"After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell. I began to be left by trains, I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watch strung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest; I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last week, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and alone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out of sight."
- Mark Twain, My Watch: An Instructive Little Tale
After the plane landed, I walked with my backpack and oversized carry on green plastic bag full of the knick knacks I could not fit into my suit case. I decided to head to the ladies before I was outnumbered by the baggage I had to physically carry.
There were three cubicles. One for the handicapped, one was being repaired and the middle one had a children cubicle attached. I went into the middle one and for a moment I was bewildered by the technological advances in the washroom. It reminded me of how long ago, in Japan, I had problems figuring out how to make the toilet bowl do one specific thing: flush.
A wave of nostalgic washed over me. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry that of all things, it was a toilet bowl that triggered yet again a strong longing to visit Japan. It was not only that I enjoyed being in Japan most of all, but now it was the one place I could not go. I had promised ZM that I would not visit Japan till we bore all our children. In a moment of weakness, ZM said we could fly to Tokyo because I was so sad. But, I couldn't in the end bring him to Japan when I saw how neurotic he was over the radiation.
I didn't know how or when, but now the longing for Japan coalesced with the longing for my mother. Both places so out of reach - one spanning oceans and time, the other set adrift in the space of infinity.
Oh, many people have given me an escape clause - tried to rationalise how going to Japan will be no more harmful than say (insert parallel universe Japan example). But, escaping was never the point - it was always about not escaping. About respecting people's inner fears about the great unknown and figuring out the best way to live, despite all the potential fallouts and harms along the way. It is not yet being a mother, but trying one's best to figure out how to love something or someone I could not yet comprehend.
ZM and I always laughed that we were couples out of time - that we lived in two different time zones. I taking the earlier flight booked by my company, and he taking the later cheaper flight an hour behind. Silently, I walked past the duty free shops and headed to the arrival counter where nothing makes you feel more like a local than enjoying benefits that foreigners do not.
I was back. Back from the ten days in Bangkok - the last place my family visited together, a place honestly I would not have probably gone back so soon if not for work. I saw you everywhere, as if we were a film, and it was still playing in a theatre quietly as the world moved on. I imagined you greeting me as I stepped out of the gates back to Singapore, or one of those family members tip-toeing at the glass ledge and scrutinising the people at the luggage belt.
I read many stories while I was in Bangkok. One of them had an ending where the main character anticipated for a day when a scar stopped hurting anymore - it would just be a reminder of what it was, but it would no longer hurt. I thought grief would be like that, but it isn't. It is the lack of a scar that is my grief- the lack of anything to latch on or to grapple with. That lack of... anything.
This middle-aged lady asks each person at the taxi stand two questions. "How many people are you travelling with?" and "Chrysler or taxi?" I am bemused. I wonder if there are other countries in this world where you are asked if you would like a Chrysler or a taxi.
She points me to number 13 and I roll my over-sized luggage over. We fit everything into the boot. The radio plays the kind of chinese songs that always makes my heart hurt. I tell him our address and fall back into the seat. As the roads and flowers roll by, I realised I am glad to be home.
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