In Continuum.

Fleas

We were lost,lost inside the great beast of red,purple and white.The song by Death Cab for Cutie flashed past my mind,the song 'Stability'.The bus was like a great big animal of some kind,ploughing through the streets of Singapore,with the neatly lined streetlamps going past one after another,one after another,minding its own business,seeking it's own desinations.We were like fleas,getting on and off as we pleased,and at the back of this great big animal,two little fleas curled up with their legs to the seat in front,smelling each other and then getting lost,not just within the great big beast but,at least for the male flea,within the other.

'I have a compliment for you,' the male flea whispered.

The female flea was softly asleep on the shoulder of the male flea,and groaned under her breath.The male flea smiled,and left everything to later.We have time,he thought.We have all the time...

While carrying a 20kg weapon up onto a vehicle a couple of weeks ago,one of them fell on my left pinky,leaving an ugly black bruise underneath the nail.It's not incredibly huge or anything,but it's there.It's not painful anymore.in contrast to the throbbing pain that surged through my finger into the rest of the arm,the only pain it is incurring now is probably on my eyes.Because seriously,instead of calling it the sore thumb,a sore pinky seems to be a better term here.It is sticking out from the rest of the finger population,and i remember making fun of John once about his bruise under the nail,that it was his brain growing out of the finger,and if he cut if off with a clipper he was going to shut off and go brain dead.Hopefully,with my fingers crossed,this is not going to happen for real.

But anyway,speaking of sore thumbs - or sore pinky - i was thinking about just 'sore' i am in my life.Not so much now,but i remember telling my friends about my tragic stories in Secondary School.I refered to myself as the "Human Sandbag",and it almost sounded as if i was some kind of a dysfunctional superhero.It's funny how i am looking back and smiling at those memories,of being bullied in class because i was small and weak.But i guess it comes with the package,of being in an all-boys school,and i am the kind of person,after surviving some sort of catastrophe,will look back and smile,and be proud,of the footprints left behind by my own pair of feet.

School,they might as well have spelled it 'Hell' back when i was in Secondary One.Before my arrival in Maris Stella,which was my fifth choice of school,i've always wanted to be a Victorian,and it is not like i had a clear sense of why i wanted to do so.I think it was because my mother thought it was a good school,and my sister was obviously swayed by the words of her schoolmates from Cedar.Anyway,i've always wanted to be a Victorian(I'm glad that i didnt),and when i recieved the posting that i was going to Maris Stella,i was devastated.That was especially so after my sister gave me an account of the so-called 'gangsters' in that school.'This guy from my tuition class,he is also from Maris,and he has blue hair!' she claimed.I have no idea why dyed hair was synonymous with being a gangster,but i guess back then it just wasnt such an In thing to do so.I panicked,and because nobody else from my Primary School went there,i felt particularly strange and out of place.

Yeah,like i said.Like a sore pinky.

A guy walks pass you in class,especially your table,off goes your pencil box and it will be lost in between the hands of other fellow classmates.It'd usually take,on average,half an hour to get your pencil box back,and normally you'd find the contents of it badly damanged.Broken lead,spoilt pens,you name it.I think a leaked ball-point occured to me once,and my Area 51 pencil box was badly stained with blue ink afterwards.But anyway,that was the life i led in Secondary School.Or rather,Secondary One.

I was a small kid,probably somewhere in between 155 and 160.I dont remember where my growth spurt occured,but i dont remember being very pleased with my height back then.That is of course,furthered enchanced by the fact that a lot of girls from my previous class was taller than me,and that greatly surpressed my confidence.But anyway,i was a short kid,and i was weak.The fatter,fitter bunch of the class were the elites.They were the bunch of people who banded together to form little gangs.Not so much of the type you would expect to hang out after school to fight some other gang,or share a pack of cigarettes secretly in the toilet.They were the kind who protected each other from other such gangs,and made fun of other smaller,weaker kids in class to show that they were a force to be reckoned with.Yeah,i know.But you must understant that they were merely thirteen year old boys,still smelling like baby powder and the last time they pissed on their beds was probably a week or so ago before they entered the school for real.

That kind of life did not last long for me in Secondary School,because there was a survival guide in an all-boys school,which every boy acquires subconsciously.And that is,if you dont want to be the target of being jeered at,being laughed at,join the gang.It was like Bush's statement to the world after 9/11,that if you are not with us,then you are against us,sort of thing.I didnt not actually JOIN in the 'fun',by making fun of other weaker boys,but i merely stood by and watched as the weaker ones were abused,and even emotionall destroyed sometimes.Like Fatty from Lord of the Flies,crushed under a great big rock,and thrown out to sea by it's force,smashing his brain and breaking his spectacles...

JC life did not help in that either.Sure,the environment changed from an all-boys school to a mixed one.Females!What extraordinary creatures!I tell you,though most boys from boys school didnt show it,but i can bet a good sum of money that deep insider,turmoil and chaos when sitting next to a girl in class,like a colleague at work,for five days a week for a full two years!It was better than getting a PS2 for your birthday and striking lottery,and i could tell from the eyes of those hungry guys from school,the ones i knew back in Secondary School,happily lingering amongst the company of females in school,with an imaginary hand in their pants and their imaginations drifting off into the high reaches of the clouds.

Anyway,being in the Arts stream didnt help with me sticking out like a sore pinky.For somebody not familiar with Singapore's rather fucked up education system,they are going to assume that by the term 'Arts',they are going to see students carrying canvases around,with different colour paint stains on their arms,or perhaps a violin or guitar on their bags,the sound of music coming from the classrooms the students occupied.

Of course,that'd be the image of a perfect world.However,i am sorry to tell you that that is not the case in Arts.We study Geography,we study History.We study Economics,and the closest thing to ART is probably Literature.Because really,in Arts,you get an overflowing supply of two things: Girls and Bullshit.

I was surrounded by girls,and at first thought to most men it sounds like a great idea?But it isnt.A friend of mine once counted the ration of being 1 to 3,with 5 guys and 15 girls in my class.Of course,that thought later became somewhat dirty and perversed,but that is not the point of this entry,now is it?

Being one of the few guys in class,you WILL feel ostracized,no matter how hard you try.There was a fat guy in my class,whom the female population never really liked because of his body odour problem back then,and then there were two Punjabi boys who hung around each other 24/7,and even to the toilets.ZhuangYi was accepted into the female population because he was nice to bully,and was even labelled as part of the 'JieMei',which i found to be degrading,being a red-blooded male yourself,being pushed around by girls even younger than you was something embarrassing and to me,shameful.

Anyway,it's not like i recieved the same treatment as i did back in Secondary School.They dont take and throw your pencil box around anymore.They give you stares at times,and even though you were not necessarily OUT of the game,sitting on the side bench as benchwarmers didnt necessarily qualify you as part of the team,either.So there i was,sometimes mixing around and sometimes all by myself in the classroom of the next class,with my face buried in my folded arms and listening to John Mayer on my discman.I remember the girls would come in in groups,chattering at the top of ther voices,but none of those ever got through my ears and into my head as anything interesting,or constructive per se.They were mere noises,and i felt as if i was drowning in waves of sounds,inaudible and unbearable.

Signs of being out of place,being the sore pinky.Like the stain under the finger nail,and the girls were like the 20kg,slamming down on my poor finger.Sticking out my hands,i see ten fingers now with a different one at the very extreme end on the left.I was it,the bruised pinky,the odd one out.I was like the pinky that happened to be under the weapon,the outstanding one in the crowd and yet,not quite the image you are conjuring in your head right now.Yes,i was that outstanding student in school,but without the spotlight,without the beams of pride,without the attention and of course,without the friends.

*

People came and went,the folding doors of the bus opening and closing at every stop.The orange light from the airport terminal streamed in through the big glasses along the sides of the bus.People we saw,disappeared.Replaced by other people minding their own businesses.Were they going home?Other destinations?Where else,at that time of the day?

The two fleas,sitting at the back,felt strangely out of place.Even in the corner of the bus,with the shadows in our favour and the attention of the rest of the passengers either directed to the front or the scenary outside,we felt as if we were out of place - like my pinky - while others were going somewhere,we were desperately wishing the bus trip to never end.At least that was what i thought,as the bus made a loop around the airport and going back to where we came from.

The bus ride - the story of my life - being forever out of place and uncomfortable with people all around.They all had this aura,even when their eyes are staring straight ahead,looking at everything else but you.You just felt strangely out of place,you just want to tear yourself away from everybody else,away from their judgemental stares,or ignorance.You want to pack up,you want to run away,and you wish deep inside and secretly,that he or she would get off at the next stop,because when that happens,the world - the space inside the bus - will belong to us,the two sleepy fleas.

'I have a compliment for you,' the male flea whispered.

'What is it?'

The male flea readjusted his head on hers,hands grasped tightly around hers.He felt the weight of her body against his,the top of her head against the depression of his neck.He looked around,the careless crowd that gathered in the bus - the people that comes and goes in my life - and whispered softly into the ear centimetres away from his lips.

'You make me feel comfortable...'