By Cyril WongAmazing how it takes the smallest things, like a bus ride,to transport you to the important issues, such as deathand all its different manifestations. Approaching 7pm,shadows are already climbing out of the sky to put outthe skyscrapers like candles, ink a river under the highwayto black opacity. You wonder about the years you have
emptied into your present job, the sameness of expressionwith which your wife greets you in the evenings, sullenface of your son at the dinner table, the taste of foodreduced to blandness on your tongue, while the televisionin the hall blares forth winners of another game show.
You gaze out the bus window at the moon's half-grinand remember that film your colleagues hated, whichwounded you in some deep, unspeakable way, likethe scene when the male lead hesitated for more thanwhat was only a minute before pushing a knife's edge
against the taut curve of his wrist, with that sharplyheld breath before every attempt, its quivering releaseupon failure. This process you are so familiar with,each hesitation recurring to a lullaby of the same, these repetitions the invisible blueprint of a life. Stars
perforate the sky, like the eyes of dead peoplesuspended outside of time peering in, the place whereyour soul must have come from, yanked down by ropesof pure longing. You wonder at the history of mankind,
calculating the sum total of your consequence in relationto its yet interminable drama. Quickly, you drift on to happier subjects, like your son, who pointed one dayat clouds rising into houses, pillars, collapsible cities. You wonder what you were like at that age. In school,
a teacher commented that you had a talent for stories, a startling gift for description. You recollect the praises scribbled in blue across the bottom of a report card that dad signed, then handed back to you without a wordof compliment. You tell yourself you are better towards your own son: more tender, more inclined to praise.
None of you can account for the exact moment when that cynicism flew into his face to lock itself in.You attribute rudeness to his friends, your wife blames you for spoiling him from the very beginning. You glare helplessly at desert maps of your palms, at the paperweights of whitened knuckles pinning you down
to the world. A poet said that all of us are searchingultimately for our graves. You think about graves, howyour wife was a hole in the ground you crawled into and remained for so long you forgot what love was.You complain to yourself about how this bus is taking too long to bring you home. The road stretches out
like your father on his bed the morning he did not wake.He looked no different, and religion made you believeanother sort of wakefulness was prepared for him. Youstood there observing him, dwelling upon decomposition,how the air would dissolve his body, reclaim the spaceit once occupied. You glimpse at your watch, this gift
from your son for Father's Day you found out was really bought by your wife; this watch that never slows downfor the ecstatic instant, but for boredom's uniformity.Last week, you went grocery shopping with your family
at the supermarket around your block, and discoveredyou had lost your wallet, or maybe dropped it somewhere between the vegetables and the dairy section. You heard,on the intercom, the voice of the one who had found it,
a girl mispronouncing your name again and again. And you left your wife, your son by the trolley, both turningto strangers with their unison expression of puzzlement and mild irritation. You hurried down aisle after aisle,so eager to retrieve the little you could have lost,
realizing instead you were unable to find the counter.You kept walking and walking alongside rows and rows of shampoo bottles pasted with women's faces cracked wide open by smiles and that barely audible laughter.
You became convinced there was no counter. That bitch repeated again what was once your name. You halted,much to the approval of tin cans of baby powder, images of babies so cute you could smash a fist into every tin.
Fluorescent lights swelled inside your head to blossominto a panic: at once unbearable, yet oddly calming, as you never felt so close to alive, so potentially free.
The Phantom of the Opera. I watched it in London in 2004.
London planner. I don't remember referring to this guide much. But i kept it anyway.
Big Ben. Coincidentally, it celebrates its 150th birthday today!
Westminster Abbey.
I first tasted this in London's Harrod's.
I consider this an awesome musical. Must watch. I loved Eponine in here.
Harrods!
This photo was taken for the date.
After London, i went to Barcelona. Visited a monastry there.
Among the keepsakes, i found this. Awesome right. 
A floormat i've had since i was 16. I've another picture taken with this and a good friend from secondary school. :)
A floormat i've had since i was 16. I've another picture taken with this and a good friend from secondary school. :)
