Singapore can Romance itself

Yours

2007-02-15T11:38:00.000+08:00

Yours is not the heady, intoxicating first blush
It does not send me walking on clouds
It does not set my heart a flutter
It does not make me think idle thoughts of being with you.

Yours is the call to arms of all my senses
It breaks me from my dreams
It stops the music from playing
It sharpens the vision
It unclutters the mind

Yours frees me from mine
So that mine can be yours

As it should be, forever, wherever and whenever

Prelude to One Week.

2007-02-08T12:43:00.000+08:00

Greetings.

I'm a long dormant nom de plume come back to digital life for one week. Karate Kid IV, Girl Emancipated, call me what you will - I am a ghost of the internet past, so to speak.

But I'm back, for one week only, even as I wait for my lover to return. He hasn't left yet, not until tonight, but he's leaving for parts distant and regions foreign. And the process of his leaving makes me feel as if the the lover I long for has vanished, even as he is slipping away, out of my reach. Gone.

It is the fear of losing, of loss, worse still than the loss itself. Even if it is, I tell myself, only temporary. But life is short, vicious, brutish in a way that few of us predict.

The young presume that they have time.

Lovers do as lovers are, premise and presume, blissfully that partings daily are only that - partings, daily.

But I have lost that heedlessness of youth, I have been stripped on my mantle as a lover, if only for a week, very early on, of how easy it might have been to lose my love, my lover.

So I will wait until his return as I have prayed before his leaving. And I will write to you all in the week pending his return.

Day 1: Confirmation

2006-02-15T00:46:00.000+08:00

Nothing I say, and nothing I do can show you how much I love you.

Because I do not control this love that I have for you,

I do not own it, neither do you.

But still I do my utmost to make sure that I remain in its possession

This I promise, even though promises mean nothing

Day 1: Validation

2006-02-14T01:27:00.000+08:00

And she knew, at that very instant, that it had all been worth it.

The waiting.

The anticipating.

The wanting.

His eyes told her he knew her. But she knew, he was her.

Day 2: Anticipation

2006-02-14T01:11:00.000+08:00

She shivered as she sat by the window, looking out at the busy street. Nervously, she scanned each face as it approached, and then passed by. She did not know what she was looking for. She just knew she would know when she saw him.

The froth on her cappucino had long subsided. She looked at her watch. It had been almost an hour since she sat down. She fidgeted with the beads in her hair. She had wanted to be early.

Hello stranger.

And she looked up into the most captivating pair of eyes she had seen. Captivating jet black eyes. Jet black eyes that were laughing.

And she knew.

Day 2: Intoxication

2006-02-13T14:29:00.000+08:00

"I could drink a case of you, still I'd be on my feet"

Because I love you, and you love me back,
Part of you flows out of me in these things that I do.

Day 3: Obsession

2006-02-13T00:36:00.000+08:00

What's she doing right this moment, I have to know.
I have to know because she wants me to know.
So what's she doing right this moment?
Wanting me to know what she's doing right this moment.

Day 3: Devotion

2006-02-12T19:53:00.000+08:00

One by one she took out all the letters he had written her, smoothening them and then placing them side by side.

Soon, her entire floor was covered.

Covered with words of love, intimacy and emotion.

She lay down on his words and closed her eyes, imagining him lying next to her, holding her, whispering his words of love to her.

Soon, she thought to herself, soon.

Day 4: Possession

2006-02-11T23:14:00.000+08:00

"And you can tell your friend there with you, he'll have to go"

I want you all to myself, and I want you now.

Both ways is how I want it.

Always.

Day 4: Flirtation

2006-02-11T14:03:00.000+08:00

Leaning in to whisper into her ear.

Knees touching, elbows brushing.

Smiling, a slight upturn at the corner of the mouth.

Saying nothing, yet everything, with that look.

Day 5: Dedication

2006-02-11T02:34:00.000+08:00

to cummings:

i don't know much (except to tell you that i love you)

and i carry your heart with me wherever i go.

and i carry it in my heart.

Day 5: Infatuation

2006-02-10T02:30:00.000+08:00

Her phone beeped. 1 message received.

She opened the message.

Good morning stranger.

She smiled.

I could get used to this, she thought to herself.

Day 6: Inspiration

2006-02-09T22:50:00.000+08:00

My darling junkie's spoon, you are

Warm and cold
Sweet and bitter
Soft and hard

You keep my feet off the ground
You alter my state of being
You keep me hanging around

Day 6: Invigoration

2006-02-09T01:35:00.000+08:00

She looked at the stranger sitting across the table from her. He caught her looking at him, and smiled his boyish grin.

She liked how he seemed to read her mind. She liked how he was comfortable with the silences between them. She liked how he made her laugh all the time. The last exactly 7 minutes and 28 seconds ago.

And as if on cue, he reached over and tickled her.

Day 7: Investigation

2006-02-08T16:34:00.000+08:00

I looked in the mirror this morning and caught myself smiling.

Something's up, and I want to find out what it is. I will call you and ask you out today and we'll see if there's truth in what I saw this morning.

Day 7: Destination

2006-02-08T02:14:00.000+08:00

She excused herself and went to the bathroom to freshen up. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, and was surprised to see a girl giggling back at her. And she giggled again, as the butterflies flitted round her heart once more. So this is what it feels like to go on a date with a stranger.

He was leaning against a pillar and looking at her from under his boyish fringe as she walked towards him. She smiled, and moved to brush away the stray strands of hair covering his jet black eyes. Jet black eyes that held her gaze unwaveringly. Jet black eyes that seemed to talk to her. Jet black eyes that said I know you.

Don't.

He grabbed her wrist, and dropped it just as quickly. She felt her face flush as the jolt of their brief touch subsided. I... Her words trailed off as she looked into his eyes. His jet black eyes.

Can I kiss you? they asked.

She was not giggling now, even though the mutinous butterflies were threathening to burst out of her wildly beating heart. She could only watch, she did not even dare to blink, as the jet black eyes leaned in, slowly.

Yes, she whispered. Yes.

Day 8: Concussion

2006-02-07T17:57:00.000+08:00

You.
Knocked.
Me off.
My feet.

Now and, sense make no things to me.

Day 8: Submission

2006-02-07T01:32:00.000+08:00

He put his finger to my lips as he pushed me against the wall. I could feel him through the fabric of my skirt.

He kissed me, urgently. I moved to unbutton his shirt, but he grabbed my wrists and pinned them behind me. He kissed me again, this time teasing me lightly with the tip of his tongue. I struggled, but he held me firmly, this time flicking gently against my erect nipples as he pressed himself against me.

You are mine, he rasped into my ear.

And I cried, as I surrendered to his power.

Yes.

Day 9: Domination

2006-02-06T18:33:00.000+08:00

She turned towards the mirror and saw the graceful arch of her silhouette, hips moving, head thrown back.

She turned back and looked down into his beautiful eyes. His eyes which held hers, as their breaths merged as one.

And she smiled.

Day 9: Conviction

2006-02-05T12:17:00.000+08:00

It starts to rain.

Then you feel a drop of rain on the back of your hand.

Then you realise you've felt that drop of rain on the back of your hand.

Day 10: Shall we apply ourselves (together)?

2005-02-14T02:02:00.000+08:00

Shall we hold hands?
There are discounts.
Shall we dance?
There are incentives.
Shall we kiss?
There are rebates.
Shall we canoodle?
There are grants.
Shall we move in together?
There are discounts.
Shall we take a walk in the park?
There are incentives.
Shall we share a candlelit dinner?
There are rebates.
Shall we watch the sunset together?
There are grants.
Shall we get married, buy a flat and have kids?
There are benefits.
Shall we fall in love?
Discounts, incentives, rebates, grants. Benefits. Discounts, rebates, incentives, grants. Benefits.

Day 10: Love, Longing And Everything Between

2005-02-14T00:22:00.000+08:00

It's the end, almost, of another lazy Sunday afternoon on Amma and Appa's patio, the jungle outside a riot of greenery.

We are lying, Him and I, cradled against each other in the chaise lounge, a daybed for all it's size. The air is still, but for a fan whirring noisily in another corner and the slow curls of mosquito incense undulate towards the ceiling as a prayr to the heavens.

The chirruping of cicadas herald the early evening even as the light changes, fades, slowly from yellow to orange, then a sudden calm blue. Our magazines have fallen between us, his Jane's Defense Guide and my Economist a tangled heap of paper, limp with the heat of the afternoon just past, the jug of iced tea on the stand sitting in a puddle of it's own perspiration. Our skin a contrast of light and dark.

I watch him sleep, mouth ajar, reading glasses askew, hair mussed and stubble shadowing. A slow tenderness, the same as always, rises. There is the sigh of my heart, as I press my lips to his temple, now flecked with grey. I flick my sari pallavi over him, to keep him safe from the ravening mosquitos before I give myself over to sleep utterly, the slightest of smiles curving my lips.

Day 9: Of the Future

2005-02-13T12:16:00.000+08:00

When she awoke, lying in their shared bed, she felt that no time had passed. That time had somehow stilled, or slowed to . Or perhaps only her perception had changed. Nevertheless, she imagined that all that had transpired was that she'd lain down and had but closed her eyes for a moment, an extended blink.

Searching for certainty, she groped for the clock on the sideboard and turned the malevolent red face to her, read 4:54. Measuring the hours before she would have to go to work against the probability of her return to sleep, she dismissed sleep.

Clear eyed, she sat up in bed, taking in the unfamiliar quiet of the room by moonlight. The soft, calm light of the fading moon filtering through the curtain sheers softened the clean lines of the furniture that she'd chosen with such care at the beginning of their marriage. In the transparent blue tinged light, the restrained, tasteful furniture gave off an air of quiet resignation. She imagined that the room had always had this quality, even when the house had been featured in the National magazine and he'd been inordinately proud of her refinement and that this was the first time she'd be made aware of this.

Startled by the realisation the curtains, shifted by the breeze, let in the full glow of the moonlight. Illuminated, walls of the room seemed to shift out and fall away from her and merge with the light and she wondered if she was awake, or dreaming, or dreaming of wakefulness.

Struggling, she turned to him and watched the slow rise and fall of his breathing under the sheets. The low hum of his snoring and the even rise and fall of his chest competed with the silent airlessness of the air-conditioner. There was the roundness of his plump, boyish cheeks, even now slightly greasy, that in profile made him look more like a youth of 20 than a man near 40. She thought of the slack roundness above his belly that had appeared in recent years, and the mole on his shoulder. Of the ridged, vertical scars on the inside of both his knees, once angry red, now welts.

She spoke, quietly, firmly: My husband has become a good man and a good father. But I do not love him and I never have.

Satisfied, she turned to sleep. She would take care of things in the morning.

Day 9: The way it shatters

2005-02-13T01:57:00.000+08:00

Where can I put these?, she asked as I watched her take her things out from her bag.

That was as good a death knell as any.

I felt sick to the core even as she slowly went about doing the things in my apartment that meant she was moving in with me.

That meant we were going to fight every now and then, over whose turn it was to take out the trash, over who forgot to turn off the air-con, over who should pay the bill for the vet's fees for our dog. Over the colour of our white picket fence.

Day 8: Love is [insert phrase]

2005-02-12T11:51:00.000+08:00

A waking dream, a trick played by your unconscious on the present. It makes you crazy, half mad, smoke mazed, causes you to see things that aren't really there, not really. A cloud, fog of Hashish for the senses.

Images become sharper, clearer, etch themselves in your memory for slow, pleasurably torturous future recall. The curve of a cheek over you, silhoutted against dim light, the fall of a smooth fringe over sulky cheekbones so close, so close. The play of his smile and above all, the flash of his dark, eyes as his teeth gleam, sweetly predatory as you lose yourself in Him.

Skin, gleaming, sultry, warm as it merges with His, so smooth, firm. Hard. Exhalations, slow breaths in the cool, slightly clammy night breeze. The soft, crisp sheets pillow around and mix with the sublime little puffs of affections, kisses butterflied and pressed against temples, jaws, napes meaning everything and nothing. Ephemeral emotion. Moments pass, time stands still for this night, an hour before dawn.

Our eyes meet. I look at the Boy. He looks at me. We share a smile.

I pull Him to me and embrace Him tightly.

Day 8: Love is [insert phrase]

2005-02-12T01:27:00.000+08:00

Not realising I like you for all the wrong reasons.

Not realising you like me for all the wrong reasons.

Not realising I dislike you for liking me for all the wrong reasons.

Not realising I dislike myself for liking you for all the wrong reasons.

Day 7: Ghosts

2005-02-11T12:09:00.000+08:00

It is dark, yet another weekend night, yet another dim, smoky club of the moment, populated by the shiny, brittle people of the city. I sit, composed, beautiful almost, short hair spiked up, my face hiding nothing, for all intents and purposes interested in what the man of the moment is saying, yet.

My eyes glitter in the light.

I turn away in mock protest from my conversation partner, playful indignation writ large. My hands flutter, laugh while my heart is still and my eyes, searching, searching always in the twilight purgatory that I inhabit so comfortably. I turn back and laugh to my partner, doubling over in mirth, an almost real response to a witty comment of his, yet looking, looking, as is my custom.

Sometimes, my eyes catch on a strong jawline and my heart skips. Other times, it's watching the fall of hair over a razor sharp cheekbone, or the cut of a swathe of broad shoulders suspended over a narrow waist that causes my breathe to still, and I ask myself. Is it B? I see the Boy I've loved and lost, so many years ago and recently again, in the shadows of the forms that occupy the space around me. The cigarette smoke, the cigar smoke weave a hallucinatory mist around me. I am imagining things again and am disappointed, inevitably.

The eyes are different, the height is different, the person I am haunted by is not there. But in the diffused, pulsing eternity contained inside those many, different clubs, of too many cigarettes and bodies and the overwhelming reek of alcohol, I can always hope and be disappointed anew. A cycle, of sorts.

Sometimes, at particularly close calls, I wonder: What I will say to him, if it is him. What will I do, if it is him. Will I go up to him and talk to him, tilt up my head to him like I once used to do, so many years ago and let my smile touch my eyes for the first time in the longest time? My heart flutters, then falls. The resemblance is not there.

Perhaps somethings are better left unsaid, unshrived, unsanctified. Better that he haunts me a wraith of times past then a man in flesh and blood. I could not live with the man, a chimera inhabiting the hard lanky body, speaking with the neutral tenor voice, exuding the same smell. The boy that I loved is dead and I should leave him be, resurrected only in my memory, faithful in the way the man could never me.

The crowd parts and shifts, and I find the man I have sought, brought to life, made flesh, made real. My heart aches for what was, what might have been and what has passed between and before us. For what cannot be changed.

I smile at him directly, once. It does not reach my eyes. I look away.

He continues to haunt me, still.

Day 7: Your love makes me thirsty

2005-02-11T01:07:00.000+08:00

Your smile, the one that lights up the darkest room. Your laugh, the one that wrinkles your nose. Your little hop, the one you do when you're walking too quickly. Your voice, the one that melts the hardest hearts. Your salt habit, where you add salt to every damn dish.

Day 6: Juju eyeballs

2005-02-10T00:14:00.000+08:00

I'm hoping the more I make goo goo eyes at you, you'll make goo goo eyes back at me.

Every time I see you, I'll make goo goo eyes.

Even when I don't see you, I'll make goo goo eyes.

I can write goo goo eyes.

You'll read my goo goo eyes.

You'll write goo goo eyes back.

And you'll make goo goo eyes back at me.

Just the way things were always meant to be.

Goo goo eyes right under my nose.

Day 6: Desire

2005-02-09T17:06:00.000+08:00

The night air is cool and playful, the light breeze occasionally catching the words from our conversation and taking them away with them. Overhead, the moon is a golden haze, filtered through a maze of suspended particles, remanants of fires that have started to plague Singapore. The ecru smell of smoke from the day is gone, a memory, but a remnant tugs at the distant realm of our senses as the breeze whispers.

We murmur in the dim darkness, sitting cross legged on the grass beside each other, staring into the space in front of us. Him asking questions, me answering. Time passes in a smooth babble, echoing the plesant hum of water in the background, a automaton in mimcry of a cheerful rushing brook. Sometimes He looks and I gesture. My eyes flash and His teeth gleam in the darkness. When He leans near to tease me, His arm around my shoulder with a fake leer, my awareness drowses awake. I sense his proximity, the warmth of his skin beneath the fabric of his shirt and the strength in his forearms. That for the first time, I know and recognise that He is larger than me, taller than my tallness. His profile catches in the ambient light and beckons to me, near to me. I feel the naked heat of his skin and hear the rush of his breath as he exhales and turns to me and looks, quizzically. Time stills, as do my senses.

It would be so easy to fall prey to this. But my face remains impassive, laughing in an easy dismissal of his actions, his nearness.

The moment past, I light a cigarette between my fingers. The lighter crackles, sparks and the flame flashes to life. The fag lights and I take a drag, sucking, my lips wrapped against the crisp, tender white of the fag, lean back and exhale to the sky, head tilted with abandon. Resting on my elbows as I contemplate the blur of the night sky and hidden start of my heart, the fag smoulders between my fingers, hissing slightly as it touches the dew scattered on the fine spikes of carpet grass.

When I bring the fag up, a pause of contemplation before I devour it again, I watch the fine, white mist curl up and out into the air, the sky, a fragrant tendril, elegant in it's moment of sureness before it's form is dissipated in the dark air. He's leaned back too, resting on his elbows, watching me watch the fag. At this moment, I steal a glance at his deep, sloe eyes outlined against his cheekbones; he seems entirely too young, uncreased.

As I bring the fag to my mouth, his hand brushes mine as he leans over me and deftly relieves me of it. His hand brushes mine, skin against skin. Our gazes latch. Liquid heat pools in me.

It would be so easy to give in. I could turn to him and brush my smooth, cool lips against his warm, dusky cheeks in wisp of sensation. Instead, my lips twist up and I say " I didn't know you smoked" with the wry statement of one who is older to one you is younger. Predictably, he leans back and takes a short, graceless drag.

I begin to speak on a pretext, before I finally say, delicately. "It's easy with guy friends to cross the line, even platonic friendships. There are moments when it's possible to talk to deeply that a connection forms and a thread of awareness of the masculinity or feminity overwhelms the other party. It happens rather too much to me, all these guys hitting on me when I don't feel anything in the least for them. It gets rather tiresome."

"So what do you do"

"I recognise when they're going to go over the edge of friendship and I back away slowly from them."

I took the fag back from him, triumphantly.

It would have been so easy.

Day 5: The wrong mother

2005-02-09T16:28:00.000+08:00

I have a friend who keeps trying to find the reason why we want to fall in love. That's all fine and dandy, but trouble is, he likes to tell me why he thinks we want to fall in love. And then he asks me why I think we want to fall in love.

I tell him I don't know much about that, but I that I know he's making one big mistake after another, and that everything he does with a view to falling in love is akin to a lost lamb trying to ingratiate itself with the wrong mother.

Meeting you, and getting to know you by way of long, long telephone conversations has not added an extra dimension to me or my life. Life's pretty ordinary still. Work is work, sleep is sleep, and telephone conversations are nothing out of the ordinary. Though your sense of logic, pride, propriety and fun baffles me and your combination of self-assuredness and clumsiness charms me, and I could say it's got me, hook, line and sinker and all that, I couldn't say more.

And that sucks.

And although I've been pining for, thinking about, confused about and missing you for so many weeks now, I couldn't say more.

And that sucks.

And it's all because I don't want to say more. And it's all because you're the wrong mother.

And that sucks.

Day 5: In Defence of Singapore Men...

2005-02-08T23:37:00.000+08:00

"I have come to fuck your horses and eat your women" - Bhorat, "Bhorat's Guide to Britain"

It might as well have been one of these fine expat men in Singapore who posted this.

But it appears that some women, most notably this one, are quite happy to have foreign men do what Bhorat set out to do. And explain away their preference quite eloquently too, repeatedly. Which makes one wonder about the effort one puts into justifying ones sexual peccadiloes. But that's just a run up to the main, burning question, which is why Singaporean men are seen as inferior to foreign men.

So in defence of Singapore men, here is my top ten list for why Singapore men are a superior species to foreign/fallen talent:
10. No one gets acronyms like they do. ECP, PIE, LTA, COE and, especially, MCP.
9. Because they understand your Singlish. Or speak in the same fake Ang Moh accent we do.
8. Because they have mothers that will take care of your kids during the week, weekends, and whenever
7. Because they have mothers that will cook double boiled herbal soup, birds nests and other yummies that modern women no longer know how to cook.
6. Because they have sweet, long suffering mothers that raised them. And will raise your kids and grandkids if permitted.
5. Carrying a gun is supposed to be manly, if you believe the army recruitment ads.
4. Because they're equally food mad and will drive you all over for a good meal. (Try explaining that to a foreigner)
3. Because they also understand talkingcock.com
2. Because if you ask them about cars, computers or EPL, you'll never have to contend with uncomfortable silences. Ever.

*drumroll for the #1 reason why Singapore men are superior"

1. Because the gah-men say so.

Day 4: One Final Letter

2005-02-08T17:59:00.000+08:00

From: Karate Kid
Date: 5/6/04 1:58 am
To: PhD Boy
Subj: Eternal Sunshine of My Spotless Mind

Ok,

Before you ran off (and before I forget this thought) I wanted to say this and now I will just to make sure its said:

I talked about (before you ran off) memory erasure a la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in the context of the brief relationship (before you ran off - see the trend here).

If you haven't seen the movie, go see it, it's brilliant.

But i digress, since what I meant to say (before you ran off … I can be brutal, but you know that ;-) so I'm just being honest, to reuse the phrase).

In eternal sunshine, the protagonist wants to hang on to the happiest moment of his relationship, the one where he thinks he's so happy he could die, lying next to his girlfriend on the frozen Charles river on a winters night looking up at the stars.

Me, I actually want to erase what I think was my happiest moments with you, but its the only thing I'd erase. I think that if I did that, I could be friends with you instantaneously without any of the awkwardness I feel now. I mean, I really want to now, but am not sure how to without treading on your toes and making you run away. (like so)

I'm not sure the e-mail will do you any favours, but I'm sure it's therapeutic for me to write this so I can move on for sure. You of all people will now how crap it is to spin one's wheels for more than 2 weeks at a go and it is more than two weeks - the feeling that you're getting somewhere but not nearly as fast as you'd like

In which case you should stop reading right about now.

Anyway, you remember that moment in the Fullerton the Sunday before you left, after we had spent the whole day together, the mid-afternoon when we were sitting down for drinks at the sofa, leaning back, cheek on shoulder looking up at the skylight, bathed in the intense clarity of the moment? Where moments before we were whispering, alternately conspiratorially about the couple in front of us and in the next, about how amazing what was happening between us there and then was?

I don’t know about you, but I would erase that particular moment and I’ll tell you why:sI have had moments like that with one other person in the past, but nothing approaching this clarity, nothing quite like that particular moment where I felt inexorably, ineluctably drawn to the concept of effortlessly spending the rest of my life with you and the secure in the knowledge that it was indeed possible and reciprocated. No, nothing quite like that euphoria/delusion.

So I’d erase that particular hour (and that one only) from my memory for the simple reason that the next time I feel that way with someone else (if I am so lucky), I would like to be able to trust that what I feel is reciprocated for more than a week. Or just trust that feeling without having it tainted with any doubt that it is otherwise than what it is. Or perhaps I give what I felt then too much credence and failed to attribute enough credit to the excellent white wine that afternoon. Or it is only the distinctiveness of recent memory that gives it this intensity. In some way, time does its own erasing of memories.

Trying hard to be friends, but probably only succeeding in making you run away,

Karate Kid (brutal as always)

P.S. If it were only so easy for the rest of my suitors.

Day 4: The Colonel's Bucket

2005-02-08T17:28:00.000+08:00

So what if it was at the KFC?

You didn't say no when I asked you to marry me, and I was dead serious. So what if I didn't have a ring for to put on your finger? You didn't say no, and I was dead serious. I was dead serious even if it was a spur of the moment thing. I was madly in love with you and you didn't say no.

I would've forgotten about my asking you to marry me at the KFC, but ten years to the day I did, you took me out to the very same KFC, bought me a meal, and said Happy Anniversary.

I mightn't have asked again, but you know what? You still haven't said no.

Day 3: A Place with a View

2005-02-07T23:59:00.000+08:00

With a perspective borne of receding distance, I can only imagine how it would have appeared that afternoon, three years ago. To an onlooker, viewing us through the fishtank of a plate glass window at the Coffee Bean at Bishan he would have seen only a young man and a girl facing each other, remarkable only in their stasis.

………………

She looked at him across the table, impassive, waiting. In the meantime, her hair fell across her face and she let, it be, demure, tastefully highlighted streaks and all.

The young man looked back at the girl, slowly and with some difficulty, eyes red rimmed, brimming. Indirectly. His jaw stiffened, slightly.

So there they sat, across from each other, the table a gulf, proper in their suburban dress code. The young man in the casual scruffy chic Bermudas and crisp shirt the girl had chosen somewhere, sometime ago. And the girl in her khaki skirt and shirt, little bag and heels.

………………

Stony faced and through the curtain of her hair, the girl observed the young mans’ hands, toying with the base of an empty plastic cup. She took in the scuffed silver ring on his right hand, one she'd given him a year earlier, in happier times. A token from a Bali trip with her family, without the young man she'd missed desperately, a silly little keepsake really and a pittance in rupiah.

But he'd received the flimsy silver ring gladly when she’d gifted it and worn it with some pride on the ring finger of his right hand. Practice, he'd said then when he’d put the ring on on, with a light, tender smile, in the way young men do when they're deadly serious and mean to hide it. The girl had mirrored the young man’s smile, leaned into him and whispered in his ear, yes, one day. And let him place the twin of his ring on her hand.

………………

But a year had passed since they’d started wearing the rings and the girl had found out about the lies the young man had told only a week before. Which she'd confirmed with the Other Girl, who had been told similar but different lies.

She'd even made a chart of where the young men had told her he'd been each night that week, and asked the Other Girl where she'd been and what she was doing with the young man, who was no longer hers alone. Or had never been, really.

The chart was painful in it’s meticulousness, befitting her professional training. The chart proved that the young man had lied about where he'd been that last week. He hadn't been at the gym on Monday, but had been to a movie with the other girl. And on Tuesday, he hadn't had a bad stomach from a company dinner with colleagues. That was because he'd actually eaten a sparse meal of chicken chop at home and had squired the Other Girl for a late supper. And on Wednesday, the young man had met the girl but gone home early to chat online with the Other Girl. Thursday, Friday and the Saturday she'd found out about the existence of the Other Girl, were like blurs of covert activities , sickening in their duplicity.

………………

Now, the girl regarded the young man, more numb than hurt, having imagined that the hurt to have passed her by sometime in the past two days, purged, tear by tear in alternating bouts of hysteria and fits of quiet weeping. Her hard eyes betrayed only the slightest puffiness. And her hands were bare, unadorned.

The girl turned to examining the table and it's cheap, deeply whorled, pine grained veneer, deciding that it exuded an air of cheerful coomercial solidity. It was an easy decision to come to.

In the interim silence, their ice blendeds had melted though, barely touched, the whipped cream topping mixing into the water and separating, floating as an uneasy, oily white stain. The detente continued, suffusing the air between the young man and the girl.

When the young man finally spoke, an age or none had passed.

"Would it make a difference if I proposed now? I looked at the trilogy rings, they're really nice. You know, the one’s that Zoe Tay endorsed" His voice was light and tinged at the edges with a raw hoarseness.

"I don't think so, not after what you've done." The girl answered coldly. But sadness threatened and brimmed in her again, too familiar.

………………

So that was the first time I was proposed to. And it was the beginning of our end.

………………

We never recpatured the same uncomplicated joy of our past.

His badly explained credit card slips for hotel rooms at the Ritz Carlton Millenia and on Rasa Sentosa didn't help, for one thing. Nor did my innocuous, incessant questions about each and every detail of his day, each day, every day.

Sometimes he'd propose. Always, I'd refuse, setting new conditions that he couldn't, perhaps wouldn't meet. But still we lingered on, caught in the thrill of that dizzying downard death spiral for next two and a half years, bound fast to each other by a heady and toxic cocktail of loyalty, remembered joy and a dim, faint vision of marriage.

………………

My present freedom is sweet, but my perspective borne of my freedom far sweeter.

Day 3: The two-timing slut-bitch

2005-02-07T23:55:00.000+08:00

I was sitting in the police station, sobbing as I explained to the police officer why I was hiding near the drain near your house.

I thought you were kidding when you said you preferred more mature guys, you bitch.

I thought you were kidding when you kept talking about the spunky lawyers in the firm you interned at. How they spoke well, how they dressed well, how they were well travelled. And how one of them had that fancy Maserati we had seen on the road before.

Good thing I found out when I waited for you to come home from the 'girls' night out' you went out on. I would've leapt in a flying rage at the two of you as you kissed goodnight, but I my mind started plotting slow revenge instead.

So slow, an hour must've passed before your neighbours called the police, who came round in five minutes and hauled me away.

Good thing the cops were kind enough to hear me out, and they laughed at me only a little before they drove me home in a cop car.

I wasn't charged, and I promised them I wouldn't ever go near your house ever again because you were a no-good two-timing slut-bitch. And no-good two-timing slut-bitches get their comeuppance in due time.

You got real fat and ugly and married your cousin, last I heard.

Day 2: The Nameless Thing

2005-02-06T13:26:00.000+08:00

It was late afternoon and a lingering dull wamth remained though the sun had subsided. I was 16, holding a basketball in my hands, over my head, about to pass it, hard, when a Boy loped towards the court and something in me shifted.

I don't recall what happened to the ball after I saw the Boy, or what happened to the ball, the rest of the pick up basketball game, for that matter, or even who was with me, but I do remember what the Boy looked like because I could not stop stealing glimpses at him that afternoon. Not if my O level results depended on it, not if my SAT scores depended on it, I could not stop looking.

He moved in a lope, a smooth, rolling gait with a brief jar of hesistance, as if he was inhabiting the shell of a body that was almost his. But that wasn't what moved me. It was his smile, the way it played over his face, stretched his broad mouth up and softened the odd, fierce intensity in his eyes. It made the corners of his eyes crinkle up and brought the planes of his cheekbones into relief. It woke something in me that I'd never felt before.

Soon after, I made enquiries of the Boy. Discreet of course. The wildly friendly 12 year old girl who looked more of a 16 year old than I did, and who'd had the arsenal of weapons of mass fliration at her disposal was best friends with the Boy's younger sister. Little Lolita told me many things, to my consternation. That the Boy lived two blocks over and was someone whom I'd seen before. Whom I'd taken no particular note of, and for good reason.

He was the gangly nerd who'd worn ash grey, thick plastic spectacles before this, distinguished only in their ungainliness. With the horrible haircut by Raju the ACS barber or a near cousin of the Barber. With a mouthful, and then some, of large steel dental braces in a wide mouth that resembled nothing so much as a giant beartrap.

When I seen the Boy for the first time again that day, the long December school holidays had gifted him with contacts lenses, waved away his braces to reveal a beautfiul, wide smile of gleaming even teeth and bestowed him with regular visits to the dermatologist. And revealed a sharp, even bone structure that had always been there.

As it turned out, I was the first girl to notice and act on this newly resplendant swan. It was the privilege of being the girl that lived almost next door. Or in the same estate, at any rate.

So I called the Boy at his home, as nonchalantly as I could muster, the way I'd imagined myself as a girl who'd had a previous boyfriend under her belt before would. I asked him if he wanted to hang out and if he was free, we could go for a move sometime. He said curtly that he was busy with school. That was the end of the conversation, and I was rueful.

The Boy eventually called back two weeks, a month later and a date was fixed for a movie, the name of which I've long since forgotten. It was at Lido, I think. But the date was charming. And he confessed to me on the bus home, sitting on the same seat with me, almost but not quite that close, that he'd gone to great lengths to get me where I was. His mock indignant words to me were "Do you know how many people I had to call to get your number?"

I smiled and raised my eyebrows. Something inside me shifted once more. I had no name for it, but it felt very, very nice.

Day 2: One Ferrero Rocher with a small purple ribbon

2005-02-05T17:03:00.000+08:00

On Valentine's Day you brought a Ferrero Rocher tied with a small purple ribbon and placed it on my desk in class. You gave several to your girlfriends too. How was I to know it was supposed to mean something to me?

I said I had a sore throat and therefore had to avoid chocolates. I will remember your crestfallen look forever.

We still went out that afternoon, taking the new MRT to town, going up and down escalators in shopping centres, looking at things till it was way past time to go home. And when we finally started to make our way home, you left your hand close enough to mine for me to hold.

I got home, put my things away, and because I had a sore throat, I took the Ferrero Rocher with the small purple ribbon and put it on my desk, and kicked myself for not opening it in class and eating it on the spot.

I could've held your hand! I could've kissed you!

Damn that sore throat! I could've fallen in love with you that day.

Day 1: What she said

2005-02-05T12:24:00.000+08:00

I am your typical Singaporean male. That means I have opinions on things to do with life, love and marriage.

But you and I know these opinions count for nothing, and every time my life has been steered towards love and marriage, it's always been just that. Steered. Plotted, charted, navigated. Mostly by the woman in my life.

Not that I don't say anything about it. Boys bitch too. But that's all we ever get up to.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some stories to write about Valentine's Day because someone asked me to.

Day 1: A Beginning and An Introduction

2005-02-05T10:49:00.000+08:00

This is a collaborative blog by Mr Miyagi and I, Karate Kid IV in dishonour of Valentines Day in Singapore.

Wah, Super Obit Picture

Before we start anything, I'd like to claim near total credit for suggesting this collaboration, inspired of course by Miyagi Sensei's rant at Valentines Day and his understated articulation of his own personal heartbreak. When the ingredients of an articulate man, the prospect of tilting at the Valentine's Day windmill and great collaborative blogs started to forment in my mind, this blog was the result.

Miyagi Sensei was kind enough to go along with my suggestion for this. Please do not impute that just because he's a Singaporean male, he'd go along with anything a Singaporean female suggested. Even if it is true, generally. For Singaporean males, not Miyagi Sensei.

So this blog will operate for the next 10 days, with postings between the twain evenly divided on the themes the past, present and future of romance in our personal lives and in Singapore.

Days 2-4: The Ghosts of Valentines Days' Pasts - Loves Lost and Unions Aborted.

Days 5-7: The Ghost of Valentines Day Present -Gender Wars, Foreign Talent, Evil Relatives, Chinese New Year, the States of our Personal Unions (or lack thereof), the SDU, SPG's and other fond Singaporean acronyms, Racial lines, the Criminalisation of (Homo)sexuality.

Days 8-10: The Ghosts of Valentines Days' Yet - Children, Procreation vs Immigration, Hopes and Pipe Dreams for Romance in Singapore.

Let the fun begin!