He walks into the room of unfamiliar memories. Yet, there was something familiar that lingered; a theatre ticket, a postcard, a face, a lingering presence. Yes. The room of unfamiliar memories also had a keen familiarity. He feels the room glowering bright and dark, bright and dark; oscillating between the familiar and foreign, familiar and foreign. He sits down to catch his breathe. He tries to forget the queasy feeling and closes his eyes.
In this realm of closed-eyes darkness, his mental projector sputters to life. Just like in the movies, scenes flash by; just pictures, no sound. He can almost hear the projector’s drone as it plays moving pictures of a smiling face, a roller coaster ride, a long stroll along the pier… He almost reaches out to hold the images. He jerks back to the reality of the room. It still smells of a person.
The vacant room of unfamiliar memories.
Sitting on the bed’s white covers, his eyes scan the photographs on the wall. Some recognisable faces but mostly alien faces grinning madly, hoping the photograph captures a moment in time of pure happiness, pure elation that will never be lost. We all hope that don’t we, when taking photographs? There. Amidst all the photographs, he sees a recurring face. Yes, it has that familiar smile. He subconsciously smiles as he reminisces that smile but quickly catches himself.
He starts to get fidgety. He gets up and runs his fingers along the edges of the tidied wooden desk. His fingertips contour the tiny unevenness of the wood-top. His eyes aimlessly stroll the room; its walls, its cupboard, the contents of the shelf. Suddenly, he tenses and pauses. He has the desire to open the cupboards, rummage through the books, smell the items on the shelves; he wants to discover the life behind them, their stories.
He wants to discover these faraway unfamiliarities.
Once again he catches himself. He tries to calm his breathing that crescendoed with his thoughts. He tries to push that desire to discover the life beyond these articles. Yet, he cannot seem to forget this desire. It lingers.
He awkwardly walks over to mirror on the wall. He looks into it as if hoping it would provide some guidance. Realising childish hopes of talking mirrors truly belonged only to fairy-tales, he looks at his own reflection and turns away. He decides to leave the room. Not because he wants to, but because he know he has to. He takes a final breathe of the room with his eyes, and walks out.
He leaves the room of unfamiliar memories, leaving a trail of hope that perhaps it will be all less unfamiliar, someday.
Uncle T
8 Jul 2009
The Cacophony Orchestra 2:53 am
The swirl of the washing machine. The onions being chopped on the worn chopping board. He reads. Her life unfolds as his dedicated eyes run across the lines of words. A picture paints a thousand words; a word paints only a partial picture. He imagines all the bits that the words do not reveal. He tries to complete her life-story with only his imagination; soft, fluffy cloud-like imagination which dissolves in the hand. The washing machine continues to churn.
So does his desire. No, it has gone beyond curiosity and crossed that narrow border into desire; some unexplainable hunger. More than the words he reads about her, beyond the imagined gaps he fills between the fonts, he wants to know her. Yet, he gets this strange feeling he knows her from somewhere before. The tap drips into the stainless steel basin.
He wants to be part of her story.
As his cornea takes in every sarif of the words on the page, his being is desperately wanting to jump into the well-thought verses and poetic imaginary; he wants to be in the narrative. He wants to be the narrative. He wants it so bad that he cannot bear reading on not finding himself in the story. He wants to throw the pages into the English summer breeze, yet he knows Regret will hound him the minute it is done. The water in the electric kettle starts to boil.
But how? How does he get into the story? Would the story be equally enigmatic and captivating if he forces himself into it? No, if he wants to be in the story, he wants to be invited in, fitting perfectly as a semi-colon fits into a beautiful sentence; how romantic. Well, perhaps such romance is reserved only for day-dreams and Hollywood. "Damn it! Is it wrong to dream, to desire?" he yells silently. All he hears is the click of the electric kettle. The water is boiled.
He waits.
He still does not get an answer. When will he get an answer? Will he ever? Perhaps it is best he learns to let go. Perhaps her story is best the way it is, with him following it off a page. "Drop the darn story and move on. Move on," a undecipherable voice whispers in a shout. No. It just seems all too real, all too certain that this might just be the story to follow from start to end! He wants an answer, an inspiration, a feather of direction. The washing machine spins to its climatic scream.
And still he waits for an answer. The food starts to cook in the boiling water.
Uncle T
So does his desire. No, it has gone beyond curiosity and crossed that narrow border into desire; some unexplainable hunger. More than the words he reads about her, beyond the imagined gaps he fills between the fonts, he wants to know her. Yet, he gets this strange feeling he knows her from somewhere before. The tap drips into the stainless steel basin.
He wants to be part of her story.
As his cornea takes in every sarif of the words on the page, his being is desperately wanting to jump into the well-thought verses and poetic imaginary; he wants to be in the narrative. He wants to be the narrative. He wants it so bad that he cannot bear reading on not finding himself in the story. He wants to throw the pages into the English summer breeze, yet he knows Regret will hound him the minute it is done. The water in the electric kettle starts to boil.
But how? How does he get into the story? Would the story be equally enigmatic and captivating if he forces himself into it? No, if he wants to be in the story, he wants to be invited in, fitting perfectly as a semi-colon fits into a beautiful sentence; how romantic. Well, perhaps such romance is reserved only for day-dreams and Hollywood. "Damn it! Is it wrong to dream, to desire?" he yells silently. All he hears is the click of the electric kettle. The water is boiled.
He waits.
He still does not get an answer. When will he get an answer? Will he ever? Perhaps it is best he learns to let go. Perhaps her story is best the way it is, with him following it off a page. "Drop the darn story and move on. Move on," a undecipherable voice whispers in a shout. No. It just seems all too real, all too certain that this might just be the story to follow from start to end! He wants an answer, an inspiration, a feather of direction. The washing machine spins to its climatic scream.
And still he waits for an answer. The food starts to cook in the boiling water.
Uncle T