Having read Ruihoong's and Jason's blog consecutively, I guess its inevitable that some of the sentimentality that radiates from them must shine upon my occasionally unsentimental soul.
But what have I to be sentimental about? Ah, 'tis the eternal dilemma faced by a supposedly cold-hearted individual as I: That inestimable yearning to wax lyrical about the human condition and matters of life, yet HINDERED by an
unfortunate affliction - the blessing of happiness.
Looking back, exactly 4 months ago, I ended it. The 2 years of intermittent torture ended, on this very day, when I finished the S Paper. And there was joy.
But aside from that, there was relief. A lifting of my soul's burden, a liberation from my shackles. As a bird in an iron cage is cast into the wild, so too was I released from a prison that previously had become my universe. The long nights fueled by coffee. The arduous treks up a lonely and barren brick hill, with naught but the light of a hostel to shine upon me. I was tired... horribly so. Tired in spirit; for there was no Presence. Tired in mind; for there was no leisure. Tired in body; for there was no rest. But worst of all, tired in heart; for there was no understanding, no respite, no hope.
How could I have lived through it? Everyday I woke, jostled into painful awareness by Foo or Jon switching on the harsh fluorescent lights. My head was always drowsy with the memory of treasured sleep. I would stumble to the toilet, and wait for a gush of cold water to jump-start my system. No time for breakfast, so I would begin a mad rush to the bus. As I exit the front door, there will be a moment of trepidation (Singapore is nothing but a series of such moments) where I would gaze into the distance, noting if the CHIJ girls were still walking, or had everyone disappeared and were boarding the bus.
In school. The defeated file into LT1, bearing the same expression of hopelessness upon our faces. The bright lights of a room that had the smell and feel of an detention camp, amplified by the sheer exhaustion expanding from each weary soul. And those were the lucky days. On normal days, it would be a trek to the Council room, each step bringing me closer to a place where I could practically SNIFF the scent of work, toil and further emotional torture.
Assembly begins. We march off to the square and gaze at a sky perfectly made for happiness. The sky is blue, with scuds of fluffy white hanging there like cotton wool. A breeze sweeps through the grounds, like the breath of God whispering that today is a beautiful day it is a wonderful day it is a day for flying kites and having drinks and sleeping and rolling in the fresh green grass.
But we sing our songs and listen to an unending barrage of nonsensical advertisements that would make my baby sisters cringe.
The day begins. The lectures are interspersed with walks between halls, and the future narrows suddenly to nothing more than the next 45 minutes. Survival; that is all. We do not ask for happiness or release, we only ask to survive. Lectures to do homework, tutorials to avoid questions. Then PE. I can't even begin to describe it. It completely defies words.
And now lunch. It is a deadened bunch that troops to the oil-sweating canteens, facing the press and push of students similarly dressed in a gray that accentuates the tiredness. We line up and sit down at a table full of scholars, shoveling food that has neither taste nor texture into our mouths. Knowing full well that even the innocent act of eating is restricted by the toll of the bell, knowing also that the temporary respite will only make us sleepy and tired and prone to being scolded.
The day drags on. It becomes hotter. And hotter. And hotter.
And now it is evening. But the final bell is not, not, NOT the signal for lifting the barriers. Now comes the truly hard part. Freedom is there, just footsteps away, running out through the foyer where the scholars aggregate, quickstepping along the tarred road, waving past the guardhouse and out into the evening sun where the air suddenly seems fresher and sweeter and lighter.
But that is not my lot. Mine is to stay in school, to wait at the tables outside the staffroom that have become my second home. I almost expect to see a sleeping bag waiting for me. And the teachers call. I answer.
The friends leave. One by one. I feel them depart. I remain. Training. Working. Writing. Speaking. Typing. Arguing.
They go, I stay.
And now it is night.
And I am released, I walk through a foyer lit by a single white light, though a road dappled in shadows, alone. Always alone. There is no food. But there is no hunger either. Just an overarching sense of being completely alone.
I walk through the front gate, along the barren pathway next to a silent, dark drain, fingers flicking the thin metal bars that separate me from it. I pass a traffic light, one that always turns red as I approach it. Through a walkway long since emptied, beep through the turnstile, up the escalator.
And now I sit. Alone. At the railings, overlooking an empty tennis court flooded with harsh stadium lights. The track is empty. The train has left. And around me is nothing but the sound of an endlessly repeated advert on the TV screen, some inane animation of a robot turning into a ship, a mirage of life in a desert of silence and loneliness.
On the train. I find a seat in the corner, somewhere where I can just rest my head for a while. Just a little while. I can close my eyes, and hear nothing but the whoosh and rumble of the train passing over tracks. The lady's voice calling out the next station. And the next. And the next.
And now I have reached. Walk out the station, through a dark back passage cutting through a field of grass, the air around me filled with the sound of bullfrogs and crickets. I walk towards a bus station, too tired and lonely to walk the distance of that one bus stop.
The bus does not come. I wait, under the white lights of the station, my feet dangling off the slightly raised benches that are just a bit too circular for you to sit on. I have nowhere to rest my head.
And finally I decide to walk. Past the Indon hostel, towards the Plaza where the neon signs of cheap food and drink beckon. And it is sad that as I enter 7-11, there is that momentary lifting of the loneliness, as I walk into a familiar place full of familiar (but expensive) comforts. I buy a carton of juice, and continue walking.
Across the street, a final mad dash to make the last traffic light. I always have to time myself, so that I reach the first just as it turns green, so that I will not have to wait at the second.
Back up the black brick hill. My bag weighs down on me. My juice is finished. My feet are tired. But I walk on, illuminated only by the blue beam of the Cross.
And now I am in, and now I am home. Paltry perhaps, but it was a refuge. Home to bathe, to work, and finally to sleep before I went back to my reality, my real life at school.
--------------------------------------------------------
But its miraculous how quickly one recovers, regenerates, resurrects. The touch of my feet upon home was not, of course, immediately happy: so many teething issues had to be worked out. But there was that
je ne sais quo which permeated the air I breathed; a scent of relaxation and familiarity in the air that resonated within me.
And the friends! They encircled my dreary life like lifebuoys in a sea of despair.
One by one, they leave. But others return. And I discover new ones everyday, like the happy serendipity of finding 50 bucks in an old, forgotten corner of my room.
The serene solitude ain't half bad either. These late nights when I'm not out, gently tapping away at the computer in the quiet comfort of my room, a silence I have so often wished for in the clamor and hustle of the hostel, is mine for the taking. I remember a time in Form 5 when this would be my routine; to sleep at 9 and wake at 2, when all the world was asleep and I would pad down to the kitchen in the velvet silence. Switch on the lights with trepidation, and settle down with the phone and a friend just a call away. A book in hand, a meal in bowl. And around me, the nothingness that one needs to appreciate the value of people.
Driving... tedious at times, yes. But clearly the best social activity we've discovered since basketball. To drive alone in my car, on a sunset evening, with my own CD's playing favorite songs while I linger through the slow lane. The window is down, and the streets are clear, because it's just early enough that people are working. And the gentle breeze fills my space with a hint of leaves, trees and life. At night then, picking up friends old and new, we drive through the sleeping streets of Kuching, singing songs and talking about life.
I used to be amazingly lonely in the midst of a crowd; marooned at sea in the middle of a city. In the center of the hurricane, there is an eye of the storm. But how solitary it gets in that silence.
Life in its infinite, startling permutations, life in its peaks of joy and valleys of despair, life in its sweetness and energetic brilliance, life in its gentle bubbling through the brook of humanity. rah... says:
i think i just need to talk to someone from back homerah... says:
usually sets my heart at peace after such talksYeah. I know just what you mean.
