“ILLUSORY”

I’m not sad.
I’m not tearing.

\

So I went with him to the place with all the others just so I could be close to him, bask in his presence, breathe the air that he breathed and maybe, just maybe, even earn a few words, or even a smile from him.

I stood apart from the group (never a part) and watched the walls as everyone’s eyes fell on everything but me. I became the definition of invisibility.

So I went away. I know better than to stay in a place where I don’t belong. (I’ve had so much of that already, too much) I wandered away and no one saw me or cared that I would leave.

Earlier on, I’d told him, I’d told him I didn’t want to go because I didn’t know anybody and so he had to talk to me and he didn’t promise to talk to me, just gave me a laugh, and then, and then I should have known.

It was as I’d expected, silence from all four corners but the thudding of the rain on the roofs. So I wandered away and explored by myself and it was alright, and it was dandy. And at some point, he called and perhaps, was a little disappointed that I couldn’t do what he expected of me (what did he expect of me?) and cajole as he might, I wouldn’t go back to being wallpaper, I’d rather be alone than a pariah.

And still I was alright. I peeped into windows and glass on doors and saw many magical things, things I would have liked to put my hands on, things I would have wanted to visit.

Till I came to this place, with a peace like sitting on the steps of the Cultural Hall in the old Bukit Timah chapel and staring at the sky above the fence had given me. (compare the views below)

And once more it was raining, and there was no one, and I was dandy.

So I sat and talked to Vv then tried to write, tried so hard to write but always, was coming up empty, scrawling strings that made no sense, that lacked coherence of feeling. And I wondered why, and I wondered if it was maybe because I didn’t love anybody, or maybe because I didn’t have him beside me.

/

At a certain point, I felt, it would be good now to leave. So I took a final video of my surroundings so as to commit the scene always in my memory then got up, sent him a message saying, ‘I am going to leave now, goodbye’, then walked half in the rain, half in shade, out the building, down its winding road to the bottom of the hill, walking, walking and humming to myself intermittently.

As I neared the foot of the hill, he called and wanted me to hail a taxi back and to let him know when I was home and he asked if I had an umbrella and said that it was raining but I chirpily told him it was only drizzling and that I was nearing the train station already. Then swiftly bid him goodbye again.

And when I reached the foot of the hill and realised that I was not at the place I had meant to be going, that I was lost – I somehow really, really, really felt like crying.

But I made my way around, found a familiar landmark and two and finally made it back home and sent him this,
‘I’m back home now. I’m sorry if I troubled or disappointed you.’

And this was his reply,
‘Good good. Nah, dun worry about it.’

And somehow, somehow, something in me cried indeed.

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