In Continuum.

One Headlight

So long ago, I don't remember when
That's when they say I lost my only friend
Well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease
As I listened through the cemetery trees

Aaron's father died, a thought that must have been lingering on the minds of many this week. The death of somebody close always has that effect on you, the way it processes faster than all the other thoughts in your head, and how it wakes you up or knocks you out of any other pre-existing thoughts that you were having. My music theories just went straight out of the window when April told me about it through the internet, and back then it was a secret that was supposed to be kept under wraps. It was the morning after then, and nobody had a good sleep at all. The thought of Aaron's expression must have remained in their heads the whole night, the way it must have been contorted with depression, or the sound of his wailing - if he did so at all. I wasn't there to witness it, just sitting in front of the computer imagining what it would be like if I was truly there myself. However, this is as far as I am willing to venture, for the sadness of somebody else is not a realm that I'd like to dwell for long.

Something was wrong when April messaged me that morning, with a sense of weight in the air even through the words she was typing. I knew something was wrong, but didn't know what it was. You know how people have that sixth sense about things, when you are about to receive this really horrific news. Inside, you just know that it is coming, but nobody is ever going to be ready for the big reveal. The worst thing is that it is never going to get any easier with each subsequent death in your life, it is only going to be the same or worse. I was just thinking, how it'd be like by the time I am sixty, and how the feeling of death is still going to be very much the same all around me. Family members are going to die, friends are going to go away, and there is just something about those inevitability that is not going to be diluted over time. Some would wish it to be so, to be over a little easier than before. But really, that is the power of death, a power that is stronger than a lot of forces in life. It comes to you when you least expect it, and takes hold just as strong as ever before.

I seen the sun comin' up at the funeral at dawn
The long broken arm of human law
Now it always seemed such a waste
She always had a pretty face
So I wondered how she hung around this place

The third motorcycle accident that happened to someone close, and you start to wonder if motorbikes should be banned in Singapore altogether. I understand that they are cheaper alternatives to cars here, and way lesser maintenance. But at the same time, you cannot deny that it is probably the most dangerous vehicle out there right now, even more so than a bicycle. I mean, just imagine losing your balance for half a second at eighty miles per hour. You are going to sail through the air at that very speed and hit some light post, or fall into a deep drain like my friend Stanley did three odd months ago. The fatality rate is just so high with motorcycles, and another death that was caused by the same vehicle to me, just adds on to the hatred I suppose.

I do not have the details to the accident at all, since the details were never told to me at all. But the death of his father on the spot was enough for me I suppose, any other details would be unnecessary. I mean, there isn't a need to know why Aaron's father was riding his bike in the middle of the night, or why he did not see the oncoming rider that rammed into him at full speed either. The point is that both the rider and his father are dead, and knowing out trivial details are not going to make any differences whatsoever. I remember it well, when it happened to my friend Stanley. I wanted to know everything about the accident, how it actually happened and how he was carried to the hospital by the cab driver who found him in a ditch. But in retrospect, I realized that perhaps I shouldn't have asked so much, and should have focused on the matter at hand. After all, the man who ran into Stanley is still at large, and the chances of people bringing him to justice - if anybody bothers to do so at this point - is slim and unnecessary, now.

Hey, come on try a little
Nothing is forever
There's got to be something better than
In the middle
But me & Cinderella
We put it all together
We can drive it home
With one headlight

The lot of them contemplated at the lift lobby yesterday after the paper, as everything came down to a grinding halt. Nobody knew what to do then, changing plans time and time again to fit the wake into the schedule. It was something they needed to do, though not exactly something that they all wanted. It wasn't so much about the idea of visiting a ceremony, or to pay their respects. It was the idea of seeing Aaron and his family perhaps, how the contrast would be so radically different between that and the atmosphere that erupted from the venue of the examination by the end of the paper. Not to mention how the whole nation is celebrating the forty-second birthday of the nation today. It just becomes really ironic and odd that people are flying flags outside their windows, parading the neighborhoods and armed with cameras on top of their apartments to catch a glimpse of the fireworks from far off. Then here you are, sitting before your father's coffin, wondering why isn't the world around you stopping for your sadness?

That is how humans work, the way we want the world to mourn with you. At least that was how I felt, when Stanley died on the hospital bed. It was hard for me to comprehend how the world was able to function properly, how the people were able to go on with their everyday lives with the death of a great friend of mine. Of course, the majority of the population are not - in any way - related to Stanley at all. To the others, he was probably just another increase in the death rate in Singapore, another dead body to fill up the land over at the cemeteries, or a cubicle in the crematorium. People can be so heartless at times, thinking about death from that perspective. But then again, what more do you expect them to think? The death of a family is not going to make the world stop spinning, and certainly not the death of a stranger.

She said it's cold, it feels like Independence Day
And I can't break away from this parade
But there's got to be an opening
Somewhere here in front of me
Through this maze of ugliness and greed

I was never too close to Aaron, and his existence to me remained merely as a member of the course. My impression of him has remained as this big guy who is deeply religious, a person with an infectious laughter and a great guy to hang around with - it seems. That was as far as we were acquainted with each other, but for some reason it was extremely difficult to imagine how he must have crumbled under the news. I mean, it is always strange to picture a big guy breaking down, and it certainly isn't an easy thought to stomach at all. There aren't a lot of things that we can do as friends; as course mates. Perhaps just donations, or a comforting shoulder. At the end of the day, it is really up to Aaron and his family to pull through this ordeal. The most unfair part is perhaps how sudden it was. I mean, at least for Stanley, he was in comatose state for two weeks, and everybody had death on their minds - though never showed. We had hope, even more so towards the end as he started to improve. But the inevitable happened, and we all had to roll with the punches.

The wake was held yesterday, and perhaps throughout today as well. As the people at Marina South wave those plastic flags in the air; as the fighter jets go soaring through the skyline above their heads; as the fireworks shoot out from every corner of the temporary stadium and explode in the air into a million sparks, somebody out there is not going to be watching the live telecast, not going to be celebrating the nation's birthday at all. Like I said before, that's death for you. Everything stops, everything halts. You stop right where you are, and the worst part is when you can't get your head out of it.

And I seen the sun up ahead at the county line bridge
Sayin' all there's good and nothingness is dead
We'll run until she's out of breath
She ran until there's nothin' left
She hit the end-it's just her window ledge

I didn't go for the wake last night, and I don't suppose I will be going at all. I know, that people are going to think this way or that about this, how I refused to go for the wake even for my friend Stanley. I didn't go for his wake either, and preferred to remain at home and think about him in my own ways. The same applies for Aaron's father, whom I have never met before. Perhaps it is the lingering shock in my mind, the way I have yet to accept the occurrence of such a tragedy. There is something about death that I cannot absolutely swallow, something about the absolute nature of death that scares me a lot, even if it is not myself involved in the picture. A ceremony to pay respect to the dead, a service to remember the one that passed, the idea scares me somehow. Like I mentioned before, when I argued my point against going to the wake - I cannot take the sights and the sounds of a funeral. The amount of depression just scares me - so overwhelmingly and completely.

Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine,
But the engine doesn't turn

On Tuesday night, Jeremy was driving myself down to a nearby hawker center near Chong Hui's house at Bukit Gombat for dinner. Around the corner was a driving center, and a bunch of motorbike riders were waiting at the red light, in their illuminated green vests and the big green numbers plastered onto their backs. They all rode the same model of motorbike, with the instructor shouting instructions over the sound of the engines and the traffic at the junction. The riders listened with silent comprehension, their hands tightened around the handles in anticipation for the changing lights. New bikers on the road in the future, and I was certain that those drivers are going to pass their riding tests sooner or later. Most of them are going to ride their motorbikes on the streets late at night, and I wondered to myself how many of those strangers are going to die in the next two to three years - or more, hopefully.

It was a morbid thought, but a thought like this cannot be helped. Because really, I have a sudden urge to burn all the motorbikes in my estate, and hope that it will save some lives in the future. There is something about death by motorcycles these days that I can no longer take. To have a world rid of motorcycles would be a world with a sixty-percent decrease in road accidents, I'm sure. For now, it is about how Aaron and his family are going to pull through everything, how they are going to travel down the rest of their lives with just one headlight on instead of two on the long dark road. I guess all we can do, is to be lamp posts along the road for them, or even hold torch lights to let them know where the tarmac ends and the sand begins. Because that is what friends are for, we look out for one another - even if I am just a person who thinks that you have an infectious laugh. I do care, and I understand what you are feeling more than you think you know.

Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn

I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think her death it must be killin' me