In the lift

The lift door opens.

There were about six of us waiting, and the Indian man in front of the door goes in first. He hesitates, and then walks into the lift.

I'm next, and I immediately find out why he hesitated in entering the lift: there was a puddle of curry in the middle of the lift floor.

I carefully step around it, making sure that my flip-flops does not get stained with the curry.

Next to enter is a family, and they do the same thing, carefully stepping around the curry puddle.

I shuffle to the back of the lift. And because of the puddle, I can't reach the buttons panel.

"Er..." Woman from the family attempts to ask me which floor I live at, but couldn't get the words out.

"Eleven"

"Eleven" She tells the Indian man who is standing closest to the buttons panel.

He presses the button "11" and waits.

The lift door doesn't close. So the woman tells the man to press the "close" button. And he does. Lift door closes.

Up the lift goes, and all of us just stare at the puddle of curry until we reach our floors.

Just a puddle of curry.

I wonder who will clean it up.

If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet

"He had a big damn mirror in front of the piano, with this big spotlight on him, so that everybody could watch his face while he played. You couldn't see his fingerswhile he played—just his big old face. Big deal. I'm not too sure what the name of the song was that he was playing when I came in, but whatever it was, he was really stinking it up. He was putting all these dumb, show-offy ripples in the high notes, and a lot of other very tricky stuff that gives me a pain in the ass. You should've heard the crowd, though, when he was finished. You would've puked. They went mad. They were exactly the same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn't funny. I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes thought I was terrific, I'd hate it. I wouldn't even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I'd play it in the goddam closet."

- J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

Night. Taxi driver. Jokes.

The night is a quiet one. No storm. No lightning. Just the cab driver and I ploughing down the lonely road home at 2am.

The radio plays softly over the stereo but a silent gap still exists between the driver and me. It's the gap that is always there when you take a cab. Two strangers forced to sit together for a good half hour. Usually we just stare at the road.

He was the one who attempted to break this gap first.

"Do you want to hear a joke?"

Sure thing. I didn't mind a joke on the half hour trip home. Besides, it's probably too rude to turn down his very kind offer.

"Which emperor of china is blind?"

The first thing that came to my mind: I've heard this one before. Second thing: should I just give the correct answer? I spent some time thinking this through, while the driver thinks that I am going through a list of Chinese emperors to find who lost his sense of sight.

My reply: "I don't know. Who is it?" I smiled.

"Kang xi hung di. Because he can't see ma."

Both of us laughed.

"Have you heard the one about the falling fruits on the head?"

I shook my head and he shared jokes with me all the way home.

my last night here with you, same old songs, just once more

I am typing this from my home in BLK 686B Choa Chu Kang Crescent #08-232 for the last time. IN another one and a half hours time, that is about 2130HRS, 9th November 2010, I will leave this place. Involuntarily.

Even until now, I find it difficult to accept the fact that we have to move. However, it's not just the moving that I find it hard to swallow. Actually, it is not even about the moving. It is about the fact that no one bothered about what I felt, or what my sister felt. It is about the eagerness to sell the place and not find a new home in time, causing us to have to shift temporarily to an old and lousy (which I haven't seen for myself yet, but my mum admitted to me that it was old and lousy, so) apartment in the remote corner of Taman Jurong, which you could probably guess that it is in Jurong (because, duh) but which you probably have no idea which part of Jurong it is in because it is so god damn remote and ulu and... and... stupid.

And even if it is not the wisdom that my parents have in selling and not buying in time (as Brother Lachman so aptly put it, "wisdom"), it is about the fact that no one cares to make it any better. No one bothers to talk to me about it (because it ends up in quarrels anyway), and no one bothers to pack, and no one bothers to ensure that everything goes smoothly. And now, because of all this, we have to give up our turtles for adoption. Like, WHAT THE FUCK. I am still not convinced that the place can't even hold 2 fish tanks. And that's the only bloody reason they are giving me. "Oh, the place is too small, we can't put the fish tanks." The stupidity, oh the damned pathetic stupidity (or perhaps I should say wisdom).

Okay, EVEN if it is not that. Ultimately, it's the promise. From the moment they mentioned the house selling to me, the images have been playing in my head.

We are walking home from dinner. That was in 2002 I suppose, when we first moved to this place. And I ask, "So how long will we be staying here?"

"Until all of you get married, and move out on your own, of course."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

And we go home together, smiling, as a family, knowing that this is going to be our home.

Because of this promise, I treated this place as my permanent home. I keep stashes of memories, things that remind me of my past, thinking that I don't have to move. I make my room comfortable, and fit everything nicely according to how I like it.

Then this happens. As I pack everything in boxes, as I tear down the things I pasted on the walls, as I remove the different things from the different stashes that I placed them into, AS I THROW THE THINGS THAT SERVE ONLY NOSTALGIA BECAUSE I COULDN'T BRING EVERYTHING OVER, every single item I hold and put into the box or throw reminds me of this promise. And in reminder of this promise, it reminds me, oh how it reminds me, of how the promise is broken. Shattered into a million pieces like sand that just flows out of one's hand. A promise treated as if it has never been spoken of before. A promise of which it's value goes down to naught.

But ultimately, I have to let go. Let it all go. Like the memories that I let go into the rubbish chute, I let it go and I lose a part of myself. Give up the fight and surrender, for it is a meaningless battle. I have fought up till this moment, and defeat is knocking on my door. Another hour! And I will be gone. This place, MY HOME for the past 8 years, no longer my home.

I pray, with all sincerity, that this will go away. This stubbornness, bitterness, this part of me. That I will soon get used to the new place (which I will not be moving into until a month later, anyway). That I will stay strong and happy. That I will be myself again.