He noticed how she had been looking at the little crystal dog, how her hands had gently picked it up, her finger sliding smoothly, gently across it, before putting it down wistfully, almost a little unwillingly. He looked on, as she moved on to other displays, and a small smile tugged at the corner of his lips as she moved just the slightest bit such that her eyes could linger on the little crystal dog for a while more.

Hands in pocket, he sauntered to the aisle where the crystal dog was located, and picked it up, feeling the comforting weight in his hands. Fingers snugly wrapped around the little dog, he moved on to the counter, flashing a satisfied grin as the nimble fingers of the shop assistant wrapped it up in a lovely batik-patterned paper.

Whistling, he walked out of the store door, and scanned the area for a familiar figure. Spotting the red turtleneck sweater just ahead of him, he did a quick short run. His tunes slowly faded into silence as he got nearer, and his steps got slower and more hesitant.

One step away. "Um, hi"

She turned to meet him, her eyes holding the softest question mark. Before she had even said anything he had stumbled on, "I um, noticed that you were looking at this crystal dog just now. And um.. um. Um, may I be your friend?" He looked away, feeling a warm, almost uncomfortable but not quite sensation on his cheeks.

A gentle laugh greeted his ears, and he looked up to see a merry glow in her eyes, and a grin on her lips. "So, let's start this with me getting to know, at the very least, your name, shall we?"

It's his turn to be surprised, a little taken aback, that a stranger was so accepting to such a queer proposal on the streets. He looks on in wonder, dumb for a while, as he ponders the odds and mysteries of the world in a few fleeting thoughts, for one magical moment.

She smiles again. "Or perhaps, you would like me to start with my name first?"

He smiles back. "Yes please. Ladies first"

Unfinished songs.

I have not been listening to songs for a while. No, it wasn't a conscious choice made by me. Just circumstances. Just the media player refusing to play music clips. Just the names of songs scattered among my files.

I thought I would have liked some music to accompany me for a while. But turned out I survived without any. Work continued, fingers still typed (dare I say earnestly?) on the keyboard. They danced when I was excited, and knew exactly what I had to type out next. Like someone had burst back to life and now had to hurry, hurry to got all things done and said, because time is running running out.

But it's one thing to say hello to someone through messenger, and another to come to this page. To recount, or try to capture. To run people through events, or to try to focus on the emotions, and capture them fully.

I thought I would like to focus on emotions. The abstract. But lately the snapshots are turning out incomplete. I've clicked the shutter, I've tried, but my camera is never aimed right. And I'll miss the most significant.

Nothing seems right at this time. And it's all unfinished songs. Just unfinished songs.

And I'm trying not to cry whenever I hear them.

"I'm bleeding," the child says.

He puts his arm out, extended fully, to show his mother.

It's a small wound, the kind that comes when you pick off your scabs gotten at the playground. There's but only the smallest trickle of blood, not flowing profusely like a deep cut.

Just a small wound.

But his mother doesn't know. She pushes her glasses up gently with one finger, from the side, and continue to gaze at the screen as her fingers flies on the keyboard. "Mmm, honey.. go put some cream on it?.."

There's a pause for a while, as the child looks up at the lady, his mother..

"I'm bleeding," he says again, this time a slight quaver in his voice, the softest hint of a trailing off towards the end.

This time his mother did not even seem to hear.

The child is quiet as he walks off, quiet as he wets a piece of tissue and wipes off the blood. Quiet, as he releases the tissue into the dustbin, and goes off to stand beside the window.

The roars of cars drowned him.

\starts monologue
rosy rosy, a rosy glow!

=) hello! *waves hand*

the simple language of actions and smiles. *smiles. nods. waves hand*

I like you =)

There's no need to care about accuracy here. Whether I captured it right. Whether you can see it in your mind's eye. Not really. This one's for me. The sun's streaming in, it's so bright and cheery, your curtains are flung back, and light fills the room! I think sunlight is perfectly lovely.

I'm starting to fall in love with the colour yellow. Not that I never liked it before. But just more than ever.

I don't understand Hokkien. But it's ok. We'll communicate using smiles and actions. Love and joy. Colours and sound. Chinese =)

yes, I'll sing karaoke with you if you want to too.
/ends monologue

That look in her eyes captured me. Like those of a child. So trusting. She looks on and listens, as the adult gently tells her, and advice her. I can't help but gaze on. This woman, this woman who must have seen much of life to live to such an age, where her hair is pure white, how is it that there seems to be still such a.. vulnerability. Yet the general frailness was still.. lightened up, with the magical spark of something. I don't know what it is, but it felt like.. life. Life.

Her gaze flickers from me, back to the adult, as she lies so gently on the bed. She nods, quietly. The adult urges her, "it's not always good to lie down. see, she fell, and you fell too, but she's up and around. you can too! you be guai lar, join in. you be guai then we will bring you out".

I just look on. Her gaze flickers back to me and I do what instinct asks me to: smile. I smile and nod, I listen to the conversation, I add in, I join in. What else could I do? Keep silent? When the atmosphere is so open, where there's life, and the sunlight streaming in through the window only brightens me up? I don't think so.

Yet I can't help, I can't help but compare it with the nursing home when my kim-po stays at. And I'm left amazed. This place is so cheery and bright, full of light and well.. warmth. A kind of laid-back home setting. I can feel festivals and celebrations going on here. I can imagine people carrying lanterns, and it does not matter whether they're in wheelchairs, cuz in the dim light all one can see is the bright warm glow of lanterns, the twinkling friendly flames chuckling happily among themselves. How sweet, how lovely.

Compared to the.. the other nursing home. I remember asking my dad why she had to stay there... and my dad's answer had left me with a kind of muted horror. I remember stepping in into the old builing with my family on Chinese New Year, cracked tiles, isolated desks, old steps. The colours of grey and dirty white being the predominant colours. No sign of green, the colour of life. Or yellow, or pink, or blue, or even a reassuring solid brown.

I remember it being dark. The general sense of distaste of nursing homes. Dim corners. I remember being hushed, and us standing silently at one corner. Hearing a language my brain could not translate. Oh, what a great relief it was to see my cousins! The friendly, inquisitive, light-hearted chatter of my cousins with kim-po, and though I still didn't understand the dialect, it was so bright, so lovely. I smiled, I rested my hand on my cousin's shoulder and jumped up, pushing myself higher by his shoulders. Perhaps in the end it's just the atmosphere. But how.. no, why, why is there such a difference in two nursing homes?

We continue talking, and finally she says, "xie xie". Almost hesistant, but earnest. She looks at the adult, and then looks at me. In the eye, sincerely. Unflinchingly. There seemed to be only one thing left for me to do.

I gave her a smile.

The city's covered with haze, and one can only discern a faint shroudy silhouette of buildings in the distance. The kindly weather frog which adorned the daily weather forecast of the city in the chinese newspaper was depicted as down and gloomy today, fitting, with the scene that greets one eye as one gazes from the window.

Yea, the sunny island has gone all hazy, like a mirage of the desert, at times there, at times not. And it's rather sad that the haze has chose to come and settle on such a beautiful day.

For this day was meant to be beautiful, a legend of great tales, of the lady up in the moon. Of grace and beauty, gentle smooth motion, soft sways and dances. A gentle arch of body, a graceful turn, a little smile that tugs at the corner of the dancer's lips.

To be spent in laugher and joy, of merry chases, the bright chuckles and squeals from children. The warm rosy glow of lanterns, their flickering lights cast gently on the grass.

"Mummy, can you light up my lantern for me?"

A striking of matches against a year-old match box, and a flame is lighted up, burning brightly with a zealous passion. Slowly it touches down on the candle wick, and kisses its own flame into the cold drab stick of wax, and then a burst, a glow of warm fire, and the candle is lighted, and it feels almost like a magic show.

And you know fire hurts, and fire burns, but right now fire is nestling deep inside your paper lantern. Your little flame that you can almost.. almost hold and call your own, claiming supremacy over the elements of nature.

Until of course, the wind decides to throw you off the throne, and blows it gust of air at your lantern, such that it tilts and the kiss of the flame lands lightly on the paper too. Lightly I say, but in one moment, that paper is burning burning burning, brightly, and the fragile papers are turning into but crinkled black edges that disintegrate at the slightest force. And all is but ashes.

Though now it's all haze.

I come back to this page, wondering if I still can write. My fingers goes tap tap on the keyboard, and for a moment, it seems like words are flowing out again. Like I am able to write again.

Yet I do not know whether this be an illusion or not. Ironically, the only way to know if I can or not is to continue writing. And see where I can go. How long I can go. How long can my finger do their little dance on the keyboard before it stops, confused, for the brain has not sent any more orders down the nerves for it to run to this letter, or that letter.

I'm tired. My eyes are drooping down again. Seems like the past few afternoons I have just gave my all for my papers, then come back home, eat lunch and then fall onto my bed. For sleep and rest, only to be shaken awake by my brother or sister, to wake up daze, head spinning, giddy, still tired, still numb from want of sleep.

But I can't take any afternoon naps see. When I do I don't feel tired at night. And then I'll stay up till twelve plus, nearly one. Standing beside the window in this silent home. The rest of my family members are but soundly in sleep, their bodies in deep rest. Oblivion perhaps, but peaceful. They're not tossing and turning with nightmares.

And I'm the pathetic person who stands there. Standing there, waiting, waiting until my eyes tear. One drop by one drop of salty water wells up, and then flow, like a mini stream, down. No. I'm not sad. I'm not upset. I'm not crying. I'm just tired.

Yet sometimes the wait can get too long. A little too long. The little ghost that slowly wells up has a name. Restlessness, aye, that's what it's called. I fancy that it's related to desire and longing. Maybe second cousins. Maybe. For it tumbles about in the same way, and your thought flies, I tell you. Flies flies, spinning, turning, twirling, diving, somersaults! And you wish you could be somewhere else. Perhaps, around a campfire! Singing songs and laughing and telling stories. Or just out there, lying on the grass, looking at the stars with a friend. Or or, just lying on the slide of the playground, looking at the blocks of flat way up here, and then shifting the angle of your head so you can see the big vast sky, with great puffy clouds! Or taking a taxi and just driving past past everything. Or travelling, being elsewhere. Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, America, England, France, New Zealand, Australia! Anywhere! To run off and see the Louvre, or Sydney Opera House, or Hong Kong Wetland Park once again, or the Petronas Towers! Travel, see the world! Cycle around with a backpack, feeling the wind on your face.

Doing something rather than thinking about something.

Because there's a strange feeling of being lost without stuff to do. And I've changed changed again! From the girl who didn't care much about her work except for those subjects which she liked, to being willing to put in work and effort into every piece! Actually doing her work. Doing stuff. Busy with stuff. Learning, understanding, practising.

"You need to learn to be consistent. Your grades are like my heartbeat. Mountains and valleys you know." And comments are taken seriously into account. They've actually become a thing of concern, a thing I take into consideration!

Great changes. And with every change of such, there seems to be something good that comes with it.

But there's also something lost...

In the broad sense, it's of how something that was always there is gone. You've changed, and the old is gone.

Yea, in the broad sense.

October First.

Celebration of October babies.

Strangely specific prayer.

Eerily so.

But praise the Lord.