bedtime eyes

Black. Except for the car headlights that are still traveling on the road, unperturbed by the power failure. Street lamps have died, and lamps in HDB flats have gone off to hide. Everything is shadow.

For a period of time, I imagine, people like me stand at their windows and stare at the shadow, while being part of it. And of course, a blackout wouldn’t be complete without the nonsensical roars, shouts and yells that are created just for fun.

Torch lights and phone lights peep out from flats. Some playfully slip out of these homes in silence, hopping and bobbing on shared spaces like treetops, the facades of flats and the sinister car park. Theirs is a freedom only enjoyable in the dark.

With sounds and lights, strangers engage in a conversation without words.

The tunnel is pasted with sheets of white paper. They are everywhere, those pieces of paper filled with words, filling the walls and even the ceiling. Two white florescent tubes hang from the top, casting light on the papers and making the scene almost blinding. You tread gingerly, tracing the grey footsteps of past visitors.

The passageway ends. A small room beckons. You enter and rub your eyes, hoping like hell they are working right.

It seems to be a writer’s hideout, with sketches, a pair of glasses and an old Oliver typewriter strewn messily on a desk. A cigarette holder – along with a few lifeless cigarette butts – rests on a chair. A plant sits in one corner and a bookshelf, in another. A cabinet packed with a Milo can, a glass cup, utensils and a towel leans against the wall.

Ordinary enough, except everything is in grey.

You hear dialogue from a tiny television screen that has been sawn into half. There is also the loud incessant ticking from the hands of a clock. They are moving backwards, however, second by second, marking off time as they advance to the year 1968.

1968. Or so, a torn calendar on the wall says.

With color taking a leave of absence, the scene certainly looks like a black and white photograph captured in that era. Frankly, it looks as if it belongs to a printed book that you may have flipped through.

Except this time, you’re not outside the book. You are in it.

And this time, you’re not the reader, but the read.

[Vertical Submarine's installation. PYT 2009, Singapore Art Museum. Till 27 Dec]

The pretty spectrum of colors play on the papers you are marking.

“Do you feel like traveling when you come to the airport?” I ask.

“Yes, maybe next time we should bring our passports along. Buy tickets to wherever we like and spend the weekend there. Just carry our passports. Buy clothes there.”

We grin. Empty pockets don’t stop the imagination from delivering luxuries.

The piano has forgot its music. Untouched for months, it has inevitably became the resting place for dust. The favorite hangouts of these tiny particles are the areas along the minute gaps between the black and white keys. All too comfortable, it has never crossed their minds that the world is much bigger than they know.

You press a key, then another. And another. Soon, your fingers are skipping awkwardly across the piano keys, creating sounds that puncture the quiet afternoon.

Dust returns to air, and dust gets stuck unto your fingers. Forced to evacuate, the particles shuffle uneasily and begin to dream of the unknown.

The piano remembers a tune and then, it learns a new song. They are not played in the best way they can be played, but played in the best way you know.

We have our heads in the clouds because it is prettier up there.

At my good friend’s place.

Hello caller,

It’s nearly 1am. I stand besides my kitchen window with a cellphone in hand, staring at the car park below and the flats opposite. Not much of a view, but HDBs aren’t exactly designed with good scenery in mind.

My companions tonight include the sky which is an angry red, the wind which is warm in its coolness, and you. You, at the other end of the phone call.

Exs, work, school and more sneak their way into our conversation. Punctuated occasionally by observations of our surroundings. (“What’s that sound? Are you peeing?” “No lah, it’s water from the aircon.”) And of course, there are the small laughters, the frowns, and the sighs.

Sometimes, we fell silent, facing an absence of words. Silences that are short enough to be comfortable with, yet not long enough for either of us to hang up.

The rain comes, and then stops.

We continue talking – and not talking – for  two hours. Because it’s nice to have a bit of company tonight, even if we are each alone in our own worlds, with the angry red sky and the warm, cool wind.