With the cloud
and breath of breeze the morning was tolerable. There was some disappointment
when in the paper one read it had been an autumn full moon the night before.
How in almost an hour walking back from Little India had it not been sighted?
Was it possible the big orb had shown itself in glimpses here and there along
the path without being noticed, like a fast wink passed during some kind of con
that left the hapless victim floundering? An autumn moon in particular.
By mid-afternoon full furnace. At the
park beside City Plaza a mother and her two young boys were followed
over the grass around a tree in order to collect the shade. Crossing Guillemard
the motors stopped at the lights sent out their added blasts from beneath the
bonnets.
After the long, frank and revealing
conversation with young Sheila at the KV table the foot-slog had been a
cinch the night before, everything light and easy. There was a danger a body
could turn to stone, to a statue sitting so long, the old Montenegrins jested.
Soon after Sheila's tears following
the account of the Cambridge boy's cowardly wordless desertion in Central
Africa, Sheila had been surprised to find herself feeling better. Such a welter
of heavy emotion, yet a dose of the talking cure had produced an effect. Sheila
had adjusted her posture commenting on the fact.
It was a pity that something better
had not been forthcoming in response to Sheila last night. One could usually
manage something firmer than the lame words which had been produced. A pity.
And yet a definite sense of something attained and accomplished both sides.
There had been either a Rilke or
Wittgenstein quote in recent weeks that had been searched in the memory bank to
offer to Sheila in her trouble; something concerning the way of loving, the
necessity of full and entire outflow regardless of fear and self-preservation.
There ought be no calculation or
second-guessing in love, the philosopher had suggested.
Young Sheila had unreasonably
suffered, she thought.
Sifting through the online offerings
later in the night one was surprised to find that Ludwig was indeed the likely
source of the quote. It might have been Wittgenstein giving that insight every
bit as likely as the incomparable poet.
Another reason to attempt the Tractatus
once more; five years before in Melbourne it had been one of the few volumes
packed. A former friend had told of his two-three day battle with the first
page, or the first two pages it may have been with the Tractatus. Once
having overcome, the road had opened.
One of Sheila's troubling thoughts was
what was felt as a recent treading of water. Stuck unwillingly in Singapore,
painting a little, reading and sleeping late.
An old retiree at the Al Wadi
tables in Geylang Serai regularly remarked on the sense of marking
time—marching on the spot, the Malays termed it.
The problem stayed with one through
life, Sheila had been told.
Lamely, one tried to suggest to Sheila
that appropriate reading could provide a sense of progression and development;
could offer some semblance of momentum and advance. The old sages and poets had
much to offer those following behind.
Sheila well-knew the dangers of the
narrow and limited online forums; the conversations and sharing available there
were only adding frustration. Nevertheless that was often for Sheila the first
recourse; she had grown up with the net, not come to it at thirty or forty,
Sheila said.
A seven hour conversation had broken
earlier records of five and six hours talking with Sheila. The work crews'
reactions and change of shifts at KV had barely been noticed. They would all
wonder of course.
At twenty-six the young woman was
certainly well-equipped, with fair prospects one would hope. The first meeting
had found her re-reading for the second or third time a well-thumbed copy of Women
Who Run with the Wolves. There must have been more on offer in the pages of
the best-seller than one had assumed.
Komala
Vilas, Lt. India, Singapore
No comments:
Post a Comment