i would bring you to never never land for a year or two

Hullo Tuesday.
Today I chose to walk by the back path. I thought it'd make a nice change. It did, and I think I might be doing it more often. There are trees there, and grass.
But what I really want to say is, I saw a little short haired baby girl crying today, while walking by the back path with trees and grass, carried by a lady who probably was her mother. Mothers are getting older these days. Anyway. She was crying for her jiejie, and it was evident she really wanted her.




I thought of you, my dear นอน ต้ง. I'm guessing your name here; I don't know how it's written. Because we only met one sunday, and then once more, two days later, when I told you I was leaving to go back to singapore.

nonting, dichan pay singapore liao, [nonting, I'm going back to singapore]
khun gaochay may? [do you understand?]

It took maybe two minutes for those words to stumble out of my mouth, with my anglophilically wired brain and aching heart working against me; or maybe it was a breath's span instead. Because you simply nodded your head and toddled back across the dusty road, back to your nicely built house with concrete walls and pillared patio. Away from the wire mesh of a fence that I kneeled against to be at your level.



I'm remembering our sunday now. I noticed you very early on, one quiet baby girl amidst a boisterious motley crowd. But you, you were a dignified baby and even when we were decorating our christmas stars with glitter you held your own ground. It was later on in the evening that we made friends. I made you laugh again and again, chasing you around the playground, making monster sounds and you screaming because we knew that when I caught you, you'd be tickled and swung into the air. After awhile we both got tired, so I carried you and we looked for a sii shompu [pink] balloon for you.

And what a quandary you gave me at the end of the night, when you announced that you didn't want to go home. "nonting, pay baan may?" "may pay baan."
:"nonting, go home?"
:"no go home"
was a conversation we reeled around and around. I tried other means, asking you if you were hungry, if you were tired, if you wanted to go home. But my dear, dear kissable baby you caught me completely off guard when you tearfully decided that yes, you were hungry, tired, and wanted to go home, but that you'd eat with me, sleep beside me, and make my home yours. dara mentioned that you were clever, but she never said you were a lawyer in pint size. We tried really hard to convince you to go home, but even grace gave up after you expressed your willingness to follow me back to singapore. She exclaimed that it was impossible, and what spell did I cast on this dear child. I don't know. I loved you. But it was getting late, and they were closing the gates, so in the end I carried you back to your home, feeling like a traitor all the way.

Later on, they told me you cried after I let you down. My silky haired child. I wanted to cry too. I would have brought you back with me, petting you all the way. I would have brought you to the lecture theatres, the tutorial rooms, only making sure that you were well-covered up because nus' rooms get freezing cold sometimes. And everyone would have fallen in love with you, because you are a grand toddler gifted with chubby cheeks, pretty hair and the unbottleable baby fragrance that captured my heart.
Please don't grow up too much before I see you again.




And so, I rouse myself from december memories and move along to. a certain planitive dream. I want to record it down. I dreamt that I was back in school, in junior college. Maybe there was a prior scene of wild patterns in black borders, like art pieces hung on tall walls, and I might have been relatively happy too, but whether accurate or otherwise I am fairly certain I was dreaming in colour. I remember the school's light yellow walls around the concourse. More details are returning. I was back, visiting, and it was orientation time. So year1 kids were everywhere, and because my dream included a swimming pool in my school there was a lot of water. Yes, I think I was happy. I remember laughing with friends. But then something happened something shifted I I I did something wrong. Something unrememberdly wrong. Because the next scene they put me in, I was alone and maybe I was scared. I remember my thoughts somewhat disjointed flashing rapidly ah the front office I will seek comfort there the hods all love me but I was dressed wrong or something- nothing suprising considering the number of rules I broke and got away with avoid the front door the clark might make noise run run run the back and suddenly in the quiet bit where ahead begins the corridor with soft echos and suddenslams of locker doors, and the back door of the staffroom is behind a protruding wall my thoughts react it's all black! I am thrown into black and grey and silence my feet and heart are pounding as I run to the door but somehow in despair I know the door's closed and it's dark inside there's no one mrs beh it's me one half of the guardian of the white board i've come to scribble on it i've been away for so long mrs beh isn't there.