Nothingness

And I welcome the tears, the hot tears that flow down my cheeks. Because they tell me one thing, that I am still able to feel.

When emotions cease to exist, and all I feel is... a void... and I know, I'm not feeling anything, I'm just... numb... and I think, I don't want to feel nothing, because there is nothing beyond nothing, and I wonder, why am I not feeling anything, why can't I feel anything... and I search, for something to feel for, for anything to feel for, because there is nothing worse than not feeling; except maybe... I don't know, I don't know anything anymore.

Perhaps that is what happens when grief ends. Nothing.

The Happy Prince

*****
There was once a sad prince. He wasn't really a prince, but some people (well, one person at any rate) called him the prince of posh, and once upon a time he had been a King of Corn, so for the purposes of this little parable he was a slightly blue-blooded prince.

Anyway, the point is that he was aggrieved.

*****
Grief, according to Kubler-Ross -

In a nutshell, there're five stages.

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

*****
He was used to grieving, it had become second nature. It's a fucked up world, and as we get older, we realise more and more that people fuck each other over all the time... and with every subsequent fuckover his heart grew just a little more cynical and cold. Sometimes he got screwed over by purported "friends", and he'd watch it happening to himself and laugh.

Something happened one day, and one suspects it happened in the prince's head.

Then try as he might, grief seemed to have taken a hiatus...

He was sad from time to time, of course... life is all about little moments in time.

But where for the longest time he had lived in an relative absence of sadness, interspersed with the occasional happy moment...

Now he found himself smiling at the quirky little messages on his mobile screen, as he blundered down the street oblivious to the people around him...

... laughing as someone struck him hard on the shoulder, again and again...

... trying not to smile, looking into her eyes, then glancing away, then irresistably being drawn back again...

... and laughing again at her, and with her, and with the clever and funny little things she said from time to time.

... and trying not to smile, and failing, as he watched her lolling on a park bench by the waterside struggling valiantly not to fall asleep in what she called sunshine, and the rest of the world would have called dreary, overcast twilight.

And often when he laughed, he really laughed.

Illogical

And I guess the reason why I am scared, is because I can see where this is heading.

How many times have I been hurt because I allowed myself to lose control? To fall, deeply, for someone I knew would never reciprocate my feelings? To abandon all sense of logic, and just feel.

I don't know when he will be ready, and even when he is ready, if he'll be ready for me. Given the uncertainty, logic dictates that I should not allow myself to like him too much. But I've always hated controlling my emotions, hated having to control my emotions, hated losing control of my emotions. Whether my feelings for him develop or not is irrelevant, I just want to be able to let go right from the start. Because that is what makes me happy, that is what I consider living life.

But I am scared. That my feelings will develop. As they invariably will. That he will never be ready for me. As they never are. That it will all go horribly wrong. As it always does. What happens then? That I know I will be able to handle it is irrelevant. I don't want to put myself through all that. Because living life has worn me out.

Logic dictates that I should walk away. At least for now. But since when have I ever listened to logic?

Happiness

I had not noticed how beautiful the view outside the window was initially. It was only when I was lying on his bed and looking up, did I see the silhouette of tree leaves against the dark blue sky. And when they rustled in the wind, it was a sight to behold, indeed.

His arms felt good around me, and I snuggled into the nape of his neck, inhaling his scent. And as I closed my eyes, I heard the first plump drops of rain as they splashed clumsily against his window pane. I drifted slowly to sleep, lulled by the rustling of tree leaves.

And I smiled. Because I was happy.

Acceptance

It started out simply enough - an honest desire to play gracious host; an empathic memory of one's own past, a wish to transform a potentially mind-numbingly boring elective into something worth remembering.

He had done it before with other women (mostly women, why that should be so he wasn't certain). It was a tried-and-tested formula of hospitality - the odd meeting here and there, the infrequent evening of fine dining, the offer of his gym... little things. It made for some enduring memories and some firm friendships.

Something was different this time. Something about the way he watched - couldn't help but watch - the corners of her eyes crinkle up when she laughed, yet with her eyes calmly holding his... and heard his own voice ringing out too frequently with laughter in reponse. Something about sometimes, when her eyes found his just... watching in silence, and her lips smiled with his in... ? knowing? silence.

Something about how he could not and would not assume, or even make conjectures about what she - or even he - was thinking.

It didn't bear thinking of. Things were too... complicated.

But when he found the word... missing... rising unbidden to mind after barely twenty-four hours absence, and then read it as it arrived, highlighted against the frigid green glow of his cellphone display...

...he realised that something was... amiss.

Depression

"...by the way would you like to join me?"

He reads the message, and smiles to himself.

Forty-five minutes till Sunday mass begins.

What about these fleeting thoughts of filling those minutes repairing the broken fan-blade of the laptop cooling pad; and these idle ambitions to clean the ridiculously grimy kitchen counter-top...?

What about this resin glue I've just bought minutes ago, and these table-wipes and super-strength industrial cleaner...?

Well, what about them?

Yes. Yes I would love to join you.

*****
There is a strange sadness afflicting this country.

And perhaps I am afraid of becoming infected - or perhaps I already have been.

Perhaps the reason I catch myself offguard, smiling, with my thumb on my mobile's OK button is simply because of this gilded cage we have built around ourselves in our own minds, in this shiny city we call home. Perhaps I am distracting myself from it all, like everyone else; content to pass each coming moment in the safety of the matrix.

Or perhaps this gut feeling - that it would all have been the same - anywhere in the world - is true.
Perhaps i would have known you before I met you - when I met you - if i had found you in London, or Paris... and perhaps we would have laughed, just the same by the Thames, or the Louvre.

The paths before me are as uncertain as they always were; I still do not know where they lead - except far away from this false utopia, this prison of perfection.

Right now, right here... all I know is that - a brief thirty minutes snatched out of time this afternoon, laughing with you...

is enough.

*****
Perhaps in the wake of your departure I will encounter depression... or perhaps I will feel only apathy.

But this much is true - I will miss you.

Bargaining

He studied her as they spoke.

The corners of her eyes crinkled up when she laughed, which was often. It was very appealing.

She had double eyelids; actually double on the right, with a hint of triple on the left.

The eyes themselves were large, liquid, and alive. They flashed constantly with the myriad emotions she portrayed, the one constant being mirth - when they sparkled.

They were just killing time together until her next engagement, which was delayed once, twice, and then thrice.

It was a pleasure just laughing with; listening to; and watching her. Joking about being ravenous. Little things.
Every minute passed was a moment savoured... albeit an increasingly hungry moment as the evening wore on.

At last it came time for her to leave. He held her gaze for a while as they parted, then turned away and smiled as he walked, glancing at his watch.

Nine thirty... Three hours!

It had felt like thirty minutes...

****
Bargaining : If I could only live a day for thee...

It would be over too soon.

...if only it were so simple.

She was

Have you ever thought about what you would like other people to say about you when you die?

It was a question that caught me off guard. I have never thought about how I would like my eulogy to read. It is not in my nature to contemplate such thoughts that to me are seemingly not for me to think. But he commented that how a person would like to be remembered in death gives a good guide as to how he should live his life. And I found myself agreeing.

I want to be remembered as the girl who loved to laugh, who always looked on the brighter side of things. I want to be remembered as the girl who loved to love, who was never afraid to hurt in her quest for love. I want to be remembered as the girl who loved to live, who embraced all things good and bad that came her way - because truly, that is the only way to really live life.

Above all, I want to be remembered as the girl who was happy, if not always, then for the greater part of her life.

I'm not so sure I'm doing well on my scorecard though. It's been so long since I was happy. You know, really happy?

Without Bargaining

As by Rote

"You know, if you don't want to keep meeting up, that will be ok, okay?"

"What? What are you trying to tell me?"

pause. Again, that question.

"I'm not trying to tell you anything, I'm just being considerate."

Sometimes there are ways of knowing what to say, and what not to say in advance. Sometimes our choices are clear and the tricky bit is deciding which choice to choose; multiple fates hang in the balance, culled to singularity by the destinies we select on our fleeting, narcissitic whims and fancies.

Yet sometimes all we have is a sense of being a puppet in the story, or perhaps game, of some higher being, and there is only one particular path to walk; one set of keys to a single door. One permissable answer to every question...

Moments are allowed to slip away, silences are mandatorily respected. It is almost a form of cinematic convention.

Mistakes are made, consciously.

Words are left unspoken, with difficulty.

Eyes meet, and are held, then glance away in slow motion; a moment is a celestial masterwork forged from nothing, flaring to painful, blinding brilliance for a brief instant - acknowledged, beheld... and then cast callously aside to to the floor, left unwatched and uncherished to fade to dull, pitted, unhoned normality with the cold passage of forgotten todays.

We toy with almost-fates in our infant minds, and then they are taken away from us, leaving us to wonder if the destiny that remains behind was even ever ours to choose.

Our subconscious minds rise up, palms pummeling desperately against the stained glass of our weary eyes - why can't you hear us - we are you? Don't!

But sometimes....

... we have only a script, which we are obliged to follow.

*****
A lifetime ago :

the asker was different.
the question was different.
the answerer was different.

The script was the same.

The answer was a white lie, to be uncovered years later.

*****
Several nights ago :

the asker was lost
the question was different
the answerer held his silence for a moment, straining to ignore the voices behind his eyes.

The script was the same.

The answer, a white lie.

*****
Perhaps we both know the answers to your questions :

Perhaps I am trying to tell you something...

Perhaps I do know why we speak so -too often ?- reaching out to one another with words, spoken, written, typed, keyed-in.
Perhaps you are right to remind me in my own voice - it takes two... and perhaps the fault is not yours alone...

Perhaps our eyes seek out each other's too easily, and too often, and perhaps we laugh too much, and I catch myself smiling too frequently.

Perhaps there is a reason I lean in, unconsciously, when you speak - only to be made aware of it when this newly-acquired fire flares in my side.

Perhaps there is a reason why the uncanny similarities accumulate so; why it is so easy to spend time by your side without a growing sense of unease...
... perhaps it is not similarity that creates the escalating arguments you described to me once... that have you backpeddling and standing down in the face of a hail of words... but perhaps it is inconsiderateness.

Perhaps, as I listen in silence to your thoughts, nailed by the sleeping serpent of pain to my mechanical, inclinable bed... I burn to speak...

... perhaps as you ask me that question, in the pitch blackness of my darkened hospital room...

... perhaps I want to tell you something... different to what I will eventually hear myself say, out of decency, respect, and morality.

Perhaps I watch you turn to go and almost know already what you will do - because you are me, from a lifetime ago - I burn to call once more to you - wait! and reach out, without words this time, to bid you goodbye.

Perhaps there is a reason I find myself once again futilely wading against the tide, climbing uphill, stumbling through the snowdrifts, biting back the truths, watching the moment fade...

... perhaps there is a reason why everything is scripted again.

Perhaps it is time to speak not in questions, but in answers - after all, every question belongs to an answer, both are members of an intimate couplet, a lock and a key to a destiny falling inexorably out of time.

And the first answer is this : you were unexpected.

But now you have chosen.

I only pray that you did not base that choice on the basis of my white lie...

*****
Or, perhaps not.

*****
He cannot bargain now, the stakes are too high and his codes of tired morality too unyielding.

But time will erode everything, and there will come a time when he will ask if there was, or is something he could have given, promised or done...

by then, it will no longer matter.

Welcome

Perhaps it was only a matter of time that we few would meet and unveil the faces behind the words. Perhaps the very first sense was realized in that gathering at Sentosa, the sense that we were a bunch of people who loved the written word.

Many moons ago, Reminisce started Some Kind of Everywhere with the intention of roping us few in as contributors. The title aside - which was derived from a rather delectable acnedote told to us by our mutual friend D - no one had any idea on what this blog was to be about.

Personally, I see Some Kind of Everywhere as an attic in a shophouse, its entrance not quite publicized but open nonetheless for any one to wander in. One would climb the rickety staircase that looked as though it has been there for decades, and having reached the top of it, find the attic. There would be a ceiling fan dangling precariously from the already low roof rafters, spinning lazily at a speed that no amount of cranking its broken speed knob would alter; dialing the knob to Number 5 would just be as slow as Number 1.

The three walls that envelopes the sole casement window on the shopfront would be of a dirty cream color. Littered around the tongue-and-groove timber flooring would be carpets of mismatched motifs and colors, along with an assortment of throw cushions and bean bags. There would be a worn, familiar couch with a small table next to it, on which there would be a small hi-fi set dishing out music. And it is on this couch that one would find one - or some - of us sprawled in, as we pass a lazy afternoon shooting the breeze over a couple of drinks.

Along one wall there would be a corkboard that runs its entire length, and on the corkboard would be countless scraps of paper tacked to it, each containing a passage written by the few of us, and every one of them a post on Some Kind of Everywhere.

This den - this retreat - would be there just so. There would be no political or societal aspirations in its existence, and the people you would find here have no overreaching and grandiose ambitions to be founders of the sole superblog; we do not even want to try. We each write and post for only one -- ourselves. This is not a place of sleek gazing and stainless steel; it is but a humble joint with a few like-minded cats lounging, where the ambience is casual and laidback and, above all, unassuming.

Anger

Anger : dark, bitter and unpalatable.

There's nothing to be angry about and nothing to forgive. It wasn't personal; it was a futile rant directed at society, built of a year's pent-up frustration.

****
Perhaps there is a little anger.

Premature, but present - anger not at you... but at myself, for turning so sentimental.

****
Ignorance

I don't know :

- what to say, when you pause in wonderment as I order the same mix-and-match breakfast you were just about to...

- what it means that it feels like I knew who you were before I even met you.

- what to think when I turn unconsciously to you, and find you already waiting, your eyes searching mine and the corner of your lip curling up into a smile, as I catch myself smiling at you.

- how to stop myself from laughing when that surprising wit of yours flares up - frequently - and I find myself parrying, and being drawn into the riposte without a second thought.

- what you mean, when you marvel aloud as I, with my hands on the steering wheel, fall uncharacteristically silent for just a moment - that we never stop talking, somehow... whether it be speaking, SMSing, or MSNing

- what to say when you remark that we have met each other every day since we first met, or when the words cross my mind - and doubtlessly enter yours - that we have not become bored of each other yet...

- how to stop myself from subconsciously scanning the contours of your face and inadvertently committing them to memory

I do know :

- that I shall miss you, when you are gone

Random Thought

To have choices is a privilege. To choose is a right. The problem begins when people think it is a right to be given choices.