(written Thursday, 11 June 2009)
Today was a grey day.
Yesterday, I drove solo for the very first time. I went to Longley Way, Holly Avenue, and First Avenue, in that order.
Today, I walked home for what is likely the very last time.
This
walk was in complete solitude. No soundtrack, save for the purrs and
groans of cars speeding by, and the loquacious songbirds saluting the
sunless sky.
Today was like somebody pulled a switch. Or, per my mental metaphor, extinguished the flame.
Freshman
year, it was a fluorescent bulb. All flashy packaging and bright
idealism, you could appreciate the effort but it wasn’t anything to
look at – nothing extraordinary, if you’ve been acquainted with the
gentler glow of halogen lamps.
Then there was a neon light. A little subtler, but still tawdry and
flamboyant. One year’s worth of a high school education and you think
you know everything.
Junior year is an incandescent lamp.
Tungsten wires and all. Old-school classic, with a humility easier on
the eyes, but if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. There’s no
effort left for garishness here, but there’s already little to spare
for uniqueness.
Here. A candle. Not for its primitive
regression (except perhaps in hormones), but for how it burns. There is
always the wavering, the occasional flicker. The light of a candle has
no great scope, in comparison to those of electric lights. There are
always dark corners and shifting shadows. Though you see less with a
candle, you are more aware of the things around you.
In
freshman year, I had everything pre-planned out for myself. I believed
that I knew where I was headed, and what the end looked like. Whether
or not I liked it was insubstantial; I just wanted to know.
My
cognition of the surrounding world grew with every year. The circle of
light waned relative to the growing dark of the room as I realised the
great breadth of the future I was preparing myself for. This year was
me and a candle, sitting, somewhere in a cavernous room. I was staring
at the flame, waiting for the grand, glorious spectacle that would
announce the end.
That was before the flame flickered out. One
moment there was the illusion of steady warmth and light, and in the
next second, there wasn’t.
Now I’m crouching, stunned, alone
in the swallowing blackness. This is the period of time where your
pupils dilate rapidly, attempting to adjust to the new dark (it was
there all along, but you never noticed it). You’ll fumble awkwardly for
a while until you find your footing. No use sitting here by yourself in
the dark. You start walking. You can’t see where you’re headed, but
you’re willing to keep moving until you find it.
No
two candles burn the same. They may be mass-produced with the intent of
fulfilling the same function, but chaos and drip patterns and air
currents interfere, and no candle looks like another once its wick has
been lit.
I was drifting home on my usual route, when my lower body suddenly
pivoted onto a street I had never taken before. I had noticed the
street previously, of course, but it was all flat lawns and squat
houses and decorative shrubs, no leafy giants for greenery and shade.
There was a bend in the road about a hundred metres in, so I couldn't
even be sure if it was a through street. But today was a grey
day. No need for shade when there’s no sun to hide from, so I tried
something new. I took the road never-travelled.
It surprised me.
Walking
down my lateral street, I passed a fragrant rose garden. It was an
explosion of a melting crayon box, with brilliant golds blending into
vibrant pinks and deep reds. And the most irresistable aroma wafted out
over the short hedge demarcating the boundary between the private and
public properties.
For the seven seconds it took me to cross
one end of the yard to the other from the sidewalk, I inhaled. It
wasn't enough, though. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen or
smelled roses that spectacular, and in a suburban garden, no less. I
needed more.
Cautiously, I eyed the sidewalk ahead and behind
me. I have no idea what I was looking for. Maybe I didn't want to my
tentative actions to be observed. Would this count as trespassing? Two
clichés down, one to go, right?
Purposefully now, I walked up the cement path leading to the roses,
pulling my camera out. Flip, flip. Whirrr. Click. Click.
Clickclickclickclick.
It wasn't until I was walking back out of the yard that I noticed the
pair of female hands peeling vegetables beneath the half-pulled
blinds in a window I had previously thought empty.
I don't know what I'm waiting for.
| 
