Words.

They’ve left me all alone here. They did ask them to go along with me, but I refused to. Not my kind of things anymore, I told them. Charlie went off to one of those clubs in the centre of town to party the night away and then find themselves the next morning stumbled forth into a new year. I couldn’t hold her back, after all, she just turned 21 this year. Even Josephine went off on her own. Like daughter, like mother. No more of these kinds of things for me. What’s the point of it all? I pleaded with them to stay with me, to watch the night with me, but they both told me that they had plans with their friends. There was no way that they could turn them down now. I railed at them, asking them where their priorities lay, since when was water thicker than blood, and who was the head of the household. There was no stopping them. They tried to bring me over to their side but I cleverly resisted and they desisted. No more. Now I’m here all alone. Sitting beside the fire place, looking out the window facing the street, with a book in my lap. The Politics of Friendship. But it’s a terrible book, only because it’s in English. I should have bought the original one instead, and try my luck at reading French rather than make things easy for me by going the way of translation, to a language that I’m most familiar with. But never mind. It’s too late. I’m stuck with this one already. The shops are all closed tonight as well, so that’s no way I’m going to get anything else. Moreover, I’ve stopped reading. The book is still in my lap.

I wonder what they are doing now. No, that I cannot imagine. As far as I know, I can only be certain of the things that I do. Like right now, I sit here. I know that I sit here because I am sitting here. I sit by the fireplace. I know that the fireplace is there, though it is not really a fireplace, it’s really just a hole in the wall where the fireplace used to be but now in its place stands a heater than runs on electricity. I know that it is there because I see it sitting there, I know that it is there because I can feel the warmth that is radiating from it. There are people out walking on the sidewalk, out in the cold, out in the rain. It’s useful to live in one of these kinds of appartements that were built in the forties and fifties. Ground floor units allows one to overlook the pavement, to be able to sit at one’s window and watch people going by. To watch people hurrying by. I saw Charlie and Josephine hurry off the moment they had the chance to. I tried to see where they were going. All I could see was them walking briskly through a curtain of rain towards the end of the rue. And then they turned the corner, then they were out of my sight, out of the grasp of my imagination. I did not think that I would be able to be responsible enough to handle the conceptions that I would have of what they were doing at the moment now at their respective parties. But I know that I am still here, at the very least. That’s some certainty after all.

Let me think of the past. It’s easier to think of yesterday first, because I can be sure that this part of the past is still fresh in my mind, and not corrupted at all by the workings of my own mind, by how I would have wanted things to have been back then and have warped them to suit my own memory. Yesterday, I was alone, just like today. The two of them had gone out, just like today, again. I did get out of the house, I remember going to the jardin nearby, a big one, and there were a lot of people just lying on the grass, taking strolls, walking their dogs, reading a book, and doing many other things. I didn’t spend much time there. I turned back home very soon. That’s all I can remember. That’s all I wanted to remember. I mean, is everything in the past worth remembering at all, when at the end of the day, or rather, given enough time lapsed, all memory in some way or another simply becomes part of one’s figment of imagination? The past, rather than being what it is, the past, would become a construct in any case, in any circumstance. The worth of it is not there anymore. Therefore, better, to record down what happened in the past in bite-sized chunks, just detail, all detail, no emotion involved for fear of distortion and metamorphosing powers. Small parts of the past so that one does not get distracted after long periods of rambling. And then one should just have all these different small parts of the past, try to piece them together somehow, but evidently there will be gaps. That’s the point of it all, isn’t it? i look into my own past, and I find it ridden with holes. As if someone had gone through it with a machine gun. Just like when the Japanese did beach landings on Kota Bahru well back in 1941, and the British were waiting on the beach with machine guns ready to nail them down. My past was trying to reach up on me, trying to board me, and that was all I could do to resist. But now, accepting it as it is, I see all those gaps and holes, and the best I can do is to try to plug it up with meaning, that there must be some connection somehow between all these gaps. I see that I am beginning to contradict myself. No, there can be no constructs. I will remain satisfied with these gaps, there is no desire in me to fill in the blanks of my past existence, I will be fine with these absences. The presence of these absences is good enough for me.

I walk around the house now, because I’m tired of sitting. I walk around the house in darkness, because I’ve been living here for such a long time that I know where everything is placed, every single piece of furniture, and I know that I will not knock into any of them at all. In fact, I could just close my eyes and try walking about the house instead of switching off the lights, but no, that is simply being foolish, being childish. I find myself standing in the kitchen, admiring the space that I am in, looking at the walls, doing a mental measurement of the dimensions of the kitchen. Ten feet, by ten feet, by ten feet. Nice proportions. Perhaps I could wait in here until the two girls come home. Wait in here until they step through the main door, and call out my name when they realize that they do not find me sitting in my chair in the living room. The knives hang on the wall with small hooks, different sizes each of them, different sizes for despatching different sizes of… There’s nothing in the fridge except a bottle of spoilt milk. When was the last time that we, as a family, had dinner together at home? Had a nice home-cooked meal? As a child, I lived with my grandparents, and grandmother always cooked. That was a long time ago. Fifty years have passed since? Has it been that long already? There’s no unity in any family that does not sit down together at a dinner table to have a meal together. The old has passed, and there can no longer be a renewal of old traditions and beliefs. There, there’s that long wooden sofa that has been in its place ever since we moved in here such a long time ago. In fact, now that I think about it, I realize that it’s even older than me. More than fifty years? Is that even possible? This sofa has even outlasted my parents. At least the frame of the sofa is that old. The original cushioning disintegrated and was replaced many times over in the years that have gone by. Replacements are a key facet in every single one of our lives. We replace many things, from cushions, to cutlery, to teeth, to organs, to light bulbs, and to people. But what about these replacements? They do not say much about the original that was there in the first place, and we replace them simply because they have grown old and even though we need to throw them away, we find that we have grown so used to them that we cannot bear to live a life without them. Thus, the great idea of the replacement came into place, substituting what was once there for another that is just as good, even though it might not be the same, but we’re fine with it anyhow. Yet some things will be able to outlast the passing desires of man. Just like that sofa frame, one of those few reliable things in life that cannot be worn away or gotten tired of.

It’s getting a little difficult now. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it. I can’t explain what’s getting a little difficult now, but I know that something is. Again, I hear the clock ticking. It’s half past one in the morning already. Already into another year. Did I miss anything? They’re not back yet. I doubt they will be. I doubt they’ve ever been back in the first place. There’s nothing in it left for me anymore. Never has there been anything for me in the first place. It’s getting crazy now. What is? No, I’m all alone here, waiting, waiting in vain for two people who’re my family, who’re complete strangers to me, who’re related to me, who’re my kin and my kind, less of one more of the other.