In Continuum.

Saturday's Town

I'll be the grapes fermented,
Bottled and served with the table set in my finest suit
Like a perfect gentlemen
I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick
Where you will sit and contemplate your day

Saturday's town felt like the insides of an M113, or the tuna cans that rolled about on the metal shelves inside during our outfields. The heat out there today is comparable to the feeling I felt while I bent my head low in between my knees, helmet against the side of the metal plates and sweat pouring down my neck and face. Too crowded to move or to breathe, I pictured myself as a tuna fish stuck in the assembly line at a factory, somehow still retaining my consciousness despite being diced into minced meat. Packed together with other shredded tuna fishes, that is how I felt in the m113 vehicle back then. What a surprise to find myself feeling the same way in town today, as I went about the streets under the baking hot sun, running my errands and buying the necessities.

I hated Saturday's town today, because I made me feel that way. Confined and packed together like tuna fishes or sardines. I started to pity those gooey versions of them being spread in between layers of lettuce and bread at Subway, and pyramids of them stacked on top of one another at supermarkets. I'm sure the process of being packed into those metal cans wasn't all that great, but the little fishes shouldn't worry about revenge. Because the karma police is doing his job by putting myself - alongside with the rest of Singapore in town today - in the same place on a raging hot Saturday afternoon. I swear, I was so frustrated with Orchard today, I wanted to scream.

Every air-conditioned place was like some kind of utopia, and once Ahmad and I stepped into those places, we didn't want to get out anymore. The way the sunlight reflected off the walls and pavements outside was so glaring that it pained our eyes just to look. So we found reasons to stay inside Swee Lee today, wandering around the racks of guitars and talking about the worst things that could happen to the shop, and how bringing your parents along for guitar shopping is probably the worst idea in the world. Then it came to the moment when we had to get out through the glass doors, and a wave of heat slapped us in our faces the moment we did so. It was nature's way of saying "Welcome back", and then we started contemplating on a proposal to the government about making the whole country air-conditioned - even the beaches.

I swear, my arms could've been stuck to the side of my body, if I hadn't been swinging them while I walked. That was how sticky I felt, as if somebody poured a tub of super glue over my body. I think I used up approximately four packs of tissue just to wipe the sweat off my face, and the used tissue could have been used as weapons in a Primary School toilet. I remember those balls of tissue stuck to the ceiling of the boy's toilet back then, the way they used to wet balls of tissue under a running tap and then throw them upwards. They were everywhere, and the tissues that I used could have been used to do just that. I bet I just killed half a rain forest with the amount I used. But that is what happens when your country is a few hundred miles away from the equator.

I'll be the waterwings that save you if you start drowning
In an open tab when your judgment's on the brink
I'll be the phonograph that plays your favorite
Albums back as you're lying there drifting off to sleep

Three things do not marry in Saturday's town. The school holidays, the sixth day of the week, and the Great Singapore Sale. When you have these three factors combined, it is probably desirable for the shops along Orchard Road. But when you are one of the million shoppers along the street, it becomes a living nightmare to behold. The second reason why I hated Saturday's town is because of the sheer mass of people squeezing against one another, rubbing of shoulders and stepping on feet, as the temperature on the pavements rose above tolerable levels. As if the above reminder of the Tiger Stride outfield last year in August - the hottest outfield I experienced - wasn't enough, they had to add a million shoppers on the streets with you.

As Felicia said on her blog, it'd be good if everybody else were to go home and stay there. But that'd mean the ultimate failure of the Great Singapore Sale. Therefore, I guess it was inevitable to be in the middle of the crowd, smelling each others' sweat and squeezing through uncooperative shoppers who take their strolls in the middle of somebody else's path. No wonder some blogger from the United Kingdom once commented that Singaporeans are the worst 'Walkers' in the world. They don't have a general sense of direction most of the time, never keeping to the left or the right to promote the flow of the crowd, or a lane for the faster walkers and another for the slower ones. They are just scattered all over the place, so you find yourself walking in a zig-zag manner through people walking at different speeds. And as a person who has long legs and a relatively fast walking pace, it can get really irritating when groups of people suddenly stop in their track to admire the city's skyline or to take a stroll in the park.

The situation is made worse when a whole bunch of school girls decide to walk hand in hand in one line, occupying the whole breadth of the walkway. Now, you might think that by walking hand in hand in the public shows how close you girls are as a clique. It sure feels good to be in town, shopping together, wearing matching clothes, and then laughing at the top of your voices at inside jokes. But to the other fellow shoppers, to have our ways blocked by you inconsiderate schmucks, can be quite a nuisance. Like Jonathan said before, the world needs lesser school kids, and that is definitely true, especially the obnoxious ones. They should be eradicated like pests, at least from the part of town I visit.

I'll be the platform shoes and undo what heredity's done to you...
You won't have to strain to look into my eyes
I'll be your winter coat buttoned and zipped straight to the throat
With the collar up so you won't catch a cold

The third reason why I disliked Saturday's town, or any day's town, really is because of the fear of meeting somebody you'd rather not meet. With the land in Singapore this limited, it is impossible to not bump into somebody in town on a weekend. As I was telling Kenzie just last night about the size of my country, picture California as the tip of your index finger, while New York is the end of your index finger where the knuckle is. Singapore is probably the length of the finger nail that grew out in the last minute. Yes, it is that small. So small that I actually know three unrelated friends living in the same town, the same estate, the same block - though not the same floors - it's already very astonishing.

There are people - or a person - whom I'd rather not meet in town, simply because of the potential friction that may occur between the both of us. I am unsure of what to say, what to do, or how to project myself in a situation like that. There isn't a script for me to follow this time, to tell me how to face that person in a given situation, and the steps that I should follow in order to have a wonderful end to a story. To tell you the truth, despite all the thinking that went through my head in the middle of so many nights, I have yet to come up with something that fits the scene well enough. I am unsure of the look in my eyes, the placement of my hands, or even the song that I should be listening to. It must have been the perfectionist inside of my head doing the thinking, but it wasn't difficult to realize that in truth, only the actuality of things could reveal the truth.

I keep feeling her presence in town, with her holding hands with her new love and seeing me with my friend(s). Around the corner, in her favorite Coffee Bean, or even on the way to the restrooms. I keep picturing her familiar body emerging from around the corner, and then seeing myself frozen in the middle of my steps, unable to move and speak. I wonder how she is going to greet me - if it is going to be a warm welcome or a cold stare. But who cares, it doesn't matter at all, not at all. I just need a place where I know that you are not going to potentially pop out from around the corner, or come from the opposite side of the road while crossing the streets at the green light. Seriously, it is going to make my shopping sprees in town a lot more enjoyable.


I want to take you far from the cynics in this town
And kiss you on the mouth
We'll cut our bodies free from the tethers of this scene,
Start a brand new colony

Which is also why Kenzie and I talked about moving to other countries. She wants to move to either of these places: England, Venice or New Zealand. And as for me, I suggested that we should fly in my private jet to Mongolia once in a while and stay there in absolute poverty for a month or so. We will roll down grassy slopes like idiots for the whole day, ride on wild horses until the end of the horizon and then coming back only at dawn. We'd eat wild boars hunted by the locals around a fire, and then we will teach them to sing songs while I play the guitar. The inevitable star-counting will ensue at night with the brilliant display above. But we will miscount intentionally, because that is the whole point of it all anyway. Mongolia - the land with grassy fields as far as the eyes can see, that is where I want to be in the midst of the maddening crowd.

At least I know in the wilderness of that country, people are not going to squash you with their bodies on trains or buses, nor are they going to lift their arms so high to grab the handles just so that you can smell their body odor. The only humans you are going to meet there are probably going to be the locals, spread so far apart that you start to see villagers from another tribe as aliens. The weather is going to be cold there, but that's part of the package anyway. I am going to wrap myself in three layers of everything, and then run around in circles with the mini-horses until I pant like a dog. Oh, not to forget that in the wilderness, I am not going to be afraid of meeting you around the bends. Because there will not be bends in the open field for you to appear from, nor will your current partner be there for you to grab hold of. I am going to be there - with Kenzie, or whoever - happily enjoying my Saturday's Wilderness. Without you, and happily so.

Cheers, to my brand new colony.

Where everything will change,
We'll give ourselves new names (identities erased)
The sun will heat the grounds
Under our bare feet in this brand new colony
Everything will change