Tuesday, May 13, 2008

pass it over

He woke up that afternoon with a strange feeling all over him. Not knowing what had happened last night. His eyes kept on looking still at the spinning fan above him like a predator preying on its delicious meal. He tried to count the blade of the fan but he knew at an instant that he was being silly but yet, it was the nicest thing to do at that particular strange of time. The room was quiet as always. Only the presence of his goldfish which he called Tiffany can be seen from the corner of his left eye. He remembers the day when he bought Tiffany at the pet shop near his apartment. It was love at the first side. She was majestic and incredibly beautiful with eyes like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. He watched the movie dozens of times and yet it never failed to bore him mainly because Audrey herself. He loves her like a mad man. After forked out ten dollars from his old faded black wallet and left the pet shop, he was determined to name his new pet Tiffany.

Still feeling awkward, he forces himself to get up from the bed but only manage to go halfway. Eyes still looking at Tiffany as she swims aimlessly around the artificial corals he took from his mother’s aquarium. She must be feeling happy today, he thought to himself. He then looked around the room and can’ help himself from feeling impress to the effort he had taken in decorating his small room. The room was very tidy and organized with simple furniture he bought mainly from Ikea. The lava lamp that he placed over the drawer was his particular favorite. He had for a long time craved to buy a lava lamp but only managed to have one after his best friend, Adi gave it as a birthday present five months ago.

Slowly, he braves himself to gather all the energy needed to get up and grab the towel that hanged over his blue-oak-made cupboard and cover his well built naked body. It hits him like a million volts of lightning as how on god’s earth is he not wearing anything? He started to get confused but still trying hard to remember everything that had happen to him last night. He was sure that it must had something to do with last night but the more he tries the harder for him to remember as nothing, not even a single clue came out from his memory. After a couple of minutes standing like a soulless body he decided to go and take a bath instead.

As he stand in front of dozens of shirts and pants placed systematically inside the cupboard, he can’t stop wondering why he woke up naked today. It was yet even weirder that he can’t remember anything that had happen last night. Finally he resented himself and chose to wear his second favorite green t-shirt with the word Calvin embezzled at the chest with his Levi’s limited edition jeans he bought at Tokyo last year during his company’s annual conference. He matches it with his white Nike shoes and grabbed his leather made choker on top of his PC and headed straight to the main door of his apartment and got out.

He counted the number of levels as the lift went down slowly. He was alone in there like always. It took him at about three minutes and twenty seconds to reach down and he knew it exactly because he had experienced the journey down to the ground level for almost seven years since he moved to his current apartment. He remembers that it was his fiancĂ©e that forced him to buy the unit. Sarah was a pretty girl with a set of beautiful hazel- coloured eyes but her smile was the only reason he ever fell in love with the girl. He met her at Adi’s New Year party ten years ago. It was Adi whom had introduced her to him. Yes, Adi was such a great friend to him. It started as a mere friend-to-friend relationship but eventually blossomed to even greater knot. She was the only person that he ever cared until last year when Sarah decided to end the relationship.

The lift stopped and as he walked out he could see a man looking at him with a smile on his face. He was the security officer in-charge of the building but he could not recall the name of the man. He thought to himself on why he could not remember the name but before he could go to the extend of forcing his memory to do its work, he simply assumed that he was never acknowledge the man’s name or perhaps he did not even bother to ask before. After all he was only a security guy and he had rarely seen his face around. Without smiling back he continues to walk out off the building.

He stopped at the front of the entrance. His eyes were fixed straight to the artificial waterfall that stood in front of the building. It was a large and specially built waterfall with a simple touched of a Tropicana or Caribbean atmosphere to it. It had a long and wide stream that flows to the river near the place he was standing. He could not figure out on how the contractor managed to make the waterfall works but he was glad that he could be able to watch the miracle of science and technology put into that wonderful creation of a simple waterfall.

It was so strange to him that the day was so quiet. No one was around or near him except for three kids playing at the playground four hundreds metre away from the place he was standing. He could not hear their voice or laughter because he thought maybe it was too far from him. He could hear the birds chirping harmoniously with each other above him. Yellow, green and blue were the color of the birds but he could not identify its name. In fact, if someone asks him to name three different names of local birds he was sure that he couldn’t answer the question even though he watches Animal Planet channel every night at exactly ten p.m. slowly he moves closer to the garden of roses five steps to his right away from the place he was currently still standing. There were red, yellow and white roses planted in a shape of heart and he thought those who handled the decoration of the flowers must be such a great and genius artiste. The roses were planted in such a professional way and the longer he stares the roses, he became more adoring to the piece of artistic craft. It was strange and yet it was so peaceful to him. It has been too long since he experienced this kind of situation. It was difficult for him to explain the feeling other than strange at that particular time. It seems that everything was so new or different to him.

He was not sure how to acknowledge the situation that occurs to him since he woke up today. How could it be possible that he can’t recall anything that had happened to him last night. Everything seems to be so vague like there was a big pile of junk stuck in between his memory and senses. He wanted to conclude that maybe he was sick or had gone mad or something but he thought that crazy was inappropriate term to use since he was a hundred percent sure that he was a normal man with a healthy mental kind of person. Furthermore the word ‘crazy’ itself scares him too much. But if he was normal, how could he be so confused right now? He can’t even remember his own doings and he knew that it was not normal? Quickly, he curses himself for toying with the thought of being crazy.

Slowly he walked across the road to the pedestrian pavement that leads him to the car park where he usually parked his black Toyota car. The journey will took him eighty seven adult steps.