In Continuum.

Broken Swing



All I do is sleep all day, and think of you
A memory of the cushion life I'm clinging to
The image of a mutual one, our haven
The sombre chords of our song, the fading

There was a smell of warm summer rain in the air, hinting the coming of the undesired season. I've never liked summer, but the coldness of lingering winter in the spring. Of course, you don't get very distinct seasonal changes here in Singapore, but this is as good as it gets I guess. The warm summer rain, the comfortable breezes and the sound of insects nesting within the branches and the twigs. I got onto the bus with a smile upon my face for a weight lifted off, the first day of the rest of my life. It wasn't great, but good. And good is...well, liberating.

The rain came and go in the afternoon, replaced soon by the coming of the evening sun. I remember the moist smell in the air, the way the tarmac ground glittered under the sun after the heavy rain, imagining myself falling asleep under a giant umbrella on the beach, breathing the salty air of nature and relief. That was how I felt as I got onto the bus back from Gardens today, occupying that little seat of mine at the back of the bus, reminded only of happy memories and an optimistic future - which is rare these days.

I watched as the cellphone slowly slipped out of the girl's hands as her body rocked gently to the motion of the bus. She swayed so slightly from side to side, occasionally hitting the window to her left but never budged. She was soundly asleep, and on the empty bus there were only the two of us, with a few other passengers towards the front. She must have been tired from the long day, her thick upper eyelashes enclosed themselves with the row below, forming a tight grasp like a handshake. The breathing was loud, though not nearly a snore, and I could hear it from across the aisle. I wonder if she missed her stop, or if she was quietly counting the stops to her home. But never mind all those, never mind everything. We are all tired aren't we? We are all tired. Me too, but not today. Not today.

Love is no big truth
Driven by our genes, we are simple selfish beings
A symphony that's you
Joyously awaking the ignorant and sleeping

I have made up my mind, some time between the moment I handed up my documents and the first step out of the Office of Admission. I made up my mind about the other side of the leaf, to turn myself over and face a brand new side. However momentary it might be, everyday has the potential to be the first day of the rest of my life, and I don't intend to see tomorrow or the day after to be any different. Especially with the little note my Corinna so kindly gave to me, reminded me of the little thing called 'hope' in life through the clear plastic in my wallet.

Oh, look at those students crowded at the bus stop. Brown-uniformed, they reminded me of myself three years ago on the same kind of weekday afternoon, eager to go home. All oozing with energy and passions, eager to make something out of life, make something out of anything. The sunlight broke through the canopy of leaves above as I made my way down the sidewalk back home. Filtered through the leaves, the sun made little patches of light on the concrete floor, like little glittering puddles of collected rainwater. With every step I took, I almost expected them to splatter upwards into a brilliant display of glistering lights. But there they remained, swaying gently in all directions to the crown of green above, lazily into the fading afternoon. The first day is looking good, I tell myself. Very good, indeed.

I remember the Swallow Lady telling me something about mural painting around the neighborhood by students from my school. So there they were, two girls under a HDB block, one standing on a wooden stool, painting a mural on the white pillar under the void deck. There she was bending low, carefully scratching the colors onto the wall, crafting the part of a picture which I couldn't make out. But it was a beginning for sure, the way the two of them were injecting new life into this boring old community surrounded my house. Too many familiar things around me these days, changes are certainly welcomed. I almost went up to the girls and thanked them for their efforts to make some changes, but was in an awful hurry to get home. But I smiled, as their attentive bodies disappeared around the corner as I hurried down the road. New colors, very nice. Very nice indeed.

Passion and its brother hate, they come and go
Could easily be made to stay for longer though
Many people play this game so willingly
Do I have to be like them, or be lonely?

Then, it came to me. I remember it used to be a sandy playground, only to be replaced by one of those ugly ones with rubber flooring. Nobody ever plays in this new playground really, and there was once when I saw a young boy sunning his blanket there on one of the monkey bars.

I stopped in front of the playground in the middle of the pavement, just staring at the way it was covered in dead leaves, as if nobody has tended to the playground for ages. The blue paint from the bars were peeled off, revealing the brownish-red interior, rusty away in the air. The bridge in the middle was covered with dead leaves, and so were the metal benches on the edges of the playground as well as the swing. The swing, swung in the wind back and forth, as if an invisible body was sitting on it, pondering about something while it's legs pushed towards the ground to make the swing go backwards and forwards. The creaky sound of the rusty chains could be heard even under the sound of the cars rushing by to my right, and there it was with the left side of the rubber seat on the ground, broken. One of the chains was broken, and it hung lazily upon the other good chain, and I wondered if anybody is going to fix it. Would somebody fix the broken swing, anybody?

If Heaven is as they say, a place in your life when you were the happiest lived over and over again like a spoiled gramophone, I'd choose the nights at the playground. I don't remember a single time of argument there, no tears fell and no doubts in our minds at all. I remember the times at the playground, we were genuinely happy weren't we? I haven't the courage to look back at the old entries and make sure, but if my memory serves me right, we were. Now that the playground - our playground - is covered in layers of dead leaves, it was as if somebody was hinting to me, to bury the issue underground once and for all. Somebody could come and sweep away the leaves, paint the bars blue again. But nobody will come and fix the swing, and the chain will always remain broken.

So there it shall remain, under the leaves. I hope this is it, the beginning of the end. I have no idea how long this optimism in me will last. But for as much as it is worth, I am glad that on some days, I still have the capacity to feel this way, even despite the sight of a broken swing - a broken me. There is hope still I truly believe. If not in you, in somebody. Maybe I should run back to the girls painting the murals tomorrow. Who knows? Anybody is a potential now. Sure, I'm might not be ready for love just yet, but nobody can stop me from feeling mesmerized. Not you, not anybody.

Love is no big truth
Driven by our genes, we are simple selfish beings
A symphony that's you
Joyously awaking the ignorant and sleeping

I'll never need it again, not again, not again...