初一

Once a year, there are as many shoes as there are people.

Once a year, life is caught in a postulating pause. It's as if the passage of time is more pronounced, less subtle; more effect and less cause.

I still remember the days when my brother, cousin and I would be playing in our aunt's 'Lego Room' at these yearly affairs. 太婆 would walk in, her smile so nurturing it punishes the austere face of the wall, before sitting down and telling us in Cantonese, "Xiu peng yao, tai po kar lei mon hong bao."

On this day, however, 太婆 merely sits up and wonders aloud, "Erng ji bin gor da bin gor" ("I've forgotten who's who"). When we pay her our respects, we introduce ourselves. She remembers little.

Today, we aren't in the play room. 太婆 can no longer walk at will. Perhaps ninety-four 'yearly affairs' later one seeks, in watching people go about their own ways, an odd assurance.

So let me assure you, 太婆, let me assure you and your daughter, our grandmother - who tears when she realises that it's exactly thirty years ago that her two sons were taking their A and O Levels, just as my brother and I are this year - let me assure you that when you both have long forgotten, that when your memory is lost to age, I will introduce 'us' to you again and again, for as many times as it takes; that when the past tempts you, eludes you, forsakes you - I will weave coherence into your confusion.

There will be as much sense as there are shoes.

Come on, now - we have so much catching up to do.