In Continuum.

Man Of The Stoney Meadow

Hello there the angel from my nightmare
The shadow in background of the morgue
The unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley
We can live like Jack and Sally if we want

His seat was empty in the morning when we came to school, and nobody asked too much about his absence because that's how it is, people get sick all the time. But when he failed to appear for the next couple of days, we were all asking the teachers about his whereabouts, if we need to visit him at the hospital because he was too sick to come to school. Some teachers avoided the questions, while others told us to ask the ones who avoided them. In the end, our form teacher gathered everybody to the front of the classroom and broke the news to us: Kim Joo's mother just died from breast cancer, and was unable to attend classes until the funeral arrangements were done.

Everybody was there, from his classmates to ex-classmates, from the janitor of the school to the principal. Everybody was there to bid farewell to a woman we never knew. But I think most of all, they just wanted to give comfort to Kim Joo because the death of your mother at that age wasn't something any Primary School kid should go through. But there he was at the void deck, with white veils drawn all around the venue, and he was welcoming us with his brother and sister. We took our turns at the altar, and I remember catching a glimpse of the wooden coffin in the back, and the way lights reflected off the glossy surface of the wood. Inside the coffin laid a woman whom I've met only once before. It was the time when we all hung out at his house, and I remember the silhouette of her in the back of the house, busying herself over the stove and greeting the boys as we came through the door. Her photograph in black and white, hung just above the lid of the closed coffin, and I remember staring upon this woman whose face I had no recollection of, thinking just how ordinary everybody look after their deaths. We all look the same don't we? We all look asleep at death, and the fact that death came so close in my life, scared the hell out of me as a kid.

Where you can always find me
And we'll have Halloween on Christmas
And in the night we'll wish this never ends
We'll wish this never ends

I only just received news yesterday night, and to know that my friend has been in that condition for the past eleven days, I'm wondering why nobody bothered to tell me about it. A friend of mine from camp, Stanley, was involved in a bad motorbike accident during his delivery job almost two weeks ago. His motorcycle was found by the side of the road, with the rider tossed into the nearby drain and was found only hours later by a passerby. How ridiculous to think that nobody stopped to check when they saw a wrecked motorcycle at the side of the road to see if anybody was injured. That is how cold our society is, nobody care about one another anymore.

Stanley lost part of his liver, and his kidneys are not functioning now. To make things worse, he has been in a coma for the past eleven days or so, and everybody he knew are worried dead about him. He was wearing a helmet then, so he suffered no head injury. But because of the amount of blood loss that night, his brain sank into a state of idle and is now in a coma as we speak. Despite donating buckets of blood, Stanley is still not waking up, still battling death in his unconsciousness, waging a silent war with unseen demons of death. To think that somebody so close to heart is battling death, somebody whom I lived with as a family for the past two years suffering like that, pains me just to think about it.

Where are you and I'm so sorry
I cannot sleep I cannot dream tonight
I need somebody and always
This sick strange darkness comes creeping on so haunting every time

I have to admit, that I wasn't too close to Stanley in the army days. He was from Platoon 7 and I from 5. But then again, in the social circle of the army, nobody has a distinction of platoons, education level, race or whatever. Everybody was part of a family, and we all mingled and socialized like we've known each other for ever. It was particular easy for Stanley's case at the beginning, because he was the kind of person who never had barriers. Just sit down with him and it was possible to strike up a conversation about anything under the sky and beyond. In the mass room or out in the fields, our paths cross sometimes and we will find ourselves talking about life and also about the harshness of the military. I remember his humor, and I remember his enthusiasm at work that infected the lot of us while we all felt lazy and lethargic. The truth is, he was a true friend that worked hard to gain his acceptance in the big family of sweaty army boys, and accepted he was.

Now that he is in such a state, nobody really knows how to react. Personally, myself and a couple of friends will be visiting him at the hospital later in the evening. But as to how we are going to react there, nobody knows. Such news affect some people more than the others, the hammer stroke falls harder on some hearts than the rest. Jonathan took a great hit, because they were really close friends back then, and to see the big guy crumble under such sorrows is in itself a painful sight. To me, because I was never too close to Stanley, all I am feeling now is a sense of loss and perhaps that overwhelming sense of tragedy. Because having such a tragedy strike so close to home is never a comforting thought, and the fact that his life is uncertain now isn't making things any better.

And as I stared I counted the webs from all the spiders
Catching things and eating their insides
Like indecision to call you and hear your voice of treason
Will you come home and stop this pain tonight

Stop this pain tonight...

Almost the whole company was 'mobilized' in the past week, most of us visiting him today or in the weekend. That's a hell lot of people visiting, and I wonder what all those people did when they visited. They donated blood, but then again the doctors are saying they have more than enough. I myself have no idea how I am going to feel when I am in the hospital, because to tell you the truth I have never been to a hospital to visit anybody before.

When I told my mother about it last night, her first reaction was a ridiculous one. Being a superstitious person as she is, a lot of her life and ours depend on the stupid book that they publish in Taiwan annually, about your luck and fortunes for the whole of that particular year, what you should do and what you shouldn't do according to your birthday and everything. And according to the book, the fact that I was born on the 29th of June 1986 makes it unsuitable to visit anybody at the hospital in the year of 2007. I find that really ridiculous, and amusing how people can restrict their movements according to a bloody calendar someone printed. To tell you the truth, I cannot care less about what that calendar is saying about me, because I am going to visit Stanley no matter what it says.

When my grandparents died, I was in Singapore and schooling at the same time. And because of the distance I wasn't able to go back to visit them in the hospitals. They left without me saying goodbye to them in any way. This is the first time somebody close to heart needs this little concern of ours, a little blessing and a little prayer, and I am not going to stop myself from going. True enough, I know so little about Stanley, and the fact that I call him a 'friend' is only because we know each other by name and talked a couple of times. Still, I feel that no matter how little you know about somebody in your family, you are still a family nonetheless, and you got to be there when you are most needed. Even if he might not be able to hear us, or see us, just be there and make your presence known somehow. I guess right now, Stanley needs all the blessings that he can get, because the battle with death is an uphill battle, and only the concerned words of people like us can push him on into the deep dark and eventually win.

It's touching, to see these people coming together to visit him, even if most of us don't know him that well. Then I started to think if people are going to have the same reaction when I go away. I started thinking about the possibilities of so many people turning up beside my ward bed, and then speaking words of concern into my ears. I can't imagine people doing that in my life at all, and I started thinking to myself last night who would turn up and who won't. I asked Kenzie to say something random online once, and she said that she was wondering if anybody would notice if she just disappeared. I wonder if anybody is going to feel the same for me, if I am involved in a horrific motorcycle accident and in a coma for eleven days straight, if anybody is going to stop their lives for a few hours and visit me. Because in this cold hard world, it's so hard to say anymore. Knock on wood of course, but I really think of that sometimes, if I will be cared for when I am gone...

So, here's to Stanley and the hope that he will make it through this ordeal. All we can do now as friends is to hope and believe, to pray that he is going to get better soon. And all we are asking is for him to wake up, to gain consciousness and that's it. Start the healing process by waking up, because to hear your voice is going to be the greatest comfort for anybody now. So wake up dear friend, wake up from your deathly slumber and reach for the light at the end of the tunnel. We shall meet you there like we once did in the courtyard of our company line, and fool around once more with our idiotic jokes and talks about life. Just hang in there, and we will be there when you do come through. Get well soon Stanley, and see you soon.

Don't waste your time on me
Your already the voice inside my head...

I miss you miss you...