In Continuum.

Solitaire

I think it was my father who introduced this game to me for the first time.A card game you can play with yourself,that was such a brilliant idea.It was almost like being able to sail out to sea all alone on a giant cruise ship,but of course not nearly as luxurious.But an activity which usually requires a couple of participants,is now turned into a game which requires just one person.Not to mention it's such an addictive game altogether.But like i mentioned a couple of entries below,the game of Solitaire was probably invented by a loner,to make other lonely loners feel even more lonely.

I realised,though,that solitaire doesnt refer to the card game at all.Sure,it can apply to the game itself,shuffling through the deck in your hand three cards at a time,placing cards in alternative colour and in numerical order,until all the closed cards are opened before you.That's Solitaire,in the traditional sense but not really what it truly means.I think,to me,Solitaire is the activity of doing something alone,rather than the name of the game itself.Like,you see an old man playing a game of solitaire,just by walking in the park all alone in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.An old lady sitting in the void deck,staring into deep space while making castles in the sky,another player of the game of Solitaire.Sitting at home playing guitar all day long and making the tips of your fingers sore,another player of Solitaire.Solitaire is everywhere,and not just amongst the fifty-two deck poker cards.

A sociable loner,i used to call myself and still do,though less often these days.Army forces you socialise,and if you dont socialise you get stripped on birthdays.That's the dilemma,though.You get stripped if you dont socialise and you get stripped if you do it too well anyway.So like me,i stayed under the radar and away from the epi-centre of most stripping sessions,just so to steer clear of any possibility of me being involved the next time round.A game of solitaire during a gang rape session?Bring it on.

In school i was very much the same,staying away from the people i am supposed to socialise with.I hated Orientations because they throw a bunch of strangers together,and expect them to bond after retarded games.I used to look forward to those,but it mustve been the hormones jumping around in my body back then.After all,i was in a full boys' school for four years,and the fact that you get to interact with females was rather tempting.But of course,the image of great fun at Orientations was shattered utterly when i attended the one organised by NYJC.That aside,i hate ice-breaker games.They break ice sure,but it builds a wall around me.Seriously,the next time they force me to do such things i am going to bow out and leave immediately.I dont need stupid games to understand that i can bond very well.After all,the friends that i have right now,the closer ones anyway,we didnt play GAMES with each other to love each other.

My best friend in JC was a person named Kenneth.And the funny thing is,i have never seen Kenneth before,or heard his voice.He never talked to me,but sang to me all the time,alone with me in the guitar room.Some of you might already be pointing figures,saying that i am a gay-guy-turned-straight.I assure you that,i am so straight that i make Johnny Depp look gay.But anyway,that's not the point now is it?

When the air above my head gets heavy and when the people around me converges into a single blob of black cloud,blabbering indecipherable speech,a sudden urge of escape overwhelms me.Run away!Said myself to,myself.Run away!I remember leaving Ahmad to the library by himself,after getting the key to the guitar room.Down the stairs i went and around the fountain to the guitar room.

The lights would be off then,and there were no windows.So when the door closes and you are there all alone,all you hear is the high-pitched sound in your head,and the sound of your heart beating against your chest.It might be a little scary,and a long enough stay might develop claustrophobia.But not me,not right then.It was my great escape from the world,away from the gathering cloud of blabbering people and into the world of my own - my game of solitaire.

It said 'Kenneth' on the white sticker,stuck to the side of the Yamaha guitar.It mustve belonged to a guy named Kenneth,and he probably donated it to the school some time ago and left it in the room.It was a good guitar,not too shabby for an acoustic one too.I used to sit alone in the room and on guitar cases,just jamming with myself and singing into the darkness.Of course,the room is 100% sound proofed,so none of my horrendous singing ever escaped the walls of the guitar room.I played the guitar,and at the same time a game of Solitaire.

Seven neat rows of cards,and if the end of each row ends with the same colour,i'd complain to my mother that i was bound to lose that game.Winning Solitaire was everything in my family back then,and there was a little craze over the winning chart.We would compare who won the most times and who won the least,and even as a kid i was a player with much integrity.I never cheated to beat my parents or my sister,despite being at the bottom of the charts all the time(Im not sure if they shared the level of integrity as myself).It's not a game of skills but really a game of luck,and i remember being so frustrated with the game itself that i swept the cards off the table and stormed off into my room.The way my mother used to calm me down was to tell me that the nerve on my forehead and neck will burst if i continue to be as angry as i was,and will eventually kill me from blood loss.As a kid of course i believed,but it didnt take away the frustration accompanied with the consecutive losses of the game.

But i am the master of the game right now.Not just with the cards but also in life.Throw me somewhere,and give me a handful of sweaty money,i'm probably going to live for a long enough time.Even if i am not capable of it,im probably confident enough to find my way back home.Because that is me now,no longer bursting my veins because i lost the game of solitaire - a game of solitude.Losing it,in a way,would mean that you cannot tolerate yourself,that you cannot stand being with only yourself and you need to be in a herd of other fellow Solitaire sore-losers.As much as i appreciate games like Bridge and Poker,i do appreciate the self-indulging games of Solitaire once in a while.After all,if i cannot tolerate myself,how am i supposed to do the same with others?

I love to go shopping alone,i love to take long walks alone.I love to remain in my room alone,i love to read a book in bunk alone.I love to watch a movie alone,and i love to talk with myself,alone.There are things that only a game of Solitaire can teach you,and though at times you might feel a little lonely,a little unappreciated,but i guess if you view at it from a different mountain - a different perspective - then you are going to see the beauty in the game itself,opening all the cards and realising that with every opened card,you've opened up and understood yourself just that little bit more.