Here comes the… Rain?

On the way to and from school every day…

Leaves swirl in eddies on the path as I crunch through the deep autumn drifts of orange dotted with feuilles of crimson. The leaf-blowers go to work on the grassy verges of the river during the day and by each evening, the river’s flanked by green carpets again. But then the wind blows, and red leaves fall…

Crowds of école primaire kids go on excursions with their harried teachers in tow. There is plenty of heckling in rapid-fire French, and I think of my own halcyon days as a bratty rebel-without-a-cause with a wistful smile…

The clouds race each other across the sky as the wind whips umbrellas inside out, tears scarf tips out of position and gently puffs lovers’ hair into each other’s faces. Some couples hold hands with one side while jamming the other hand deep into the pocket, because it is bitterly cold, but they are in love…

The birds head south in endless formations of Vs. They congregate in billowing flocks high above the river, undulating and morphing as the wind swirls funnels through them. Grandeur and majesty don’t even begin to describe their graceful trajectories once the birds start off, and I walk with my head in the clouds to be near them…

Cars stop for me even when it’s green for them, because a buffeted pedestrian wrapped up in ludicrously thick clothing always gains sympathy. I wave my thanks and waddle briskly across the road, gaping in ill-concealed wonder at the young man who lounges casually across in my direction dressed in a T-shirt and three-quarter length pants…

Toddlers swaddled adorably in winter wear peer from their dew-starred eyes at the last of the flowers spilling out of their pots for the last time this year, before the cold snaps them at the roots. Some time back, I saw a tree lying half in and out of the river where it had been felled by a storm. The cold had preserved it in the crisp green state in which it had died, whereas its neighbours shed their crumpled red leaves forlornly everywhere around it. There’s a poignant analogy somewhere in there, if only I could find it…

I walk past the photocopying service in school, and see for the umpteenth time the sign that says SERVICE REPRODUCTION on its door. Also for the umpteenth time, I think of Singapore’s languishing birth rates and stifle a giggle, because that is how mature I am…

Haha. I’m back from my term paper, which morphed into a mammoth, gobbled me whole, chewed me up proper, decided it didn’t like my taste and spat me back out relatively intact. If I don’t get a good grade on this one, I shall… Not be surprised at all. Augh.

Hope life’s treating everybody well. I’m appallingly unprepared for the coming exam season, which feels so out of place and wrong as the year dies and holidays begin to set in in earnest for the vast majority. Lots of people are on/will soon be on trips overseas: be safe and come home with nice stories!

Each day, as I return to my residence, I look at the mottled orangey-red carpet of rustling leaves one last time. I think of dark clouds and silver linings, and wait another night for my Sun.

~ by grossomodo on November 22, 2006.