In Continuum.

This Left Feels Right

Melvin Udall has obsessive compulsive disorder.In which to say,he has an obsession with order in his life,which is ironically the disorder.He locks and unlocks his door five times,he turns on and off his light swtich five times.He taps his toes on either side of his slippers or shoes one time before wearing them,and he is an extreme hygiene freak.He goes to the same restaurant almost every morning,goes to the same seats and worst of all,he brings his own plastic utensils.He throws away a bar of soap after using it for approximately five seconds,and he wears a glove everywhere so he wont get dirty.He never steps on cracks on the sidewalks,and though not covered in the movie,i am sure he doesnt like people to walk on his left hand side either,because like all people suffering from any class of obsessive compulsive disorder,they are going to tell you that it feels 'weird'.

I have fallen for a person with obsessive compulsive disorder,and it feels downright weird,too.

What have i gotten myself into this time?

*

Some time in June three years ago,the folding doors of the bus opened,and outstepped myself and SiangHong in the strange afternoon sun.Every step i took then felt particularly stupid,reminding me of the mistake i was about to commit.But it mustve been this alter ego inside of me then that denied all sorts of alarms and warnings.I was young,and most of all i was stupid.I think every sixteen year old has a tumor of some sort in their brains,because we can never think straight until our hair is shaved off our heads on the first day of NS.In truth,that is what happens no matter how well you do in your school,no matter how many As you obtained in the recent major examination,or the scholarships you've got.That's the way it is when you are sixteen years old.You are armed with your recklessness and stupidity,and probably a bunch of pimples to boast about too.

It was a sidewalk down to the certificate of stupidity.At the end of the dusty sidewalk were the gates to SRJC - Gates to the realization of my dumbness.But like i said,i didnt realise it then.Not when SiangHong was next to me,and was tagging along only because he lived close any didnt mind.Through the gates i walked,the rest of the school passing by and giving stares.Do i recognise these guys?They mustve thought.I dont blame their stares,because i had stupidity written all over my face and hadnt a mirror at hand to see it.Hell,i didnt even feel it as it pierced my skin and sank its claws into my flesh.I was numb,because of this strong sense of nostalgia and most of all,longing and desire.

What was my real purpose of returning to SRJC,three months after i left that school you say?That is a question i am still struggling to answer myself.Allow me to venture a guess.Aside from the fact that i wanted to check out my friends and my old teachers,i missed the Aquarium a lot.The Aquarium is like the study area for the SRJCians.But really,nobody used it for that purpose anyway.Everybody flocked to that room in between classes or breaks to enjoy the air-conditioning,or to socialise.I remember those days during the first three months,when my class would hangout in the room even during classes,everybody skipping classes together.Those were good times.Those were great times,and i guess i missed it so much i had to get away from my own prison-of-choice and taste that freedom once more.

Okay,scrape that.Those were merely disguised excuses to return to the school.All i really wanted to do then really was to see RuiShan.There,i have said it.A sixteen year old visiting the old school because of one person.And it is not like we arranged to meet or anything.I was counting on my lucks,and they were running low then because it was the end of the school day and the school was rather empty.What a stupid reason to visit the school,and i didnt even tell SiangHong about it.Just what the hell was i thinking?I think a lot of people are asking themselves the exact same questions right now,about themselves four years ago.

In her tailored SRJC uniform,she waved at me from the other side of the canteen.I was in my home clothes,and she was nice enough to look pass the stupidity,and sit down in the canteen to talk for a while with me.The bench felt hard and cool,almost too hard then and uncomfortable.Now that i think about it,it probably was because there was a layer of stupidity between the bench and my ass,and i mistook it for the weather.I bought myself and her a cup of drink,and the auntie recognised me at the counter right away.

The afternoon was hot and humid,and inside the canteen under the fan,it didnt make much of a difference.Droplets condensed on the cool plastic cups before us,and we talked about the most mundane things.I guess i have to blame it on the self-defence machinism in my head,because i mustve selectively deleting that part of the memory.Even now as i am documenting it,they are not coming in in very clear waves of images and words,but fuzzy and distorted pictures.I think i didnt want to remember the conversation i had with her then,because now that i think of it,it mustve been very embarrassing.Like any other conversations we ever had,it probably was no different.Awkwardness ruled the space between our mouths,and it was a thousand miles away from each other then as the words struggled to reach the other side.Yeah - me - running out of words.Isnt that a shocker?

The truth is - which i didnt see - i was uncomfortable with her.I didnt and couldnt see it because i was shrouded in a thick coat of infatuation.I remember telling you guys i believe,that i didnt really like her for her.I came up with reasons to convince myself that i like her a lot,and i succeeded in doing that.I never considered the comfort to be a deciding factor,because i was naive enough to assume that love is an all-giving,selfless thing.So comfort didnt matter then,not even when we were sitting across the table from one another,feeling a thousand miles away from each other,and not what it should be: Sitting across the table from one another with everything else a thousand miles away in every direction.There is a difference,think about it.

Right in front of me,twelve O'clock.She was there with her hair tied back and neatly rested on her back.And i couldnt see it,i couldnt see her either.So there i was,as i was walking home from the school that day,asking myself the same question over and over again.

What have I gotten myself into this time?

*

October a year ago,somewhere in the Western side of Singapore.It was a stormy night i remember,or at least it was turning out to be that way.The leaves of the tree above shook to the wind,the salty smell in the air lingered in our nostrils.I remember my pants hanging on my waist,almost falling off as i sat uncomfortably in the playground.Sure,that moment was a perfect moment with her.The time was right,the temperature was right,the lighting was right,but there was something amiss then.What was it?Now that i think of it.What?

It was after a meal of Roti Prata at the coffee shop near her place.I remember the way the Indian vendor slapped the Prata around on the warming metal plate,and it was rather fascinating.Relatively,to the incident two years ago from then,i was a hundred miles closer to the person sitting right in front of me.But still,i was still hundreds of miles away.At least,i saw it coming soon enough.

It was like driving down a straight road in a desert,if you can imagine.In a red convertable,the wind is in your face and your top fluttered in the wind.In the distance an eagle circled the air,and little shrubs of thorny plants and cactus dotted the landscape.That's your life,that's your relationship spread out before your eyes and under those wheels.Right now,with the music playing over the radio,you are happy and contented with where you are.But you know that somewhere down the road where her destination is,she is going to get off and you are going to have to travel the rest of the desert alone,with your thoughts bouncing off the dashboard and into the wind.It is inevitable,and i knew it right then that our term was coming to an end.Not then,but soon enough.

It wasnt just my ass that was uncomfortable,but me on the whole.Not because of what was happening then,but the forseen silence between the both of us.I didnt see it as something that was real,that was impending.It was more like a thought,a very pessimistic one at that,and i dismissed it with the rest of the impossibilities.Of course,in the days to come i'd realise that those fears were actually real,that they were trying to tell me something.But i guess it is for the better,because we are both living our own lives,the way we like and want.She has her own partner and i have mine,and in our photographs we all seem contented and satisfied.I cant,and never was able to imagine myself with her in any pictures really.I mean,that wouldve been awkward,uncomfortable even for me,looking at the picture.

A thing that i have learned from those relationships,or rather the ones that never happened,is that love really is not selfless,all-giving at all.Let's admit it,you can deny for all you want right now,but it is true.I think when you strip down the agendas and all the intentions,what remains really is your own desires and your thoughts.I think we all want somebody to be around because we want them to be around.You please them to please yourself indirectly,just like a nurse would derive satisfaction from saving a patient,or a priest would do the same by helping a distressed visitor at a church.The truth is,there is nothing wrong with admitting to your satisfactions,that it probably never was such a great,spectacular thing in the first place.It is over-rated,and we should embrace that for a fact.

My point is that,it is impossible to look into you,when you are looking for a partner.It is not her looks,the way she moves,the way she talks and the way she decides to drop by your house to give you a great big hug when you are feeling down in the middle of the night.You got to feel comfortable when you are around her,doing things with her or just talking aimless topics.You cant say that you like a person when you are feeling strange or awkward,when she comes around in the middle of the night to comfort you.It doesnt work that way,and i think we should acknowledge that for a fact.

*

Leaving the crowd behind,the endless chatters and the fading lights disappearing into the distance.Behind us,the crowd gathered and dispersed somewhere else,memories of old times lingering in the air,behind our backs and the presence of those narrow people.We took a different path and waved goodbye to friends,took a right turn and towards the beach,where the salty wind mustve been coming from.

Save for the cars,the road was empty.The yellow streetlamps lined the sidewalks,to our right the grassy field stretched away into the school.I was on her right,and she was to my left,as always.She doesnt like people to be on her left,she said.It felt strange,and it felt weird.Almost unnatural.A certain way of holding hands,and a certain way of our fingers intersecting.Im not used to certain aspects of it,but i guess i can deal with it.Because like travelling on a dusty road in the middle of a desert,no matter how convinced you are at the crossroad,if the left feels comfortable,go for it despite the map.Really,because even the left can feel right sometimes.

And there under the dull glow of the streetlamps,she was standing in the spotlight,like the actresses on the stage hours before,her knees pulled inwards and was almost bashful,as i framed her with the index and thumbs of my hands and took a mental picture of her then.

On the overhead bridge,the white lights crowded down the street on our right,while the red lights on the other side of the road.Under our feet the cars and vans minded their own businesses,while nine metres above there was a soft breeze accompanied by a comfortable silence,not even noticed by the two person on top.Really,that's what i call contented and peace,when you are standing above all else around you and feeling comfortable despite the silence.There were not attempts to break the silence,or any efforts to change topics.Because there we were,minding our own businesses and the fact that we knew we were there for each other,no words couldve been spoken to justify the happiness that was in us,right then.

Rows of tents and then the beach in our sight.I loved the moonlight,i told her.It turns the darkness of night into blue and grey,like her face in the gloom then,soft and almost luminous.The sand was soft,a little moist probably from the rain.I buried my toes in the sand,and watched the lights in the distance coming from the ships and boats.I spoke my mind then,whatever that came to my head.Like an endless flow of words,like a tap with a spoilt knob,or something forgot to turn it off.I just kept talking,and she just sat so close to me and listened.I never thought that with me talking away,it could feel in any way,comfortable.But it was,right then at the beach in the middle of the night,with other anonymous couples tracing the edge of the crashing waves barefooted in the distance,i was there speaking my thoughts while she listened quietly.

Yeah,i thought.What have i gotten myself into?

The warmth next to me,the depression in my bedsheets.The way her hair sprawled on the pillowcase,and the way her scent lingered around my nostrils.The strands of hair i found on my bed,and then laughter resonating around the four walls.The dark complexion of your face under the blanket,as the sun filtered through the material and onto your face.Those quiet whispers of longing and desires,then the quiet conversations between each other without actually talking.Speaking of magical moments,those were the ones that mattered,those were the definitive ones that i deemed worthy of pricelessness.

Am i making any sense?Am i justifying my feelings now?Are these feelings pure and true?

Who cares,really.It doesnt matter.I am taking the wheel this time,and not the hands of some other targets of my infatuation.I am steering this time,and i am turning to my left for comfort and security.It doesnt matter what kind of mess i might be getting myself into this time,nor does it matter that i am potentially self-destructive,and extremely fragile and unstable.I need one reason,and one reason only to make that sort of drastic decision.

Because this left - you - feels right.