In Continuum.

Midnight Walking



Out of impulse last night, I decided to take a walk in my neighborhood close to midnight. I didn't know where I was going, or wanted to go. But by the time I realized that I hadn't got a destination, I was already halfway out of the front entrance of my estate. The Pyramid Song was playing in my head by the time, the moon hanging proudly in her silent beauty above, taking advantage of the clear skies after the afternoon's heavy rain.

With every step I took away from my home at that time, I knew that it was going to be a step I am eventually going to have to take back, because at that time taking a bus was no longer at option. The security guard at the entrance sat with his back slouched, his loose and old skin collapsed into the high chair along with his uniform, the fan above his head swirling away into the night. He eyed me with much suspicion as I walked out of the estate with my hands in my pocket, not knowing what to answer if he stopped me and asked where I was going. Because truly, at that moment, I didn't know.

Cars were still abundant on the streets at that time, people hurrying about in void decks, going home from the evening's visits to friends' or relatives'. I was probably one of the few people around, leaving the house at that time on feet and going to nowhere in particular. But the midnight street is an interesting place, for the morning's chill from the rain hadn't yet left the air yet. The weather was cooling and refreshing, how fitful the rain was to accompany my mood then. Puddles reflected the yellow street lamps above my head, and the last of the public buses drove past me with the last of the day's passengers on board, eager to head on home.

I walked the familiar pavement I've been to so many times in the past couple of months. Everywhere the sweet shadow of you linger, and I found myself walking towards the right of it, leaving the left for your imaginary self. I thought myself stupid then, for you weren't there at all to take up that space. But I guess in a way, I missed the way you always occupied the space on my left, and how you always manage to make the left feel right. The way your shadow smiled back down at me on the overhead bridge, all the way down to the bus stop where you fell asleep five months ago. That metal bench next to the spices garden, where you were hesitant to go home one night, the night before Christmas where you cried. Come to think about it, living a life without you is going to be so hard, because of all the memories that you have marked all around me. I wonder how that kind of life is possible at all, unless I have a brain surgery of sorts to incur voluntary amnesia on myself.

The entrance to the park laid across the road, darker than the night when we went there a month ago. I took careful steps around the puddles that night, knowing and keeping in mind that we've walked the same path only such a short period of time ago, and wondering at the same time I was hoping, if we are ever going to walk it hand in hand again, as a couple or as friends, or total strangers. The last bus of the day rumbled to a stop next me, the dull light from within casting a blue shadow on it's passengers, tired and exhausted from whatever they did. Guess that is where I must belong, amongst the crowd of tired and exhausted people. I am tired, and I am really tired of a lot of things, just hoping for the bus - or life - to bear me wherever it intends to go. Because to tell you the truth, like the walk I took at midnight yesterday, I simply didn't care and couldn't be bothered.

Around the stadium tracks was where I took a small walk, passed the old swimming complex where I visited often when I was younger. I remember the smell of chlorine, filtering through the metal yellow gates at that time. The smell attacked my nostrils with much familiarity, but in the deeps of the night it felt strangely eerie all of a sudden. The tracks went empty, and the grand stand were vacant as well. But in my mind I imaginary four distinct colors of red, green, yellow and blue filling up the uncomfortable stone seats. The four houses of my primary school dominating the venue so many years ago on a Sports Day my school organized, and I remember myself in bright yellow, racing down the tracks and falling down at the very last hundred meters. The sand pit where they held the long jump events stood in the dark then, with puddles of water gathering in between sand mounts created by the morning's athletes.

One man bellowed from the other side of the road, drunk and filthy. He stumbled out of the soccer cafe with a bunch of his friends who escorted him to the nearest taxi. He curses into the air in a dialect I didn't quite understand, and even inside the taxi his voice could still be heard from far off. I sat at the bus stop just opposite them, watching as the fat cockroach crossed the road at the bus bay, minding it's own business around the tarmac road. No bus approached the station now, just the occasional cars driving up and down the road on their midnight businesses. My friend lived just down the street, but she wasn't home at that time, and my intentions to catch a glimpse of her was dashed.

But still, I guess for a moment at that time I wanted total anonymity, not being known by anybody at all. Because being known brings shame somehow, being known also brings guilt. For I have been too happy to the public these couple of months, too joyous and almost mocking. So much so that as I sat there with myself and depressed, for a moment I didn't have the guts to have the public recognize me, the same person that was happy only weeks ago. Men and women on the streets, the ones in the shady bar across the road seemed to be saying to me," I told you so, didn't I? I told you." I heeded not of their warnings, not even the ones in my own heart. Now that I have, I am ashamed to face up to them, or worse - to myself.

On the road back, I was followed by a man dressed in black. He was probably in his mid twenties, and from head to toe, covered in black. Save for his hair, which was dyed into a brilliant shade of blond. In between his fingers he smoked a cigarette, and throughout the journey of his constant presence behind me, he smoked on it and blew clouds of smoke into the air, broken only by his body passing through it. Paranoia dominated me as I fingered the wallet and cellphone in my pockets, ready to make the run if anything does happen. I doubted if the midnight walk was a good idea at all, and the advertisement on the taxi that drove by that read "LOW CRIME DOESN'T MEAN NO CRIME" certainly didn't help at all. He turned into a void deck and disappeared behind rows of pillars, and that was when I breathed a sigh of relief.

Midnight walking, something that I haven't done before. For the first time, it has been an interesting experience, and I wonder just how long and how far I am going to venture the next time around. If I get a car next time and a license, I am certainly going to go further than myself, further than where my feet are willing to take me. But how far can I go, if it is myself I want to outrun, to escape from? Nowhere is far enough in the case, and no pain is duller and more sickening than the pain inflicted on yourself.