Julian Lim
Tales of Adventure Part 1 : The Singapore Bus Service
"Cut my hair", he'd say, simply, and I would. As the smooth locks fell away and turned to a mess of hair sticking to his shoulders and sweaty earlobes, he'd regale me with hearty tales of adventure and boyish dreams. I remember little save one unusual habit of his : riding on the tops of buses. On long aimless bus trips between Clementi and midnight, he would climb out of a window of a double decker bus, and take hold. He told me about the wind, speeding down Bukit Timah past empty bus stops through green light after green light, he told of the steady whizzing by of the yellow street lamps like flashbulbs in his eyes, and in between, the dumb tree branches, and the uncertain stars, blinking but not moving. He told me of the dirt on the bus roof, thick and tarry like too much cigarette ash, of the tenuous but tight grip of his fingers on the edge of the bus, but most of all I remember the wind, blowing exhaust fumes clean through his lungs, smarting his eyes with dusted tears, suddenly chilly and breathtaking, blowing through his bunched up fingers, blowing through his flapping hair and roaring through his ears. I think about him now sprawled out on the top of the deserted vehicle, prostrating before the wind, hanging on for dear life as he plummets sideways to earthly bus terminals.
(20/9/93)
Part 2 : Meteorology
Amazing, her outraged insomnia at the late afternoons. When all around her (her household numbered five) had succumbed to the entropy of the boiled air -- yolkless eggs she called them -- she would roam furiously through the abandoned streets of their four room flat, climb whole storeys in the misshelved cupboards, and wait for the heat to wave surrender. The lethargy of her so-called family members sparked only a righteous rage the size of which mounted as the days got hotter. And in the still of the late afternoon traffic she sang to herself, sewed buttons on her nephew's favourite teddy bear, unfolded the matte green origami of the refrigerator's lettuce heads, watched as the ceaseless hard sell of the exercise machines toiled the hours past.
But when all the chocolate liqueurs had been sucked dry, and all the alloyed toilet doors unhinged and hinged back, and the vacuum filled with shredded newspapers, there was nothing left to do but stand in the queue with the other numb blind four and think of rain.
(22/6/97)
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