Sunday, December 03, 2006
Have you ever had a dream you felt it so real that even after you wake up from it, you believe that it happened for real and you cannot get over it? Like there is this first hand connection and no matter how you try to convince yourself about the illusory nature of it, you just could not shake away the bits that have awaken your senses. The smell, the taste and the aura of that dream…
****
Do you know I always have vivid dreams? It is strange because I seem to have a gift since I was a child. I would dream of something and sometimes it would come true. Especially, the bad things…
I lost that sense for a while. I think it must have been the dark years where I was not in touch with my soul. Recently, I seemed to be regaining my senses…
Well, I guess I have just digressed…
****
About a year ago, I had a dream. It still disturbs me mildly. But when I first dreamt of it, I was left disturbed and depressed for days. I often wonder if it did happen once upon a time in another life…
I never forget his look.
****
I was with my family having kueh chap for dinner at a kopi tiam (coffee shop). We sat at an outdoor table and my family members were chatting away about daily mindless things. I sat amongst them quiet.
About less than a hundred metres across from where we sat, there was an older style walk up private apartment block. In front of it was an unlit garden, which was part of that apartment compound and there were dark bushes surrounding its perimeter and before its entrance. The entrance of the compound must have been about fifty metres away from where we sat.
Oblivious to my family’s careless chatter, my mind wandered away aimlessly. I looked up and wondered about the household activities of the lit up apartments units that I could see from my position and from some of their un-curtained balcony sliding doors. Then I noticed a man on the fourth floor.
The Chinese man is about in his late thirties or early forties. He wore a white cotton singlet and a pair of tailored shorts (the style typical of what our fathers would wear in the 1970s and 80s that I recall about childhood). He did not look very tall and in fact, he was quite a small built man. He looked rather thin. From his tanned complexion betraying his frequent contact with the scorching sun and his compact and muscular arms, I figured he must be a labourer or possibly a tradesman.
He was attempting to climb over the edge of the wall that ran up to his chest in the common corridor. I wondered if he had forgotten the keys to his house and was trying to climb from the edge of the wall to step over to the edge of the railing of the balcony to get into his apartment. It would be quite a dangerous and fatal undertaking. Then another thought struck me. Could he possibly be a burglar?
When he made it to the edge of the wall, he perched there for a split second. He looked afar. Our eyes met and I was fixated on him. His face was calm. I felt that connection. Before I could register any further possibilities, the man looked down and jumped. From the look to that act of committing suicide, it took no more than 3 seconds.
His look. Our connection.
“I think someone has just committed suicide,” I told my parents rather calmly.
No one seemed to have heard me “properly”.
Someone in the family made a non-committal reply, like “Really?” and they continued on with their banter between eating pigs’ intestines and slurping the richly flavoured soup.
I continued waiting and observing quietly the dark apartment compound and counting down time before someone discovered the dead, mangled body. The dark bushes obscured my view of the aftermath of suicide. I waited silently and privately grieving for my stranger, I counted the time before I would hear the first cry of alarm.
It must have been between eight to fifteen minutes.
I heard a shrieking passer by running away and out from the bushes, screaming about someone having committed suicide. My family turned their heads to look at the hysterical man but made no further effort to investigate what the racket was all about. Getting slightly exasperated, I repeated, trying to control my emphatic tone that I saw the man jumped when he did. Again, the quick re-enaction did little to rouse any concerns.
As we paid up to leave, I heard a mass hysteria of screams. More people have discovered the man. It must be someone amongst the middle aged and senior residents who were practicing social dance in the committee room that has glass walls on the ground floor next to the foyer. Then curious passers-by and the disrupted dancers crowded around the body. People rushed to get help.
By now, we strolled pass that apartment compound and my family walked towards the crowd out of curiosity. In the dark and in the crowd, I saw him.
The man’s body lay on the grassy ground. About a couple of metres away, I saw his severed head. His eyes were closed.
Having satisfied their curiosity, my family moved on jolly, the younger sibling linking her arm to Dad’s and the older sibling continued talking to Mum and we headed for Cold Storage.
****
Thoughts went through my head even after I was awake.
I felt a connection with that man.
When our eyes met.
We shared that moment.
That morbid moment before he decided to join Death.
The moment before he decided to slip away. I thought I felt that slight gratitude on his part for me to have shared the pre-moment of solitude and solemnity of his decision. Just three seconds and he was gone. No grand fanfare for exit and no hesitation. He was a resolute man.
I could have possibly saved him, I continued experiencing that feeling of guilt. I was the only person who saw him and could have possibly done something.
But then again, could I have possibly hastened his decision to jump, I wonder? Since he might have fear that I would alert the attention of others that would have thwarted his plans?
In my head, I continued to question why- what drove him to end his life in that calm and slightly forlorn way. Was it out of desperation or was it a resignation to his weary life? What went through his head that very moment he acted upon his decision? I continue to be disturbed because of his look.
Ironically, it was a look of peace. It was definitely not a lost look because he registered me in his eyes but he was bent on leaving, like experiencing enlightenment in the acceptance that this was the best for him- to be in another place.
There are days when I wondered about how respect could possibly come into the equation. Perhaps, he did lead a very long and tired life and he wants to hasten his journey to rest. Am I not to respect a man who has enough and feels that it is about time that he deserves that rest? Especially so, a stranger like me who know nothing about his personal life? Who am I to play the superhero and think that I would do him a favour by saving his life if this is not what he wants?
Is this how one looks when one decides to submit to one’s will, not one’s “actual” Time (which is an oxymoron since really, time being a man made notional measure for span)?
I continue to wonder about the man. He feels like someone or something that I think I know. I still feel that strong connection there and my dream remains vivid.
The look of Death- I was touched by it. I almost felt that I was nearly there.
