Eileen’s Version

December 17th, 2004 Uncategorized

We mit u at the durian. Orchard packed. U go & sms him 2 hurry up. Don’t say I say.
Helen presses the send button. She smiles but this does not show on her face. She puts the phone down and resumes her working at the computer. In the darkened office, her face is radiantly blue, illuminated by the computer screen.
The reply flashes her face white: No battery left.
Helen turns to look at the man in the mirror. The monitor hides his face. She rings the four numbers that she pretends not to remember and must look up the call list.
The man’s face does not appear in the mirror. An arm outstretched out to pick the phone.
She’ll meet us there, she tells him, crossing her fingers. Versions of truth is not a lie, is it? Ring me when you are done. I’ll drive us to Esplanade, she says. Having no car, he is her captive.
I won’t finish this early, he says.
Me too, she says. A practice for all the future me-toos. (I love you. Me too.)

To make the lie true, she opens her in basket program. She works slowly, approving some cases, declining others, and on a few occassions, creates an email and writes ‘Come see me’. She sends it to the requester, frowning, her lips pursed in concentration. Absorbed in her work, she does not see the man in the mirror pick up his mug and walking out through the back door. The spoon in the mug rattles. This makes her look up. She sees the space in the mirror empty but suspects nothing. It is a commercial dessert around here.

It is too late when she notices him standing there. He says he will go home to shower. Caught by surprise she hesitates before answering. So we meet there, she says. She waits for him to leave before she packs up her computer. She walks to the car park. The echo of her heels whack the walls like a squash ball. She waits for the car to warm up. She leans out of the ledge. There is one star and no moon. She looks down and sees the tall man walking to the front road. She does something cliche: she makes a wish, closing her eyes and opens them again to check if he turns back. He doesn’t. She watches him flag down a cab and get into it. The blue car takes him away. (She begins to anger at that cab company.) She gets into her car. Her wheels squeal all the way down to the ground floor of the multi story carpark. The Indian puts his hand up. She waves back and the turns out into the expressway.

She arrives frowning and alone. Her face cloudy with disappointment.
What’s wrong? I ask.
Nothing, hungry only, she lies and allows herself to be led to dinner in a Japanese restaurant.
The waitress shows her a seat by the window. Downstairs at the courtyard some girls in tights dance the Nutcracker.
He come to see you, she accuses. The disappointment escapes before she could bite it back.
Why do you say this?
Don’t forget my instinct is very accurate one, she says. Inwardly she curses her gift. She has no wish nor use for it.
She talks about her day. Her phone rings – an ex boyfriend inquiring about dinner next evening. Yes, tomorrow, she answers. She hangs up, not allowing him to go on. She is in no mood for any conversation. She takes another mouthful of the eel.
The phone rings again. This time it is the right guy.
She is unsmiling but happiness leaks from her pores.
He’s coming in ten minutes, she announces. She realises she has never referred to him by name. She finds pleasure in this – even the guilt feels luxurious: there use to be only one he.

She pushes away the plate. I’m too full up, she says and waves for a waitress to doggie bag the food. At the cash register, she fights for the bill and wins. In the bar mirror she sees herself: she wants some lipstick and blusher.

Pete waits before the Botero poster stand. In the telephone, he hears the toilet echo. I am here, he reports. Where are you? Toilet, Helen says, join us, and giggles: she does not expect a reply. He hangs up. He is hungry. Very hungry.

They come perfumed, warm and smiling.
Hello, he says. His finds his voice suddenly low and lazy. He wants to burrow himself in their cloth and flesh, stick his nose into elbows like a dog and breath deeply.
Courteously, he asks if they had eaten, although he knows they have. Is there anything to eat here, he asks?
The short girl swings a bag of sushi like a hypnotist.
Doggie bag, he thinks. It must be expensive, he says aloud to the short girl.
She shrugs.

There is some confusion who sits where. The short girl crawls to the end of a bench but meets an obstacle: the tall one. They both seem reluctant to seat with him – their school girl shyness moving. He opens up the plastic wrapper: califonia rolls, tuna, salmon and prawn. He pops one into his mouth. The wasabi scorches his nose.
Good, he says nodding.
It is quiet.
He averts his eyes – they are intent in their staring. The waitress arrives to distract their attention with menus and leaves them with their awkwardness. Pete slips into office gossip – they have nothing in common.
What is your religion, the tall girl asks.
A question out of the blue. He avoids the question: I’m exploring Islam and Buddhism.
Islam, she questioned.
Yes, to find out where it says you can bomb everyone to death. He tells them about the Christians he meets. This he says: Open your mind and heart, he goes. I tell him, yeah, I’m exploring Buddhism. No no, open your mind and heart to Christ. The short girl finds particular delight in this. She rolls around the chair laughing noiselessly.
Yeah, he nods, amused. They are really stuck on the topic, he says.
What do you always say to set them off, the short girl asks.
He blinks, teasing her with silence. He asks the tall girl instead: are you a Christian?
I am but stopped going to church, she says.
He looks at the short girl.
A buddhist, she answers eagerly.
He sweeps his eye around and reports: they are closing. Just then the waitress arrives with the bill. He whips his card out. She carries it off and returns for his signing. The girls watch him silently.
Can I claim my cash points here, he asks the waitress. This is X credit card isn’t it? He lifts the flap to confirm. I can – can’t I?
The waitress hesitates, unsure.
Let me check, she says.
His manner turned sweet: Yeah, can you check? If it’s not possible, it’s okay, he assures her.
She leaves and returns with the reprinted bill.
There is no charge, you only need to sign, she tells him.

They leave the shop, indian file. Pete encounters the Botero poster again. Let’s look at this in the waterfront, Pete says. They about turn and shuffle lazily into the waterfront.
They stand around The Horse and The Man on the Horse, staring.
So what do you tell the Christians, the short girl asks again. She hasn’t given up.
Do you read philosophy, he asks.
I read once, she says,a book called ‘One Hundred Years of Philosophy’. It talks about A being this and B being that and it infers something else.
That sounds like logic, Pete says. Not that, he tells her. Try Sophie’s World, he suggests. Rare that we have such exhibitions, he says referring to the sculptures. Art museum has such rubbish.
The short girl waits.
Pete stops behind the Woman with Fruit. She is so full, he thinks. She is naked and offers a round object in her hand. Her body is smooth without the dimples of the obese. Her breast is inordinately small for her size – not much larger than the fruit in her hand. Her nipples point forward. Her face makes you want to be taller so you can gaze into her. She seems to be offering more than fruit. He walks around to her side. Her body has three segments like a fat worm: the front, the belly and the abdomen. Her legs are raised, the thigh is high and sleek as a seal. Pete walks around to see her buttocks. There is a smallish mount at the end of her buttocks: she must be tensing. Her hair must be freshly washed: all slick back. The smoothness of the bronze glints in the light. A freshly bathed woman offering fruit. Nice. He wonders about the fruit: is the fruit really her small breasts?
The semi darkness hides his shame.
The short girl appears all of a sudden next to a fat foot. Her sharp glare surprises him and she hides herself behind the Botero woman.

Pete attempts to break the silence with a return to office gossip. It does not work: the short one says naught, the tall one refuses to say. In this blank space, the short girl gives it another go.

So what do you say to the Christians? I ask.
Pete heaves a breath of surrender. Okay, you read philosophy? No? Okay. Let me put it this way. Christians believe God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent. If God is not all knowing, what’s the point of believing right? If God is not everywhere he can’t be all knowing right? God is all good but you show good if there is evil to compare. There is a paradox you see. If He knows there’s going to be a bombing, 911, a volcano eruption or an earthquake why doesn’t he stop it?
But some are man made.
If God is all knowing why doesn’t he stop man if he knows exactly what will happen and where it will end?
But you can’t blame God for all these. Don’t Christians also believe in free will? Free will requires responsibility on the part of man.
So why give us free will to believe or not believe if He knows all these will happen when he knows this? At the end of the day, one person’s free will precludes another person’s free will. Planes crashing into World Trade. Terrorist bombing towns into smithereens. I kill you and you have no more free will. Don’t forget, God is all knowing – He knows exactly what will happen when the world started.
Are you a Christian, I venture a bet.
I am baptised Catholic.
Bingo, I think to myself. I am all smug: I notice Christians are the strongest doubters.
At the end of the day, it’s the fundamentals they can never explain to me.
Perhaps they don’t know the answer as well.
They think they know it all – they have all the answers.
But don’t you think if you have free will it comes with responsibility?
Then why does He give us this guilt?
What do you mean?
If He knows all this is going to happen if He gives us free will, why give us this guilt?
To keep us from straying?
You don’t even have to do anything to sin. You only have to think. Oh, I think about lust. I am already a sinner. I am guilty. It all doesn’t make sense. At the end of the day, it’s always what they tell you. They quote the bible. If they can’t answer, they repeat what their pastor say, or ask me to attend church. It’s the fundamentals I question.
He is agitated. There is puzzled desperation in his eyes.
I tell him what I remember from Roger’s Version. There is a hopeful story in the end – I want to cheer him up. There’s this computer geek in this story, I say, trying to prove God exists, factually. He is a PHD student and reports to a divinity professor. The professor is strange to me: he wants God to be subjective.
Yes, yes. At the end of the day, they all want God to be subjective. They want him to subjected to their interpretation. They don’t want God proven.
Man made God his image, I laugh.
I tell him about the geek trying to string too many coincidences together to prove God exists. He tries to replicate his project but fails miserably. He loses faith in his project. Right at the end, at a party he meets a neighbour who is a scientist. They talk about his project. The scientist scoffs at him. The scientist tells him the newest thing in the scientific world is creating nothing out of something. It’s all geometry. If you have one dimension, everything just floats about. If you have two, things meet but they can’t hold on to each other. This space just goes on trying. Sooner or later it will hit three dimensions. With three dimensions there are points to hook against each other. Everything begins from having three dimensions. How do we come about? How does the world make complex proteins? He says when the earth cools, simple proteins hold on to clay. This continues until they develop into carbons and the clay washes away.
See, if you tell it to the Christians, they won’t believe you – they don’t believe in evolution. They think dinosaurs never existed. He says angrily.
I think he was trying to link science to the creationist belief: God made man from clay.
He is silenced. Morosely he uncross his legs.
Let’s go back: need to work tomorrow, he says. He is a careful time-keeper. It was 2330.
We walk out to the escalator together separately.

You say to Helen, if you’re tired I can send her home. (Your eyes are red; you are also tired.)
You do not notice: you have hurt. You leave on my hands, a blue friend.
I park at the other side, you say. (There is an angry whip of golden hair.)
You lead me to your blue car. (My chatter is energetic and non-stop.)
You seem to know how to get to my home. I leave you to it: at night the roads look different to me. You drive easily: your long fingers perch on the wheel. The roads are smooth. The time is short. Cai Ming Liang; Beatles; Miyazaki; yes, even BBC. (Been so long, man.)
You dig greedily – where, how long, what, who. I’m no loser. (The competition is secret.)
You took a roundabout way to arrive at where I live. (At night, the roads look different to me. Really.)
You rolled into a lane of sleeping cars. (Another burst of chatter. No time. No time. No time!)
Midnight. You leave. (The careful time-keeper.)
No fair: I am wide-awake, fireflies buzzing in my mind.
In the lighted house, my mother lies asleep on the sofa. (So quiet.)
In the notebook and write: ‘Night was not as dull as I feared’ and then ‘He loves God so much’.
This makes me seize the phone. Do you know you love God? I write this.
I wait.
I brush my teeth waiting: the incisors, the canine, premolars, molars.
My phone flashes blue: You think?

Casino debate – what’s on the other hand?

December 5th, 2004 Uncategorized

I haven’t followed the Casino debate from the start but the zeal with which Mini Lee is pushing for it confounds me. Aren’t we swimming in tax dollars? Why do we need more tax dollars? Do we really need a casino to generate jobs? (What sort? Black Society entreprenuers?) Desperation smells – is the government at their wits end, if not why all that vigour? Dude, starting a casino is not about giving people freedom of choice however you put it. It’s not as though gambling is completely illegal here that we need to have another avenue to control the activity.

I don’t think anyone has considered the societal cost of gambling and economic costs of government aid industries to help gamblers and those in debt because of gambling in a country full of Chinese who take to gambling as though a child to Coke and in this country, there isn’t other forms of entertainment other than shopping, eating, movies. What is the academia’s take?

Friday arvo

December 5th, 2004 books

It was Friday and I was happy to be out from work at 1pm. A colleague had telephoned in the morning to ask if I could work her Saturday for her. Although she asked repeatedly, “Are you sure?”, something in her offhanded manner made her presumptuous – sure I was going to agree. I acquiesced. Right after the usual Friday meeting, I ran out. The sun was hot through the dirty grey clouds and warmed my back like a hot water bottle. In the train, I found seats in the last carriage. I took out the moleskine and wrote in it: ‘Perhaps a train travel. Malaysia? Thailand? River Kwai?’ I wondered about showering and travel exhaustion.

Wheelock Place has become a favourite shopping place of mine lately. First to the third floor to stare at Elephant and Coral’s window display, then to second floor to drool over Apple and finally to first floor for books. While Borders has a slimmer range of books compared with Kinokuniya, it is better located: right under NYDC where one could have a good chocolate dessert to end a day. I forgot the travel plans and went to where ‘U’ – I felt like some Updike – and picked up Peter Carey’s Wrong About Japan in the non fiction section on the way.

I started Updike’s Roger’s Version over a bowl of duck noodles and moved to Starbucks for tea to settle my stomach. I like Updike when I am in a restful mood. He describes suburban America so well that I feel myself in their neighbourhood, behind a door, listening to gossip and bedroom sounds. That Friday, I wasn’t restful on Friday. I was bored. There was nothing I wanted: I got all the Atwoods, all the Careys, I couldn’t find Thomas Mann and Grass was impossibly difficult over a sleepy afternoon. Roger’s Version promised a discussion on God and computers. I was at turns curious and suspicious. The center of the novel was a computer geek trying to show God exists (factually) by naming coincidences and a divinity professor thwarting the geek’s efforts. The professor seemed to be having the wrong job: he doesn’t wish for God to be proven – he wants God to remain subjective. If he sees God, he wants God to answer for crimes: War, cancer, etc. I found this odd. If he believes does it matter if God is proven to exist or not since for him God does exist. It makes sense only later when I find his wife telling him that they are all losing faith, not just the computer geek – implying they need some prove to renew their faith. Further, reading what the geek has to say about God’s existence, the geek seem to be, as Roger sized him: Jesus freak. His proof of God’s existence lies only in the coincidences which I suspect would fall through at the end but happily for the geek a guy at Roger’s party told him how something came from nothing in science, how life formed from clay. On the whole but it seems to me Updike chronicles what others think about God – as for himself, he has nothing much on this topic.