EPTFumbling for my bus pass in my pocket, a large black carry all slung over my right shoulder, my iPhone in my left hand with GOOGLE MAPS opened up, EZ-LINK card in my right, I entered bus 14 and I saw the girl. She walked to the end of the bus, dithered for a moment and moved back to the front and seated herself. As she turned our eyes met for a moment and lingered. Oh my is she beautiful. I shoved the EZ-LINK card into my left pocket, my smart phone into my right, straightened my posture, tipped my head ever so slightly, nose in the air, eyes looking forward, and I seated myself at the end of the bus, conscious as I walked past her. Was she looking at me? I hope so.
She was beautiful. The very definition of the word. Pristine-pure olive skin, sharp, symmetrical facial features, dark curly hair tied in a pony tail; I couldn’t put my finger on her race. Mixed race? Arab? Or maybe malay endowed with very exotic features. But really, it was those big, kind eyes, and those beautiful full lips. She turned and looked at me. I looked away. Then I looked back. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was entranced. I whipped my iPhone out of my pocket. Music. Songs. W. I tapped WONDER WALL by OASIS and listened to it on repeat. I cleared my mind of all the clutter, closed my eyes and gave Liam Gallagher my full attention. I read a blog post by Charles Poliquin that meditation was simply spending a few minutes everyday ‘in the moment’. Am I in the moment? Meditating?
The song repeated once or twice before I opened my eyes and I saw her. She turned and looked at me again. She either likes me or maybe I’m creeping her out. I shifted uneasily in my seat, looked out of the window, shot a quick glance at her, and looked out again. If I could be with my dream girl, she’d probably look something like her. I looked down at my feet. But I don’t deserve my dream girl.
I marshalled all the willpower I had inside of me, and steeled my eyes away from her. I couldn’t and we went back to stealing looks at each other. Do I know her? Maybe I know her, that’s why she’s looking at me. Could she be Sasha? Fond childhood memories of happier times flooded my mind. My dad’s best pal, an Iranian man, owned a big carpet shop at the old MILLENIA WALK, and every fortnight or so we’d pay him a visit. I had many happy memories there, playing hide and seek with his daughter in the carpet shop, in between the stacks upon stacks of carpets that formed a crude maze. If you were small enough. Some painful memories too. One time, on the way to the carpet shop, my mother brought me to the barber. Unbeknownst to me, she told the barber to shave all of my hair of. Sasha laughed at me and I cried. Or the time when I went into the store room and pulled a stool to take a seat. Uncle Baba had left his hot plate on the stool, just about to cook himself a sweet potato. I cried then as well.
The top floor of MILLENIA WALK no longer housed the carpet shop; it had been long converted to a sterile electronics department store long ago. Sasha no longer speaks to her father and I haven’t seen her in over a decade.
She was clad in a jet black blouse and an elegant white skirt, patterned with what appeared to be dark, diamond shapes, that flowed all the way to her ankles. I fantasised that we’d get off the same bus stop and she’d drop her stuff and I’d pick them up for her. Then we’d fall in love, get elope, and I’d get a terrible disease like cancer of Alzheimers and die, but not before enjoying a long and fruitful marriage. Like those cliched romance novels girls bring up every time I tell them I love to read.
There was no opportunity to talk to her. Talking to a stranger on the bus was a big no-no in the conservative society that is Singapore, much less trying to approach a girl. That would be a great way to appear on some sort of citizen journalist website. Sniggers. BOY TRIES TO PICK UP GIRL ON BUS, FAILS. Internet sleuths would find my personal information in an instant. Shudders. But maybe, just maybe, if fate would have it, and we alighted on the same stop…
What would I say to her? I’d stop her, look into her eyes, true and intense. Hey I saw you sitting on the bus. And I think. Pause. That you are. Pause. Beautiful. I’d break eye contact, and look down and shuffle my feet uneasily. Then I’d look back up at her. And I had to go over to you and talk to you. I am compelled. She’d reply with a beatific squeal and we’d be so in the moment that we’d make out then and there at the bus stop.
You fucking wish. Wouldn’t have been the first time I approached a girl though. This would have been the third time. Not so different from the second time! MOS BURGER. Making people happily through food! Business was slow and I sat down in a booth with my YAKINIKU RICE BURGER, with a side order of LARGE FRENCH FRIES and DIET COKE. There’s a lone girl sitting opposite me. I had my earphones on and I was watching GSL on my smartphone. Now and then, I’d break away from my phone to take a bite out of my rice burger, and my eyes would venture over to the lone girl. Our eyes met more than once. Is she laughing? Why is she laughing? Every time we locked gazes, she’d let out a giggle. After maybe the fifth or sixth gaze, I took my tray of food, marched over to her, dumped it on her table and greeted her. So that was the second time I approached a stranger in public. In real life. Not counting the times I approached girls in clubs, where fantasies are temporary and true. But the second time was different though, she wasn’t really attractive, and this girl is fucking perfect.
And after all, you’re my wonder wall… Our eyes locked once again. No, who you really remind me of, is Emilia Clarke. You have her eyes and lips. The mythical Khaleesi. Mythical like my dream girl. The girl that I think I deserve, but the one that I know that I don’t deserve. Not yet. After all, I have not become the man that I could be.
After a tumultuous years worth of temporary, destructive and ultimately pointless romances, I resigned myself from dating all together. Save for a fling or two this year with some girl I met at some loud and dark place at some bar, I’ve not had any contact with the other sex. And I want to keep it that way. Time to think, time to improve myself. I’ve been working on my fitness lately, working on my self image. Reading a lot, writing some. Trying to build habits that work towards my ideal self. I enjoy writing. I want to be a writer. There are other things than girls, and so for now I’m KISS. Keep it simple stupid!
An hour has passed and my I was close to my stop. Usually I’d alight from the bus stop and walk home, but today I decided I’d head over to my grandmas for a change. Today was steam boat night you see. I got up from my seat and walked towards the exit of the bus, readying myself to alight at my destination. The bus was crowded and the closest I got to the front happened to be, right next to her. She saw me, and I saw her. Should I smile? I thought against it and slunk my eyes towards the exit. I felt her gaze. Beautiful is too pedestrian. I remember peppering my high school prose with brobdingnagian words in an ostentatious attempt to impress. Pulchritudinous! Truth be told, I have always thought it was an ugly word.
“Good bye pretty girl,” sotto voce, in my mind.
She responded by removing her EARPODS and placing them in her handbag. To my consternation, she really was alighting at my bus stop. The fucking odds. Oh god what now. I plucked my earphones, tied the cables neatly and placed them in my pocket. That’s what people do when they alight right? Also in case she wants to talk. The bus doors opened and I tapped my EZ-LINK card against the card reader and I hopped off the bus, all this while trying to muster the courage to talk to her. She left he bus and headed right, towards my home. Today I was heading left. My heart sunk and the meagre beginnings of a resolve that I had managed to gather a minute ago foundered. I lingered at the bus stop briefly, unmoving, unsure, before I looked at her direction. It was dark and her silhouette eluded me. I let out a long and jaded sigh and whipped out my smartphone. Oasis it is. I walked towards my grandmas house. Maybe she lives near me. Maybe another time, when I deserve a girl like that.
dammit i tought the end will be something like we talked for like 3 4 minutes we exchanged phones,i told her how she made me remember an old friend etc etc ...!!
