In Continuum.

Our Sand Castle


The doors to the elevators opened, my mother and I emerged from the inside, with myself armed with a blue plastic bucket and a plastic shovel. There were other tools as well, by they were negligible because those two were all I need to build my empire, those tools were all I need to construct my castle in the sands. The long dark corridor that led to the playground was dark, and at the very end the square of light welcomed me into the warm afternoon sun. I started with the first hole, slowly proceeding downwards and then sidewards. There was a little island in the middle of the circle of deep gorge, and I remember waving my mother over to see the orange and red sand that I dug up from the ground. "Can I find diamonds if I keep on going?" I asked my mother with those innocent words. "If you are determined enough." she replied.

*

It came in a big yellow package, stuffed into the mailbox by the postman, roughly and unkindly. The edges of the envelope were crumpled, and I wondered if the contents of it was destroyed at all. It was one of those secret and random trips down to the mailboxes again, something I don't usually do on normal occasions. I think my mother already observed the abnormality, since the action of me volunteering to get the mails from the mailbox downstairs is something of a rarity. But until this day she never asked why I did those, quietly understanding why I did whatever that I did, trusting her conclusions to her own imaginations.

I brought the envelope back up, hiding it in the front of my t-shirt. I gave my mother the rest of the mail, saw as she looked through the pile and then tearing open some of the more important letters while throwing away the trash ones. The yellow envelope was in my t-shirt, and I held it tight against my back, afraid that she would ask about it, and I wouldn't be able to answer for it at all. But she never asked, even as I turned and got out of the room with the envelope now in my hands. I'm not sure if she saw it, but I was just thankful that she didn't ask me about it, even after the click of the bedroom door was heard down the corridor, and myself behind the desk opening up the envelope.

Inside the envelope was the book that she finally sent over, after so many days of delay. The diary that we have been sharing over the months was laid out before me, the brown pages of the book had both our handwritings written all over. I don't remember when we started writing, but it was probably sometime in July of 2000. She proposed that idea to me over the phone or something, about exchanging diaries by mail every two or three weeks. I never had a blog back then, and it was my first attempt at diary writing. And since it was a joint venture of sorts with a girl that i kinda liked as a person, I agreed on doing so with her. So she bought the book one day and started writing first, documenting her days at school and her shopping trips with her mother, the usual diary entry stuff.

There is something she wrote that I clearly remember after all these years. We continued doing so for a year, and afterwards we never went on for some reason. She kept both the books that we had, and in the end I lost all the little memories that I diligently poured into the pages of the books. But I remember this one time when she wrote about playgrounds.

*

The sand under our feet still felt moist and wet, as we climbed the steps onto the first platform. The early rain made the place rather wet, but we cared not for that but the privacy that we needed somehow, especially after the trip from Orchard. The bridge creaked under my weight, and I stopped in the middle of it, looking back as she made careful steps down the planks as well. We found a spot just before the slide, the platform still mildly wet from the morning's rain. "Is it wet?" she asked, as she felt with her palm around, trying to find a dry spot. "That's what jeans are for," I told her. "When you wear these, you shouldn't care about the ground's conditions."

The man over the microphone kept speaking loudly, his voice traveling down the streets and the neighbourhood. The contents of his speech ignored by the occasional passerby at the playground, all eager to go home or to somewhere else. His voice was taken over by a woman's dreadful singing, and even that faint to dim the beauty of the night at the playground, as we sat cuddled up in the corner of it, with the soft chilly wind of the night coming in from the direction of the road, and the both of us forgotten by the rest of the world despite the buildings rising up from all sides. There was a warmth from her direction that I couldn't explain, the urge to hold her closer. Urge, or was it this fear of her leaving me? Was it fear, really? The accompanying emotions of a perfect moment, the fear of the fleeting instant. That was probably it, as I stared upon her sparkling eyes in the night, two dark pools of water staring back at me, with the mouth below them slowly curling into a smile. It was a perfect moment, I told myself and then her. It was just so perfect.

*

The water kept seeping through the sand no matter how much I poured into the gorge. I made an island in the middle of it, with my beautiful castle built upon the middle. With only a shovel and a bucket, I told my mother. I was proud of myself. She sat quietly on the orange bench in the corner as I rolled around in the pit, getting sand even if my pants and mouth, but I didn't care. I loved the castle that I built for myself so much, that it wasn't enough. I needed protection from the enemy forces, a sort of water that surrounds the castle. Isn't that what they do in real life, back in the ancient times?

No matter how many buckets of water I fetched from the toilet beyond, the gorges just refused to be filled up. My mother came over in her slippers, and devised a plan with me. She gave me a couple of coins from her purse and asked me to buy a couple of stuff from the mini-mart down the corridor. Of course, I refused because I was afraid of the white-haired auntie that resided inside. She always had a gloomy face hung up upon her forehead, and always unfriendly to children, probably because some idiot decided to shoplift from her shop. But anyway, she told me that it was the price I needed to pay to get a fully working gorge, though I didn't know exactly what she was talking about. She mentioned also, to ask for a plastic bag or two extra from the auntie, and though I was terribly anxious that afternoon, I took a tight grip of the coins and then bucked myself up, braced myself against the menacing old lady that dwelt amidst the cans and the drinks of the mini-mart, the creature behind the counter.

*

She loves sandy playgrounds she said, and not the ones that are rapidly taking over the playgrounds of Singapore. She spoke about this one playground near her house, and the swings that they actually have. But they were replacing that playground which she grew up in, transforming it into a modern safe-for-kids type of playground with rubber flooring and everything. She despised that idea, and expressed her frustration over the pages of the book that we shared. I told her about the one remaining playground near my place that still has sand instead of those rubbery flooring, but she told me that it is different. "It just is." she said, and I asked no more.

*

I came back with the appointed items my mother asked me to buy. Soft drinks, canned food, stuff like that. I actually had a hard time lugging them back to where my mother sat blissfully in the afternoon sun, reading her book with her legs crossed. But I did it anyway, and placed the bags on the bench next to her. She removed the contents of the bags, and then with bags she came over to the castle that I was building. First, she laid at the bottom of the gorges the plastic bags that I painstakingly carried all the way back, making sure there were no gaps or fissures in between them, and then asked me to fetch a bucket of water from the toilet again.

I did that again and again, countless times I don't even remember now. I felt like a machine, just rushing back and forth fetching water. But finally, as I kept on pouring water around the castle that I built for myself, the water was kept in the gorges that I dug, and I cheered and waved the shovel in the air. "The castle is done! The castle is done!"

And then of course, the triumph over the glory of the castle was short-lived. The rain came down upon my mother and I, and the both of us took shelter under the roof of the club house. Before me, the towers of my castle came crumbling down, the gorges overflowed and washed away the bridge that I carefully constructed. The towers fell, the walls broke away, succumbed to the merciless rain that fell from high above. I watched, with the shovel and bucket still in my hands, as my handy work was being wasted away, one grain at a time, back to square one.

*

She was and still is a unique girl in my life, loving butterflies, apple trees and sandy playgrounds. She allowed me into the strange complicated mind of a girl, probably one of the first few people to have done that, and I remember being fascinated about it afterwards. The sandy playground that still exists beside my house reminds me of her all the time, not because we've been there together before or whatever, but because of what she made aware of in my mind, the gradual disappearance of sandy playgrounds, the ones that truly mean something to the hearts of every kid. Because truly, no kids want to play at the playground anymore, with the existence of computer and television. But when they had sand all around, it was just so much better, so much more fun. Despite the mess you cause yourself to be in, at least at the end of the day you return home smiling like an idiot.

*

The horrid singing of the lady died into the wind. Our ears were finally spared from the deadly notes that rang still in our eardrums. Our faces were close to each other, speaking of the days that we first met and the times that led up to it. It has been less than twenty-four hours since then, but I recall very little of our conversation now. But that is what I always tell her, and to everybody who fear the fleeting effect that time brings. People fear the power of time too much, the way it washes away memories and the little details that we desperately try to hold. Like the rain that destroyed my castle, no good things ever last long enough.

But it is the memory of the feelings that is more important, isn't it? Forget about remember the details, forget about remembering where you were, what you said. I say, remember the emotions, remember the feelings, because all those are much easier and better to recall five, ten years down the road. I don't recall the conversations that we've had over our magical three months, but at least I remember every single feeling that I had, every single time I am with you. And yesterday night at the playground, with no threatening rain clouds at hand to wash away what we had between us both.

I was sitting up against the back of the platform, and you were lying down next to me. Your back rested against my stomach, your head against my risen thighs, and the rest of your curled up into a small ball. Your chest heaved slightly upwards and down, your breathing was slow and peaceful. Your face buried into my chest, the pressure of it was comforting, as you adjusted yourself in my arms, falling slowly aside. I could feel your breath against my shirt, your hair blowing in the wind. "It is so comfortable," you whispered, and I kissed you in the cheek. I couldn't help it, but the moment was just there, perfection.

How do you perfect on perfection? How do you improve on what is already at it's grandest? There, right there. The moment that i shall never forget, the moment when you successfully made me fall in love with you, all over again. Remember me that way my love, remember me that way. Because in this playground, there is only you and me, us and nothing else. Our castle will not be washed away by the rain, nor will it have rubbery floorings. Just us, only us, and the castle that we built in between. I love you, even if you can't blog about the same thing, i really do.