Last Conversations

It's gonna be two-and-a-half weeks without any Internet connection for me (since unlike those enlisting in the army, we can't bring smartphones) so here's a slightly heavy one people who bother reading long-winded, meandering passages might again be put through. These words are from the past 15 days since I've been back from an overseas trip, scribbled on paper and on my phone between hellos that were all too soon followed by goodbyes. These 15 days were odd - some were spent waiting for people to return from their own trips, and some were spent waiting for my own enlistment days after most friends have already gone in. If I have learnt anything at all, it is that there is never enough time, and never enough words.

I have a feeling that the waiting will continue, even when I eventually enlist tomorrow and am subjected to the regimental life of uniformed forces. At this stage of our lives - like it or not - we play the waiting game.

--


It is not my first time at the basketball court of Buona Vista CC, although it is my first time playing here. The court is an ashen red, the net droops with a loose end and the rim is so lopsided I think I'll have to shoot from a particular side if I'm to score at all.

Trexel projects the ball into the air, and I'm projecting tales from Sec Three and Four - from memory to mouth.

Swish.

"Wah, not bad."

He is surprisingly humble. "Nah, no form already."

We talk about the NBA, about the Premier League, about how he used to play the 2014 NBA video game on his Mac and I'd watch during our lunch breaks.

"The file no longer works, I can't play it anymore."

"Oh man."

Swish. 

The disparate puddles from the previous night's rain dot the court, but soon they have shrunk to irrelevance. The sun comes out and the day has found a new reverence. Trexel jumps for the ball after a shot of mine circles the rim and tips itself over. He reaches for it as the ball in mid-air happens to cover the Sun from where I'm standing, such that it's like a scaled down solar eclipse in play. As he grabs the ball firmly there's the illusion that he's touched the sides of the Sun, and the rays sprout out from around the edges in that brief fraction of a second to glorious effect.

He then flings the ball in my direction, the fiery orb spinning its way towards me. I seize it mid-spin, and I imagine this mass of heat and light suddenly at my disposal. There is the feeling of being in control as I handle the ball, my fingers wrapping its contours and navigating its grooves.

This sensation of ascendancy is only momentary - a water droplet, presumably from the tree still damp with rainwater, taps me on my shoulder, and I am reminded it is never all up to me.

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A snow globe a friend got for me as a Christmas gift sits on my desk. The miniature reindeer in the globe - adorned with a tessellated red scarf - clutches a hand bell and rests on an even tinier stone. With a light shake, the "snow" - or, as I like to call it, "overpriced dust" - rises and engulfs the small sphere.

I look on and wonder what it must be like to be the reindeer, knowing the snow - this unchanging snow - will rise and fall the same way every time, the minuscule specks lost in a flurry but then ultimately floating down to rest. The reindeer sleeps knowing that things are as they were.

I am later overcome by bemusement - who stares at a little knick-knack and gets jealous?

_________________________________________________

In a quiet corner of Bishan MRT Station is a QB House I go to. Six months ago my hair was cut by a lad who I think just got transferred there and since then I've been going back to him for my hair cut each time. If he wasn't in, I'd ask his colleagues when his next shift would be and might return another day on my way home, or if I was running errands in the area.

His name is Elven, and I'm not actually sure how old he is but he seems to be in his mid-20s. He has a thick Malaysian accent, which is especially noticeable because our conversations are in Chinese. That is not to say we speak a lot during my haircut, though - I'm often glad to let the razors and scissors do the talking.

I find it awfully awkward when he asks a question and we start to have a private conversation of our own, even as there are two other hairstylists and five other customers in that tight space. I still oblige in replying but it doesn't mean I mind the small talk all that much, because after all he's a pleasant fella.

A few haircuts ago he'd asked what my post-exams plans were, and I'd raised enlisting for National Service as something that was on the horizon. I've learnt that NS is actually a pretty decent conversation filler (or starter), because there are so many ways of branching out into different sub-topics that you don't have to worry about racking your brain too much for something to say.

This time, I am back again and he remembers that I will be enlisting very, very soon, so he hypothesises that this might be the last time I go to him for a haircut.

“ 几个星期后你剑 botak, 以后就不用来了，对吗？”

“ 啊，对。”

He chuckles, and then goes on to give me some hairstylist's advice for shaving techniques in case I ever wanted to “ 剑 botak ” on my own. I share how some friends are at a loss as to whether they should shave their heads at a barber shop before enlistment, or at camp on enlistment day itself. Somehow or another I also get to asking him about whether he'll get a Chinese New Year break, and whether he returns to Malaysia to see his family then. His response is to ask me if I will get a break during that festive period.

Snips and swipes later, he reaches for the "blower" which essentially rids most of the loose pieces of hair on your head before the customer takes off the gown cape and the haircut is done. He dusts some hair off my back, passes me the standard QB House comb and wet wipe, then helps me with the cape.

He then remarks, “ 最后一次，好像有点感慨哦。”

“ 噢，的确是有点感慨。”

His eyes are small but contemplative. “ 到了 army, 祝你好运！”

I do not bother with pointing out that it is the police I'll be joining, and not the army.

“ 啊，谢谢你。希望我们后会有期。"

"哈哈，不知道两年后我会不会还在这里剪头发呢。没关系，人生就是这样。”

I open the door gently, but the bells attached to the handle make no mistake of marking my departure. I'm feeling abashed by the fact that everyone in the shop can listen on and watch our little farewell, but I muster up a  “ 新年快乐 ”, and then I'm out the door.

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It is a Tuesday morning I've looked forward to for quite a while. It's the first time I'm back at school ever since returning from a trip with my family about a week before. At the turnstiles, I hold my breath in expectation of rejection, but eventually I find a strange comfort in the ensuing 'beep' upon tapping my card against the electronic reader.

Great, it still works. 

It sounds like 6.50am weekday mornings, 8am Saturdays and post-lunch drowsiness. Most of all, it sounds like a half-arsed 'hello' from a place you came to know in a myriad ways, but still never knew completely.

On entry, I am further greeted by the whistle of a netball coach frantically trying to organise her team. Her players are doing some kind of transition drill, encircling and exchanging, stopping and turning. Like a banquet table in artful conversation, their training session is a series of calculated steps.

I calculate the number of steps taking me to the mouth of the canteen, lightly tapping my feet against the tiled stairway, and, with some fleetness of foot, I soon approach the College section's street football court. I listen intently to the quiet. As is often the case, it seems the rest are not on time. Then I realise I've considered their "not being on time" instead of their "being late." Mornings like these mean the "half full" side of me can't help but rear its far-from-ugly head.

As I reach for my pocket to enter a "WHERE IS EVERYONE", or "WHO OVERSLEPT" (maybe not in caps), group message into my phone, a light shadow flashes past the ground ahead of me. I spot Yinn Ray, diminutive but as usual armed with a confident gait, about 20 metres away. He must have seen me first, because before I know it he has hollered out my nickname and charges down the slope with his arms wide open, even while trying to balance his shoe bag on one side. I wonder how he can be so full of life despite having just taken a 13-hour flight the night before. With his flip flops nearly getting caught between each other, and the beaming face I've come to know ever so infectious, he makes the 20 metres, and I make light of the sight. Upon embracing we both note how long it's been since we last met, and I despair about how it felt like I was away the whole of December, and he makes no effort to absolve me of any guilt. None of that seems to matter, though, and I am all smiles; this is a guy who knows me better than most, and the one who would take raisins - or as I also know them, "Raysins" - out of my cubicle in class.

With some faith, the rest arrive and so does the familiar banter. We split teams, the game of four versus five kicks off, and there is much #hype. I am on the side with one less player but we cope better than I could have expected, and somehow in the instances when Qi and I are up front we both know where the other will be at the exact moment one of us makes a pass. I think this must come with the two years, with me sometimes missing outings or meals with this group because of prior arrangements with other groups from earlier in high school, but then always returning in the knowledge that these are the people I've spent the most time with in the last two, arduous years.

A modest drizzle grows in hubris and looks set to unleash a downpour, but the clouds hold tight, as if desperately preserving this morning for our sake. There is no dampener, no despair - only the boyish howling and the friendly jibes and jabs fill the air.

Halfway through "the proceedings", Thung makes a trip to the toilet, adding to the piquancy of the moment. Like a jumped up pinball machine, the court and its occupants make the whole thing seem more intense than it actually is.

At lunch, we catch our breath. After defending myself with a clarification to everyone on a certain (grossly mistaken and highly unfortunate) "auntie killer" accusation against me, I am largely quiet, as I often am at a table of ten. I think about how it's fitting that we're sharing dishes for our meal today, instead of getting individual portions. The Lady Susan on the table is a negotiator of appetites. Chopsticks reach for the centre and food is shared. We play "the thumb game" to decide who gets the last piece of tofu. I look up at the faces around me in various fixtures of amusement and mischief. A new order of chicken is served. Much food for thought.

After lunch there comes the inevitability of parting ways. Someone says something about meeting on the third Saturday of every month but I have no clue if that will turn into a thing. Along the afternoon activity on Upper Bukit Timah Road, there are red lights where revving engines give away the impatience of drivers ready to go. I am anything but ready to go. The group walks towards the nearby train station, and I am at the back. Yinn Ray is beside me.

Breaking the silence, I admit to him, "I don't like this feeling."

"Yang, it'll all work out." He tries.

He rests his palm on my shoulder for a moment. I tell him he seems slightly taller now, and he rolls his eyes nefariously.

"I guess so."

I force a grin, but I also want to tell him that saying it is different from knowing it.

That simply guessing is not enough for me.

____________________________________________________



On New Year's Day a fellow Liverpool fan and I map out the games that we'll miss because of BMT. After working it all out, we discovered that after we both enlist, the next game we'd be able to catch is the one on 24 February, which is nearly two months from now. That's six games missed; to put things in perspective, even during the A Levels period, the most number of games we missed in succession was three.

It is now in the wee hours of 6 January and time for the last game I'll catch before that fateful 24 Feb. It just so happens to be a cup match versus the local rivals, Everton. Moments before kick-off I text my friend. We watch virtually all the games together, that is, if you accept our extended definition of the word "together" to include being in two separate homes but awake for the same game while the rest of the neighbourhood is asleep. My first text is to check if he's up because we have a pact to call the other person if one of us has slept through our alarm.

"Heyo, you there??"

I add on a bit more, because we have just signed an exciting new player and he's been selected to make his debut.

"Van Djik's in the line-up... THIS IS IT"

It is only when the referee has blown the whistle to start the game, and Anfield erupts into its raucous best while my text goes unanswered that it hits me.

Shit, he enlisted a day ago. I knew that. 

We'd go on to win the game in the most rousing fashion, with the debutant scoring the crucial goal. Yet, even in the elation and euphoria, it all just felt slightly different this time around.

____________________________________________________

It's said that when we look at the stars we are actually seeing them as they were many years ago. Say a star is 50 light years away - we'd therefore be seeing it as it was 50 years ago. In that sense, watching the stars is like seeing into the past, each celestial body of light representing a certain period in some galaxy.

It's all very romantic but there's no such thing as "wishing on a star" - shooting stars are meteoroids that look like stars just because they move through Earth's atmosphere at such a speed that the resultant heat creates a visible path. Those wishes fall flat.

Instead, to look up at the sky is to be a privileged observer of history - things you know must have happened because you can actually see them happening.

I don't require proof of any personal recollections, but I wouldn't mind living for many more light years to come, just to watch it all unfold again when I look up at the night sky.

Silent, but sure.

____________________________________________________

My last goodbye to a friend is on a Sunday night in Bishan. Holding vanilla cones from McDonald's, we sit at a bench outside a row of shops. We talk, about people and music and life, and pressing those small buttons on the lids of plastic cups. Then, later on, with the crowd dissipating as it borders 9.30pm, I realise that it is Elven in the QB House ahead of us. He folds the barber gown capes, then sweeps hair off the floor. I watch as he goes about preparing to close shop, and after the lights in that QB House go out, I turn back to my friend, and in my mind I'm thinking about how all this is going to be so far away from me in time to come.

I am a hostage to growing up, held at gunpoint by the memories of things that were and the weight of things that will be. Curse me for being melodramatic about all of it, but heck - who's to tell?

Things keep changing, and I know that.

All too well.


--

Thanks for making it this far. A brief hiatus, for now - be back in a bit?

December the 24th: Living Eve

My family is spending our last two nights in Japan in a city, having lost ourselves to the vastness of Kyushu's volcanoes, mountains and rural towns over the past week and a half. It takes some reminding, but there are actual street lamps now, actual inner city train systems and actual youngsters with glasses too big for their faces, iPhone 8s in one hand and overpriced coffee in the other.

There is something to be said about Christmas in cities across the world, something about it all being the same, even when there are thousands of ways to say "Merry Christmas". Malls try to outdo one another with their trees but none shall be grander than the big ass one in the city centre. Shops slash prices. Supermarkets play those more than likeable Yuletide tunes. People wish one another, back and forth. There's a familiar feeling in the air, a collective and albeit unspoken recognition that the year is fast drawing to a close and maybe this - like all endings supposedly ought to - calls for celebration.

In larger countries, humans get in touch with their inner animal and also begin The Great Migration. On the streets of this city we are in, people lug luggage across streets and into cross-country trains, buses, and ferries which will see them into the countryside. To have come to the city for  work is to leave a lifestyle and a community. To then go home to people who keep your name tucked under their tongues is to learn that there is probably nothing quite like it.

Tonight is our final night here, and we are at an izakaya - one of those cramped little restaurants serving skewered foods. This one appears to be a family business; the greying man working the grill is flanked by a lady, and two servers bear a striking resemblance to the both of them. For the first time since we've been in this city, there aren't any other tourists eating here. In fact, the street that this izakaya is on was not particularly quiet, but occupied by only locals. The table beside us seats a family of six - grandparents retired, parents rosy, kids rambunctious. It is a Japanese custom for families to have fried chicken on Christmas Eve, and, sure enough, they share a plate of crisp, blistering Hakata chicken. Above the squeals of mischief and sizzles on the grill, a radio station playing Japanese pop triumphs over the speakers and a guy at the table for two behind me pipes along; he seems to know the lyrics to every single song that station puts out. "Eve" has its origins in the Hebrew word for "life." This is very much a snapshot, but still, life is in flux.

Around here there isn't a Shibuya-type insanity. Around here there are few Singaporeans. Crows perch on branches above Shinto shrines and go helter skelter when visitors enter, but then there is a silence as they suddenly pause to take stock. There is an honesty here. This is not Tokyo. Neither is it Kyoto, nor is it Osaka. This is the capital of a lesser known cousin, along this proud strip of rising sun. This is Fukuoka. Between the giggling of a girl on her grandpa's lap, the charred pieces of meat, the gleeful 'clink' of glasses and my own father's bad jokes, I already know - this is Christmas Eve.

Anything and everything under the sun

- this backdated post has been shifted here from the now-defunct "left" page as an idea of what's to be expected on the "people & places" page! -

I was locked (literally - the sadistic beings we call teachers locked the doors) into a Lecture Theatre this evening whilst sat next to Yinn Ray to do a Math mock paper that was as mockingly imitative of actual examination conditions as you'd think it to be (except for the stupid swivel tables that are darn right discriminatory to left handers like myself).

My new strategy for Math now is to do every question as if I were in the exam - the same intensity of thought, focus and determination to get things right (though mostly wrong) even if I still don't get how numbers mean anything. My old basketball coach told me that one of my strengths was that I train as if I am in an actual game, and that I play every game like it is my last. Now when I do Math I have an image of myself hustling, diving, yelling - basically just take-no-prisoners like it was on the court - and instead of 'let's play like savages and sort them out boys' it's 'let's show these Math questions who's boss'; essentially though, it's the same idea.

Except midway through the Math mock paper the choir group that had already been working on their vocals in the adjacent lecture theatre - and was already a cause for some giggling in the 'simulation room' - suddenly start singing the school's conduct songs. The conduct songs were only sung in high school, and they've always enjoyed a sort of special place amongst the high school guys which means that the last level assembly we had in Sec Four - when we last belted out the lyrics to these songs - was the only time I have seen many of my friends so sentimental about something, anything. We'd always end each conduct song with a resounding '嘿’ even though for four years straight the teacher assigned to our level reprimanded us for embellishing the song with self-created lyrics, but then only smiled and seemed like he was about to tear when we shouted out ‘嘿’ that one last time, after boys in shorts turned into boys in long pants, and didn't tell us off for it.

When the conduct songs came on in the next room and the choir voiced out those all-too-familiar words, I turned to Yinn Ray beside me, but he was busy punching shit into his calculator and didn't notice. The both of us sometimes speak about how it's a pity we only met in JC, and I realise that's also how I feel about a lot of the people I have met these past 1 and 3/4 years. But really, this lad's been pretty special, and it'd have been great stuff if we both knew each other prior to "A Levels-or-else" days.

And then there's Caleb and that high school friendship that I'm truly glad we somehow rekindled over the last four-five months. Yesterday beneath rain-cleared skies we marvelled at how it is that we were never in the same class in our four years at high school despite both being from Ortus (which is essentially a house/faculty except that it's only three-four classes per level). There was a good one in three chance across all four years that we could have been classmates but never were; and then again I slip back into talking about “ifs” and "lasts" - maybe (another one) I should stop.

But maybe I shouldn't. Screw the maybes. Because in recent weeks I've thought about how some people come into your lives and leave their mark. Reflecting on my pseudo-writing journey landed me deeper into that thought, especially when I think about how everything that's come my way has been helped along by people around me. When I had my writing published in the student newspaper for the first time, my lower sec classmates would grab copies of The Straits Times more hurriedly than ever, and, week in week out, 30 kids in shorts made it a point to flip through the entirety of the paper to find my piece. I wasn't - and still am not - quite adept enough at showing just how much I appreciated all that, mostly because the attention is always somewhat embarrassing, but I've come to think about how little things like that go a very, very long way.

I was in fact foolishly working at Math even before that three hour mad Math mistake, and this is proof that my new strategy really makes me more crazily 'in the zone' as ever, because this guy called Bryan managed to creep up behind and hunch over me for a good thirty seconds, before making his presence known with a bellow that terrorised me more than I admitted it did. Four years in the same class, and yet I'm never guarded against his dumb-ass pranks. These days he tells me, "Bye, I'm going to look for my girlfriend." But still the same.

Jian Yan, who forces me to return his Gatsby reference book, in between my quips about Malaysia. Jonathan, who I meet for lunch a few days ago, but then two other guys we both half-know sit with us because they would have otherwise been eating alone, and we don't actually bring ourselves to tell them we'd meant to be catching up. Brandon, who warns himself and the basketball he's holding about my erm, hands. When I tell him "You remember..." he replies, "Of course, we're on the same team", and there's that thing about him saying those words in the present tense that let me know - still the same.

Edwin, Edwin-who-almost-makes-me-late-for-History-to-talk-about-history; he sits with his arms clutching his bag but holds nothing back - always open and sharing, and I'm always learning. Shaun Ang, aka Shang, who I somehow keep running into this week while walking down the slope until the days we used to fake sneezes in the auditorium don't seem so far away. Trexel, who has been hanging out with his class at the benches outside the printing shop, of which I walk pass frequently, and so I still have to endure all that trash-talking about Liverpool being a "shitty team". That lad is still perpetually grinning. The same, the same.

"What are friends for?" is Check King's way of saying "you're welcome" in a half-clowning fashion. He - like that k and that a in the Math mock paper - is a constant.

I know the guys don't ever read this site - that is probably a good thing, because if there's one thing about friendships between lads - or what I think should be called "lads-ship" - it's that it does without the mawkish word-infested outwardly declarations and displays of care and gratitude. It's the same reason why I get a lot of shit from guys for being a creature of sentiment (and not logic or reason, which probably explains my mathematical ineptitude, because there is absolutely no sentimentality or human emotions contained in the rigidity of numbers).

The guys who I've found to be almost as sentimental are actually the fellow Liverpool fans. It's no coincidence, honestly. We care the most about things. The other day I saw Caleb's reaction to the thunder and lightning that almost threatened to stop us from playing footy, and it struck me that it is the very same, obsessive and quick-to-being-depressed-but-still-with-some-deluded-hope-that-the-rain-will-stop-even-though-it's-raining-bollocks state of mind that Shaun Lee and I were in far too often earlier this year, when our class was supposed to have football, but that period coincided with the rainy season. Dylan would also kick up a big fuss every time the lightning alert came on at the school's football pitch. Harn Ern would despair. I guess it seems a tad childish that we'd get so upset about something as 'trivial' as not being able to play ("You can always play another time, guys"), but it shows the wanting and the caring above all. I know it comes down to growing up watching a team that's all about belief and hope and passion.

I've observed that our ability to care extends beyond the action on the pitch. Shaun Lee debating, or Shaun Lee with debating withdrawal symptoms when he almost seems like he's lost a whole part of himself - he cares more than anyone. Caleb, for the people around him. Harn Ern, for his music. As for me, I hope the caring comes through in the verve for whatever work I've done. For Pub Soc, I guess we could have just did the work within our purview, which is to simply edit writing and coordinate all the pieces, but the caring meant that it always had to be more than that, that from the start I told the team that we're going to create a lot, a lot of work for ourselves pushing through new plans and ideas. It is no coincidence that Shaun is the guy who played a crucial role in the debating team successfully advancing a proposal to organise a tournament, raising their own money to hire Hwa Chong Debate's first ever coach, since their club was not allocated sufficient funds by the school.

Even beyond the work, there's that nagging sentimentality about place and people that I've seen in every Red. I can't tell you how many times Shaun and I have spoken about things ending - more than I have done with anyone, and it's not as if we have that many one-on-one talks. Caleb and I sat on the side of the street football court, chatting about everything under the Sun (which had triumphantly emerged as clouds dissipated). He then tells me all of a sudden, perhaps with the possibility that this could be one of the last times we sit here before As at the back of his mind, "I'm gonna miss this place."

"The street football court?"

"No, this place."

I want to tell him that we've spoken about that before, because when we had our last ever PE lesson two months or so ago, the rain had forced us to stop and we eventually took a walk around the new Block D, and then the canteen and benches. It seems like my conversations with other Liverpool fans always slip back into glances at days of yesteryear, and there's probably some joke about Liverpool fans living in the past there. I think to myself how unhealthy near constant reminiscence must seem, and so I don't tell him. I also don't tell him that we've thrice spoken about that one time in Sec 4 when the Ortus football lads Chetwin, Zhiying, Haowei, Chester, Oliver, Dylan, Zach, Caleb and I skipped a combined Chinese class in the lead-up to Higher Chinese Os to play at the International School court; that is, until Zach Wu rolled down the side of a hill when retrieving the ball and ripped a hole in the back of his pants. The two of us remember it very well. Minor details might differ each time we tell that story, but ultimately, all the same.

It's Shaun who pointed out that next week, we'll actually get to sing the conduct songs when they are played at our Graduation. Over the years I've tried to curb my tendency to build things up in my head, and nonetheless, when that piano accompaniment accompanies us to mark this final lap next Friday, it will all be the same - Liverpool fan or not - always, forever, in some way, or another.