Marilyn Chua

A month ago, a basketball hit my cheekbone and apparently the blood flowed from the arteries underneath the skin. It reached my eyes, and formed a bruise of some sort. I evaded the world for two days, staying at home to check on my eye every hour or so to see if the colour would fade. When I stayed too long at home and it was time to go to school, I bought a pair of sunglasses in desperation.

It had faded after three weeks, but today it kind of swelled. My dad said it was the contacts. I couldn't bring myself to stop using the contacts. It was a pair of bluish grey contacts, and my eyes looked larger with them on. My eyes became red. I was almost certain that I saw the blue-black bruise appearing in that eye once more.

Because of that, I hadn't wanted to go to school today, but my parents forced me to go. So I went, after getting into a big quarrel with my dad because I was running late. I realised that my Transitlink card was lost, and asked my dad if he had money in his nets account. He said no, so I got pissed at him. We yelled at each other, and he left. I sat in my room crying, with my mom yelling at me from outside of the room. My last thought before I dried my tears and went to Seven Eleven to see if they sold those goddamned cards was this:

It really isn't my fault that my parents are lousy. It isn't theirs, either. Well, they definitely are not the lousiest in the world. If I were to rank them as an economic good, they would be inferior goods that if people could afford to pay more, they would pay more for other goods instead.

Let me begin with my dad.

He was a normal crew at a ship building company. He got promoted to the post of a supervisor, and then he managed his own shipping contractor. It was a small self-run business; I visited his work site once; it was wholly flat, the floor was made of brownish metal that has long since tarnished. There were trees afar, and the sun was glaring hot where we stood. The only shelter were little tents here and there, crowded with body heat and the smell of sweat. I had been young then, and as I stood there I imagined gods fighting with each other to decide the fate of the world in Armageddon in such setting. That was the only time I've ever been there, and from that I understood why my dad had a swarthy tan where he didn't have clothes to cover him and why his body and legs were so white in comparison.

When he took up a contract with the army to build army ships was when our very own economy began to decline. Apparently, the officials have cheated him through a small line that says, "actual ships extend beyond plan" in small text at the bottom of huge A1-size paper. After going on and getting into debts, he quit. We had some private opinion about the government and its institutions after that. Then things went downhill altogether. I don't know what he did, but he ended up in more debts and getting a job as a security guard.

My mom's schizophrenic. I almost refuse to acknowledge her as my mom, for other than a twist if ill fate, I feel totally indifferent to her, like the evil offspring of traditional values that have gone out of touch with the world. She succumbed to compulsive violence when I was young; I heard stories about it from my sis.

I remember admitting to vandalising the table with pencils when I was young and getting caned. Since then I'd become a very good liar.

Despite that memory, I don't particularly remember getting caned quite so much, but my old adversaries have once said that I went to school with cane marks all over my legs last time, even up till primary six.

What I do remember, however, were the hazy memories of her telling me to share with my cousins (whom I hated), and if I didn't, she'd beat me. What I remember even more clearly is her refusing to give me a single cent when my dad doesn't have money for my allowance anymore and in the end I had to go and work… In the middle of my midyear examinations. At the same time, she bought a lot of ugly clothes for herself and never allow me to wear them when I'm out of clothes to wear.

Apparently I am not a very healthy kid. Oh well.

In Dr Jerkyll and Mr Hyde, the apparent surface of bourgeoisie respectability was indeed funny. I laughed at how plague grew and spread, like the Black Death, while people pretended that they were all healthy and if they prayed enough things would be okay. Fat hope.

I discovered Marquis de Sade on the internet back when I still had it. Apparently, it was pornographic violence in literature, and is considered a Gothic classic. I was merely curious because I was into nihilism at that point of time. I wrote nihilism; I wanted to read it to feed what I was writing. So, I tried to dig up copies of it in Singapore… But learnt that it was banned.

A few months after this knowledge, I heard of the infamous youth crime. A gang of youths, as young as I was then (14) kidnapped a girl of the same age and abused her physically and mentally. After that, things got pretty quiet for a while. Just this year, the issue of having sex with underaged girls cropped up; the legal age is 16.

Once again I was reminded of that genre of literature. I knew that the legal age to watch NC-16 is 16 years old, and that basically includes foul language, slight sexual connotations, war movies, blah blah blah that are supposedly detrimental to society. In fact, I wanted to watch Saving Private Ryan at the time when I was 15, but limitations forbade me to do so.

…So, there you go.

And then there is the rating R(A), which means that if you're under 21 you should stay home and sleep. Battle Royale was rated R(A), and my internet friend's friend said the book was his favourite book when I told him I read Ryu Murakami. As there was no availability of the English version of the book and my Japanese was equivalent to that of a month old's and I was merely 16, I undertook the quest of searching for the pirated VCD as the original DVD or VHS was basically priced at a heavenly rate. Anyway, we only had a VCD player at home. So, my dad found the pirated VCD for me. After watching it, I was so rejuvenated by the way the story turned out—the main characters learnt to live in their own way! I was so inspired that I studied hard for my O levels. Battle Royale is my favourite movie up till now.

I never liked TV much, but during this while when I worked and there was no customers, I relinquished my boredom with watching pro-wrestling on Channel 5, prime-time. I watched as this white bulk slammed a smaller yellow bulk onto the floor, bounce, and knee him. Ouch, that must hurt. At the end there was blood in the yellow bulk's mouth. As my skin was slightly yellow because I was a Chinese, I wasn't too happy. As I watched the natural skills of evaluation came into play.

Okay dokie. Of course, this production comes from a country where kids bring guns to school and have a shoot out and where racism was one of the hallmarks of their history and where they have an intervention policy only to support extremist regimes beneficial to them in the name of "human rights" because of religious and racial sentiments (ie: Israel). Many people hate them because they are obnoxious, and many people love them because they are rich. I tore myself away from the screen and decided to wipe the tables to curb my boredom and anger. Nope, for someone who adores nihilism portrayed in the way that its absurdity is announced to the world, I didn't quite like pro-wrestling at all.

At the same time I wondered if the censorship authorities had any brains left in their skulls, and came to a conclusion: nope, they obviously do not have any. If they were asked to explain themselves they would definitely have at least an infinite fallacies in their argument. For a while I was inspired to write a letter to confront their idiocy, but realised that they were the ones with authority to censor me.

…Darn.

Okay dokey, I wasn't much into political subtlety, which meant I shouldn't deal with the country's political party, even if their regime reminds me quite a bit of the Nazi one. They'd slaughter me—well, most likely not, since it's illegal and stuff, but they could sue my butt a little more bankrupt than it already is.

But parental diplomacy disturbed me. My mother has always been well known for her nagging, from how my grandma is bad to how my dad is evil to how her friends are worse. There is not a single day that would pass without her incessant rambling. I was glad that she wasn't telepathic; if she were, there would be no end to my suffering.

Seriously, every time I go onto any place where there is one unfortunate common ground called HOMO SAPIENS, I would hear loud chatting. My stuffed toys and I like peace and quiet. Sometimes the way old folks chat disturb me; they sound like they're scolding each other. And this reminds me of my mother. Society is a reminder of my mother. Society reminds me of everyone's mother. It must take someone like my mom to concieve such a society, and I must have been an alien dumped from a spacecraft to observe human behavior.

Oh, where are my true parents? Parents, parents, wherefore art thou parents? Woe beholds me! There is incessant nagging in my ear! Save me from such endless sorrow and grief! Nnnngghhh… It's all I can do to keep from banging my head against the wall and breaking down.

….

….

…rrrrrhghaiqjhffffkkk… ARRRGHHHHH!!!!

Sorry, that was the breaking down part. Now I'll just go and wipe the blood off my head. There, much better. Hey, the red forms a stark contrast against the white! Woooh! Ooooh, look, it's turning brown! Like chocolate!

…Like I said, it isn't my fault that my parents are lousy, and it isn't theirs either. If anyone lives in this world long enough and starts contemplating everything from a hermit's point of view, he or she would most likely understand that my parents are just a small fraction of the society, and in this society things can get worse than financial crisis, canning and nagging.

My lungs are weak, I get cramps for no reason, my menstrual cramps could make a grown man cry although I wouldn't show it, and my back bone is crooked so badly that it hurts many-a-time. Okay dokie. I went to see the doctor about my back. I said that it was hurting, so she made me lie onto bed, stretch a little, and her conclusion was, "it's just a minor pain. I'll give you some rub."

Every time I run during PE, I feel my back cracking and my lungs screaming.

Arrrgh. It's just some minor pain, sure.

I was watching the NAZI video when I was still doing history in the first three months. Apparently, Hitler decided to keep the kids fit because he needed them for conscription. The actions in the video were highly synchronised. When I was doing PE the same afternoon I watched the video, all of us took turns jumping over some benches and I contemplated the Singaporean regime.

Monday, 13 May 2002 9:48:17 PM