our 15 years of shared history with an old man at bedok interchange

Feb 12, 2014 03:34





colin and i have observed aru for almost 15 years now, ever hanging around bedok interchange in his nicely tailored and ironed pants, belt, polo tee neatly tucked in, smart shoes. spotting him again after so many years and also with colin on my final evening in town made me feel a 莫名的感动.

it's like, everything around us may have changed, we're no longer in secondary school, jc, or uni, the interchange itself has been torn down and totally rebuilt, everything around us is sparkling new and historyless, but aru 依然不变, still turning up at the same place, spiffy as ever. and 我们依然那么幼稚, still making stupid jokes and analyses and conjuring up all sorts of exciting/tragic pasts for an oblivious aru.

quotes of the night included (in epiphany-ish tones):
- "he has a bag of neatly packed food and a waterbottle and a can of pineapple tarts -- he is somebody's person";
- "he threw his rubbish into the dustbin -- he's normal";
- "actually aru is perfectly normal; 其实不正常的根本就是我们, 无原无故 observe 他 observe 了这样多年...",
- "世界变了, 可是 aru 永远不变", and
- "有了aru, 人间也有了希望."

is our joy/glee evoked by the spotting of aru in fact a reflection of how desperately we are trying to cling on to something familiar, something constant amid all the change, everything else evolving around us?

colin

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