Here's the first release of my first short script I wrote almost 2 years ago...
Short Script: Winter Amcorp
It was nearing 9.30pm on a Thursday night on the 3rd of August 2006. I was on the train back home, and feeling nauseatic as I had not taken my dinner. I leaned back towards my seat as the train went past Amcorp Mall. The brightly lit building reminded me of Romford Mall in Essex and suddenly, everything seemed quiet. I could see people around me but not hear them. My mind started to wander off.
It brought me back to one winter’s night after work, a week before Christmas. It was real. Dressed in a suit and a warm scarf over my neck, it was all there was on a wintry night. Snow flakes floated down from the sky, dancing their way before smacking itself on the train’s glass panels. Looking out through the window panes, a blanket of snow was beginning to cover the vast greenlands surrounding Essex, and on the inside, children were obliviously humming Christmas carols, innocently free from any worries while their parents, were seemingly contented with their pre Christmas shopping chores. There were also some, just like myself, after a long and tiring day at work, trying to catch a glimpse of what transpired between the birth of morning to the end of the day while others, were just completely swamped with shopping bags. Why not? Christmas was just around the corner. I managed a smile momentarily and thought to myself, how nice. One lucky lad you are. Christmas was more of, I would say, the pinnacle of my mundane and monotonously grid life that I had. It has never failed to remind me of them days when Santa Clauses all had big fake bellies stuffed with pillows and fake cotton beards, walking the supermarket alleys distributing goodie bags to dreamers like me who wondered, was there ever a Santa Clause? Were they real? To me, I only remembered snow as white polystyrene beads strewn all over the floor or as far as they could imitate it, dropping them from the rooftop on Christmas Day at Super Kinta back in 1988. It had me believing for a good couple of years that all those snow shown on television, were fakes. Yet, it provided me with an impetus to inspire myself.
Christmas to me, was also of sentimental reasons. Melodically inclined, the first few lines were always going to be ‘Chestnutttttts, roasting on an open fire….’. It would get me into such a sentimental mood that I can just wander off into neverland. Solid teak wooden cabin by the lakeside, serenity, solitude and the calmness of the night, a pretty looking pine tree, bells and ornaments, lights, big red stockings hung above the fireplace, the sound of burning wood trickling and popping away as it turns to amber, hot chocolate, watching snow flakes choreographing their way through eternal time by the window panes, and the soft mood of candle light that makes the most immaculate of settings. It was after all, a dream.
“*interlude tune* Next Station… Gidea Park”, followed by the sound of a deafening whistle, ‘All for Gidea Park,… please alight train bound for Sussex’. I was awakened. It was my stop. I blurrily hurried my way towards the closing doors and as I alighted the train, a gust of wind greeted me as I hung on to my scarf. Unfurling the collars of my overcoat, I was trying to cover my neck as much as I could. With a bag on one hand, the other was buttoning up as fast as I could. It was freezing cold.
‘Darn… winter sure is early this year!...Gotta go get a few more jumpers this weekend!’.
I quickened my usual pace as I climbed the stairs towards the exit. I had to put my gloves on as my hands were getting numb. With an excruciating 1 more mile to my cozy crib (which didn’t seem to bother me during summer), I began trudging my way through the fresh pile of 4 ½ inch of thick snow. It was kinda misty at first but a thick fog started billowing which made the journey looked even more contemptuous and never ending. Passing a field and a lake along the way, a row of old cottage lamps lit up the street, only merely passing out as dimmed lights due to the thickening fog, which, reminded me of another thing; cobbled lanes and Alfred Hitchcock. Although not the most glamorous of times to be thinking of twilight zones, I felt a sense of governance. I prided myself on the nomenclature of dreams come true as I flashed a weak smile across my weary and pale face, evidently bashed by the relentless gust and the ever freezing chill.
As I walked past houses and even old English cottages, it was nice to see the spirit of Christmas underway. Brightly lit snowmans’ perched on rooftops (yes, its modern these days where you don’t need to build one, you just buy them off the hardware store for a couple of quid, and voila, a smiling and singing snowman without the carrots), strings of rainbow colored lighting hung across the porch, and yes, a decorated Christmas tree sitting perfectly in the house.
I walked on and thought to myself, although I couldn’t relate much to it in terms of my life’s maturity, it was nonetheless a beautiful experience to know that there is peace on earth, however immature and silly I could be at that very moment. There was just silence, not those eerie ones but calm and beautiful ones, just like those moments I dreamt and longed for in the past.
Before I knew it, I was at my front porch. Taking a peek from a distance through the window panes, I smiled as I looked at my beautiful 6ft Christmas tree. I took another two steps forward, I could see my kitchen, and there she was preparing dinner. There was a warm feeling, a general consensus that I too belonged to the community and neighborhood. Strange, I wasn’t feeling cold anymore although my feet were too numb to feel anything else. I turned to my right and left, and I couldn’t help thinking about what ifs… what if I had not taken that daring step forward? I stood momentarily for a good 1 minute. I tried my best to hold back the tears that started to trickle down my cheek, no, not of sadness and melancholy but of joy, pure ecstasy of knowing nothing comes easy. Scarification is to get anything of value. Nothing that has meaning is easy, and easy doesn’t really enter into a grown up’s life. Satisfaction lies not in the attainment but in the effort taken to build one up from scratch.
As I stood still pondering, Alan Ross jogged past me… “Raymond, its freezing out here man, are you ok?”
Stunned by the sudden burst of concern from the silence of the moment, I gravely smiled and acknowledged.
“Yeah… just catching some air, Alan. It’s been a long day.”
“Right.. .well, if you need anything, I am just two blocks from you. I’ve got just the right tonic for you at my bar”
…. “Sure thing Ross. Have a nice weekend… ta’….”
I took another step forward, and another, reached into my pocket to get my keys and as I tried slotting it into the keyhole, I hesitated for a while for many unknown reasons, unexplainable ones. I wished I knew what I was hesitating but I couldn’t figure it out. It was just one of those moments. Blank. Period. Before I could even continue, the door opened before me and there she was with an anxious but sweet smile. Her mesmerizing eyes took me deep into a surreal sub hibernation mode. Time stopped just right there. “Beautiful…!” I whispered to myself…. My heart skipped a beat. Five years on, it still does. “..Wonderful!”. It was as though I was transported through a warping zone where everywhere and everything just evolved around her. Vista et Bella.
“Hun (A nick she so fondly used to call me)… Hunn… you ok?....”
…… “Hello…” I was jolted.
Still blur, I soon begin to realize that it was in fact a rude awakening from my beautiful dream. I had taken a short but sweet nap through 5 stations.
“Encik, last station”.
Hesitantly but surely, I picked my bag up and left the train. I didn’t know whether to smile or be frustrated.
I was still looking for clues on grounds of defiance. ‘Kelana Jaya’, it read. I wished I had an account for denial but it became evident that it was history. Things have changed drastically from what I had before. I have lost everything I had… or did I? Whichever way it was, I wished that candid moment at the doorstep had stopped forever. I can still remember vividly that smile that took my breath away, acute yet simple, innocent yet enchanting, comprehensive yet pleasant. I wished I hadn’t complained about those darn wintry conditions or those long train rides which seemed to take forever especially during winter.
It’s still vivid in my memories. But life’s like that, and I shall carry these memories with me for as long as I live, and for as long as it can spur me on in life.
‘Sometimes, it is as near to you as your life, but you can never wholly know it.”
-Robindranath Togore
RayC – Memoirs of Life’s Little Things [050806]
