So I’m nearly hitting hundred.
Ran 6km with Derek (panting like a wet dog, of course) and loudly groaning as he declared ‘our legs won’t stop moving until 1 hour is up!’
An absolute chore having to get this sputtering engine of mine started again, but I’m hopeful.
I just sent off my blockmates to the patient, humming cabs of the night, awaiting their journey off to the frenzy that was the F. Club. I was told “F” stood for “Fashion”, but who knows.
The door to XY’s room was a curtain of heat and the thick stench of alcohol with yesterday’s sweat. Messy glasses of expensive liquor mixed with convenience-store fruit juice sat around the room’s various shelves, surfaces and floor tiles that weren’t already taken up by the 8 people crammed into the room.
I settled into the corner and let my senses soak up whatever was around; the girls, some of which showing only the whites of their eyes, were falling onto the shoulders of the bewildered but smirking males next to them; the guitar-players strumming off-tempo and belting out terrible lyrics; feet stumbling about, sharply kicking whiskey glasses along the floor…
The haze of being the only sober person in the room, as I repeatedly raised my palm to politely refuse the glasses pushed in my direction, seemed very similar to that of being the only drunk in the room. It wasn’t particularly testing or anything, just that I felt further estranged from this bundle of fellas which I was already nervous about. I wonder what Zach would’ve done.
As the cabs drove off into the night, only the stench of alcohol, and I, remained.
I looked at the tiny, bleeding nick on my finger from the pill’s blister pack, and hoped it was all worth it.
As I’ve done for the past 2 years, I headed down to the ArtScience Museum to watch the fireworks again.
Fireworks aren’t ever the same in photos or film; you can’t replicate the fantastic shockwaves from each blast nor the chorus of the human spirit, crowds thousands-strong, joyfully yelling in unison. You’ll miss out on having a smile filling from the showers of brilliant sparks, so close, it’d be like golden sand spilling between your fingers.
The claps and booms were seemingly unending, but when it finally did, the jostling crowds and long journey drifted my mind and body lost once more.
HEALTHY VICTIMHOOD TEACHER
Vodka with chili and coffee-grinds tastes horrible.
~
It’s a pretty late night. My thoughts start to wander as words, words and words on the screen send my attention away into an ugly future I envision, that of tomorrow.
Maybe I don’t want to sleep because once I wake up, the dastardly world of TOMORROW would arrive.
I imagine getting a certificate that has A’s and U’s and I don’t really know what to make of it.
I start thinking about the dreadful wait that our prinicipal is going to have us endure, as he announces the various successes our school has achieved the previous year. Everyone’s going to try to get him to shut up, but they know that this is an unavoidable tradition of this twisted ceremony.
About the painfully draggy queue our class is going to form as our teachers call our names and hand that sheet of paper to us, maybe giving us that look when they know what you’ve scored.
About how everyone’s gonna jump and hop and maybe cry with happiness and totter about, chirping “what did you get?“, while making that goddamn false sympathetic face when they realise that I fucked up. You might not know that face that well as I do. The sorry, sorry look they give as they react the way society demands for them to act in order to sympathise with a sad chump. (of course, the losers always blame the society, don’t they?)
And it’s the fading smile that always gets me, their joyance dashed by this necessity to feel for you, even though they’d much rather be celebrating and high-fiving you than feel sorry for you. They’ll mumble a few “it’ll be okay”s and turn around to seek the joyful kin of theirs whom. Which is alright, since you don’t want to spoil their happiness.
The hall’ll be filled with bright laughter, maybe even some tears from those who screwed up too. But the letters on the certificate are going to silence all of this noise for you.
And who could forget the call of shame, as you hesitate to hit that green phone icon to tell your parents the horrible news, and how they’ll be so disappointed at you for messing up. Again.
I’m not especially worried about this, by the way. It’s that “come hither” feeling, where you know that the incoming sheet of paper that you’ve worked for 2 years to get is inevitably going to disappoint you, and you’ve prepared yourself for 3 months to take this blow to the gut as well as you can. You know that your future doesn’t really depend on this certificate as much as society (again with the society) wants you to believe. But secretly, deep inside, you don’t want to feel like an idiot or a delinquent for getting sub-par results.
Here’s a thank you to anyone who’s gonna reassure me, comfort me or just talk to me tomorrow afternoon. I don’t know if I deserve it, but thank you for bothering to make me feel better.
Maybe my results won’t be so bad. Maybe a forced smile will pull me through all this.
I’ll be okay, I guess.
~
Edit:
Ah, as I posted this… post, the large looming date of “1 Mar” showed up on the side of this post.
3 days left.
QUICK RICHNESS INITIATOR
I’m not exactly what one would call a “driven” person. With the excitement of my introduction to the world of Indie music (which only began, curiously, in J1, one of the many, many “norms” of adolescence I was introduced to that year), I began hungering for the ability to play an instrument.
I successfully badgered my parents to purchase an electric guitar mid-2012, and never got around to playing it despite my promises to.
I shall learn to play simple songs every chance I get (not much it seems), and acquaint myself with barre chords, hammering on and off and plucking strings.
That’d be good.
—-
I don’t exactly know what I’m fearing. It’s just that the terrible shift and jolt in lifestyles is going to shock me, definitely, and an undisiplined person like me is going to suffer when the day arrives.
6 days left.
HARSH HUMANITY GENERATOR
It’s an all too familiar feeling – the Begending, the beginning of the end, where the days start to seem too short as time seems to not stop for those grasping at the days that are soon to pass.
I have 12 days of this so-called freedom left, before I have to depart for… it. The whatifs and ifonlys are starting to pile up in my thoughts, promising that the life ahead would’ve had been a better life IF ONLY I had put more effort into losing weight. Who gives a damn anyway, my head’s too large for the largest helmet. I don’t dread the army. I dread what would happen in the meanwhile.
Things are changing, definitely. Facebook is becoming increasingly barren, the messy status updates of friends (now acquaintances) thinning as the boys head to the barracks while the girls start earning.
Relentlessly-pinging and hair-tearing Whatsapp conversations are now desolate, leaving unanswered questions and frozen laughter in their wakes.
I’ve never actually been good at adapting to new things; camps used to reduce me to tears and longing for the comfort of the familiar. I used to look forward to the next year in life by looking at my brother and speaking under my breath: well, it doesn’t look so bad after all. And I often prove to be right.
Time seems to swing you into unfamiliar territory; roadside salesmen ask if you desire a new set top box, the days seem to slip by and the only company you can have are the late nights only fatigue can provide.
It seems like there’s too little time left, for the words unsaid, for the goals unmet, for the money unspent, for the friendships that I’m not ready to let go of, for the nice things in life that’ll I’d be damn well sure to cherish if only time could only stop for a bit.
All too quick, all too sudden.
The promise of maturity 12 days later has become little more than an order, a necessity to age and to face the next stage of life.
I’ve no other option but to face it like the man I not yet am. I guess.