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What I have been doing lately: I woke up, and rolled out of bed onto the north-east line. I looked north, I looked south, I decided to walk south. When I was walking south, the train brought me to Orchard, and Yisheng was in the poetry section of Kinokuniya. I said "Hi! How are you?" and he showed me a couple of penguin classics before disappearing into the bookshelves. I walked further down and saw Natalie and Sharon, along with the weird people from NAC who said we couldn't build the installation taller than a dog with short legs. Natalie said "You mean like a corgi?" and Sharon and I screamed in laughter. The NAC people also laughed. They laughed so hard that they farted, which made Sharon scream even louder and I excused myself and walked over to school in Goodman Road.Then it started to rain. It rained so heavily, with lightning that struck the art students, and they became black, and the wind howled and blew off the block of HDB flats beside the school, and it landed in the pool at the deep end where the uncles were jerking off in front of mirrors in quiet desperation. I felt pity. And because I didn't like feeling like that, I took refuge in the gallery that had marble slabs made of milk, and it was so white and pure. And its purity reflected the white walls, that had white fans which were hanging from the white ceiling. And I blew on the surface of the reflection which made the walls quiver, and the white fans quiver and the white ceiling fall into the dark part of the white room. "Oh." I thought to myself. I noticed the yellow pollen too which the artist put on the floor particle by particle, but before I could touch it, my breath blew it all away. I tried to catch them one by one, but I realised it was 4pm and my students were waiting to show me their assignments that I gave them. One had a video of flowers opening and closing like a heart, the other had a crucifix in a cage that later flew out, and another had fluorescent lights gathering like a pack of wolves sleeping underneath the moonlight. It was so beautiful, that I cried. I cried because they were so beautiful, and beauty is so hard to achieve because it is natural, and there is nothing natural left on our island, except for the little patch of grass near Punggol Station, where the wild dogs sing. I had to leave when the rain stopped. And when the rain stopped, i had to walk to the space above the dental clinic which Natalie's father owned, and said lines like "Name?" and "What were you doing when it happened?" and "What do you mean 'not normal'?" while wearing a red hood, and looking at Rizman the magician who did magic tricks and grew wings with white bright lights when I saw him at the Esplanade 2 weeks ago. It was late and I had to start going home, when Joe called me. He asked me what have I been doing lately, and I could have said "I have been trying to be a good son so that my mother and father will love me more." I could have said "I was talking to Melvin and he reminded me who I was when I was 16 years old." I could have said "When hydrogen atoms collide on a cool summer day, they form a covalent bond so strong that it will last forever and ever and ever and ever." Instead I said, "I woke up and I rolled out of bed onto the north-east line." I looked north and I looked south, I decided to walk north. And when I walked north, I saw Natalie and Sharon, and I cried. I cried because I felt sad. I felt sad because when I saw them, it brought up the memory of the old man in Marine Parade library before the books became cheap canned goods from China, who used to sit on the small tables, and cut out paper animals for all the children. I was sad because I didn't know where he went or whether he was still alive or whether my sister still loved me after she married and moved to live in a fjord in Norway. And I wished I was back in my home, safe and warm in my bed with my books, and terracotta soldiers and Thai DVDs which Jeff gave me about boyfriends running away and turning into tigers, before I woke up and rolled onto the north-east line. Post a comment in response: |
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