9.10.09

the ten

1. Loved this week's office. This is our wedding,why did we invite all these people?

2. Art is the only way to escape without leaving home.

3. Sometimes you save me from hitting rock bottom,and you don't even know it.

4. The thing about his eyes,was that they weren't just eyes.Coupled with his quiet demeanor and the tendency for his skin to produce faint white flakes when it was hot so his arms appeared to have grown scales,and his neither too-tall or too-short height and especially,his habit of wearing african bangles he wore just to ward certain individuals off and if they did approach he'd say they were fertility ornaments or something equally non conventional simply to keep them at bay (although they weren't African,just the ones that came with a Happy Meal when they had a Madagascar food-film tie-in),his eyes-opaque brown and always glistened with clean indifference-made people question,with their heads cocked to one side and a disapproving smile-if there was something about the boy,that was just not right.

He swam at the local pool on Sunday mornings,when like any other day-the house would be uncomfortably quiet although without all the qualities that normally rendered such quiet desirable-the whole family made an effort to wake up before dawn and part their separate ways,so when they convened for dinner each would relate their Sunday Morning stories and his never strayed from that morning swim,during which on one occasion Mid-May when clouds hovered in the face of the sun so it appeared as if evening was closer than it actually was,that he saw something he knew,that even if he had the courage to finally share with anyone,the words would mix or the memory fade into irreconcilable bits of half-truths or the brain would strategically just disable his wanting to share it:even now,8 years later,although with time a huge chunk of it was swept away to a dark corner in his mind where only nightmares could trespass into-a few images survived.

There was that red swimsuit,so vividly red it nearly overcame any other detail.A soft drizzle,although the rain that fell burned his skin from the inside.And far,far away beyond the pool and its fences,and the nearby playground or offices,just really far away-a figure looming,hunching,moving slowly but undoubtedly moving closer-and with its growing size,its presence doubled and tripled and eventually grew too large and terrifying and unthinkable that he passed out.

They found him at the bottom of the pool,and one of the older boys revived him and drove him to the nearby hospital although since then,the family's noticed a slight change in the boy they care not acknowledge publicly.Something inside the boy continued to rise now and then,these images reawakened the same senses,and on this day,meddling at the park on an otherwise uneventful weekday-a girl his age,a stranger,came to him-and there it was,no decision,no travelling of thoughts or impulses or funny things jumping over synapses or hardly a second passed before his entire body and mind veered towards her-and clicked,snapped,saw,knew.

...

3 comments:

Siew Chien said...

i heart the office esp the dance and marrying at niagara falls. cant stop crying. loll

syz said...

I love no 4. If you had written a book I'd have bought it in a second.

Al said...

schien,i knew the chris brown wedding thin was sooo cheesy but seeing an overdressed phyllis,kevin in tissuebox shoes and dwight giving that girl a good kick was enough to make me cry

really,syz?tks,that means a lot to me.writing's a hobby now,but in the long term i think it'll play a bigger role in my life.having a book out would be plain crazy wow,but to have just one satisfied reader at this stage makes me happy enough :)