Walk On.
I like to be on the road. Even in your small neighbourhood, there's always so much to explore. The local park, neighbourhood shopping centre, old hangouts beneath faded corridors of HDB flats, the nostalgic giraffe- or dragon-shaped playground with small mosaic tiles in a sandbox. Canals with fishes, quiet roads with rows of neatly planted trees fluttering lightly to the breeze, the old closed down public swimming pool complex with twines all over its walls & rusty metal gates, a dormant school compound with fences of morning glory... Life is so much more interesting than Legoland built on bricks of creativity. The liveliness among serenity, of nature's clockwork. The flock of homecoming birds, clouds gathering among the rays of sunset. There is so much to take in, the whole horizon of scenery to embrace; wider than the largest projection widescreen TV, more realistic than any surround sound. This is the life.
& the memories will never leave you. Within four walls of the concrete jungle, you'll always miss being out there, bathed in the moonlight & pondering about nothing, where the dense vegetation overshadows you & crowds out all your worries. Wandering aimlessly & harmlessly into other people's sanctuary, as you watch kids play by the playground & grannies watch over them, & young energetic teenagers working out at the basketball court, while the elderly flower their herbs garden.
You step into the neighbouring private estate, & the stillness of life overwhelms. Cars parked safely behind the gates, lonely dustbins line the street as you stroll down the narrow walkway, so close to the warmth & happiness within each home but tightly shut out by the gates. As the amber streetlamps come on, the sky quietened down to a deep azure blue, & a short feeling of bliss comes on, before you hit the main street in full night. The light trails blaze past, as cars zoom past bringing a rush of wind to your head. Dashing between traffic, you makes it past to the other side, through a little trodded trail among tall lalangs & weeds, & emerging under the bright moonlight, standing under a block of aged HDB flats. Not too far from your memory, but probably the kind of design that gave you the very first impression of an HDB flat when you were young. The paintwork is old & faded, the round mosaic table with six stone seats, metal letterboxes with a latch, & lifts that stop at 3 floors, without windows. The air of nostalgia, as you ran around & hide behind these pillars when you were a kid, chokes your emotions. The familiar mama provisions shop, with its metal racks of bread, wooden pockets of tidbits, a crowded interface filled to the brim with tempting snacks, sits undisturbed under the void deck.
Stepping out onto the carpark, evidence of age is left by nature as the roots of trees as tall as the flats upheave the stone slabs of the carpark lots. Generations of leaves shed & covered the road with a brown stain, while moss grows on anything grey. Across the green piped railings of the fences running alongside the deep drain, factories that have withstand the time of economic development stood dormant. The red logo with its wordings of sime rests under the shade of the night sky, & the factory ol' darby sits snugly among the towering blocks of condominium, on this site it never moved since its birth.
As the neighbourhood draws near, you know your journey is near the end. Familiar buses come into sight, with their route numbers signalling you home. Moving along, the streets get more crowded. Blocks of HDB start to cluster, & the forests by the roadside thin out. Noises move in, & insects & toads hide among the disappearing trees. The amber streetlights blind, as you approach the road junction. A group of fierce teenagers stand waiting on the other side of the road, one of them carrying a long plastic art holder tube. As they march past you in fierce order, you continue the last parts of your journey, back to where you are familiar with, where you live in, where you hang out now. As you set your tense to present, the bus approaches the bus stop. But you decide to take one last walk, just to walk. You can't bear to stop, the journey had been a wonderful one. You wish you could walk forever, that there are places stretching for miles & miles over the horizon. You wish the sunset could last forever, that the Sun could just keep setting, & the birds keep flying home, & people keep on enjoying themselves & having fun, as you keep walking on by. The feelings of nostalgia & remembrance keep coming, the sense of serenity & peace keeps flowing, the people you like keep you company, the things you like keep you occupied. The world freezes into a limbo of utopia. The feeling, undescribable.
You cross the bridge & awake at the bus stop. The bus drives into the bus bay as you flag it down, & brings you home to reality.
posted by cYxG @ Monday, February 27, 2006
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