Trauma

Marilyn Chua

Thursday, 25 July 2002 1:45:12 AM (+9:00GMT)

"Where do we go from here? the words are coming out all weird where are you now when I need you? they brought in the CIA the tanks and the whole marines to blow me away to blow me sky high." –"the bends", Radiohead

She had just woken up from the day's rest, if one could call it rest.

It was a Sunday, a perfect Sunday, without the sunshine shrouding over the earth frazzling nerves. No sunflowers, no jump-around sunshine. A perfect Sunday, to be precise, perfectly grey and sober.

Saturday night, she had gotten herself drunk with a bunch of girl friends. The fact was, because of the nausea inducing fear of puking in her brain the night before, she had not slept well, and when she did, it felt strange.

It was Sunday, and she had plans. A friend had come over to Singapore from Japan, and she was unable to fetch her at the airport because of a usual commodity by the name of "school". This friend wasn't exactly proficient in spoken English, and when she was on the bus her mobile phone had bad reception, but she could make out enough from the "conversation" to meet her at "seben, moningu, Somaseto."

She hadn't eaten for Sunday morning, and her CD player was running out of battery, so she had no distractions. But that was fine with her. It wasn't in her habit to eat much in the morning, especially since she was sure that she would puke if she filled her stomach with something to puke with.

Somerset MRT was grey. Grey here, grey there, like the morning.

There were many people. People filing in, people rushing out. Many many people.

She sat down in a corner of the station, watching people as they went by. Most of them were blurs of flurry. Occasionally she could discern a person from the crowd, but then this impression would soon disappear to be replaced by another.

She watched. Her hand wandered to her Nokia mobile. It didn't vibrate, didn't ring. A finger tingled.

Last night's rendezvous apparently didn't escape her mind. It was perfectly normal for her to feel "weird". This term was often used to describe conditions that didn't fit adjectives.

People filing in, people rushing out. And last night's scenes juxtaposed themselves onto the morning rush.

Seven twenty, the people no longer seemed real.

She started doodling, using loose lines to depict silhouettes. After two sketches she stopped, and fiddled with her Nokia again. After a while she picked up a marker and wrote onto her sketchpad, "I am ___" in case her Japanese friend didn't recognise her.

She closed her eyes. Did her friend mistake Singaporean time for Japanese time? It's a 1 hour difference. Bah.

She opened her eyes, and continued watching the people. Fuck, yesterday's memories weren't going away. Why did they reappear? She didn't even feel much during that countenance. Sure, it was the first time really strange things happened, but her life had been weird, anyway, hadn't it been so?

She noticed that people gave her sketchbook that kind of expression, and a guy even stopped to specifically scrutinise it.

Seven thirty, her sketchbook was placed onto the MRT floor. It looked generally like this:

She had a secret laugh, but when people looked slightly too disoriented with that little humour-oriented signboard, she decided to close the damn thing.

Seven fifty. And she hadn't gotten enough sleep. And yesterday's memories… Jesus, what was wrong with her? She pondered over where to get batteries…

It was all she could do to not slam her forehead against the marble wall.

And the people continued walking back and forth, back and forth. It grew dizzying after a while. But it wasn't even eight yet, so she continued waiting.

Eight.

Maybe they're a little late.

Eight two. Eight five. Eight ten.

That's it, she decided, she's leaving. The people were too dizzying, her butt was hurting, the world was spinning, she felt like puking.

She picked herself up unsteadily from the marble floor, and trudged slowly towards the escalator, that would let her see the day's sky. She needed to see the grey sky again.

-end(?)-