blog/enigma

Thursday, January 24, 2008

6:06 PM

//Warning: emo. But it's better than nothing right.

I've been feeling out of sorts lately. Maybe the frustration and stress (which is non-existent, compared to some people) has finally gotten to the head and poof! an instant mental case.

I know I'm slow at updating this. This week has passed especially fast and I had a lot to blog about, but it's either I'm too caught up in work to blog when I have the inspiration, or when I face the empty rectangle but suddenly my attention drift away.

This morning I went to the Hwa Chong Clock Tower. In all my hwachong life I've only been able to access till the second storey because the actual clock tower itself is locked. The stupid rumours and ghost stories were pretty corny and lame, but here's the popular one: there was a maintenance man who went up to fix the clocks and mysteriously died in there, so from then on the superstitious principal kept the place out of bounds.

Anyway, for some reason the clock tower was open again. I saw a couple of people went up so I thought that I should go and take a look, too. It's my third year into HCI, after all. I want to see how it is. Besides, they might lock it up again. So I'll grab my chances.

The time was around 6.30am. The sky is very much the same colour as it was at 10pm. That is, dark. I tried the third level door. The last time I tried it was locked. Not now - it opened easily.

A breeze blew past. I was quite high up, after all. It led to this sub-roof of pipes and fans. There was another a door which connected to the main staff arch of the clock tower.

I opened that short double door. It was unlocked, but it was also dark. The orange flood lights shone from the door to the most amazing architecture I've seen in HCI.

A spiral staircase.

Hwachong didn't have a spiral staircase. At least not in the high school section. I know NY library had one, but I've only been there once.

It was a very narrow staircase, so that only one person can walk on each step at a time. The steps are high, and looking up, the staircase extends a fair distance vertically too. It looked pretty sturdy though - a reasonably white metal. There were very intricate designs on it. Flowers and vines - it was a tree up into the dark. I stared up again. The gloom did not seem inviting.

I chickened out.

I went back to the band room and got Huiyao and Jeremy to accompany me. Actually, Huiyao was more like wanting to go and we just went along. On the way he talked about transparent flying babies and stuff but the company was reassuring.

We climbed up the staircase, precariously, to the level below the clock. The view was obscured by the flood lights but it was pretty windy already. The staircase extended up. Huiyao and Jeremy didn't want to continue because it seemed pretty dark, but I wanted to. For me it seemed like the journey wasn't complete. So they went down and I continued the hike.

The next floor was dark - it was clock level where the 4 discs faced their respective direction. I switched on my camera flash and continued.

In the end I reached the top level. A strong, constant gust of wind blew. The ledge wasn't high and I could fall off if I leaned over too far off. I had never been a fan of heights. In fact I was pretty much acrophobic and I wondered if I would suffer a panic attack and be stuck up here.

What a stupid thought, I thought.

The sky was not getting any brighter and I sniffled. The view was quite scenic with the distant lights. But there was no one with me to comment on how high we are, or make stupid jokes and laugh loudly at the peak of this school.

So I went down. Counting the steps. Eighteen. The second floor. Twenty-one. The last long flight. Forty-four.

I stood in the dark for a while, somehow challenging the ghosts. But there was no bloody maintenance man nor transparent flying babies after all. I know the most haunting ghosts are never out there - they all linger in me and wait for darkness to descend upon my heart to come out.

signed, jiasheng

19th Sept
hci
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