Truths of Old

Resting at home with a fever and an upper respiratory tract infection is one thing.

Being on call with one is a whole different kettle of fish.

Difficult to walk. Leaden feet, one, two. One. as you feel the life draining slowly out of you.

In the aftermath, something is broken. Perhaps just the fever, or perhaps not - paracetamol makes it difficult to be certain... perhaps the diaphoresis is all drug induced.

For a moment there, turning the corner and feeling the world spin, it felt so tempting to just cave in and let the world fall over, let yourself fall to the ground in rest.

For a moment now, one feels how easy it would be to just... let something slip, and stare out the corner of your eye, slightly obliquely, into nothing. Forever.

It's probably just the cytokines talking. This isn't me, this isn't the person who used to live in london once upon a time, being beaten gradually into submission. Too tired to fight.

Anhedonia sets in. Even random wandering swathes on the plains of black and whites - the ivories don't sate the desire... for what, exactly?

Not a woman, not one from the past, tall, gangly and sparkling - nor the random women passing by once in a while - that medical HO is soooo cuuute...

not food, everything has lost its scent.

Not money, not random, aimless, pointless entertainment.

Not sleep either, apparently, although the screaming back muscles stiff as a board beg to differ.

Then what?

I've been rather quiet lately.

Guess I'm losing the will to write, what with doing a large number of on calls in a very short period of time, and with the prospect of looming examinations (tomorrow) that I'm woefully unprepared for...

Minor points of note.

Some student decided I looked like a character in some TV serial. Apparently I'm some ABC who's the son of a char siew seller.

O-kay. Not sure if that was a backhanded compliment, or just a backhand.

The other MO, of course, got compared by the same girl to James Lye...

Had a dream last night that I'd touched down down under. It was dusk, and darkness was beginning to settle around me, but somewhere far off on the horizon a golden sheen of aurora-borealis-like lights was drawing sleepily across a Lord-of-the-Rings-esque landscape. Complete with big trees and little hobbit hovels.

I'm probably going frodo... err froopy. Loopy. Whatever.

Sure, I know it's not the paradise I saw in my dream; but something tells me my subconscious wants me to be there, and not here.

Every passing day makes me wonder just a little bit more why I've chosen the paths I have, this lifetime.

In yet other news, a friend of mine is leaving for the UK soon. She's going with her current squeeze but wants me to write to her about the London I knew and wrote about here, so that she can go and try and catch a glimpse of it.

Part of me is afraid to write to her about it; what if the London I saw only exists in my own mind? (but then again I remember Alice enjoying that same london with me... maybe the two of us were just crazy) What if... she can't see what I saw?

And part of me is afraid that this friend of mine... may not be safe in the London I knew. It was a hostile place for the outsider... deceptively sedate until the darkness arose. You just had to learn to brush it aside, with a certain naunce, a certain step. A certain... vapid hostility in your eyes. And then you were safe.

But a large part of me has always wanted to share the London I knew...

Once upon a time, we stood, in my mind's eye, upon -- was it Blackfriar's? bridge - the one with lamps and little step thingies you could step up onto and hold onto the lamps... and I reached out an arm in a grandiose all-encompassing sweep, spanning the red-draped panorama of London at dusk, and declared "All this, I give unto to you, milady."

And in reality I stood alone as the wind buffeted me, hands clutching a close-to freezing lamp-post, watching the reflection of the sun setting blood-red on the Thames, and whispered into the callous wind, whipping through my hair, my coat, and the vaguely forgotten memories of my past... something to do with electives over here, with time together, with... vague shapes and semblances of impossibilities that never really had a chance at fruition.

It wasn't being alone that saddened me. I've always been a bit of a loner... It isn't so much about a burning desire for independence as just... being put together a certain way. People like us, we just need a bit of quiet in our heads, away from other people.

It would have been easy, all the years I spent alone in london, to call and meet, at the blink of an eye, with the French girl with the grey/green eyes, or Alice, the girl in chains, or any of my other friends.

Many of the years I did spend in London in the company of the ex.

But I felt alone.
In my head.

And I still do.

All that, old friend, I would have given unto you.

He remembers something about a mug in a television set box for a birthday. He knew the instant she said it who the present had been from.

He wonders what the deal was with mugs, anyhow. It's a funny mug though.

Never did tell her that he really liked it.

But that was probably more to do with the giver, than the gift.

*****
He looked up from the piece of music he was scoring, and for an instant the heaviness melted away.

There were parrots in the trees. And the sun bathed his face, gently with the warmth of a mother's kiss.

It was beautiful here. And at sunset, the cockatoos blanketed the grass, forming a loud, raucous, cackling sheet of living snow.

For just an instant, just a moment, let the madness fade. Let this be a time-out.

And he found peace.

And that is, possibly for some strange reason, why he needs to leave.

There seems to be a preoccupation with housing in Singaland.

You hear it on the radio. You hear it in dayspeak. Sometimes you even read it on blogs. Just about everything and everyone is Huuuttt these days.

Oh wait. I think they're trying to say hOt.
I always thought it was pronounced the way it read. With an 'O'. Dear Lord, I've been mispronouncing a three-lettered word for all my sentient (and much of my post-alcoholic hazy) life now...

Why 'Hot' anyhow? It's so absurdedly passe. I mean, who honestly says things are Hot, and Cool when there's slews of other lovely adjectives out there like smashing, brilliant, and even... hmm... bootylicious?

Shrug.

Anyhow in other news, I think the Harvey Norman advertisement has to rate as the worst ever ad this side of the universe.

If ever there was a competition for crappiest advertising nation, Singapore would pip all the other countries it couldn't wrestle the title of Least Press Freedom from to top spot.

I mean, it's like our advert boys don't even bother to try here. They don't have a think tank so much as a regurgitate-ashtray.

I mean, seriously. Think about it.

Five guys sit around a table.

One of them says, "Okay. This is the job." (Or maybe in Singapore, "Dis wat consumer want."

One of them says "Simi dai ji."

One of them says "Ai par" and whips out a knife. Maybe not, maybe. You never really know...

The first one says "We need to do an ad for a washing detergent company."

Long pause.

Silence.

Long pause (remixed)

Finally, one of them looks up, eyes ablaze.

"I know! Zhabor. She pour soy sauce on two shirt! Washes one with brand.... uhh... err... X! And other with client's brand! And client's brand works and brand X cannot make it! And then she can say... err... duuurr... err... "Our brand detergent washes clothes!".

Clapping all around.

I mean, seriously, most of the ads here are so bad I bet even a three year old could come up with them, and probably make them more intelligent, wittier, and choose less aggravating soundtracks too.

Growl.

*****
Anna

He looked into her eyes.

She looked back.

"What??"

"Your eyes."

"...?"

"I always thought they were blue for some reason. They look green now."

"They change with the light. They look green when its dark. They're actually grey."

I didn't know eyes could do that, he thought to himself. How... remarkable.

*****
Treading the Tight(rope) Fantastic

My two pence on the Untouchable's Unspeakable.

Actually, I'm still thinking about it.

I'll write soon. Right now I'm too bogged down with work to be able to find the intellectual reserves to word a piece carefully enough to stop me losing my job.

But I'd like to thank the author for letthatbeenough for writing as eloquently as she did to our national press. For saying what many of us can't, and the rest of us don't have the intestinal fortitude to.

Kudos to you, laughingcow.

To be wanting to be going to bed now.

He stirs in bed, and opens his eyes. Consciousness returns abruptly, like a particularly intrusive smell you just can't shut out.

"I don't remember my dreams; I think my subconsciousness shuts them out to protect me"

It's dark outside, and for just a moment he's disorientated. And then he remembers he's back in the tropics, and that yesterday he collapsed into bed with the sun still high overhead.

Another evening dead to the world.

There isn't anyone awake that he'd care to talk to online, and he doesn't feel inclined to do the mundane reach out and SMS someone thingie. So he just stares out the window for a while listening to the steady trickle of his brother's fish-tank filter, thinking about stories from other lifelines, and lifetimes.

*****
The dim lighting made her hair look more blonde than it normally seemed; she's had too much to drink, he thought as he looked into her dilated pupils. We all have.

The too-loud music pounded on the inside of his skull and something inside his head told him he ought to be leaving, but lethargy had set in already. So he stayed and listened to her speaking at him, and to himself speaking back at her.

She edged closer to him as they spoke and drank. He felt her forehead come to rest against his as he turned his eyes away and scanned the room. He felt her slightly warm, lightly alcoholic breath against his lips.

I think I'm supposed to kiss you, but I can't really be arsed...

Her words washed past his numbed ears and she smiled a little as she nattered on, and on.

He didn't have the heart to tell her that he was getting bored, so he stayed. It seemed the polite thing to do.

Sometime later he finally stood up to leave but a horde of student nurses he'd never met (or maybe never noticed) before grabbed him by the hand and manhandled him into dancing with one of the students he'd always rather fancied, the one he'd always dropped stuff around while performing procedures, just to see her put her hands to her hips and mock-petulently ask him if he was doing that on purpose.

*****
Music, again too loud, pounding rhythms, shuffling beats, soul-less lyrics.

He stands awkwardly by his colleague, wondering why on earth he allowed himself to be persuaded into coming along to this emergency-room "party".

People mill around him, talking and laughing to each other. Standing by the side of his much taller quasi-celebrity colleague (the reserve for London's Sexiest Doctor), he feels invisible.

His gaze encounters a pair of dark eyes; his casual glance becomes held for a little longer than it should, as that mini shock of almost-recognition sets in - We have something in common.

Brunette, petite (for this country), rather pretty, slightly detached. Searching. Standing, like himself, next to someone else who clearly dragged her along to this.

He steps forwards, as does she, and he feels rather than sees out the corner of his eye London's Almost Sexiest recoiling slightly in shock.

They strike up a conversation, and her friend joins in as well. His friend stands mutely by, almost disbelievingly as for the first time since they've known each other, he becomes part of the background. It's a stange feeling.

There's something about her ozzie drawl that he finds really appealing.
Yet at the end of the evening he doesn't give her his number, or even make a halfhearted attempt to ask for hers.

The searchers cast each other adrift.

*****
He doesn't know what he'd say to Her if he were to meet her again.

He probably wouldn't hold out his hand, or try to show her anything. He wouldn't wave from afar, or even half-raise his hand in greeting.

The first seconds when they met were never like that.

He'd probably just look into her eyes as that overwhelming sense of ? relief (? why relief?) flooded through him; they wouldn't move to embrace, or even touch each other as they approached.

She'd smile, and keep coming closer, her eyes holding his, and he'd be overcome with a sense of how tall she was; how much taller than he she felt - although in truth their eyes met on the level, to the centimeter. He'd feel himself smiling in return. They wouldn't say a word till she came to a stop just before him, and then they'd say hello.

Or maybe things would have changed, and it wouldn't happen like that at all.

It's been such a very, very long time.

I sat in a witch-hunt recently; it wasn't couched as a witch hunt, but that's what it boiled down to. It's funny how in this country the phrase "I'm not trying to..." automatically means yes, I really, really am.

As I listened to the talk - couched as a benign talk avoiding the question of "who was at fault" by instead focusing on the question "What was not done", I couldn't help but notice yet again that people here don't know to ask the right questions.

The question in this instance should have been "How can the system be changed to prevent this happening again - what foolproof failsafes can we devise?" - and the answer did not lie in fault-finding, but refining and streamlining.

Again, reading one of my reader's comments I noted the same. The question which was not being asked - was being answered assumptively. He provided the wrong question, (ie is reminisce a twat, yes, and so he must be insinutating this), he provided the wrong answer (which was not what an ordinary person would read from the context) and then he judged (poorly, that italics somehow connote exclusivity) - simply because the entire process of question / answer had been crafted around a predetermined judgement, and not a genuine intent to answer a heartfelt question.

Well, that's how it looked anyhow.

In a debate the rebuttal would have been swift, sharp and simple. Thank you for gracing us all with your self-indulgent little foam-at-the-mouth rant on the matter, now, back to the salient issues...

It's been a long time since anyone's thought to ask me the right questions.

I was discussing the Indicator Phenomenon with my best buddy sometime back. (This is the same guy who once decided to patent a Food Mask, that electronically stimulates your tastebuds, since his idea of paradise is to lie down and have food shovelled into you by an infinite conveyor belt, only that would involve the messy problem of satiety, so in theory at least, an electronic system would do away with that little hitch, meaning you could just sit or lie down and have an enormous multi-food-orgasm. Anyway, moving swiftly on.)

(Sorry bud, if someone steals your patent rights now...)

So the indicator phenomenon is thus. In fact, I just encountered it yet again tonight for the billionth time.

1) Singaporean Drivers are just plain allergic to their indicator lights.

2) They will never, even upon pain of death, ever indicate when they are about to change lane

3) Unless they are bus drivers, who always indicate even when they are not going to change lanes, just to keep you guessing where they are going to go next.

4) Taxi drivers always indicate before they change lanes, but don't give a rats ass whether you take notice or not, ergo (I watched the Matrix...) all drivers give way to Taxis.

5) When a non-Taxi indicates, other cars speed up to cut them off. It doesn't matter if the road in front is straighter than the average local girl's bustline, there's ample room for the car behind to react, and there's no traffic for miles in front or behind either vehicle. It's a spinal reflex - eye sees flashing light, foot presses down on accelerator pad. Simple as that.

6) If non-Taxi changes lane anyhow (I'm a fast learner), The Singa Driver (tm) does make way but honks indignantly.

My best buddy heard me out and told me I was doing it all wrong. You have to keep em guessing (like the bus drivers) - don't indicate, ever. You gotta make it so they don't know what hit them... just edge into lane, maybe keep stuck to the road divider lines for a while to make them think you're changing lanes, then swerve around suddenly and unexpectedly into the other lane when the other guy's guard is down... ha, then you get your spot in his lane.

It's all a mind game...

*****
He settles into the chair at the hairdressers and dreamily answers the barber's question about somethingorotherunimportant.

The barber recoils for an instant.

"You're... not Japanese!"

"Err. No?"

Can I still get my hair cut?

Bemused.

*****
She stepped in the elevator and I couldn't help staring. She noticed me noticing her and looked me square in the eye. It seemed rude to continue staring, so I glanced away at... nothing in particular.

One of the new medical HOs is rather attractive...

*****
This guy limps into clinic and halfway through the consultation (for something else entirely) I can't help but ask him if there's something wrong with his foot.

He says he's gone to sleep in a funny position sitting up, and when he wakes up he can't walk properly...

I complete his sentence for him; you were leaning against something like-so, your knee was pressing against the wall, and now your leg feels numb when I touch it here, here and here right?

He gasps in astonishment. "Wow, how did you know?"

Roll eyes. It's one thing for me not to expect myself to know anything doctory, but another thing entirely when its the patients doing the doubting.

Anyway, as is always the case, this guy came in too late to be used as a guinea pig in the MBBS finals. It would have made such a brilliant, difficult-to-miss yet genuinely interesting case of foot-drop.

*****
The psychotic father glares at us and barks out "How do you take blood?" as we're walking by.

"Excuse me?"

"Is there a protocol. Do you have to wear gloves."

He then babbles on and on about some doctor taking blood from his daughter with his/her hands dripping with blood, and about all the VRE bugs in another hospital, how we all lay our bloodied hands on other patients and how we're all heinously irresponsible vectors for vile disease.

I'm tempted to slap him, then and there, but fortunately the more senior doctor on the team pipes up and says "We'll look into it".

We then walk off, and don't look into it.

It's amazing the half-arsed stuff some people come up with.

It's not the gloves that will stop bugs being transmitted - there are people who don't change their gloves between patients.

It's the handwashing.

Not wearing gloves puts the blood-taker at risk.

He : You don't speak in Singlish.

She : Yes I do...

(pause)

...Lah.

*****
He glances around at the once familiar faces around him...

Something inside him tells him to run.

Run now.

Before you remember.

*****
What's a "Real Writer"?

In today's mixed up world, the word "real" seems to connote anything but quality. Reality TV - think big brother - is anything but.

I won't pretend to know what a real writer is.

But I can recognise a good one when I read him / her.

It shows in the obsessive perfectionism that burns beneath the veneer of breezy effortlessness. Or in the detached perceptiveness concealed in the most passionately voiced narratives.

It is equal parts panache and measure, a touch of overt humility blended with subtle conceit.

I don't know what a real writer is.

Mediocrity ? It's for the masses.

*****
The scent wafted insiduously across the pew. He recognised it instantly, but his stilled mind didn't kick into gear till a few seconds later.

It was a shock when it did; it threw him back a few years.

It evoked memories.

Of holding her close, feeling the comforting heat radiating off her and through the fabric of his shirt; the musty smell of her hair. Of wanting to hold her close and maybe, in retrospect, pretend that it would last forever. Perhaps subconsciously never wanting to let go what he once had, and lost without a fight. Perhaps a conditioned reflex born of prior inadequacy.

Laughter, during the better times, and the resounding silences during the poorer.

The warmth of her hand grasped in his own frozen fingers.

That warm wetness against his collar as she cried in silence, the illusions shattered at last by brutal honesty.

Always that scent - neither heavy nor overpowering, just indefinably her.

He caught himself half-turning and his eyes scanning the room. But no, not here. Not in this place.

I suppose I should thank Asian PowerHouse MrBrown (whom I honestly think looks more like a refrigerator than a generator) for the increased traffic to my site.

Thanks to him I'm probably in every black, red, and subversive book across the country for daring suggest that the birthright of all ministers is something other than our unthinking and obsequious Respect.

Better start working on that overseas bank account...

*****
Random Word Association

Hands on wheel. Gripping, Hard. Eyes off to the side. Running. Just running.

Running, just you, and the treadmill.

No thoughts, no distractions.

No memories.

No reminiscence.

Just you, and the treadmill.

Reminiscence :

"Don't move, I'm memorizing your face... I'll never forget your face."

Or voice.

*****
Speak Good English

Opportunity is pronounced OppUrtunity and not oppOrtunity.

That is all.

*****
More Dead than Alive

Watching them stand resolutely by her bedside, playing songs from their walkman. Hoping against hope.

Ignoring the second, third, and fourth opinions.

... I can't meet their eyes.

I feel something; this is that proverbial fast-track to the burnout that other doctors speak and write in hushed tones about : feeling things about your patients and their relatives.

But that's the way I've always done it.

They are wrong, to hate us and want to blame us so... but yet it is easy to understand and empathise with them. So, so easy. Perhaps I would do the same in their shoes.

It's always so difficult when control is ripped out from under you and your world spirals into a nightmare.

Denial... anger.

Later, grief, and acceptance.

Somewhere out there is a score for Foolish Games, transcribed by an unnamed person and dedicated, "to B, from A". There are no words on it that I remember. It's just scored for the piano.

It's probably too much to ask, but if anybody ever encounters anything remotely like that...

... I'd really like a copy.

*****
Beginning to feel very unoriginal here.

Or maybe there's just one answer to all these stupid quiz thingies, to make you feel special.

Shrug.

http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyourlovestylequiz/