.... and I Will Be Flying On a Broomstick

People look at you and see something that needs to be fixed. You are a broken radio, never in tune with the emotional wavelengths of others. You swing like a pendulum between two states of being - incomprehensible static and awkward silence. Some nights, you think of dismantling your own heart under the moonlight. You want to find out what is broken just so that you might have an answer to questions that are left unspoken. “Don’t you feel anything?” “Why are you like this?” “Do you even have a heart?” Sometimes you just want to fit in. You are sick of standing at the sidelines, watching other people cry. You imagine their hearts full of emotion, spilling out into the world and making a statement, “Look at us, we are human”. To have the courage to be vulnerable and to be able to find comfort in other people who share your feelings. If their tears don’t drown you, you think your jealousy might. Once or twice, you try to fake it. You pinch yourself hard enough to bruise. You t...

You can play a game of “Guess Which Side of the Doors Will Open” before the train’s PA system announces the answer. You can count the stitches on salary men and women’s business suits during the morning rush hour. You can dance your own version of the Macarena when you forget where you put your tickets or IC card. You can listen to announcements on the train. On rare occasions, you might hear the train drivers stumbling across their words or saying the name of a station wrong. You can expect profuse apologies immediately afterwards. You can marvel at a world turned pink when it’s sakura season. As the train stops at different stations, you can look out for signs of seasonal change in the menus of udon shops on the platforms. You can close your eyes and eavesdrop on other people’s conversations if your Japanese is good enough. If not, it’s more exciting because you can try to catch familiar words and construct context and meaning out of guesswork. You can throw disapproving look...

There is a place in this concrete jungle you call home. A retreat from the waves of modernity threatening to swallow you whole. A sanctuary that can soothe your tired old soul. People call it a park. You call it your makeshift heaven on earth. The first time you came here, you ran along a footpath that cut through the trees and claimed it as your own. You learned the contours of the ground beneath your feet as the stars started to come out one by one.   It is hard at first, running in the park. Your muscles scream and your heart threatens to beat out of your chest. There is a voice in your head that tells you to stop every few minutes. On some weekends, you don’t even want to get out of bed. Some days, other runners overtake you – they look so effortless in their running that you can’t help but be envious.   Then it gets a little bit better. You find that you can run a little bit further and breathe a little bit easier. Still, your body rebels and the voice in your ...

I. Darkness, my old friend, arrives earlier than usual these days. When the sun sets, she enters my room quietly, flings her velvet cloak and settles down, making herself at home. The warm glow from the street lamp seeps into the room while the pale moon shines faintly above the city skyline. We sit in comfortable silence and yet, I can't help but feel your absence.   With nothing better to do, I pick on loose strands of memories and reality starts to unravel. A yellow post-it note. A postcard with the photo of a blue ocean. An orange T-shirt. A Christmas wish decorated in red and green. And just like the inside of the kaleidoscope you once gave me, the room comes alive with colorful memories ricocheting against these four walls.   II.   It's raining.   The rain and I, we have become strangers. He no longer tells me stories about all the far away places he has traveled, the people he has met and the things he has seen. Our midnight conversations ...

Others of my kind hate winter. They complain about the bitter cold and groan as they move their stiff limbs in the wind. They bemoan the lack of color in the surroundings, the loss of their flowers and gaze mournfully at people passing by hurriedly. But not me. I love winter. I love the way dusk falls in this season, quickly and silently, enveloping the world in comforting darkness. There are fewer people out on the streets and in the park where I live. They do not like to stay out in the cold for too long. I like the quiet and solitude that winter offers. I spend my winter evenings watching people who come to the park. A middle-aged man runs past with his earphones on. I wonder what kind of music he is listening to. Does it sound better than the soft whispers of the wind? A young couple walks past, hand in hand, the boy laughing at something the girl said. They look so happy and in love. I wonder which of them will be able to remember this moment in the future. Some night...

Left. Right. One step back. Right. Left. For a moment, we stood still face-to-face and sized each other up to decide what our next move should be. Right or left? Our bodies did not touch but we were locked in a complicated dance. Our false steps and erratic rhythm proved that neither of us were prepared for this dance. Suddenly, a familiar tune rang out, snapping us out of our indecision and signaling for a change in the choreography. In a split second, a decision was made. The right decision would mean a train caught in time whereas the wrong one would result in having to run to work or worst, being late for work. I stepped forward to the right. The stranger stepped forward to their right. It turned out to be the right decision. Just like that, the deadlock was broken. We headed towards our respective train platforms, never once looking back. Dancing with strangers and racing against time. This is what Cinderella must have felt like, I though...

It always begins with a hotel by the lake on a warm summer’s day. The characters and the plot may change every year. But the setting remains the same. At a hotel whose stairways and corridors echo with old memories of laughter and conversation. No matter how many times you’ve been here, you’re always greeted with a thrill running down your spine.   Like the countless elevator rides you found yourself in every day, life during camp had its ups and downs. There were mornings when you had to drag your ass off the bed at 6:45 in the morning and brushed your teeth with eyes closed, looking like a zombie. There were times when your head was spinning and you felt like you were being flung off into space. At times like these, it’s the voices of your fellow camp leaders and camp staff asking, “Are you okay?” and their reassuring smiles that kept you from drifting away and anchored you in the moment.   If someone told you three years ago that you would and could take care ...