Places

I went to a cemetery on Friday. It was a solemn and eerie feeling seeing rows and rows of stones marking the had-beens. They came and went. The soil I stood on may be filled with what will be left of someone now alive, as we all eventually return to earth and degenerate into dust.
It is odd how all of us, regardless of our differences will become the same in the end. Tombstones marking plots of land are artificial. The segregation of burial grounds for different faiths is created by the living. When the living requires the space where you supposedly rest, they will take it away. As a plot is exhumed, new bodies arrive to fill the empty space at the other end of the cemetery.

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I was wandering in Raffles City last Sunday, some time past midnight. The bustling shopping centre is quiet and lifeless, but filled with needless echoes. The terracotta soldiers on display are just absolutely freaky in their life-like statures. Mannequins stood behind glass windows which shimmer a green light. "Orange lollies on silver sticks." My heels clacked on the polished tiles, as I rushed to the washroom and back, to the good company of people, real ones.

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I have had a lot of problems in the past two years, but there is a lot I should be thankful for. Some people have gotten in the way, wittingly or unwittingly, as if they are just bound to curse me. Naming them will not help, I don't think they know what they have done. They do not judge me objectively, but I will survive.

Perhaps, troubled times are over. I have met an amazing number of really nice people in the past month, who have been guiding and teaching me a lot, including how not to get in trouble. They helped me get the necessary contacts, even though it was a really round-about way. They stayed to edit my disasters, even though they did not really have to. God knows how on earth am I going to repay these people.