leaving notes from a small island

oh, we could've been, should've been
worse than you would ever know
(the dashboard melted but we still have the radio).
well, you told me about nowhere ,
well, it sounds like someplace i'd like to go.
dashboard, modest mouse

my oft-failing memory brings me back to another time quite distinct from the present. i'm in my modified dunman high uniform, secretly gleeful that the metal buttons are finally gone, and i'm walking through ghim moh. it's the first day of orientation and huan ling and i choose to go from the main gate (i dont know why). i'm 16 with a head of floppy hair, i'm a little bit small (i didnt think i was at all back then), slightly nervous, and pretty bummed that i didnt receive a call from my OGL prior to today.

the huge clock in my sister's room approaches six ever so loudly. i'm here now because my attic-room is already empty and has started to get a little dusty. if any of you have been to my place, you'd remember how much effort and pride i took in assembling this domain of mine - a mac as the centrepiece, quiet blue walls and a strong red door. rebecca remembers kurt cobain peering down at her from above. instead, somewhere on another continent, i've been reserved a place with cork walls and fire-retardant doors, assigned to wait for a certain Mr. N. Rook.

one closet's empty now, the other's stuffed full of disappointed clothes. but strewn proud among them are a few pieces of uniforms. there's the water-, fire- and curry-proof uniform, the blue one which i've accidentally turned off-white due to a certain factory fire, and hung above these is the white one that drives girls (and boys) crazy. of course, not as crazy as for the contents of another bag, thick, yellow, and orange, and then white and hard (these are really fire-proof).

tonight is my last night on this island for a very long time. i'm a little bit bigger now (modesty stops me from saying "a lot") and i've went to jalan masjid for my regular butch haircut. i can see the sun wink at the city one last time from the window, it's time to shower again because i'm already sticky and oily. in a while some friends will come, the love club, fariz and the boys, and maybe rudy. kembangan will come alive one last time for me.

my city beats back the night with a stick as she turns her lights on. "a few more hours!" she says, and for these few hours she glows. how beautiful she must look from thousands of metres up in the sky, save for the wrinkles of streetlights revealing how she's grown. i've camped in her northeast feeling ridiculously young and unhappy, i've perspired and panted underground in her western bowels with teh boys and just feeling like i might die, and in her east i've fallen in love with the best boy this side of the sun.

there're a few bags in my other sister's room. most of these memories are inside here, with a bit more. tomorrow morning i leave before the sun comes up again. the indonesians have always held on to the idea of merantau, sons going away from their birthplace for pengalaman. my father left home at 18 for singapore, my great-grandmother from china. my father, to everyone's horror, married a chinese girl. i, to everyone's horror, went to australia, caught a little hippie, and am now going further.

this is history and it's also the present. many people have led my life through the centuries, and i'm sure someone got to live happy to 39. you see, it'll all work out for me. 15 years old and dreaming of Cambridge while stuck in China, many years of hating a place, a few months of loving it, travelling, mugging, saving lives, it all comes down to this. this, is the end of a gap. i'll tell people i took a three-year gap. i did all that stuff and now it's over. off i go, back to school, because we're made for better things than this.

i'm sure i'll be back, rudy'll make sure of that. and oh, one last thing. i dont know how the hell i'm getting to middletown after landing in hartford, but it doesnt matter at all.