreamt of her one night, her clad in her peranakan outfit and black veil, standing just next to her niche in that peaceful church at bukit batok and when she ventured closer to my grandmother, my grandmother turned into a butterful. the story then goes that my aunt, her main caregiver during her final days, opened the balcony door one morning to see a butterful waiting outside her door. the butterfly flitted in when she opened the door a tad bit wider, made a circle or two of the house and then was gone, never to be seen again. such experiences. i've wondered whether such so-called experiences after the living are gone are triggered by some form of over-sensitivity to the things around us, our heightened awareness. the answers to that are probably never clear-cut. the other night i was just wondering why people cry when they are sad. is it merely a natural reaction or one that has been conditioned - that you cry because you know for sure it is a reaction for sadness. then again, we cry from birth, so that is something that is probably inborn.
i called your disconnected number again last night, and then your still existing one. a few days ago, i noticed that your welcome message for the voicemail's been changed. no more of that irritating noise from a computer at the begining. the voice still remains, highly strung, if that can be used to describe your tone. last night i watched, men in their vertically striped shirts, collar unbuttoned, at the pool table. the backs of shirts, the center portion of an inseam, which always reminds me of a cleft lip.
vertically striped shirts will always remind me of one thing. dark nights and flashing tailgates.
the sun's come out now. light green leaves are fluttering in the tiny breeze, shadows on the gravel ground, some leaves a lighter shade of green than others, because of the sun's reflection.
accompanied by the ballads of yesteryear, and we watched pot-bellied old men belt out hits from the time that we were not born yet, cringe at the shrill pitches trying to climb note after note, unsuccessfully, yes. that was my night. but there were nice songs too, the usual jay chou ballads, and whoever else you have, pleasant radio-friendly dittys that stay in your head long enough to allow you to remember the words and want to mouth them over and over again when the songs are being played.
dreams. part reality, part fiction. sometimes i dream of the last person i've thought of that night, never dreamt of my grandmother though. a grandaunt claimed to have dreamt of her one night, her clad in her peranakan outfit and black veil, standing just next to her niche in that peaceful church at bukit batok and when she ventured closer to my grandmother, my grandmother turned into a butterful. the story then goes that my aunt, her main caregiver during her final days, opened the balcony door one morning to see a butterful waiting outside her door. the butterfly flitted in when she opened the door a tad bit wider, made a circle or two of the house and then was gone, never to be seen again. such experiences. i've wondered whether such so-called experiences after the living are gone are triggered by some form of over-sensitivity to the things around us, our heightened awareness. the answers to that are probably never clear-cut. the other night i was just wondering why people cry when they are sad. is it merely a natural reaction or one that has been conditioned - that you cry because you know for sure it is a reaction for sadness. then again, we cry from birth, so that is something that is probably inborn.
i called your disconnected number again last night, and then your still existing one. a few days ago, i noticed that your welcome message for the voicemail's been changed. no more of that irritating noise from a computer at the begining. the voice still remains, highly strung, if that can be used to describe your tone. last night i watched, men in their vertically striped shirts, collar unbuttoned, at the pool table. the backs of shirts, the center portion of an inseam, which always reminds me of a cleft lip.
vertically striped shirts will always remind me of one thing. dark nights and flashing tailgates.
the sun's come out now. light green leaves are fluttering in the tiny breeze, shadows on the gravel ground, some leaves a lighter shade of green than others, because of the sun's reflection.
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