Words.

Something happened to me last night, while I was asleep, and I just thought I’d share it with everyone. Perhaps, it’s just one of those terribly odd things that happen once in a while in our lives, that we don’t really know what to make of it in our waking hours. At best, I think, we can only remain puzzled, even though, try as we might, put it out into the open for all our friends to listen/read, and derive some vague sense on entertainment from it. This is what happened…

I was asleep. I remember, in my dream, that I was dreaming. I think it was very clear to me that I was dreaming, somehow there was this feeling within me when I was in my dream, telling me that I was dreaming. I was with a group of friends, and we met up for something, a party of sorts, and we were going somewhere for dinner, a meal, something along those lines. We were all chatting, having fun, and so on and so forth, the usual kind of gathering that you would have with your friends once in a blue moon, when you would catch up with them in the midst of your busy schedule. All that, so far, as you can read, just a few lines, that they’re really vague, really general, lack of detail, there’s the use of the words “somewhere”, “something”, “somehow”… And that’s the fact of this part of my dream, it’s just THAT hazy. (Or, is it on hindsight now that I’m awake, that I cannot remember this part of my dream? Which is it? I don’t know…) Quite simply, I cannot remember EXACTLY what happened, key details of this part of my dream that I could furnish all of you with to give a complete picture. Had there been more detail, I could have told you which group of friends I was with, where we were going, where we had met, and so on, and so forth. But, I cannot.

Then (and the oddity of the dream becomes more apparent now), I realized that I had lost my wallet. The horrors, indeed, when you lose your wallet, and I’m sure some of us at some point of time in our lives have lost something valuable, not just our wallets, but perhaps a journal, a handbag, a laptop, something personal, something that says so much about you once a stranger just takes a mere peek into them. It was bloody frantic. The problem is, I tried to remember where I had lost my wallet, where I could possibly have dropped it. You see, now that I’m awake, remembering this dream, remembering that in my dream I’m remembering where I lost my wallet; it’s as though my dream were dreaming itself another dream. The amazing thing is that I could remember DETAIL, almost everything that happened that had led to the loss of my wallet. The first thing that came to mind was where I had put my wallet: in the side pocket of a pair of cargo pants that I was wearing. No, the wallet hadn’t dropped out of my pocket accidentally.

I remember, that in my dream I remembered, that I gave my pants away to an elephant. That image was right smack there in my head: an elephant was wearing my pants. I could see myself taking off my pants, and wearing it on the elephant. Yes, the elephant was huge, I mean, those kind of usual sized elephants that we see in the zoo (in real life). I could see my wallet in the side pocket of my cargo pants as I put the pants on the elephant. In fact, I remember that my dream-self remembered that there were 9 elephants, each of them with their own advertising poster, and the elephant wearing my pants was the 7th one from the left, and of course, looking at the elephant posters from left to right, they gradually increased in size.

Ok well, summarily speaking, my wallet was in a pair of cargo pants that was being worn by an elephant. So the first impulse was to rush back to the zoo, and try to find the elephant, so that I could get my wallet back! Of course, that was all that I thought of. I didn’t even consider whether I was wearing any pants in the first place or not. Well, as I remember now, yes I was wearing a pair of pants when I went back to the zoo. I remember my dream-self remembering that I was cursing and swearing under my breath as I made my way along a stone pathway lined by cages (animal exhibits), smelling the animals (they all smell the same to me, and amazingly, in my dream, I can actually smell…), telling myself that if I did not get back to the elephant enclosure soon enough, my wallet would go missing because either the zookeepers would find a pair of pants on their elephant and take them off, or, the elephant would actually be smart enough to realize it was wearing my pants and take out the wallet and do something to it (like, sit on it or something). Then, I thought, why not call the zoo! I searched through my pockets and found this card which had two numbers which I could call the zoo from (and for one of the two numbers, I can tell you the first four digits are 6269****). The two numbers were highlighted in orange, and above those two numbers, on this white card, were other details, such as the opening hours of the zoo (from 9am to 11pm), and the location of the safety office (near the entrance of the zoo). I dialled the first number on my cell phone, and this old man on the other side picked up the phone. I asked him if he were the zookeeper, or at least one of the officials in the zoo, and he replied, in Mandarin, that no, this wasn’t the zoo, and that I should dial the second number below his, and I would get the zoo (and how did he know that there was another number beneath that one that I just dialled?). He sounded really cheerful and all, and it was right then that his image came into my mind, as though I were there with him on the other side of the phone, seeing him talk to me over the phone, telling me all that he had just did. Anyway, I gave my thanks, and dialled the second number. I got the zoo, but whoever it was on the other side of the phone, didn’t know what I was talking about (he didn’t believe that an elephant was wearing my pants).

Frustrated, I finally reached the zoo, and close by the entrance, there were a few wooden huts, and immediately I knew that those were the safety offices. So I walked over (and by now, the stone pathway had ended, and now I was walked on fine sand, as though I were on a beach), and began going to each door to find out which one was the main office that I could seek instant help from. A couple of the huts looked suspiciously like those kinds of makeshift huts that we see along East Coast Parkway, used for the storage of kayaks and paddles. I found one office, which a big blue sign on the front door proclaiming: “SAFETY”. So I knocked, went in, and right in front of the door, there was this chest-high partition with a clear panel near the top of it, and a pair of bespectacled eyes stared at me. I mean, in fact, the partition was so close to the door that I could not even open the door fully. The pair of eyes rose and I saw this woman, who asked me what was the matter. So, I just told her that I lost my wallet in the zoo (no point saying that an elephant is wearing the pants in which my wallet is to be found), and she said to me that I would have to wait for a while, as the officer who’s in charge of matters like that is busy, and that she was just a clerk, pushing pens and papers, with no real authority in the zoo. She jerked her head to her right, indicating to me a door behind which I would find the officer in charge. The door opened, and lo, the officer in charge was my college classmate.

His name is Vincent, and he was wearing this uniform, exactly the kind that the Navy would wear during National Day Parade. Just that there were no adornments that would inform the layman that he was with the Navy, no, none of that at all, but he was wearing a great royal yellow sash across his chest. Two other people had followed him out then, and when he saw me, we were both surprised at finding each other there and then. I told him that I lost my wallet and needed his help, and he in turn told me that I would have to wait after he had finished serving those two gentlemen… And that’s as far as I remember my dream remembering, for I woke up, and found myself lying in my bed.

It’s just one of those odd dreams where the fantastic happens, and frankly, I dream almost every night, but none have captured my memory as greatly as this one has. Somehow, it’s about the layering of this dream, that as I remember and recall this dream, I find that my dream was actually doing the same as well. Of course, I could try doing one of those Freudian interpretations of my dreams, and try to link it somehow to some part of my waking life, but then, I think that that would take too long already, for in fact, this post seems quite long in itself already given that I’ve described almost every single detail of the dream that I had. Of course, I found my wallet sitting on my table when I got up, still there, unmoved since last night when I put it there after I got home. Once in a while, as I’ve been typing this, I’ve been stealing glances at my wallet, just to make sure that it was still there, as it is now…

Caution
Frustration held under
the bubbling
coming up slow and
molten
a gentle fire
licks the cauldron
of the mind
carefully sticks of memory
stir and stir
stir and stir
what lies suspended
within
the dense emotion
gradually heated
working towards a point
beyond which
only a boiling overflow
is next.

I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.

-Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children.

Between blinks
a whole night passes,
and it is day again.

Within that blink
an infinite unconscious
unfolded.

The Bicycle Ride
Time before anything rose,
but I did,
and we found ourselves
waiting at Longhouse for
the ride to start,
me and her.
Yes, there were others as well,
the Queen of Snails,
a Rock and Roll King,
an Italian Stallion, just
to name a few.
But as far as I was concerned
I saw just the
two of us,
matching each other
even in stroke, as the peloton
rolled out
at 5am on the spot.
Time waits for no rider.
I could feel her spinning
ever so smoothly
like running water
right beneath me
going on and on, stirring…
crossing into subtle joy.
And yet we just rode on,
without saying a single
word to each other.
She wouldn’t? (Or couldn’t?)
We zipped along,
up Prata Hill,
Paul took off, no one followed,
me and her we stayed
snugly in the pack cherishing
the draft and warmth.
The rolling stretch of Mandai
kept us together still, although
it was over too fast for my
liking, for soon we reached
the Shell station, that pit stop
where tired legs and foggy shades
gather and regroup
but still she didn’t say anything
to me as I looked at her
(and sometimes I wonder if
she even knows that I’m
looking at her).
Left, or right,
the pack would split
and that was the end
of my bicycle ride.
To the next ride, then,
whenever that may be,
tomorrow perhaps, which
I, foresee.

Castaway
I claw at them, those untouchable thoughts that thought themselves
into existence, but I slice my fingers through them as though
through black shadows that dance upon the inner walls of caves.
Whose agency is that now that new thoughts should come to my mind
without my conscious conception of them? All around me,
you people, every single one of you, as I tell myself that by my
own choice I harbour you in my mind you become puppets
and then slowly gradually you do my bidding all that I tell you to
which all exists only in my own head.

Errata
Still in production, still in the
process of writing printing,
I find all these
errors mistakes speckled
through the yearly
daily pages of my —-.

Flimsy sheet,
might get ignored overlooked, filled
in with symbols corrections
that might not be noticed read.
Not even part of the binding.

But I would read them,
feeling understanding each nuanced
change correction that seem
to be done only on
hindsight. Would it not
have been all too futile late,
however?

As if that slice piece of imperfection
could balance out negate
that pulp which was already imperfect
when it was finished.

How many words in this books.

They are meant for remembrance. As though words could carry memories.

For words are clumsy mountaineers and clumsy miners. Not for them to bring down treasures from the mountains’ peaks, or up from the mountains’ bowels.

But there is a living mindfulness that has passed gently, like a stroking hand, over everything memorable. And when the flame shoots up out of these ashes, hot and glowing, strong and mighty, and you stare into it as though spellbound by its magic, then -

But no one can write himself into this kind of pure mindfulness with unskillful hand and crude pen; one can write only in such white, undemanding pages as these. I did so on September 4, 1900.

-Franz Kafka.

She became a
thought, and then,
she was all mine.

There are my books,
a mere monologue
between friends.