blog/enigma

Sunday, January 20, 2008

3:24 PM

Yesterday I went on one of my mad cycling sprees again. My brother and I started cycling from around 12am to about 5am.

At first I wanted to go to Seletar Reservoir, but in the end we were too tired and just left our bikes at Yishun MRT and went home by train because we were just dead beat and my bro has to work at 1am.

It was a nostalgic trip. I went back to the vicinity of my old house at Yishun. I moved in early 2004 to TP. We cycled around the Chong Pang, where my kindergarten used to be.

I said, "Remember that old maze?"

My brother replied, "what maze?"

"I can't believe you forgot about it. The one we pass by when we return from kindergarten."

"We went to different kindergartens, remember."

"Oh yeah."

"Well I want to see it. Take me to it."

We got lost for a while - it was so long ago.

"Remember the time when we cycled Minmin (what we call our sister) home?"

"Oh yes. Unforgettable."

"It was the funniest thing ever. It was raining and we were all wet; we were just 8 and 10 right. And Minmin was 4. We were lost and wet and cold, you were lost and we were following you. Minmin was crying. I think we cycled around Yishun, lost for 4 hours until we finally got home."

We both laughed.

"Then we got screwed up by Mum."

"It was Dad's fault anyway. He told us to fetch Minmin."

"But it was seriously funny; you were lost; I was lost; Jiamin was crying..."

We laughed again.

"Where exactly is that maze?"

"I don't know. I've not been here for a long time. Remember? The fruit maze with all the bananas printed on the walls. You're the one who taught me how to walk through it - looking at the ground where people have stepped on it and no grass grew. "

"Really."

"The walls are probably like waist-high to us now. They used to be so tall. Oh - I think it's around here. Oh. God. They tore it down."

I parked my bike. All that was left was a rude pile of soil and mud. I stepped over the red-white tape gingerly and traced the still visible route.

"It's so sad..."

My brother followed suit. He simply stared it at for a while.

"Where do we go next?"

"Our old house, I guess."

"I wonder if the hill is still there."

"I suppose so. I mean, how can they tear down a hill? Like they did to the maze."

"Yeah.. I miss my microscope."

"Oh the super posh one right. Uncle bought it for you. You were always the eldest grandson who got everything. I always had your leftovers."

"Yeah."

"The one where you could cut off a fly's leg. I think we broke a lot of the glass pieces thingy. I never got to play with it. It was so exclusively yours. As a child I felt so shadowed by you."

"But now the situation's reversed. You're the one who asks for a lot of things."

"True. Perhaps it's some sort of compensation."

I had always felt bitter - why was my brother always getting the better things?

"Our flat."

The last time I've been there, it was during Granddad's funeral last year. The void deck was a place we used to play games as children. Hide and Seek, tag, whatever. You name it, you got it.

"There used to be a swallow's nest right. There."

"No, there. You always got the wrong place. And you're still getting it wrong now."

"Haha. Yeah. This wall. You smashed into it."

My brother had rode his bike straight into the wall. I remember the blood streaming down his face. I remember shouting for help, and my father carrying Bro back to the flat, furiously dabbing cream on the wound above his eye. There's still a scar on his eyebrow.

"As a child I used to wonder if a lot of people had smashed into walls like my brother. They all got the scar on their eyebrow. I wonder why."

"Yeah."

"Now I often think who's living in our flat now. Breathing the air we used to breathe."

My brother rolled his eyes. I looked up to the ninth floor, the corner unit. The light was switched off.

"Someone used to wave me goodbye from that window. I forgot who."

"Probably Dad."

"Wanna go down the Super Slope?"

The Super Slope was a slope which my brother and I used to ride our bikes down. It was a long slope all the way down and as children, we thought it was the coolest and fastest way down.

Now we rode down it again. It didn't seem that super anymore. It seemed rather puny actually.

"It feels different."

"Yeah. Not so fast. This is nothing compared to the Thomson Road slope."

"Exactly. Ha. Kids..."

"I can finally do the no-hands thingy." My brother raised his hands up, his handlebars handless.

"My bike has a poor balance - can't do i-"

CRASH.

"Be careful!" I yelled.

My brother stumbled and fell. I rushed and picked him up. He shrugged my arm off.

"I'm okay."

I waited for him to fix his gears, which collapsed when the bike toppled.

"I was always the one who told you to be careful. You're always the daredevil." I said, a little grudgingly.

"Yeah."

"And you always got me into trouble. You never got into trouble."

I hated, hated for my brother for that.

My brother was silent, concentrating on the oily gears.

"Everything is so different. And yet some things stay forever. I didn't want to move. I loved the house. It was big and spacious and I had so much fun there. I think I had a happy childhood."

"Really."

"One of my greatest regrets was I never got to bid everything goodbye. I accompanied Mum to the new house. In the end when I returned for a final time, everything was gone. I felt like crying, but what's there to cry about? The emptiness of it all? It was a hollow sadness. And I still feel that sadness sometimes."

"I'm tired."

"Me too."

"Let's go home."

"We'll take the MRT. Too bad we have to leave our bikes here."

"Hopefully it wouldn't get stolen."

We sat down on the floor in the train and slept. When I woke up, it was one stop before TP.

I shook my brother awake.

"I'll walk home. You take the bus."

"Okay."

And so I walked home. The sky was lightening. The beautiful thing about dawn is that from night to day, every view of the transition is awe-inspiring.

I'm on the right track, I told myself. And smiled. That was all I needed to know.

signed, jiasheng

19th Sept
hci
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