Moments magical

Life is funny.

I was born into a very sterile family; it has something to do with the way my own parents were brought up. We love each other, but can't show it, and what few moments of emotion we do display when we can spare them are wasted on angry or irritated outbursts at each other.

I'm sure there're many who will empathise with me; Singapore is a slightly fuc... mixed up country, and sometimes the blend of east meets west doesn't turn out quite right...

I was pretty much a creature of science from the word go, and I even have vague memories of playing chess on the national circuit and doing fairly well at some point. It wasn't entirely by choice, the Father, being the classic overachiever of his time was an athelete, playboy and brainiac all rolled into one, and having fathered an athlete he then invested his efforts into creating a brainiac... trusting to genes to fashion the ladykiller, methinks.

My world was ruled by logic, and cold, hard facts. I was a cynic to the core, and love was a construct hollywood scriptwriters and producers crafted to lure guilliable moviegoers into enriching their already engorged pockets. I wanted to be a cynic, and I thought of irrationality as weakness...

It's funny how some people spend their lives without really falling in love, or experiencing movie moments, and how others trip over their feet into love and magic almost daily. Breaking it all down, I think perhaps life is just a fickle creature, and for those whose lives are already filled with warmth and laughter they don't really encounter the same chances as those whose lives are cold, and rigid... perhaps it's some karmic balance thing.

*****
The First

We were young, and complete strangers to each other; seated at a chinese banquet directly across, yet miles away from each other, it was hard not to notice her.

She was very pretty, fair with flawless skin, with large, yet delicate eyes. She had a very angular face, and was very, very sleek.

Trapped against our wills at a not-at-all random parents-introducing-kids-to-each-other (think arranged-marriage within the upper-class, only not quite so formal) meeting, there was nothing in the dinner conversation for us to do except pick at the food.

We took turns glancing at and away from each other, yet always feeling the other's gaze brushing the peripheries of our own; we didn't speak a word.

After dinner it became obvious what the real deal was. The Brother was bundled away into her family's car, and she was hustled into ours. Subtlety is always lost on parents, somehow.

The Inquisition began (somewhere out there my brother must have been squiriming... haha) with the Mother launching the first salvo : "So what do you do in school?"

The words left my mouth before my till-then relentlessly scientific brain could kick in...
"air rifle, and track-and-field..."

I tailed off into a shocked silence, and she, seated on the far side of my mother in the back seat gazed wordlessly at me.

"how did you know...?" Her voice was melodious, and she spoke well.

I shrugged. I just knew.

We arrived at the mansion that her parents owned. It was colossal, and the parents bundled the brother off to see the Karaoke room.

To my mind, any home (back then) with a Karaoke room in it would have been a palace, but... take my word from it, remembered from the point of view of a thirtysomething old-geezer... the house was pretty damn big.

We stood in silence for a while, then she turned to me. Would you like to see my room?

And so we did; I, in silence, letting my gaze run over the racks of trophies on her mantle, before becoming transfixed by a painting. I don't remember what it was now, but it was abstract (a genre I have never really been able to get my head around, to be honest... even now) yet somehow engaging.

"Do you like it?" she asked, her gaze never leaving mine.

"Yes, I do. Very much." I replied, as my gaze sought and held hers in return. We smiled, and stared at each other in silence for a while.

I remember how it felt then. Surreal. Exciting, yet strangely distant. Watching from the eyes of an audience, yet at the same time, my own.

*****
She was very, very beautiful. Not merely pretty - she had a quality about her that turned heads... a perfect face, and gorgeous hair. She was one of the lucky child-models who grew up beautiful.

She was clever as well, and could wander into the most complex, yet beautiful melodies on the piano.

She wasn't perfect; her soul was fraught with insecurities about what other people thought about her, and she didn't really believe in herself; masked with a veneer of mild narcissim and stand-offishness.

Even in the battered state I was in back then, there was no mistaking her beauty, and perhaps superficial male that I am, I was drawn to her for it.

Or perhaps it was White Knight syndrome, and I just wanted to help her try to be all that she could, and was honoured that she turned to me for help.

I don't really know.

The moment magical came by way of mirc and icq (roll eyes. Those were the days when it was still fashionable, ok?).

It transpired that we shared the same birthday, and the same tastes in music.

Nights dwindled too quickly into flurries of keypresses. Illegal mp3s were exchanged. Ah, how young we were back then.

The moment was really quite silly... but went something like this :

She : whats your favourite Haagen Daas ice cream flavour?

a brief pause, then simultaneous replies, letter for letter :
Cookies and Cream, and Baileys.

a shocked silence, then mutual laughter.

Surreal.

*****
Another table, another congregation of people.

A much more cosy setting this time, a party of four at a cheap chinese restaurant somewhere in London.

A mutual friend had asked us all out, and it was an odd pair of pairs we made; my friend and her sister, she and I.

Her sister was the original dragon lady; generously sized, with dark eyes and huge, thick, hornrimmed spectacles. And about as tactful as a bullet in the head.

It didn't start well... seconds after the initial pleasantries (I seem to recall being a little late) the Evil Sister launched her assault.

"So I hear you just broke up... why!"

The rest of the lunch conversation doesn't bear repeating.

Somewhere in there, salvation came in the form of her. She sat diagonally across from me, and was very quiet, watching with a little pity, and a little amusement in her eyes.

She had very pretty eyes.

And it wasn't so much desperately trying to escape from her sister's crazy eyes, as the relief of drinking from an unexpected oasis that kept my gaze locked on hers.

Later, as we sat around in a circle with more strangers at their apartment, I couldn't help but notice that she was rather attractive, beyond her eyes. We smiled without-quite smiling at each other, as one does, and then I had to leave - mine is a career cursed with early starts and late nights.

As I left felt a little wistfull. She was flying away the next day to America... and in another lifetime I would have reached out to make contact... but there was little point... as stunning as she had been, I would never see her again.

Some time later, listening to Thush laughing at how the girl had gushed about me after I left, and how the other girls had to remind her she was flying away to america... to be with her boyfriend...

... I couldn't help but laugh.

*****
We were at a club.

My housemate was every girl's dream; tall, rugged, yet sensitive, slightly geeky with his glasses, yet wide shouldered. Mild mannered, gentlemanly, a sensational cook (his thai green curry mussels were to die for...), a master of jazz on his clavinova electronic piano. One of London's Sexiest Doctors (how many of you ever saw that? laugh)

Clubbing with him was always the same story, watching from the sidelines as he got mobbed by male buddies and fawning females alike, feeling slightly out of place.

She was a pretty little thing, brunette, with very fair, pale skin, nursing a neglected drink in her hand..

Our eyes met, and somehow we found ourselves stepping towards each other.

Hello, she said.

It was a familiar accent, and I asked her if she was australian... She smiled, and we stepped in a little closer to blot out the noise of the club around us.

Her speech and body language were shy, yet hinted of an adventurous, humourous streak.

I don't quite remember what we spoke about, but I learnt somewhere in there that she was one of the lab techs, and that holding indefinite eye contact with her was quite, quite effortless. Mutually so, it appeared.

The Housemate stood in mute shock beside me, uttely Ignored for the first time ever. He fidgeted, then eventually excused himself. I don't think either of us really noticed.

Eventually, it was time to leave.

In another world I would have asked for, and received her number. The moment was patently obvious, when it came.
I don't think I'll ever be the Player that Sara wants me to learn to become... but in a darker world perhaps I would have tried to create the moment to snog her. laugh.

But there was something on my mind, and the moment passed. We said goodbye, and I never saw her again.

*****
The rest of the Moments center about a single person, and there are too many to write about tonight.

I suppose I've been very lucky, this lifetime.

In my youth I came to hunger for the Moments, and hold them as a basic necessity in life and love.

Now, weary as I am, I prefer to think that life creates these moments for us to remember.
And it doesn't matter that they came to naught, and it doesn't even matter that much if they never come again.

Life is about making memories, and I have so very many in my head now, already. Perhaps more than I deserve.