In Continuum.

Secret Igloo



Tiredness fuels
Empty thoughts
I find myself
Disposed
Brightness fills
Empty space
In search of
Inspiration

*

There is a place forgotten by a lot of people, a place that we found today in the South. The waters were calm, disturbed only by the ripples caused by the wind, and the soft whispers that we exchanged, as the sky slowly darkened, welcoming the coming of the night with a brilliant display of red and orange, streaked across the sky like a multi-coloured rainbow. I don't remember it being there, the last time i went there more than a year ago. It was the first or December in 2005 i remember, and the lot of us were there with the rest of the company. It was company cohesion day, and that area was off limits. Besides, there was no need to venture out that far anyway. So we stayed on the soccer field, and never knew the hidden paradise beyond the trees, the place where i call our "Secret Igloo".

*

In Primary School it was cool to have a secret hide out, or a secret place where people talks about. I've always dreamed of a tree house, a place where i can climb up and then feel safe from the rest of the world. I dreamed of that when i was a kid, but the lawn in front of my house never had a tree taller than myself back then. Despite the forest that stretched on up above the peak of the hill and then over to the other side, i never had a real tree to myself ever. Of course, moving to Singapore sure didn't help because who the hell has a tree higher than your knee when you are living in a condominium?

To tell you the truth, to have a little tree house to myself has always been a fantasy of mine. In fact, it doesn't even need to be a tree house, but a house within a house where i can take refuge in when i am upset, when i breakdown, or when i simply want to be alone with myself. I needed and wanted a place like that even in Singapore, and the closest i got to having that dream fulfilled was a foam-board built house that i did for myself in the balcony. You know those soft foam floorboards they put on the floors of kindergartens so that kids won't hurt themselves if they fall? I had a lot of those back then, and i actually pieced together two house at the balcony, one for myself and one for my sister. In between the two houses the 'phone' lazily hung on a string. Well, it wasn't really a real phone but a thread with two cups on each end, and we would speak through the cups as if we were neighbours. That was my secret hideout at home, when i felt nobody understood me, or if i felt ignored. I fled to my foam house and stayed there for hours on end, never to return to the harsh reality outside of the door.

The idea of a secret hideout was intriguing, and i remember looking for one even in school. After all, facing the dreaded faces of the teachers in school was one thing, and facing their raining saliva was another as they peered down at you with those menacing eyes and threatened to eat you up if you score anything lower than a 80 for any tests, that was something that i couldn't take at all. What made it worse was the fact that i couldn't run back home like i did when i was in a kindergarten in Taiwan. But anyway, i needed a hideout in school, away from the menacing teachers and the crazy principal.

*

Harder now
With higher speed
Washing in
On top of me

*

The bus came to a rumbling stop, and the both of us stepped out through the folding doors, with myself biting on my nails, unsure of the place we were at. Sure enough, the field was there with the steamboat restaurants on our left. But it has been quite a considerable number of days since i was last there, and i was there in the middle of the afternoon, not when the sun is setting behind the trees and the smell of the steamboat stores drifting across the street.

But nonetheless, we made our way across the road and stepped onto the grassy field. I never knew that the rain from yesterday left puddles of mud all around, and she actually had to take off her shoes and walk through those puddles barefooted. By the time we found a concrete footpath that led down towards the beach, her feet were already covered in mud, which had me apologizing all the way from the beginning to the end. But her smile hung ever so naturally on her face that night, with the soft glow of the lamps that lined the walkway reflecting off her skin and casting a shadow around her dimple. She looked so beautiful, even with the mud covering her feet, as she made little footprints that led all the way from where she was back to where the grass started. I smiled back at her, and the grip around our hands grew tighter.

*


So I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
When I’m down down down

*


The red line marks the route that we took to the garden.

The science garden at the back of the school was seldom visited. I vaguely remember this one time when that male Malay teacher brought his own class down there and checked out the plants, since we were learning about the different types of leaves and their shapes. It was that mere once and that's it, and the rest of the times, students ran to and fro on the green field never noticing the existence of the house that was in the science garden. Weeds grew and hung down the metal roof, and the garden was badly tended to. Grass grew all over the place and went out of control, and the door to the little house in the corner of the garden collapsed at one point. The gates to the garden rusted, and the lock to the gate remained that way for a very long time. And because of the general untidy look of the garden, stories about that place brewed as the students peered from a safe distance over the fences. The nearest anybody dared to venture was perhaps the hedges along the fences to catch spiders or other insects. But anything further than that was off limits to anybody, not even when the secret hole was discovered by my group of adventurous friends one day, while rummaging through the bushes looking for giant spiders.

With the discovery of the hole, it caused an uproar in the boys' community. Because that meant a direct way out of school and into the school without detection. Of course, skipping school was strictly out of the books of our parents, and even the students weren't too keen on breaking that rule. But the secret garden laid beyond that hole, and over the monsoon drain on the edge of the garden was yet another hole in the fence. We don't know how the holes were made in the first place, or who was daring enough to make those holes. But what the hell, we thought. It called for an adventure, and an adventure was what we got.

*

The placid waters greeted us, as we stepped through the dim lights of the lamps and onto a wooden platform that stuck out into the bay. Nobody was around at that time, and the whole place was quiet. Before us was Marina Bay, with the ocean stretching out into our right while on the left, the skyline of the central business district. The lights from the city bounced off the surface of the water, the cars zipping along the ECP quietly without making a sound, the world rushing away in their busy madness, forgetting about the little paradise that we were in. It was like finding out about a secret oasis that no other people in the world knew about, especially with the number of visitors there, it felt as if we found a lost corner of Singapore, looking at the world we came from from the inside of a bubble. That place belonged to us, and us only. We claimed the stretch of the coast, and nobody was around then to take it from us.

*

Rain it wets
Muddy roads
I find myself
Exposed
Tapping does
But irritate
In search of
Destination

*

The team was made up of four of us. I forgot my team member, but i was sure the first person through that hole. I remember that day very well, when the boys decided to venture into the unknown. The four of us scrambled to the back of the school as the other students watched. We took careful steps down the grassy slope and then followed the line of bushes to the edge where the fences ended and the concrete fence of the private housing started. There was indeed a hole as Alex said, and we dug our way through the thick vegetation and crawled on our four over dead leaves and broken twigs.

We were through! We were through! The four of us were out of school through the first secret hole, and the crowd that gathered at the top of the slope cheered as we waved back at them with fists of triumph. The school looked a little different from that angle, and everything was so new to us as we've never ventured out of school from that way, and not to mention the haunted house that laid before our feet.

Tales crept into our minds as we made our way along the monsoon drain. The murky waters below reflected our shadows, and we curled and twisted as the waters continued running. It must've been a bad omen, but we took no heed to that, but only to the beating of our hearts. Faster and faster as we took careful steps down the pavement and towards the bridge. The old takes of the man that lived in the abandoned house in the science garden, and how he ate chickens alive and threw their bones out of the front door. That was why the house was never torn down despite the construction of the school, and that was why the chickens continued to disappear every time we tried to replenish the stalk. The boys were afraid, and our palms were sweaty. But we soldiered on into the unknown, and soon enough we stood before the locked gates of the secret garden.

The green paint were wearing off the metal railings, and the thick lock stared back into our eyes, as we looked on hopeless and disheartened. We were hoping that the gate would be unlocked, but it was tightly shut from the side of the world. The pavement below our feet led down the monsoon drain some more, and i vaguely remembered another hole behind a hanging bush of periwinkle that led into the garden. So i led the boys down the pavement along the drain and sure enough, my memory proved its worthiness. There was indeed another secret hole hiding behind a tall bush, and like before we crawled through on all fours and finally into the secret garden itself.

The grass reached over our ankles, and we picked our way carefully through the maze of mimosa grass and other wild plants. The classmates and schoolmates watched on from the field behind the school, some of them taking turns to watch if any teachers were coming to get us. They looked on as the four brave souls - including myself - stepped into the forbidden land behind the school because of one desire and that desire only: To find a place to call our own, even if it means that we have to venture into the lair of the chicken eating maniac.

The dark metal house loomed in sight, and our steps slowed down to a crawl. The weeds hung lazily down from all sides of the house, and the inside of it was as dark as an abyss. We crept forward through the thick layer of grass, and our shoes were once in a while, tangled amongst the weeds. But we pulled them out, and as we got within ten meters of the house, the team stopped short and turned to one another. Who was going to take the initiative and look into the darkness, to face the chicken eating maniac? Nobody knew for sure, but our eyes stared into one another's with doubt and most of all, fear.

I volunteered in the end, and the other boys agreed to pray for my soul. I crept forward slowly while the rest of the crowd held their breaths. The sun scorched my skin at the back of my neck, but i pushed on as sweat continued to drip into my eyes. My heart was beating so fast i was afraid that the maniac inside the house might hear it. I placed my hand over my chest to prevent the sound from being heard, and at the same time i backed myself slowly to the edge of the door and peered into the deep dark.

There was a broken straw chair in the corner, with the yellow paint fading off with time. The seat where the buttocks usually rested was broken, and the straws were everywhere around the floor. I took a step, and then another, and then another into the house as i heard the sudden gasps of disbelief from the outside. The dead leaves crunched under my feet as i took more steps into the house, turned around and around to check for the existence of that maniac. My heart was beating faster now, and sweat came pouring down my forehead and my back because of the lack of ventilation inside the house. That was when i stepped on something, and took a peek down under my Bata shoes.

It was a chicken bone, a lot of them scattered around the floor beside the broken straw chair. And next to the pile of chicken bones was a larger bone that most obviously belonged to an animal bigger than a chicken. It was about the length of my palm then, and i picked it up and examined it in the sunlight that was streaming in through a small hole in the metal wall. I stepped back out into the garden and the rest of the team gasped at the thing in my hand. Even before i was able to tell what that thing was, one of them rushed back towards the second hole and the others followed, shouting on top of their lungs "HUMAN BONE! HUMAN BONE!"

The crowd freaked out, and they all scattered as i emerged from the hole myself and back up the slop. They ran in all different directions, wanting to see the bone in my hand but at the same time, dared not. I was sure that it wasn't a human bone, and that it was probably too heavy to be a bone in the first place. But nobody believed me, and they just kept screaming all around as i tried to convince them their mistake.

So ended our little adventure to the back of the school, and the holes were sealed up soon after some idiot told the teachers about them. Our secret garden and hideout were taken away from us, but it's not like the rest of the boys had any intentions on going back to that house. In the end, i found out by my own logic that the chickens that they had were probably eaten by the cats that ventured through the hole like we did. The bones that i found were merely the leftovers by the cat, and the man that supposedly lived in that old house never existed at all. I still cannot explain the straw chair, but the bone i found definitely wasn't human. It probably was just a long piece of stone that was bleached white by the sun, that's all. So much for a haunted house and a great adventure...

*

Harder now
With higher speed
Washing in
On top of me so

So I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
When I’m down down down

*

So as the wind softly blew against our cheeks and her hair flying into her face, we laid down on the wooden platform with my back underneath our heads, as we stared up into the sky untouched by the lights from the city, observing as planes soared across the sky and the constellations hiding behind the moving clouds. The goat rushed by as Santa Claus chased swiftly after. And thousands of jellyfishes swarmed the night sky as we warmed each others' bodies and smiled into each others' lips. We found our last secret hideout, our secret igloo.

The skies finally darkened, and we were all alone. Visitors from that side of the world came into ours, passing by in chattering shadows and soft footsteps. We minded our own businesses in the cover of the trees above, and the salty air of the sea attacked our nostrils, as we breathed into the necks of one another and held on to them as the scent our hair remained stubborn and lingered. Orion shone proudly above, and our bare feet scratched the tarmac road, as we took a lazy stroll down the beach and then came to the bench in the middle of nowhere.

That was our "Middle-Of-Nowhere", our secret hideout. Finally, no school authority to shut out the secret entrance, or nobody to scare the living daylights out of us. It was just myself and my eskimo friend, with her beautiful hair flying in the air as the wind blew from the bushes behind. The way the citylights reflected off the surface of her eyes, as she stared into mine and whispered those beautiful words. I shall never forget the way, as we strolled hand in hand back to the bus stop, the way she leaned on me and told me that she was happy that night. That very night as we went there and back again, into a seemingly different realm and back to earth again. It is a night that i shall never forget, my love. Never to forget.

Is this love? i asked myself. This is love, isn't it? Yes, your voice whispered in my head. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes... ...

*

Kosketa minua (touch me)
Älä käsilläsi (not with your hands)
Vaan niin että tunnen sinut (but the way I can feel you)

Kosketa minua (touch me)
Älä käsilläsi (not with your hands)
Mutta sielussasi (but within your soul)

Minä kaipaan eskimo-ystävääni (I look to my eskimo friend)