As the Weatherlight falls into forest

Watched slumdog with sh. She wore a blouse and a skirt, things I hardly see her in around school. Should I take this as something more? I wonder really… what does she see of this? A date? A friendly movie? Perhaps a bit of both. I hope she doesn't think I’m leading her. After the movie we both went our separate ways, her to home and me elsewhere, with a pang of guilt, asking her out to a movie, and only a movie. Nothing more and nothing less, though for a moment it might have felt like it could have gone a lot more, somewhere. I knew, at least, not to court social mishap by extending our little meeting further. I run back to school to find that perfect sunset spot.

It took two hours (or less? I dunno, it felt like a long time) of climbing up and down stairs, sweaty shirted exploration of deserted stairwells, locked access hatches, closed doors all bolted chained. Then the sighting of yet another possible peak in the distance, yet another possible rendezvous with another rooftop.. arts to engin, and in between. I think I climbed every climbable place. But in the end I found something worth it.

Along the CDTL, a forlorn staircase stands off to the side as if abandoned by its parent, water-stained and muddied, 12 flights of leaf-strewn steps – what’s another set of stair after so many already. I climb it but discover there’s a barrier of daunting wall at the top… someone left a chair at the bottom of the wall: it must have been climbed before then.

I scale it, and go up. I look out, look down over the roof of the central library. Almost magical, to glance over the six-storey drop and yet there I was some minutes ago, on the ground now so far away. The dipping sun glares from behind a cloud, though I’m already quite high up now. A fireman’s ladder sits against another wall.

I go up again. I come out higher, on another roof. Another fireman’s ladder.

I go up again.

Suddenly the boundaries disappear, the walls fall away and the landscape yawns expectantly as if chiding ‘What took you so long?’ An expanse of sky and land and sea stretches out ahead and around, opens up before me like a panorama of sunset and Singapore. A bird’s eye view of here to the limits of sight, cloudless intersperse of air, no more obstructions of concrete and cement.

It takes the breath away, it does. Just… me, in the atmosphere, almost. As I stand on that little piece of roof, on the very pinnacle of that building, I realize I hadn’t found a spot of sunset. I’d found a circle of serenity, my own fairy ring of peace. A spiritual place. Up this high, you don’t see people, or troubles, or commitments, or facades, or any of the myriad other things of tired life. There’s just the air surrounding, and clouds above; the land rolls out below like an orange-painted canvas, surreal as a cubist’s dream. You feel detachment; you fall into ethereal thrall. The mind looks inwards as if an immense God holds you in his gaze.

The red sun peeps like a playful child over the horizon.

There and then, I felt at peace, more than I’d felt in a long long time. My feet anchored to the floor, but the mind afloat on a string. The senses calm, and I felt… small, and insignificant, but perhaps therein was the message; I am a mote among millions, and the world is big. This respite of scale, of knowing your place in the world, of the careless belittling of the self... made all the more amazing by the fact that it hides right in the middle of mundaneity. In the middle of NUS, for crying out loud. I took my time in reflection and in solitude, and of wind against my face.

The sun goes down, and throws its last rays across the higher heavens as the crawling dark creeps up behind me. I go down soon after.

A herald, in glass.

Two movies in a row is omg so tiring pls, plus the cinema was at that funny temperature where its cold enough to feel the the chill but not cold enough to wear a jacket... bargh. Valkyrie was cool, for once a suspenseful, exciting movie where Tom Cruise doesn’t defy metaphysics, reality, bullets or all three combined. He even dies at the end. Cool. My dad said Benjamin button was really good, and I take his word for it, though… after a while it gets a bit boring. You know where he’s headed ultimately, but you just wonder in what form he’ll have his death. Curious indeed.

And your hands are so small. I wonder if you come with a label that says ‘Fragile’, instructions to handle with care.

In this moment, I am fearful. Porcelain falls into shards.

an afternoon rain
is the colour of sunlight,
bright as your laughter.