There is an expression with the
misnomer ‘Chinese Curse’ which goes, “May you live in interesting times.” Coined
in the West, there is nothing ancient nor Chinese about the expression. Also,
one may fail to see how this could be a curse… unless one really thinks about
it.
************
He gazed out of the windshield,
bored, impatient. He realised that sometimes he just hated this city, its
inherent disorder, unruly traffic, jaywalking pedestrians, gaudy signboards,
artless shops. The roads looked more brown than black. The hot summer implied
profuse sweating and the odious humidity made the sweat stick. He rolled his
eyes and gazed without seeing. The stereo played faithfully another song, even
though he had stopped listening long time ago, he probably did not even remember turning it on.
The street hawker, selling items
which varied from children’s clothes to kitchen utensils raised his voice yet
again from his illegal vantage point on the curb, adding to the crass cacophony
of passing vehicles. Why does he keep doing that, he wondered, eyebrows
furrowed. A man should know when to give up, he thought, surely all his screams
were doing was to drive away his already dwindling prospective customers. He
rolled his eyes again and looked away and sighed.
He felt the vibration of his
cellphone in his pants pocket before it started playing its tone. He took it
out with slight difficulty, not wanting to leave the cool interior of the car.
The high definition display showed him an email from his office; briefs for
his business trip to Austria the day after tomorrow. He skimmed through the
contents, dimmed the screen and placed the cellphone on the dashboard. The same
time next day, he would be aboard a red-eye flight.
He certainly lived in interesting
times, he sighed. He rubbed his tired eyes, wishing for nothing more than a
couple of hours sleep that night. Outside, he saw his wife still in queue
outside the ATM. As though she felt his eyes on her, she turned around and
smiled, slightly pouting her lip. It was her way of looking apologetic; in
spite of himself he smiled, shaking his head. She raised two fingers, for
two minutes, but he knew it would take more than that. He found himself
relieved that her smile still had the same effect on him which it did the first
time they met.
Outside the sky was starting to
show the stars now. He recognised the three stars in a straight line – Orion’s
belt. Orion – the only constellation he could recognise, the sole reason being
the belt. Why were people so desperate to attribute meaning to chaos, he
wondered, they were just random dots in the sky, for God’s sake. People just had to group them into bears and koalas and guys with axes. People want to see
patterns in pandemonium, coherence where there is none, he mused.
He was shaken out of his reverie
by emphatic rapping on the car window. A bald haggard man was rapidly knocking
the driver’s side window while holding a bunch on lottery tickets flat on it.
He waved his hands at the man, the universal sign of disinterest. But the man
seemed to not grasp the meaning, or he was feigning misunderstanding. Darting
over to the passenger-side window with surprising agility, the lottery-guy
thrust the tickets, this time closer to his face. He shook his head once again
and looked away until the man took the hint and shuffled on.
He saw his wife was inside the
ATM and thanked his stars. She’d be back in a minute. Then he heard a sharp
call and looked at the street hawker again, irritated. To his surprise, he saw
him beckoning the lottery-guy. The street hawker take the sheaf of lucky-draw
coupons from the bald man. An involuntary snort of condescension escaped him as
he saw the hawker choose a ticket, obviously after careful perusal of the
numbers printed on the coupons. As if the randomness of the numbers would tell him which to
choose so he could be an overnight millionaire.
He smiled as he remembered the
last time he believed in luck. It was time, he mused, hardly a decade ago when
he believed in shooting stars and four-leaf clovers. A time when world was a
simpler place.
******************
“Third time is a charm. Maybe
she’ll say yes,” scoffed his friend.
He immediately rapped the wooden
door thrice and growled, “Don’t jinx it.”
He chose his lucky shirt for the
day, he had wished upon a shooting star the day before. But he did not want to
tempt fate. He had tried asking her out twice, but she had politely declined
both times. But her friendly manner did not let him lose hope. Crossing his
fingers, he went and asked. She agreed for a date.
“Just one, then we’ll see,” she
was very specific.
********************
“See that one, that is called
Orion,” he told her.
“Oh, really!” she said, “My kid
cousin knows that one. You’ll have to do better than that.”
“Ok, that one is called Mjolnir,”
he made a name up from a comics he read. ” See it resembles a hammer? Thor’s
hammer, actually.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that one,” she
laughed.
She knew. And he knew that she
knew.
***********************
“I love this metro,” he said,
“This is the happening place.”
“Mhmm,” she murmured.
They had just moved there the day
before from their town. He had landed a top corporate job and was sent there.
He was given a flat in the sweet spot of the city and a company car as well.
The job had been his dream since the time he could come up with rational
dreams. He felt as if he had reached where he had always wanted to be.
“You don’t like it here?”
“As long as you’re here, I’m ok
with anywhere,” she said.
**********************
He could not believe that it was
possible to miss someone the way he missed her. He had hugged her goodbye less than an
hour ago at the airport. Now, sitting in the business class, looking outside at
the night sky, he wished he could have stayed a day longer. He had been
back for only two weeks this time. Next time, it would be even shorter, he
knew. He was a globetrotter, his passport filled with myriad stamps. He was
meant to be one, he told himself, always wanted to be one.
“Is it all worth it?” he thought.
Of course it is, he chided himself. “This was my dream, remember?” he reminded
himself. The realisation that he had used “was” bothered him only a little bit.
***********************
Some say there is another part to
the Chinese curse and it goes, “May you find what you’re looking for.” One may
fail to see how this could be a curse… unless one really thinks about it.
*************************
I complicate myself with all the things I wish I no longer understood.
I complicate myself with all the choices that I did not make, all the lives
that I did not lead.
