Promenade
Friday, April 11, 2008
Promenade
The promenade, or prom in short, marked the epitome of all the intolerable aspects of my life as a Junior College student, the pinnacle of that was wretched and miserable about those two stolen years of my life. It is two years of my life that I don't talk about very often, simply because there isn't much for me to talk about in the first place. I remember a beginning and an end, I remember the excitement when it all started and the dread when it all ended. In between was a desolated wasteland, sort of like a no-man's land on a battlefield, no signs of life to speak of whatsoever. In a way, I wouldn't say that the analogy of a battlefield is an exaggerated one, since the life that I had in those two years did involve battles of two opposing forces inside my head. On on end I was trying to survive desperately in the hectic school life and under the relentless British education system that was choking the air out of me, all the while laughing at those that left the school and went on to other schools to further their studies. On the other front, however, there was the side of me that wanted to just give in, wanted to just give up. In the end, I elected the latter, though that is not to say that that side of the battlefield did not suffer obscene amount of casualties either.
The promenade, or prom in short, marked the epitome of all the intolerable aspects of my life as a Junior College student, the pinnacle of that was wretched and miserable about those two stolen years of my life. It is two years of my life that I don't talk about very often, simply because there isn't much for me to talk about in the first place. I remember a beginning and an end, I remember the excitement when it all started and the dread when it all ended. In between was a desolated wasteland, sort of like a no-man's land on a battlefield, no signs of life to speak of whatsoever. In a way, I wouldn't say that the analogy of a battlefield is an exaggerated one, since the life that I had in those two years did involve battles of two opposing forces inside my head. On on end I was trying to survive desperately in the hectic school life and under the relentless British education system that was choking the air out of me, all the while laughing at those that left the school and went on to other schools to further their studies. On the other front, however, there was the side of me that wanted to just give in, wanted to just give up. In the end, I elected the latter, though that is not to say that that side of the battlefield did not suffer obscene amount of casualties either.
Those two years of my life were probably the worst for me, and the prom at the end of those two years was like a full stop to a horribly structured sentence. The strange part was that I wasn't too particularly happy about the end, perhaps I was just too exhausted by the time I reached there with my limbs intact. The idea of a prom, however, was refreshing and alluring to say the least, something which I only read about in books and watched in movies. Of course, those Hollywood movies were not good gauges as to what a Singaporean prom would turn out to be, but at least there was a rough idea in my mind as to how it was supposed to turn out. Friends from school dressed in fancy gowns and suits, music played over the speakers as couples danced away on the dance floor, perhaps even alcohol and overnight partying afterwards for those really enthusiastic ones. I remember I was one of them before the prom, the person that desperately tried to raise enough funds so that the whole class could go together. Some of them chose not to attend the event instead, which I thought initially to be rather unsporting of them. In retrospect, however, they were smarter than any of those pretentious attendees of the event - including me.
I'm not sure why I am talking about the prom that I'd rather forget, perhaps it came from the question I asked myself earlier today about, well, my life. I was just thinking about the bits of my life that has been extraordinarily good, and extraordinarily bad. The army did not qualify for either of the categories, since it did pull me through the worst of times and the best of times. Junior College, however, fitted the bill perfectly and the prom just seemed to have summed everything I hated about that period of time all up into five hours of that dreadful night. If given a chance to travel back in time, I'd go back and slap that old version of mine across the face, and ask him to redraw from the prom completely. It was not only a waste of time, but a beauty contest that involved only the beautiful people. For the rest of us, the majority of us, we were there merely as contrasts, people to make the others look so much better. That is not to forget, there to fill up the ten-seat limit of every table. It was a pathetic event to begin with, and as if we weren't pretentious enough, we had to pretend that we enjoyed everything.
I remember how it started, the way the day plummeted from the haircut. And then it started to rain that afternoon, and how uncomfortable I suddenly felt about everything. I wanted to strip my clothes off and run home just so that I can be with myself all over again, and not meet those narrow people that I have been trying to run away from for the last two years. But I made it downstairs with Ahmad, made it to the side of the road, made it into the cab, made it to the entrance of the grand hotel in town. Made it upstairs, made it to the reception area, and then my mind was turned off for the rest of the night when the crowd started coming in with people that I barely recognized.
The guys were alright, they were still recognizable underneath those carefully tailored suits and those colorful hairs that almost scrapped the ceiling lights. The ladies were the ones that came with especially extravagant gowns and their particularly lavishing - everything. Thick makeups that plastered onto their faces like artificial skin, accessories dangling from their necks and wrists like leashes of dogs, slaves to a society that tells you to wear this because you are supposed to look beautiful this way. Some of them dressed up to just the right degree, while the most of them just overdid everything. Too much of makeup, to much dressing up, too little class. All of them looked like clowns at a parade, all of them looked like sad little minion of the society trying to be something that they were not. The worst part of all, I was one of those little pathetic person mingling amongst others like me. People pushed through the crowd with their chins up and their chests high, silently boasted their faux beauty to the world for that one night in their lives. Everybody tried their very best to be at their best that night, most of them fell flat while others just failed altogether.
The emcee strolled onto the stage with his oily hair and his cheap suit, his deep voice rang through the venue like thunder. Cheap jokes and sub-par attempts at wit, everybody laughed - everybody worshipped him. The night went on without a hitch, everything happened according to plan. The silly games were played on stage and around the tables, the prom king and queen were announced, flowers were given to them and they looked like clowns to the rest of us sitting below the stage. Perhaps it was an overwhelming sense of admiration, or just a hidden feeling of jealousy under our fake smiles and thick makeups. But right there and then, the image of the two of them standing at the front of the stage and then posing for the cameras below, it incapsulated the entire two years of my life in that very instant. Everything was just series of beauty contest, a popularity contest without a winner until prom night. Everything was going to end soon, the dishes were going to be cleared and the lights were going to be turned out. The night was about to end, and I felt lonelier and emptier than I have ever been.
A couple of my schoolmates stumbled out from the hotel and took a cab to the nearest club to get drunk, get high, fool around. They were all laughing and cheering, taking pictures of each other and then there were the ones that were queuing up at the taxi stand for a cab home - like me. It was a night for us to think back at what we have done for the past two years, if we actually achieved anything while being in that school. I was there, standing in line and looking at my schoolmates one by one, thinking that I have done nothing to impact their lives or did anything to claim it as mine. I became a name in the school registers, just another statistic. I was that person that the pretty and the famous compared themselves to to make themselves feel less normal. It was true and I knew it, and the air-conditioning in the cab on the way home was particularly cold that night.
I was home earlier than expected, crashing through the front door and walked into my bedroom like I would on a normal school day. I took the expensive suit off, my shirt and then messed up my hair in front of the bathroom mirror. I looked normal again, the normal ugly self. It was me back to square one, to the person I knew for the past eighteen years. The thought of the army came back into my head all of a sudden, and a sudden fear came over me in the bathroom as I tried to fill that emptiness in my mind with other thoughts. It was all I could think about however, it was all I knew. It was supposed to be the ideal night, it was supposed to be the best time of my life. But there I was, standing naked in front of the mirror in the bathroom just minutes after midnight, with the ringing of the crowd still in my ears and the warm bath water running in the background. It all came down to that, in the cold bathroom with the cold tiles on all sides. I stepped under the shower and allowed the water to run down my bare skin. I needed something to distract myself from those swirling thoughts, the thoughts. I turned the knob so that cold water came out from the shower head as distraction - the forgetting became easy.
Somehow, even the worst of times can lead to the best of times. I suppose, that part of my life was good for something after all. Everything was a failure back then, even I was a failure. But then without those failures, I don't think that I would have ended up in a place that I am right now, this comfortable place with comfortable people. I was just thinking about the kind of life that I have right now, the way that I have remained true to myself and not try to be somebody else. You know, the way that we played dress up and look like adults the day of the prom, when we were all hardly ready for the suits we were wearing and the gowns that we donned. It was just a giant parade of actors and actresses, a night that still sickens me till this day. I can't believe I was a part of that masquerade, where everybody wore masks to shy away from the harsh realities. Like myself, we were all failures in our own disastrous ways, and I do hope that all of them have an equally contrasting life as I do, right now. The prospects are good, the possibilities are limitless, and most of all - I am happy.
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