Tony's stash of textual information

When I rented a bed in a flat in Sengkang (not a room itself, but a bed in a room that I had to share with an incendiary older man who always seemed to sigh without even uttering a word) my landlady's fiance adopted a baby cat.

I watched it grow in size. It dashed around the cluttered place at 2 AM. Was it awake because I was awake, or the other way around? Or maybe it had its own life, and I was a mere witness; it would be self-absorbed of me, in a delusional way – egotistical – to think that its life revolved around my existence. No, no, my existence was no matter – she had a life entirely separate from mine. And I was the helpless little barely-intact ship that had gotten swept up in the maelstrom of her existence.

It – she – fought with the other cat in the house, a grown-up who protected its perch with all kinds of territorial intensity. (the term “cat-fight” comes to mind.) The latter's favourite perches were the top of the refrigerator – the top of the window ledge – the top of the vertical scratch post.

One day I found blood where the kitten had been sitting. Alarmed and befuddled, I informed the landlady, who matter-of-factly said: “of course, menstruation.”

Menstruation... meaning... my baby girl was ready for pregnancy now? How dare any stray male cat – a foreigner to the neighbourhood – impregnate my dear baby? And yet I had no say in these things. Mating calls, courtship rituals, mating positions... these were things of the wilderness, and I, a hopelessly ignorant concrete-dweller knew nothing of the rhythms of nature – so wild, so terrifying, so fierce, so crushing.

Sometimes I think, I think the wilderness calls to me. It sends me reminders of its existence, beyond my carefully-maintained glass windows and air-conditioned indoor comfort. A orange-beaked bird that flies through the open window, and hops besides my bed, and then defecates without a shred of embarrassment. And then merrily chirps a new song as it hops back out of the window, flying out of my sight effortlessly, on paper-light wings. Or an otter – a family of otters – hungrily hunting fish in a huge canal, brimming with water after a heavy downpour.

I remember a story of a foolish young man who went through great pains to seek out a wise old man who had been living in seclusion, hidden in a rainforest on the other side of the planet. Finally locating the latter after much shock in an unfamiliar – it brings me shivers to think about it – dark gloom of mosquito-infested cut-throat green danger – the elder had these words to impart:

“with or without us, the Sun will still rise tomorrow.”

Indeed, as the Sun always has done, since the time when dinosaurs walked the Earth. I imagine the Tyrannosaurus Rex eating smaller dinosaurs for lunch. What was the look of fear on the little dinosaur's elongated face, as it got caught in the inescapable jaws of that great apex predator?

What am I in the vast expanse of the past history of this wonderful, strangely beautiful planet – and what am I in the face of an infinite future when Il, too, am becoming a dinosaur who has been struggling to understand menstruation?

How precious an experience, to be alive!

Thank you, Creator God.