DIVING WITH JEROME

Hi, how are you, hello

Úna Elfred'd played it over in her head, once too many times. Fingers crossed, head straightened. A newly-found, muse, call it whatever it describes, a distraction, an obsession. The idea of an unattainable. A subject of desire. To save a glimpse from right across the street, to watch (say admire) as she took a drag of her fag, of—her sip an afternoon tea, in love, them sat behind the glass that divided both worlds. They'd realized one's presence, stole a glance or two. And went on with their own lives, uncrossed, unquestioned. Who would have expected otherwise. Daniel Johnston, Anthony Gonzalez, JD Samson—geniuses. The list could go on. Played it over, perhaps make a brand new best friend, that is if the chosen has the same sentiments; as they ride down the mews on bikes over the bumpy stoned passage:

1. Nice ride, how'd you do?

2. Bumpy huh?

3. Hi, how are you, hello.

Or unlikely, catching up as she made her way out into the open road home or elsewhere. Missed.

1. Hi, how are you, hello.

2. I think I am in love with you.

Doubt it. Too late anyway. Hasn't seen her lately.

There was a day, they caught a gaze. Seconds that could have just been a second. Like on silver screen, the lights dimmed, they were not there, they were not there. Then, it was there, and passed the stairs, then it was there, up those stairs. So near, yet so far, so they said. She'd him, embraced, kisses and a sweet oh sweet shared luncheon. Oh so sweet. M Quatre-Vingts-Trois = shoegazing geniuses! Orgasmic! Nothing to lose, nothing to cry for, nothing to fuss about, only tears of laughter upon no shameless crime. Allez! There's always a first time for everything. They deserve the truth! They'd been loved. Love at first sight on a one-way street. Who cares. There's always a first time for anything. To run her fingers through those thick brown locks, to feel the rushing heartbeats behind a naked ear. To wake, under the sheets, of soft rhythmic breaths and whispers of sunshine through one's flaming lips. Pancakes, coffee and white-painted oak floors. Could be nice. These words, this cigarette, this glass of scotch, Coloring The Void, could be nicer. Do not forget happiness is only real when shared. Do not be dead before.

Bent over the pool table, tight trousers wrapped around lifted buttocks. The cue grasped in her right hand angled between the knuckles of her left as she positioned for 8-ball to be struck, proper. Try again. Turned against the world, she had her hands in her shirt. She's ready. Hey ho' let's go. It's okay to be stupid. There's always a first time for everything. She would know what to do even when the time's not quite right. She's in love with you. No fear of the deep although it could drown you. Nor the fall. There's love. There's lost. She's gone. She's not coming back. There's always a first time for everything. So where do we start?

There were 2 Jeromes. One high school sweetheart, showered her with chocolate candies and love letters, alphabets jumbled. Slightly stout, he was, with slit eyes, a rather sharp nose and his hair centre-parted, too neat. A year or two a senior. Couldn't remember what happened but his love was stacked in a tin amongst tins stashed away somewhere in the closet, unopened, most likely moldy. He was nice. He was kind. And Jerome, Diving With Jerome, not too shortly after. An artist and a dutch. Shaved head, grey, not too grey, 6'6". Very—nice. Very—alluring. Hij draait haar op, elke keer. Elke keer! Sur la plage ou non sur la plage.

How'd he ended up there? Naked, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the motel room. Walls painted in a bad blue, unmatched furniture arranged in corners, a cheesy picture of a scenic landscape hung above the bed; two floors up a dodgy frequent indian eatery, next to was a busy road, bright red stools sat around bright yellow tables. An undercover rookie sat across, for days, Jerome insisted. More likely a retired hooligan, she thought. By the undrawn window, and an office building 50 feet opposite, he stood, butt naked, an erected cock. Someone's watching. Ceiling fan or cold air-conditioned, downtown, in and out of the unbearable tropical heat. They had each other and there were the orgasms. Till dusk. Till dawn. There's always a first time for everything. Different, that was all he said. Different good, different bad. Different? His eyes mesmerizing. His tongue luscious. His touch tempting. Úna Elfred could not forget. The first kiss, the walk on sand, the boat ride and the coach back.

How'd they ended up there? Gordon. There he was. On his way up the slanted coconut tree on a barely lit sidewalk. The sea was calm. Not too drunk. They strolled back to their huts. A kiss goodnight. That was it. Gordon saw them falling for each other. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. It was not a good night's sleep within the straw walls as she recalled. Tyomn Ysland creeps after night falls. Should have been the day after or before. It was dive day. It could have been nice. Rough waters and too slim a craft for canoeing did not seem like a better option. Úna'd a 2-star kayaking certificate but definitely more up for a basic dive with the boys. Jerome was convinced to join them. There's always a first time for everything. Brief instructions were given, they were 4 or 5 newbies. Ready. Úna was not. Though shallow, 7 meters down, she'd a ear squeeze. Both ears. Pain x2. Goggles fogged, salt water up her nose. It was not a spectacle, not the least of the worst postcard. Mostly murky, and pain in the ears. In fact nicer was by the shore of Monkyh Beyh. Then again, at least a sea turtle'd swum by, exasperated as they had their bare hands stroked against a limp or two of this poor thing. There was Jerome in her hands. Gordon could not understand. Sissies.

They met, or rather Úna found them, on Monkyh Beyh, on not so fine a day, at least yes and no for her. Yes, terrific! indeed, as she found fellow holiday-makers and yes, it was a nice lovely sunny day everyday, it was not the monsoon period, some fine day. No, because she'd almost and could have killed herself in the jungle on her way. No, because she'd not recovered from the trauma. The fine white sand beneath her feet, the clear water revealing the schools of anchovies were therapeutic yet not enough to take her mind off the fact that she could have had slipped off that cliff, hit a rock and—die. It's funny. Life is. You try to kill yourself, sometimes, on your wrist along and not across, like they did on T.V.. The concept of death, then, was brilliant, in the stupidest context. You feel alone. It gets funny. When you end up in the middle of the woods, alone and perhaps in not so death threatening a situation, you instinctively find means not to succumb to death. Úna'd came across couple of strangers in the beginning of the trek. They were going in the opposite direction. She did not think it would be difficult to follow a trail from one village to the other, not until she lost her sight of a trail. She went round, up, there and there. Panic. No one was seen nor heard. Just crickets and toads and overgrown roots and wild thorns here and there. She got anxious, her heart raced. Breathe. Breathe. Deep breaths. The multiple scratches on her arms and legs did not bother her too much. Her ankles hurt. It did not matter. Move, she reminded herself. She could not be lost as she had lied of her whereabouts. No one really knew where she went. She could not die. Not now. Not yet. Blood on her arms and sweat dripping off her forehead into her eyes. The backpack weighing her down in the heat. Where's? someone, anyone? She fell. She got up. Minutes felt like hours. The refreshing air of the jungle started to be suffocating, not knowing her way out. All the shades of green surrounded her in a camouflage of labyrinth. No trail. Nowhere. Massive trees in all directions and traces only of hers on mud. No luck. No flashbacks. At least she knew she was not going to die. Not today. It was just going to be tricky and more than slightly painful to get to the other side of the island. The sound of the waves against the rocks led her to the edge of the cliff. Too far down. She went along the edge instead. And there wasn't any to follow. It was left, into the water 30 feet off or right, back to the jungle. Left, it was. It was a jump too near the rocks. Still, a relief. Great, everything got wet. Where she thought was her destination, was in fact Monkyh Beyh, not just yet where she was planning to go. No damn way was she going back to where she was stuck for the last many hours. There's always a first time for everything. Úna Elfred hitched a ride in the boys' boat. That was how they met.

A decade too far. Their faces remained a decade young. Gordon and his goatee on the slanted tree. Jerome, naked in the motel downtown. The rain hadn't stop falling.

Hi, how are you, hello

Bhraf And The Four Heavenly Kings

N

W • E

S

If once was not enough,

"NO!"

Ron could not recall where the anger was coming from except that it was the last word spoken to Bhraf. Yelled at, as a matter of fact; —an involuntary enrage. That was likely the second monologue after the only Hello all summer, that she had said, of a single word to him.

Ron spoke to Mahtr on an almost twice-a-week basis. Conversations over the horn lasted from approximately 4 minutes to rare occasions of 15 minutes—tops. Skype calls happened on unusual days; the last being 2 weeks back, dialed from Nana's. Over the horn, conversations were not exactly the type you thought so. Frequently-asked-questions with given answers of yes and no included:

"Did you eat?" / "Did you work?" / "Did you go out?"

"!?"

She ate, drank and smoked. So did I. Ron had not found any ways to entice Mahtr into an interesting conversation; only always being drifted back to square one, led by an overly concerned mother worried only of Ron's physical, and not mental, health. Never treated like a friend but as an overly protected well over-grown child. Her mother's love and care was limitless, yet carelessly limited. Darhd was worse, over the line or in person. It was a family of a few words when it came to the four of them. They could have been the Four Heavenly Kings* watching over the cardinal directions of the world, back turned and too far away from each other.

Ron and Bhraf had a strangers' relationship. At times, so near yet so far, he was the brother she never quite had. Never quite there, when the walls came rumbling down and things being thrown around. As a child, Ron took cover from the regular verbal wrestles between Darhd and Mahtr not from the protection of a brother but the corners of rough plastered walls.

He always gets away from all these unpleasant moments.

They all have their big brother; mine? A very wrong word, then again: non-existent.

"Don't you worry. It gets better when y'all get older."

Shane'd assured her, by pure experience apparently and time was supposed to make everything alright anyway.

Well, rather unlikely? It hadn't been any good, over the last decade.

Having said that, how could Ron have found a solution when she did not have a clue what was the cause of the problem.

Ron was 5:

There was once and the only time, back on Coco Hill, Ron had a brother.

"But I am here,"

He vowed, to be the guardian angel of her night, to make sure Freddy did not leave Elm Street.

Ron was 8:

One other time,

"Teach me,"

And that was nice, as Ron felt important. Like a ringmaster training a bear on an unicycle, Ron passed on her whistling techniques to her big brother.

Sure felt good to know something he didn't.

Ron was 9:

Mostly, as a child, both of them had nothing good to say to each other.

"You're stupid!"

Nana overheard Ron insulting Bhraf in her sleep.

Ron was 11, maybe 7:

"Stop singing,"

Ron sulked as Bhraf had all the attention on the road trip.

Ron was 13:

"Quit following me,"

Bhraf commanded and turned his back as they got out of the truck on Ron's first day at school.

Ron was 27:

"So long, you do not become her,"

Bhraf reminded his little one as Ron played clown and amused her with a wind-up toy.

It was that watch, wasn't it? It was a curse.

I should not have opened his birthday gift. It did not belong to me.

I should have listened.

They warned her. Ron did not bother. She could have and she should have.

I should have done many things.

I should have not been here.

I should, this. I should, that.

Stop telling me what I should do.

Suddenly:

s, h, o, u, l and d kind of looked weird

when placed next to the other.

"My brother…"

This.

"My brother…"

That.

"My brother…"

Blah, blah, blah.

"My brother…"

It goes on.

Ron listened in awe to all these stories of "my brother…" from people around her over too long a period of time. Ron would imagine being the author and lead character of these stories: of the adventures, incidents and conversations with a—brother. Nonetheless never felt quite right about an imaginary brother since that would not have nominated her onto Bhraf's Love-My-Little-Sister list. Only misunderstandings, more than mishaps. Whereas, these guys, they had something.

Le Brothers

Gwndlr had decided to get away from Paris. He had a broken heart. Ian was in London, he came by. They sat on the desk next to each other; an elbow away, on wooden chairs, they were two disciplined juniors in a classroom. They sat the same way down, different hair, different drawings, similar body language and brothers with mint-colored eyes. Ian could not mend Gwndlr's broken heart, but he was there to share a lunchbox and a bed. They baked a King's pie, they had each other.

That could have been us.

Big Leo, Little Leo

They almost had the same nose and cheek bones. It must be the hair, too. On a rented racer and a squeaky Triumph, they went on a Deptford hunt. Laughters over a shared cigarette; a cider and a lager, they danced within the red velvet curtains through the chilly winter night.

That could have been us.

The Hickey Boys

Partners-in-crime; they shoplifted and they pranked. To protect and be protected, made-up jokes and made-up laughters, that's alright. Questions answers and stories exchanged in a one-bed motel down town, they supported each other despite constant dissimilarities. They overcame their ego and said I love you after three decades. It was funny, they managed.

That could have been us.

Alvin and an undead—Mark

Don't wake the dead. At least, they spoke.

That could have been us.

Yet, they weren't them.

Ron and Bhraf

They were barely three years apart by age and only ten thousand eight hundred forty-sevenish kilometers away from each other. They were magnets of the same pole. Shared Darhd's eyes and lived very different lives. Bhraf, an aerospace engineer and a family guy. Ron, a self-proclaimed artist and not a homey sort of person. Bhraf seemed to know what he wanted, what he liked and what to do. Ron, on the contrary—not. His sticker collection, ended up her possession. His postal stamps obsession, were missing Ron's favorite design. His fondness for Lego bricks passed on to Ron's Pink Legoland. Whatever he had, she had to have them. The Four Heavenly Kings, if not the four guardian angels of the Buddhist faith, were the four Canto pop artistes of the early nineties. Bhraf had taken a pick of one from the four; Ron then, had too, idolize the other as to oppose his preferences yet at the same time be lured into all of Bhraf's hobbies and interests.

How else could we have been closer?

Ahndy was definitely more talented than Ehronn, by vocals and by looks.

I have better taste in music and films.

Ron assumed. Till recent years did she realize she had lost her confidence over the years. Had the Fairy Blackstick too taken it away. Bhraf, unlike either of The Four Heavenly Kings, had yet been crowned prince. Neither a pop star, neither a guardian angel. Bhraf and Bhrafer knew not Ron nor vice verse.

Ron took the road, in her own directions.

Edward's 40 Day Dream in a Heartbeat

"I think I'd been sleeping for forty days in and

yeah, I know I'm sleeping 'cause this dream's too amazing

She got gold doorknobs where her eyes used to be

yeah, one turn and I learned what it really means to see"

Tone deaf, she sang to the lyrics of Alexander Ebert's 40 Day Dream as the record played on her newly purchased second hand Panasonic ghetto blaster SG-J555L. Úna Elfred had bought it as a gift for herself on her father's birthday. Today, she gave herself a day off from going in to her other studio as she just did not felt like it. It was not raining, unlike yesterday, and instead it was a lovely sunny morning as the wind brought back the unbearable London chilliness. It is Tuesday and it was just Monday when she went to bed the night before. Whether it was the dread for the 9 miles of biking, or the awkwardness of slowly losing the one thing that kept her going days before—her muse, or simply not wanting to speak to anyone; she got out of bed but stayed in and away from anyone. Úna Elfred has forgotten what it is like to love someone not like the way she loves her family or her friends and when she does not feel loved, she distances herself away, she was told, and into the little corner behind her ear and occasionally sits between hook of it as she watches the cursor blinking on. Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros made her happy. She went on:

"It's the magical mystery kind, must be a lie

Bye bye to the too good to be true kind of love"

Thinking about this 10-persons-band, she admired their passion, talent and collaborative capability. Hippies; they resembled in their ritual-like performances and expressed in the musical arrangements. It is probably the state of trance as Ebert seemingly transcend out off his body through the words he had so cleverly strung together with the music, or perhaps his history of addiction, or simply his long black hair tied back and face hidden behind his locks of beard. Laid back as Úna dreamt of the smell of the ocean under the open sky and charming as is Angus Stone. Mesmerizing is too, the vibes Jade Castrinos put forth each time she gets on with the piece and sings through her the verses that bestow merriment. Her voice heard but she is no longer there where you can see her in person or on screen. She's some place else behind those shut lids on the strike of the tambourine. Somewhere you'd and me'd like to be. The chords arranged and played through the trumpet between the choruses is the cue for the start of your expedition and an applaud for freedom. Úna felt the same lightness in her heart each time she watched a different version of the same song performed live. She'd like too, no fear of death and to see what laid behind those gold doorknobs. She thought hard, real hard, but it was not enough.

Úna's brain works slower than the spiders playing dead from spot to spot in the corner of the tiles of her toilet floor. She does not have the ability to imagine as her brain procrastinates and her seemingly portrayed daydreamings are not exactly the widely defined sort. She sits, unlike a thinker, and never ever a philosopher, and nothing is in her head. An empty vessel, the seconds ticked away and she—waits? She could be having a sociable cigarette or coffee break with her mates, she could be sitting amongst friends at a dinner party but all she could be thinking of was to be some place else other than where she was, some place she could not imagine, except indefinitely elsewhere. When she is writing, she would think about taking a walk and she keeps thinking about taking a walk, yeah go on a walk, and when she takes that walk she thought of the walk she thought of and writes this now, take the trash and slam the door. Damn it, stop slamming the damn door. The walk, cereals, eggs, milk, tobacco, crisps, take the trash, slam the door and take the walk, cereals, eggs, milk, trash, the writing, now go on that walk. Those were the things to be bought. Blakr was right, Úna is a broken record player, one she does not know how to fix. She couldn't have found what she was looking for only because she does not know what to be looking for. Something is missing, something. Mostly, someone—the touch, the warmth, the heartbeats. She thought of a dog, since her mind has such short attention span she has not been able to catch up wooing another who gave her no attention nor desire, obviously. She got used to being alone and a brain that fails to catch up with her heart. She can sit there, yes right there for hours staring in space and not a wee bit of daydreaming. The same words rotating and repeating, otherwise empty. No rush, no push. Maybe too much hair covering her foresight, maybe she's a vegetable in a human form, maybe past her Best Before date, maybe she should have went to medical school but she would have messed up patients' dosages and made wrong diagnoses. Maybe she got too lazy to dream but not exactly running by hiding. She does that all the time. Like when she was five, she pretended to be suffering from a headache so she could get back to bed and skip pre-school. Once she pooped in her pants, could not remember why, probably too lazy to run to the loo. She ran away from the fight between her parents under the sheets hoping David Copperfield would 'twinkle' her out of the water tank to Neverland. She had ran by pretense, away but yet escaped. For the last 10 minutes, she laid her head on her arm against the table as the other hand held this pencil a millimeter above the paper, just staring at the tip of the lead sticking out of the Pilot Shaker—the world went by on buses with tires that screeched the wet road behind the window where she sat. Stop slamming the goddamn door. Úna has a problem—Úna is the problem. She is not running away from someone else nor someplace else. She did not not go into the studio today to run away from her mates nor the lamp on the desk. She stayed away to get away from herself. No questions asked for the day. No requests to be obligated for the day. Running without going anywhere, literally. Rollie after rollies of Golden Virginia on Swan filters and Ribena was not helping. Thinking about distractions by food is not making things any better. Every minute she spent on ridiculous American Soap and Reality Tv, she was not running, she was putting the escape on hold. Every puff she drags from the fag, she was pushing her luck with the escape.Somebody'd better pinch this bitch 'cos she isn't dreaming and it isn't amazing. The lightbulb just flickered. Úna Elfred had been much more creative with her getaways.

Nobody caught her except her. For now, she'd just wanted to be happy, although she strongly believe to not not being happy. Right now, Úna has Edward to lend her a hand for the next 2 mins 40 seconds as the vinyl spins under the needle and takes her on her 3191st escape.

Alvin and a dead—Mark.

Argh fuck, the phone. Fucking surveyors. At this time? It's well dark... What's the time now? Is it the weekend?

Her thoughts scrambled as she dragged herself out off bed and took three dreadful steps towards the lousy horn on the ledge of the window. The damn ringing volume cannot be adjusted. Staring at the horn for a split second did she realize no one was calling; at least not through that device. No one does anyway, except for the persistent telephone surveyors of whom one operator she was once being too polite to and hung on the line much longer than promised, of which ultimately overcooked her pasta. From then on, Ron Isi had decided never to pick it up, ever.

Just bear with the ringing.

If it was an urgent matter, she would have been contacted on her mobile phone instead. Then again, the signal in her studio is mostly low and she could not remember the last time she topped up the phone credits.

In the slight consciousness of her drowsiness, she turned around and took ten quick steps towards the other horn. It was the door buzzer that never failed to startle her every time and anytime of the day it went off. Ron felt her heart beats racing like the muzzled greyhounds after the mechanical rabbit on the dusty tracks and the piercing buzz overwhelming the cheering spectators as she picked up the receiver on the wall.

"Erh hyy dhere, ehy lyv yhn phlatt 17...ehy phorgord mah kehys...erh..khan eyw bahhz mey yhn?"

He explained on the other end of the line behind the damn door which happened to be next to her window, next to her bed. No, she thought to herself as she unlocked the door for the stranger, her neighbor.

Not the record player? No, I've not gotten one on Ebay yet. Oh well...

Ron murmured. Yet more baffled was what Nana said as they stood by the swimming pool, stunned as they gazed at the body of Mark's floating in the middle—very dead.

"Lets go for lunch now."

Nana commented like nothing was out of the ordinary, as if Mark was not her child, as if it was normal to find dead persons under the covers of your private pool.

I'd only wanted to go for a swim all that time. Why am I the one who'd found him—dead. What's up with the bundles of dollar bills hidden between the wooden planks? Who were the 2 persons who vanished before everyone else turned up? Her sticking her fingers in the holes of the pages of the book does not make any sense. Do I know her? I might have. This is as disastrous as me walking away from an arson and possibly attempted murder of an infant and a nanny. Then on a seemingly familiar street and lost for that couple of hours.

Ron could not take Mark off her mind despite all the other bizarre incidents. All purpled, his neck dislocated; not unlike a driftwood, except only unmoved. Should she have been thankful for the unexpected alarming buzzer that almost snapped her guts out of bed or off that lunch-after-dead-son-found-floating-in-your-pool situation; she was unsure.

I mean, lunch in the market could have been well satisfying, after countless days of craving for the steamed Hainanese chicken rice served with a bowl of pork and prawns dumpling soup. Yummy.

Right...now Mark's dead...

She pondered as she prepared coffee over the electric hob in her kitchenette.

He was my favorite of the two. For some time at least.

Alvin and Mark, they were almost but mostly not exactly their version of the Kray Brothers decades after and on the opposite side of the world. The late 80s/ early 90s were their heydays: owners of the very first generation of mobile phones (street-named Big Brother Big labelled one's status), Porsche 911, Lotus Esprit V8, Toyota MR2, bungalow by the beach (till the government couldn't stop reclaiming the tiny island and still), countless love affairs—they were the sons of a then rather rich man who later lost mostly everything in '97 to the economic crisis (or perhaps bad judgement in the stock market).

Mark was the younger of them two boys and youngest of the five children. Tall, tan and suave, he won the hearts of his love pursues and of his little niece, Ron Isi. She would sit on the steps admiring him as Aunt Ann adjusted the back tuck of his perfectly ironed shirt. The scent of his eau de cologne mixed with the traces of cigarettes he smoked, the polished black oxfords and gelled back hair. Ron had recognized these traits as of the perfect man.

Alvin was quite the opposite. Elder but much shorter and smaller in built, he was light-complexioned and slightly too skinny. As a child, Ron was fearful of this other uncle and she would not greet him like she did with Mark. He seemed to her as constantly being angry and the bickers with her Mahtr distanced her more. Nothing good came out of his rowdiness. His lovely but almost always upset wife was pregnant, drinking and smoking at the same time.

Patre would sit in the lounge, in the dark, in the middle of the day. I could hear the ice cubes shaken in the glass and I would see the cigarette smoke from behind the high-backed rattan roller chair. I didn't understand why she was suffocating my cousin. (Baby Cuz is 20 as of this summer and still kicking, that's alright.)

And all, he kept a baseball bat in all the cars he came to drive. Alvin was no baseball player type but sure was more of the road bully in the eyes of a little one at that time Ron was caught between the commotion on the road with the family. The 'after party' was at the police station but it was all alright too as there was a family friend as a lawyer in the district.

Wait. The night Alvin drunk drove himself home safely, he ran over Rosa (our beloved angsty Rottweiler Metzgerhund) while trying to reverse park his damn MR2. She cried like an infant and lost her hind leg after the accident With Thanks to Alvin.

It took quite many years for Ron to apprehend Alvin's loyalty, honor and protective instinct for his family and friends.

"Tell me where he lives and my brothers will whack him hard."

He assured his recently heartbroken niece. And if that was not enough,

"Which estate? It's okay, I'll burn down all the motorcycles parked in the area. Doesn't matter which."

He stood half-naked in his underpants, cigarette on his lips and a chain with too many Thai buddhist amulets on his boney chest as he vouched for her protection like a revengeful sworn brother in an italian mafia.

Alvin and Mark had the turn of their lives when their dad lost in stocks but that did not bring down them down for the brief period after. They grew up with silver spoons and sure were not ready to give up the glamourous lifestyle so easily and quickly. After all, Mark had a thousand or more guests invited previously for his wedding banquet at The Neptune, married a beautiful wife, drove a fancy blue Lotus that sticks out when parked in the not so fancy estate he went to 'work' daily—everyone (okay, not all but many) knew him. His ego was not to be challenged.

Day after day, he sat around the front of his dad's corner shop. A pack of Marlboro Reds on the shoulder under the tee shirt, bermuda shorts and a pair of flip flops. He sat there; silent, if like a worried bird.

I wondered what was on his mind.

Well, it seemed Mark had the perfect plan up his sleeve after days of sitting around when he demanded his share of his undead father's will. Empathetically they understood his desire to be successful on his own terms yet unsure of his disrespectful methods of acquiring his dreams. A spoiled child he always was, he got what he asked for. Mark went into setting up his car mechanical garage for couple of months—did not work out. Then he went into the snooker/arcade games/illegal underground casino business—did not work out, either.

Those days, I'd loved going through that discreet black-tinted glass door on the ground floor of a factory building into this other paradise of Puzzle Bobble and electronic pinball machines. Cold air-conditioned away from the tropical heat, the dim lights and stench of cigarette smoke, the sound effects from the slot machines and 8-ball stuck down the pool table—it was underground, it was what adults do, it was fun.

Ron recollected, as she took a drag from her morning fag.

It was part of the 5500 sq-ft that belonged to Grandpa's furniture showroom/ workshop. Goodness, I remember controlling my bladder just not to have to pass the dark, moldy and cobwebs infested hallway that led to the toilets out back.

For the couple of years that Mark left and lost touch with the family, he had divorced his wife whom they both share the love for a daughter who Ron had met her briefly when she was a few months old then the next time a few years later, of which Ron could not remember her face nor her name. Mark had went missing in action from the family as he spent some time in the remand prison for regular petty thefts and nights in the looney bin. In the last recent years, Ron saw him once in the blue moon on occasions she went home. Mark was no longer the same person Ron thought him to be as through the eyes of a child she once was. He lost his built, his tan cheeks pale and sunken like a junkie, his smile seldom and dissimilar, his droopy eyes—the state of despondency.

I wondered what was on his mind.

Ron thought as she sat across Mark on the dinner table, awkwardly just the two of them. Both were afraid or perhaps intentionally avoiding eye contact. No longer the man she idolized, she'd wished he was done with his meal so she could enjoy hers. She felt uneasy and did not know what to say as she watched him held the bowl to his lips and gobbled down the last bits of rice.

Had he felt uncomfortable too?

Those bad-mannered thoughts could not be controlled but Ron felt the bliss in Nana's heart each time Mark came by the flat. The family knew he was Nana's favorite and they saw how he broke her heart time and time again. It did not matter, he was out of trouble.

After breakfast, Ron had a Skype call with Mahtr, Darhdy, Nana and briefly with Alvin who said Hello then back to his cigarette, tv and gossips on the horn. They spoke of Mark and Ron could hear Nana's relief and content in her doubt as Mahtr told her how delightful Mark looked in his new job at the mall.

"Is that so?"