Amongst Other Things

Anything more than four people in a social setting, he will fade into the background. Or so he thought, until lunch today.

For nine months (or thereabouts), he lunched alone almost everyday. It wasn’t that he hadn’t anyone else in the office (of his previous employer) to lunch with. He had but one colleague. The thing is he didn’t like people who were spineless enough to diss their own work just for the sake of agreeing with subjective criticism of their superiors.

So day after day, week after week, he would set off for lunch at a time when people would be sipping their afternoon teas. It was usually at the quiet food centre near his office where he found some solace.
After chomping down his food, he would grab a copy of the afternoon tabloid from the convenience stall, walk to the fruit stall, grab a packet of cut watermelon and then settle down on a bench in a shopping centre (near his office).

It was the one hour of solace he treasured before dragging his feet back to the office to another half a day of incessant madness.

Throughout the lunch hour, the only person whom he exchanged thoughts with was himself. Steadily, he got so used to solace that it became a close companion.

Now, he had colleagues. New faces creeping into his life, and every character starts on a fresh page in his head. Lunch hour was the time of day now when he felt more social conscious and awkward than ever before.

Even with three lunch companions, he faded into the background, allowing the banter and conversations to fly over his head. When once he had time to contemplate on observations of every life around him, conversing with his thoughts were limited to finding out where the nearest convenience store was or how he would be making his way home after work.

So now, he had to revise the theory. It’s three in a social setting where he would feel comfortable enough to let down his guard…

Was June meant to be a month of silence?

***

A debut directorial effort and a script for a musical next Easter. They were enough to get his heart pumping again and his head, reminding him of the emotional high from hearing the words he typed being spoken / recited to an audience of hundreds.

However, that reminder failed to address the negative feelings of inadequacy that bubbled within him.

Gargantuan effort, a voice within whispered.

A miracle if you can pull them off, another voice sneered.

To ward them off, he had to keep the momentum going. Chugging along is best when the alternative is simply to let go.

***

A phone call unsettled him today. The lady on the other end of the line was irate. She almost spoke in legalese, claiming that he backed off from a deal. Despite his attempts at clarification, she insisted that he was the one backing off. Apologising twice during that short five-minute conversation failed to placate her either.

At the end of it, he knew he was in the wrong. However, he wondered if the lady really had the right to use legalese to prove her point.

***

He had the mother of all scares last Friday. A trip to the toilet and back was the culprit. The bottle containing liquid expelled from his body was found to contain high levels of sugar. The doctor responsible for certifying him fit for employment “tsked” loudly the moment he entered her room.

“What did you have for lunch earlier?” she asked as his bottom settled uneasily on the patient chair.

He muttered out his reply. The packet of sugar cane juice was a ready scapegoat.

“We found high sugar levels in your urine,” the doctor explained while flicking the tiny sealed plastic bag which held a strip. Never in his life did the colour green scare him so much.

“Aiyah,” the doctor continued. “You are overweight la. If you take off 10 kilograms off your weight, you’ll be alright.”

As he headed for the door – contemplating a glucose-free life of injections and pills, the doctor exclaimed that he would have to come back for another urine test tomorrow.

Needless to say, he spent the rest of that Friday with images of needles flashing in his head.

The next day, he found himself walking gingerly and sheepishly into the clinic, when the day before, he was striding in like a “gangsta”. He was embarrassed as he took the bottle from the clinic receptionist – the same gal who passed him a similar bottle yesterday.

As he settled down on the sofa in the clinic after a harrowing trip to the toilet – muttering under his breath “not green please, not green please” repeatedly, he wrung his hands nervously while casting worried glances at the counter where the gals dip the strips into the liquid.

His agony didn’t last too long.

“D W, you can go home!”

The sweetest words he heard all weekend. But he still had to blurt out a “huh”.

“Your urine is okay. You can go now,” came the reassuring reply.

Nevertheless, he thought, it’s Oolong tea from now on.

And maybe really get down to exercising.

***

In other news, it’s the first day back at corporate slavery for him tomorrow. He really should have had hit the sack… like two hours ago.

He was tucking into his brunch of rice when suddenly a thought struck him. It was one of those strange yet familiar, so close yet so far ones that would plague his mind for the rest of the day.

It was the fuzzy scene of him tucking into a home-cooked meal at someone else’s home. And that someone else was a gal whom he corresponded with over mIRC. She had been in Perth for the past six years of her life, having exchanged Singapore’s stifling and competitive education system for a more laid-back but fulfilling time at high school and then college.

They met only because he was in the first semester of a two-year stint to get a degree from a university in Perth. All hopes of romance were dashed because they were from different denominations.

She lived alone. In fact, she had been on her own since the day her parents sent her to a boarding school in one of those girls-only colleges. He admired her for the fact that she had pulled through it all.

As they ate, they talked about the people they knew from the particular mIRC channel they visited regularly. Then the conversations took on a more serious tone as she shared about the struggles she faced when she first arrived at the college, fresh-faced and about to plunge into the culture shock of her life.

He remembered how insensitive the twenty-odd-year-old version of him was when he commented about how good it was to have all the freedom of living on her own. The image of the response on her face was something that was still fresh in his mind – her hand close to her mouth, slightly gaping, and her eyes, which expressed her surprise.

Her mIRC nick was “Hushpup” and he would visit her again for a meal, once more at most, before they would lose contact of each other.

‘Twas a night of soft lights, stories and songs.

Cosy setting. Romantic even.

Yet, there was a crowd. Unfamiliar faces.

He gazed at them, picking out one face from another. The roomful of strangers unsettled him.

Every word he said tonight, none of them came close in articulating the thoughts he had and the emotions that swirled in his heart. He felt detached from himself. It wasn’t pleasant, but the show must go on.

Despite all of that, his mind wasn’t the least silent. In fact, it tossed out one thought after another in quick succession.

“Did you see that guy at the corner with his gal?” his mind barked.

A comparison was drawn.

“How about the bouquet of roses? It’s more than 16 years of love!”

Something tugged at him.

“Look at their smiles. When was the last time you really smiled like that?”

They went on and off in his head. As the night progressed, he felt out of place. He became more self-conscious. He could relate to the guy at the mic who was talking about the ridicule inflicted upon him for being fat when he was a child.

In one unexpected moment, he caught a reflection of himself on the glass pane. Thankfully, the reflection was only from his neck down; he was spared that ghastly looking face staring back at him. Yet, he knew there was something so very wrong and instinctively, he moved away to avoid being seen … by himself.

Somewhere, a still, small and clear voice came on – a piece of unsolicited ridicule followed by a snigger.

There was nothing he could drown it out with.

He stared at the screen. His eyes traced the outline of her face in the photo. He gazed at her smile and observed the slightest hint of a dimple on the side of her cheek. That photo was meant to portray the bliss in a relationship between lovers, yet he knew that smile of hers was a just front to hide the many thoughts she held in her heart.

He closed his eyes for a few moments. His mind reminded him of her words, which resonated despite the fact that they were spoken weeks ago. They cut. They hurt. Collectively, they formed a threat.

It was not for the first time he wondered if she really meant it that way.

Perhaps it was a gentle prod, he reasoned.

Perhaps it was all in jest.

Perhaps it was borne out of something.

He couldn’t find any other plausible explanation behind her threat other than the fact that she meant it.

There was once he harboured thoughts and feelings for her. The hopes were long gone now, buried in the sands of time; the feelings, drowned in the sea of impossibilities.

At the end of it, it was all bittersweet. He was glad for the realisation that it was never meant to be because they could never be the lovey-dovey couple he envisaged a long time ago.

Opening his eyes, he looked at the photo of them, of her, again. Despite the pain of having something wrestled out of his heart, he was thankful for having let this one go.