In Continuum.

Fifteen seconds now, the baby boy was still staring at me. I started thinking to myself, at this point, if he'd ever stop staring at me with those big beady eyes in wonderment. From over his father's shoulders, he continued to suck on his pacifier intently. Yet, his gaze never left my eyes as I continued to stare at him, determined to beat him in this minor war of eye-gazing. Ten seconds left, and the bus was finally making the last turn around the corner. I could see from the corner of my eyes now, and yet I couldn't look directly at it - I'd lose. My eyes were still on the boy, and I tried to use my mind power to make him go away. I tried to send messages, signals that'd make the baby boy give up, to think that I am this hideous monster that'd take his brains out with a straw. Anything, really, to take his mind off looking at me just so that I'd win. Five seconds left now, and he was still staring at me, and I had no choice but to look away first as I alighted from the bus. I could tell that he was still looking at me when I got off, even after the folding doors closed and I was on my way home. I could feel his stare on the back of my head, and that got me thinking about things as I made my way slowly home. 

It's childish, or stupid even, to engage in such petty little battles. I wouldn't say that it is something that I consciously do for the thrill, but I suppose I just like to stare at little kids. To scare them maybe, or to give them something to look at when they haven't got anything else better to do. It is definitely better than hearing them scream and wail within an enclosed space, that's for sure. In my defense, I adore little children. The way that they move, the way that they smile, the way that they view upon the world that we know so well, from a completely different perspective. Being "child-like" isn't something wrong with this group of people, because they are just little children, and you can't fault them for who they are. That was how the little boy was to me, like most of the other little children that I meet from time to time on the streets. I  like to stare at them, the way that they stare at me all the time. On my part, it is about reciprocating what they do to me occasionally. But on their part, why do they stare at us for? That was the question that I asked myself as I made my way home today, something which I never thought of today. In my mind in that thirty seconds of visual sparring, all I wanted to do was to make sure that that kid looked away first. But there he was, unmoved by what I was doing, and he stared at me not because he wanted to win some silly game that I was playing. He was just curious, and he was curious because he was innocent. Oh, that innocence in his eyes. 

I am, like any other average human being, a bore to myself in the mirror. I look at myself on a day in and day out basis, and nothing new fascinates me for the most part. That little boy, however, took an interest in me long enough to win that little visual sparring back there, and I wondered to myself why. Of course, he probably wins most of the time with different strangers, but I suppose it is that child-like fascination that, well, fascinated me. The funny thing is that I don't even remember how it was like when I was a child, to be fascinated with everything in this world. I don't remember how it felt like when I first breathed air, or tasted milk, or petted a dog. The world must have looked very different in my eyes back then, from way down there right below the waist of an average adult. It must have been somewhat frightful at night, but the daylight brought about many interesting things. I wonder how my undeveloped brain perceived the color green, or the color blue, or did I just see the world in black and white back then. Probably not, but then it's just strange how I do not remember how fascinated I was with the world. 

I don't suppose the devil is my memory here, it surely isn't because it has been too long ago for me to recall. Certainly, it has been a long time, but I still remember the time when I was younger, that picture captured by my mother of me staring at a toy train set for two straight hours, non-stop. That was one of those rare moments of fascination caught on film that still exists today, and yet even I don't remember what fascinated me about the plastic trains and the plastic passengers. Maybe it was because of the way that it automatically moved around the tracks, or the way the passengers would board the train automatically. No, I am talking about a fascination further away from that, deep into my childhood in places I don't even remember. Perhaps when I couldn't articulate my thoughts properly, that curious period of time between the age of zero and two when I couldn't talk. My relatives thought I was a mute for some reason, because I only really started talking when I was two years of age. Then the floodgates opened, and I am now typing long blog entries on a daily basis, though nobody ever really reads word for word anyway. Anyhow, that is the period of time I am talking about, that time when I didn't know what was what, who was who, and which was which. The time when the word "yellow" and the color yellow did not connect. What in the world was I thinking? 

It isn't my memory failing, but I think it is because we have been desensitized to the world, you know. I remember the fascination when I looked upon Taj Mahal under the Indian sunrise for the very first time. I was speechless, the only time in my life when I didn't have anything to say. Yet, it did take something as grand as that to make me feel bewildered, something like one of the seven wonders of the world. Imagine that emotion happening to you on a daily basis, right before you even knew what the word "fascination" feels like. That was probably how it was like, when everything felt so new and alien, that you just wanted to touch it with your fingers and put them in your mouth. I put a great many things into my mouth, including this one time when I almost fed myself with my own feces. That aside, I feel that it is because we have been desensitized to this world, you know, I think the reason why I don't remember the fascination I had for the smallest of things is because I have been too far detached from them. It's like the feeling of running down the beach with your bare feet, and it feels good for a while. Then you start a game of frisbee on the beach, and your feet become numbed to the sensation. That is what I am talking about, the loss of our fascination of the world. 

If I knew what I was thinking about, if I could write it down somewhere, I probably would have. The first time I saw a bird in the skies, that must have been a big thing. Or the first time when I saw a tree move in the wind, that must have been yet another big event in my life. Yet, I didn't have the mental capacity to know what I was feeling, even the smallest thing like the eyes of a stranger. Even now, this may be jealousy that I am feeling for that little boy on the bus. He still has that fascination with the world, you know, in something as uneventful and boring as myself. He won the little game that I played with him, only because of what he still has within him and I don't, anymore. I don't look at the birds in the skies and wonder aloud in my head about what they are, nor do I wonder about why the trees are moving by themselves along the side of the road. I know that birds fly now, and I know that the trees are moving because of a thing called wind. I know a lot of things now, and that is why I do not get fascinated any longer. It takes a lot more, a whole lot more, and I hate that. I want to feel again, you know, like a child looking upon the world for the very first time. I just want to know. 

It's like sex education, when your parents told you about the bird and the bees. Or, maybe it wasn't your parents who told you about it, but you somehow found out about it online or something. For me, it was my classmate who told me about it, and the idea of putting the male genital into a female genital disturbed me a little. Yet, that disturbance quickly turned into fascination, and that was how I learned about sex at the age of thirteen. I don't know if I am alone, but I often wonder at times if my parents wonder about how I found out about this thing called sex. They never told me before, and never mentioned anything when the actors and the actresses started to take off their clothes on the television. I never asked and they never told me anything, and I just took them all in because it felt a bit strange to ask them about it. At least, if I asked, I don't remember ever doing that. Which is also why till this day, I still feel somewhat embarrassed to watch love making scenes with them, though it is something perfectly normal if you think about it. I'd picture myself as a young boy at times though, asking my parents about what they are doing in the television screen. I would have asked, because of all the things that I wanted to know. All the innocence and the curiosity bursting out of my mouth, for minor events. 

Then the little boy grew up, and he learned a great deal of many things. He learned about how to socialize in school, and he learned about how to survive it. He learned the rules in the playground, and he learned about who to hang out with and who never to mess around with. He learned about a secret crush, and then he learned about being crushed by his secret crush. He learned about failure at school, he learned about success in school. He learned about rewards, and then he learned about punishments. He learned about sex, and then he learned some more about sex. He learned more about liking someone, he learned about loving someone. He learned about the socio-politics involved in friendships, and he learned about getting along with the parents. He learned about balancing school work and friends, then family and the loved one. He learned about the hardships of life, the way people are struggling to survive in distant lands. He learned about people dying on a daily basis, from famines and wars, from diseases and disasters. He learned about conspiracies and dark secrets, and he learned them from books and from movies and from songs and from magazines. He learned a great many things, and then he sees the world as he sees it today. 

Thus is the route that we all take somehow, the way that we are constantly being bombarded by information. We are learning a little bit of something everyday, even if it is gossip from halfway around the world. We learn, and then we become desensitized to it. We do not feel that it is something worth pondering over, because it isn't. Yet, if presented with the same information, the younger version of me who didn't know how to articulate my thoughts probably would have had a thing or two to say, if I could say a thing or two at all. It is as if we were born as this clean and warm towel, the kind that you get in hotels or on an airplane. Then you wipe your face with the towel, you wipe your hands with the towel, and it becomes stained and dirty. It is as if the society and the world act as pollutants to our innocent minds, whether we like it or not. It is all a part of growing up, this slow and painful process that takes away all innocence, no matter what day and age you live in. You learn about hunting and gathering, about killing animals and the survival in the wild back in prehistoric times. It doesn't matter when you grew up, you learn and grow up, you lose that innocence and you find less and less reason to look, to stare, to gaze, and be completely blown away by something, anything. 

Oh, I recall this one time, the first time, when I laid eyes on a ladybird. It was at my house in Taiwan, the one on top of the hill in the middle of nowhere. I remember the line of bushes along the wall next to the front gates, and I remember stopping my tricycle right next to the bush and stared intently at a little red and black dot on the single blade of leaf. My sister cycled over to my side and asked what I was doing there, and I pointed out that "thing" to my sister. "That's a ladybird", she said, and she rode away. I took the ladybird into my hands and I played with it, and its wings would open and close, open and close, open and close. I studied it with much fascination, at the dots on its back and the little feelers that stuck out from the little head. It was beautiful, at least to me as a little boy, it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, until the next beautiful thing came along. But yes, that was the first time I laid eyes on a real ladybird, though I don't see them around anymore. I don't remember the last time I saw a ladybird, and neither do I remember the last time I felt fascinated with one. I have lost that innocence, because I have grown up, grown older, just like everybody else. 

It kinda makes me sad, how I cannot stare at a stranger on a bus with complete fascination. No agendas, no reasons, just because I want to stare. Children can do that, people would understand. But not me, not when I am grown up, not when I am in the last year of my university life. That is against social norms, you just don't do things like that. But I want to, you know, to look at a lightbulb and wonder how in the world it is possible for something to light up like that. I want to see the world from that childish point of view again, back to a time when I was not exposed to the pollution of, well, the world. The world is a brilliant place, and yet I don't see it as being brilliant any longer. At least, not as brilliant as I must have perceived it when I was a young boy, when I was not "polluted", so to speak. I was clear, I was clean. I was everything that an adult should be jealous and envious about. I was child-like and innocent, and I was truly, for that one time in my life - free.