Chapter 4
Dying to meet you
Kit has his eyes closed. His cheek tingles with the body electric as fingers draw delicately across it. His ricebowl-fringe is lifted suddenly by a hot breath - a breath of air; fingers of wind. Wind, from open air. Open air, bounded by concrete pillars, and metalwork.
He's been standing on the train platform staring morosely at the tracks for ten minutes now.
My life is so boring.
I need to lose weight.
I need to go to the gym.
I want a woman to love me.
Why doesn't anybody love me?
I think it's because,
My life is so boring...
He takes a step towards the edge.
...Why doesn't anybody love me?
Another step.
...What if...
There's a dull thump.
Whoompf! Subsonically displaced air hurled aside by the train gliding in to dock makes Kit recoil imperceptibly.
... everything was different?
The doors slide open with a sibilant hiss.
"Beepbeepbeep" they intone at Kit, indifferently. Get on, or not, we don't care.
He opens his eyes and steps through the doors.
*****
Nothing much happens to Kit on the MRT (the Multibilliondollar Relativelyrapid Trainthingie, which is just like the London Underground and New York Metro, only cleaner) en route from work to home. No mysterious stranger slips him a cryptic note; no alluring females smile enticingly at him; no pretty, jiggly blondes flash their tic-tacs at him.
Life is never like the movies, is it?
Like almost everyone else on the train, Kit silently engages in a careful scrutiny of his footwear. Variations on the theme include making detailed studies of laps, hands clasped in laps, other people's shoes, and for those neither fortunate nor nimble enough to secure themselves seats or be wearing shoes, nothing much in particular.
Kit's shoes are black work-shoes, such as the type an engineer might purchase - sensible, practical and altogether rather less than interesting.
There's only so much a person can write about engineer's shoes, so Kit looks up at the passengers around him.
(It's a form of narrative convention. Lead characters always look at everyone around themselves. This prevents endless descriptive paragraphs about the individual scuff marks on the surface of their shoes, which research sponsored by Batu - maker of affordable and aesthetic shoes across the nation - has shown that audiences do not always, for some unfathomable reason, appreciate.)
There's :
1) a malodorous NS boy immediately adjacent to him, emitting the heady scent of eau de sweatandfearandpushups. Have you noticed how there's always an NS boy on the train when you get on? It's almost as if it's cosmic convention. All trains in Singapore bear smelly NS boys in uniform, regardless of the hour of day. Any train without it's allocated quota of odiferous NSFs threatens to rip a breach in the fabric of reality and hurtle off into another dimension. That they always seat themselves next to you is either pure coincidence or sheer malice on their part.
The Republic of Singaland's Leadership does not take kindly to other dimensions. Citizens might migrate out of Singaland and acquire evil and decadent non-asian customs, then where would we be?
2) a disagreeable-looking teenaged girl in a garish pink top scowling fiercely at the book in her lap. Her lips move with the effort of translating the written word into a form comprehensible to herself. She isn't so much diminutive of stature as abjectly vertically-challenged, and if looks could kill, she would probably have expired in-utero. As it stands, her obstetric surgeon's repeated attempts to nonchalently let her newborn-self slip through his fingers head-first onto the floor some nineteen years ago failed to produce any lasting effects aside from a slightly stumpier adult appearance than her DNA would otherwise have accounted for.
Currently, she's studiously ignoring:
3) a sweet, doddering old cow woman standing before her, with an uncanny resemblance to Margaret Chan. The hag auntie teeters precariously amidst her mini-empire of shopping bags with every jerk of the train (which, of course, simply does not happen on the MRT in real life, proving once and for all that this entire ridiculous narrative is but a work of insane fiction) muttering viciously under her breath.
"Young people nowadays... no respect...elders... selfish... crush her like... cockroach..."
Sssssssssss.
The doors slide open, and an exhausted expectant mother crawls aboard with sobbing toddler in tow.
Margaret Chan shoots the hapless pair a vicious glance and redoubles her solliloquay.
"children... seen... heard... bubble... toil and.... cauldren..."
4) Mrs Preggy sways pathetically in front of Pink, barely managing to hold herself upright. Somewhere in the background, someone starts playing a violin.
Pink redoubles her efforts at the admirable task of gleaning knowledge from the repository of knowledge she bears in her lap. It's apparently a book for advanced animal enthusiasts, entitled "My Dog Spot".
The world fades to dark as Kit slides into a stuperous slumber.
*****
Fade to light.
Kit's in his shoebox, sitting by his windowless window watching Windows startup on his computer. There's a slight breeze, followed by a faint tinkle and a truncated scream from somewhere far below.
Windows XP loads up absent-mindedly to the desktop before hurriedly remembering to pop up a blue screen of death and force Kit to reboot.
Reboot.
Pause.
Kit's in his shoebox, sitting by his windowless window watching Windows startup on his computer. There's a slight breeze, and the far-off sound of sirens, which fades abruptly to a gleeful chorus of tinkles.
Kit performs his daily ritual of checking his email - you have NO new mails! - then logs onto galaxynet on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), the virtual realm where geeks can fulfil their secret destinies and become cyber-geeks and even occasionally, women. Women just tend to become bitchier.
Let's see. Where do we want to go today? Which portal holds the promise of romance and maybe even the thrill of sex? Which exotic channel will Kit choose in his bid for a life-altering experience??
Kit, fired subliminally by the author's enthusiasm, goes out on a limb and types:
/j 20somethings
#20somethings[+tn]: Welcome ur stay at the Age Of Life
*** Now talking in #20somethings
*** Topic is 'Welcome ur stay at the Age Of Life'
*** Retrieving #20somethings info
(Silence)
(More silence)
< Kit > Hello?
(Yet more silence)
(Kit considers twiddling his thumbs, except that he's only ever seen it done on movies. It's amazing how he continues to consider this, after several thousand visits to this channel, or for that matter, any other channel.)
Suddenly, against all predictions and expectations, there's a slight shimmer in reality, and that heart-lifting sound all denizens of the IRC realms secretly yearn to hear : dingdingding. A window pops open.
< Neo > Hello. I am Neo. I am The One. Who is this?
< Kit > Hi, I'm Kit, twentysomething/m. I make powerpoint slides for a living. a/s/l?
(pause)
< Neo > Oh. Sorry, wrong number...
shimmer. The window closes rather hurriedly.
(Silence.)
Another thumb-twiddling extravagan.... dingdingding!
< LadyGray > Hello, stranger.
Wow. It's not just some spambot advertising a porn site. And it might even be a girl. Tonight's Kit's lucky night!
< Kit > hi
< LadyGray > How's it going? :)
Wow! No A/S/L (age/sex/location) line. Almost definitely a girl! Must buy 4D tomorrow.
< Kit > I'm ok. A little bored.
< LadyGray > Join the club. There's a fee.
No request to meet up and have sex!! Woohoo!! Absolutely certainly, positively without the shadow of a doubt a girl! Kit's on a rollll!
< Kit > So, wat's a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?
< LadyGray > Oh, mostly getting hit on by horny guys desperate for doggy sex. You?
...the night flies by in a happy blur. (cue screen image of a seed germinating into sapling unfurling into blood-red rose in full-bloom)
This girl is unlike any other. She's funny, flirty, sassy, silly, intelligent, and above all, interested. She writes with the effortless grace of Salaman Rushdie on speed, only more dangerously.
She understands me.
She's too good to be true. (She probably looks like a dog.)
She's perfect.
Kit slumps back in his chair, stunned.
*****
Jean slumps back in her chair, stunned.
He's too good to be true.
He's stoic, stolid, dependable, guileless, loyal, rather predictable and very boyish. He's a Nice Guy. There're no other words for it.
He's perfect.
*****
< LadyGray > So what do you get up to most nights?
< Kit > I mostly eat dinner at home. You know, after work, tired lah.
Pause. That sounded really sad.
Kit casts his mind around for something imaginary to spice up his life.
< Kit > Sometimes I go out with my frens. You know, drinking.
Yeah. That sounds nice and manly. Ohmygod. I hope she doesn't ask me what I drink...
He holds his breath... :
< LadyGray > Man with a busy schedule then. What are you doing tomorrow night?
< Kit > Oh. Not much. Watching TV. There's Nip/Tuck tomorrow.
< LadyGray > Oh. Wouldn't you prefer to save a poor damsel in distress from the distressing grasp of ennui?
Pause...
*****
< Kit > I don't knoe ne1 liddat. Who is Ennui? Nip/Tuck is very good btw.
She breathes out loudly and drums her fingers on the table in exasperation, batting down four other excited paramours popping up in their little windows with irritated clicks of her mouse.
How much less subtle does she have to be?
/me isn't doing anything tomorrow evening... will be bored to tears.
*****
Kit watches the words appear on his screen.
LadyGray isn't doing anything tomorrow evening... will be bored to tears.
< Kit > Oh. Why don't u watch...
wait. His Y chromosome kicks him hard in the seat of his skull. Girl. Free. Tomorrow night.
backspacebackspacebackspace
< Kit > Oh. Would u like to err, meet up for dinner?
long pause. Shite, maybe I was too direct?
< LadyGray > Dying to. =)
