In Continuum.

Old Neighbor Ben



Old neighbor Ben lived upstairs, just two floors up and on the adjacent end of the story. I wonder how old neighbor Ben is doing right now, if he crawled out of his bashful skin and finally into a real man who wouldn't follow in the shadows of others, a man who doesn't take comfort in the chest of his mother. It's been almost fifteen years I suppose, since I last saw him and I remember the last day of our meeting at the lift lobby, with the little gift that he gave me still sitting comfortably in my desk drawer. I wonder how old neighbor Ben is, as I looked from my balcony to the block across and saw those two little boys sharing a can of soft drinks. Yeah I wonder where you are Ben, I wonder where you are.

It's been raining in the afternoon these days, which might have been why my sister came back from her chalet stay over at Sentosa without a hint of excitement. Usually, she'd be raving about how fun the experience was five inches from my ears and then storming out of the room due to my lack of enthusiasm. But this time she came home and collapsed into her bed, and remained in that same position ever since yesterday morning. I am guessing that the rain must have plagued their carefully planned trip to the sunny island in the South, but it's not like anybody could've predicted the weather. After all, a wet beach is only second worse to a crowded beach, and I'm sure the sensation of having twenty odd people squeezed into a tiny chalet wasn't a good one.

Whatever the case may be, there I was sitting on my table in the middle of the afternoon staring out into the rain again. Just idling, staring and thinking about nothing. In the opposite block there was a kid in red sleeveless shirt kicking a soccer ball in the balcony, and was soon joined by a kid in white with a can of soft drinks. They started a little soccer game on the miniature soccer court, taking turns to be the goal-keeper and eventually ended up with their legs dangling out of the railings and feeling the rain upon their youthful skin while sharing a can of soft drinks.

Those two boys reminded me of myself and Ben, in the days when school was more like an activity of the day like brushing our teeth or having lunch than an obligation. School was just something our parents asked us to go without telling us why initially like church, and we found ourselves always sitting next to each other in the classrooms. But before I go on about the stories of Ben and I in school, allow me to tell you a little something about Ben.

The two families moved to Singapore together from Taiwan in 1990, and coincidentally they bought the house on the 21st floor while mine on the 19th. Ben has an older sister whose English name I forgot, and she hit it off with my sister right away while I joined them in their fun and games. Ben was a shy boy, always taking comfort in his mother's chest because of some sort of misfortune that involved his toy cars or dinosaurs. His love for toys were in Barbie dolls I remember, in a Barbie doll with black and white striped shirt and jeans. He used to hug her while rolling around in the carpet, and the three other kids called her his girlfriend. And as expected, he dashed down the corridor into his mother's arms, crying while the other kids laughed our heads off about his strange obsession with a piece of plastic. Sure, the girls toyed around with the dolls in fake doll houses, but at least they never fell for a Barbie doll.

Somehow, Ben opened up to this Taiwanese boy living downstairs soon enough, and we found ourselves always hanging out together because our mothers were good friends. I remember how they would dump us in the toys section to look after one another while they would go off somewhere else to shop. But to say "look after one another" wasn't really accurate, since Ben was mortally afraid of everything in this world. He shadowed me throughout the period of time we were friends, and after some time it got rather irritating.

In school, Ben followed me around everywhere, and I honestly wonder how he pulled through the days when we were in different classes. I was in 1D and he was in 1B I think, and he used to dash to me right after the recess bell. The bell cued his session of shadowing me, and my friends started to question if I knew about the boy who followed me everywhere on the playground. There was an incident whereby the zip in Ben's pants got stuck and his little wee-wee was showing. For some reason he wasn't wearing any underwear, and to prevent any embarrassment he trailed me all the way back to my classroom, all the while trying to tug the zip upwards. But of course, nobody saw anything wrong with this weird boy following me around, since I was the better boy in English and everybody knew Ben's reputation as being bashful and shy.

His only friend in Singapore was me, and the only true neighbor I had was him. We would hang around on the balcony and just stare at the great big world under our feet, dangling them over the railings and tasting the rain. In the past, the area around my house wasn't all that built up yet, and right behind our house was a giant grass field where we flew our kites. We were the best of friends, even though he irritated me with his constant following in school. But at home, we were more than neighbors and two boys from the same country in an uncharted territory.

To me, he was the reminder that the old life still lingered, that there wasn't anything to fear in this new country with his existence just upstairs. I missed the old life I had in Taiwan, and I constantly wondered - even as a kid - what happened to my old red-tiled house and the German Shepard that we had as a pet. But Ben was always there, hugging the Barbie doll and being a great friend. So it was a shock and a saddening thing when his family told ours that they were moving back to Taiwan, unable to adapt to the life in Singapore. Our family survived until now, their family didn't, and after a letter or two we lost all forms of communications to life's ceaseless flow.

I felt the soft fur with the broad surface of my right thumb, the plastic eyes still stared back at me, haunting yet dead. It has been in the same green plastic basket in my drawer for the past fifteen years or so, and the fur still felt soft to my fingertips. I remember the day when they were about to leave the country, there we were at the lift lobby with his eyes blood-shot and a trail of mucus from his nose, hanging. He has been crying, while pulling his luggage by himself to the lift door. He handed me the gift that he bought for me, and told me that it was made from real rabbit fur. It was a little badge in the shape of a panda's head, and the eyes stared back at me, reminding me of Ben in the earlier days of our meeting when he used to look at the sisters and myself, playing while he stayed out of the way.

So the panda not only reminds me of Ben, but also the life I had with Ben when everything was just simple - eat, play, school, sleep. It was a fun life, and seeing those kids from the opposite block doing the same thing as we did fifteen years ago, told me that at least I still have the memory to savage upon. Wherever you are Ben, you do take care. It is a wild world out there, hope you moved out from somebody's shadows. Remember the kid that dangled his legs over the railings with you, remember me this way.