In Continuum.

Amsterdam

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
And if I, if I'd only waited
I'd not be stuck here in this hole.

I am counting down the days to the day a year ago, on a similar rainy afternoon when I played with the thought of canceling the date altogether. The exact date is forgotten by me, and I have no motivation or reason to look through the archives of my blog, just to find that other either. The life that I am living now has been kind to me in numerous ways, despite the frequent traps set by the lecturers in the bushes. I do consider myself fortunate, and extremely lucky to be in the life that I am living right now. To remember the date - that date - is probably the last thing I want to remember in a period of my life such as this one. Everything is perfect in its imperfect ways, and the last thing I need is to have a reminder, a note from the past to tip the balance. The skies have been kind, a little breezy and a little chilly. This is the kind of weather you look forward to, when the future is infinitely high and crystal blue. You start to think about what you want to do, what you can do, the kind of days without a past to remember and a whole lot of opportunities. Then of course, it begins to pour.

The night was young when it happened, like an unwanted visitor who knocks at your door. The claws of the wind reached in through the iron window sills and flipped my textbooks open. The notes came down upon my bed like giant snowflakes, bringing with them the moisture of the rain that drenched half the desk by the window. I don't know how long how long I have been sleeping them, the eyelids were too heavy and too lazy to open up wide enough for the hands of the clock. It felt like a few minutes, five maybe, when I dragged myself out of bed and braved the strong cold winds of the night. It rained last night like an October night ought to, it rained like that night before the rain used to. I came to the window and felt the little arrows hitting my face, tiny archers in the wind attacking me with their blind ferociousness. Something about the time of the month, the time of the night I suppose. A distant memory was picked up by me in the deeps of my brain, of all the times that it could have troubled me, it does so five minutes before six in the morning. I cursed under my breath and slammed the window shut. The sound from the outside was muted, but the imaginary remote control failed to quieten down the screaming inside my head.

Come here, oh my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
And I swear I waited and waited,
I've got to get out of this hole

I felt that I needed to do something a few days ago, when the clock struck at midnight and the numbers flashed back to those royal flush of zeros. I remember staying up in bed that night, waiting for something to happen. A shadow by the door perhaps, somebody on the other end of the line. I had dial tone and mostly just silence, on the midnight where we should have been out celebrating somewhere. After all, birthdays come only once a year, and you only get to turn nineteen once, don't you? I had it all planned out, had it mapped out. I wanted us to hide out from our parents on this day, staying out till late at the pier I told you about by the beach. The one that reaches out into the open ocean like a limp arm, reaching out into the horizon with its opened arms. It'd be quiet in the night, but the winds would be tout. But none of those would matter much, because we would've had each other to hold on to, to gather warmth. I told you about bringing my old picnic mat, and you told me about bring sandwiches and wine in the night. It was a crazy idea, and an idea conceived as we cuddled closely in bed so many nights ago. But it was an idea, and I think we were crazy enough to pull it off indeed. But of course, like an unfortunate fetus, the mother had a terrible tumble off the staircases. Blood poured out from her womb and all over the wooden floor. Before the idea was conceived, it was gone.

You told me you have never seen a sunrise before, I wonder if you already have. It has been a little more than seven months, a little over two hundred sunrises ever since. You could have spared a day, just one day out of the many days to catch the sunrise at the pier I told you about, with that somebody. That somebody new. I wonder if it is right to feel cheated, or robbed, when your old loves take your idea and then recycle them for their new loves. Going to the restaurant we went to, going to the guitar shop that we went to, it's like stealing an unique memory and making it your own. But then again, it's not like it is possible to move out of town in this country, to get away for some time. I guess if it is possible for me, I'd move to Nova Scotia for some time and stay there. Somewhere near the arctic circle where everything would be frozen - maybe even time.

But time is on your side
It's on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It's no cause for concern

It is raining again, probably the fourth time today. It is like a bad hiccup that goes away for lunch and comes back after dinner. Just when you think that it is over, it comes back to haunt you all over again. My father bounced down the corridor half naked as usual, warning the rest of the family about the rain. But we've already had our windows closed and the curtains drawn. He wandered into my room casually with his bulging stomach hanging over his boxer shorts, and asked me about the stocks as usual. Then he commented about the rain, then about the storm that happened last year around this time of the year as well. "I remember, Dad." I said, and continued with surfing the net. He then asked one of those questions that I didn't want to answer, the kind of questions that digs into your bones.

"What do you think your ex-girlfriend is doing now?" he asked.

"I don't know Dad," I replied. "And I don't care."

I feel a certain sense of guilt somehow, not telling my parents about the truth. They always tell you how your family are the pillars of your support, that they are the people who are going to stick with you through the thickest and the thinnest. I remember the disappointment in my mother's eyes when I told her that I wasn't ready to tell her what happened, when I told her that it just feels different to tell it to my friends in relative to her. I feel guilt to hide it from them, but at the same time I wonder if they'd understand why I did the things I did. I can imagine their faces contorting into a million different emotions, each emotions translating into a dozen different accusations on why I made the mistake of choosing a person such as the old love, why I hadn't been more alert about her actions towards me. I do feel guilty for hiding such things from them, and I am sure why they want to know why their son locks himself in the bedroom every now and then when he feels like it. What goes on behind the locked door stays behind the locked there, and I have no intentions of letting anybody in, in the mean time. Not them anyway, not on rainy days - anyway.

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I see no chance of release
I know I'm dead on the surface
But I'm screaming underneath

I recall the birthday celebration I had with myself two years ago, those moments before I turned nineteen out in the fields. We were ordered to dig trenches in the ground in a designated area, a place with tall grass and full of embedded rocks in the soil. I spent the whole night digging, and I remember the sparks that flew out of the tips of my spade as I went deeper and deeper into the ground, scraping off the skin on my palms and fingers. It was a humid night, and the skies were clear of all clouds. Leaving behind the clear black skies and a few lingering stars, eager to shine amidst all the city lights in the distance. I counted down the minutes that led to my birthday, as I sat in the middle of the hole with my buttons opened. I was there alone while everybody else was asleep, snoring away into the night like pigs after a long day's march. But there I was, singing a soft tune to myself and wishing myself a happy birthday. What an idiot, you might be thinking right now. But I remember looking up into the sky at the single star, and the little wish that I made to myself despite the lack of a proper cake and candle. All I had were the pair of boots caked with mud and the sparks that sort of acted as the candles in the night. But it was enough, it was suffice. Because in my own special way, I had my celebration.

I am counting down the days to the 29th, the 29th of October. Remember that day, when we picked a random bus off the sign post and decided to take it all the way till the last stop. It was a wild night, but it was a night full of possibilities, wasn't it? The way the skies opened out in front of us, a rarity of an October sky. We ran through the fields and I tested if the grounds were too wet for us to lie on. That night was somewhat like the night when I celebrated my own birthday alone, when I celebrated the birth of myself nineteen years ago. But last year, on the 29th, we celebrated the birth of something, something beautiful, something new. We were silently wishing each other a happy birthday, breathing into each others' faces and whispering soft words into the night. Things were perfect, and even the stars were lined up to resemble everything else. I whispered those words into your ears, and you smiled as you counted down to the time when you had to leave. Five more minutes you said, and then five more when the time was up. You didn't want to go, we didn't want to leave. It was the birth of our love a year ago, and neither one of us wanted to miss a second of it.

And time is on your side
It's on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It's no cause for concern

A year from then, a year today. Sitting in my bedroom with my father's plump body leaning five inches from my face, reading statistics off my monitor. My sister is screaming in the room next to mine, about how scary the howling of the wind is and how we are all going to die. To her, Armageddon is always around the corner, even if it is a single beetle rested upon her waist. My mother is in the room reading her book, a typical night in the Chin family. I am blogging about the past, not so much about the future. What is there to speak of when I know naught of what it is to come? I hear the music of Arvo Part playing over the speakers on repeat, the sound of the wind howling through the windows, desperate to get in.

There is that urge again, the urge to call somebody again. I feel like opening the window and screaming out into the window, and hope that my message would get to you somehow. I am too ashamed to message you over the internet, to embarrassed to click on your nickname. I guess my pride is reduced to merely a sound in the wind now, like the howls before the rain. You'd hear it, but not heed it. You'd take notice, but then forget about it. That is my existence in your life right now probably, just a lingering smell, a stubborn sound. I am listening to Arvo Part's soft piano keys, and the sound of the wind blasting against the window panes. Something about the image of that, and the forthcoming rain, is scaring the hell out of me. I feel like I am unraveling.

Stuck on the end of this ball and chain
And I'm on my way back down again
Stood on a bridge, tied to a noose
Sick to the stomach

You can say what you mean
But it won't change a thing
I'm sick of the secrets

Stood on the edge
Tied to a noose
You came along
And you cut me loose

You came along
And you cut me loose
You came along
And you cut me loose