Station 10: Singapore

Opening the backdoor, I lead myself down a stairway. At the bottom floor is a medieval bookstore. All four walls are overgrown with books from floor to ceiling. In a corner, a table is surrounded by a bowl of fire featuring probably the bestsellers. Suddenly, a military sergeant comes out of nowhere and commands me to do push-ups on the spot.

The memory of a place I’ve never been to continues to linger in my mind and eats me. As I wake up again, the bedside table keeps a logbook of my dreams which I record. It’s eaten so much brain food that it’s about halfway full already. Ever since I gave birth to the book, it seemed like the repetitive visions only strengthened further. What if when you are dreaming of others, they are dreaming about seeing you too? Sometimes I don’t even remember my childhood but this I do. Using a pencil, I turn my mental note into a physical one. It’s a brief sentence but it can tell a thousand words nonetheless. As I lie awake in bed in the middle of the night, I promise myself that I will go back to sleep eventually. A few thoughts later, it’s time to wake up once more

Yumi is still sound asleep. Chase as well in the other room. Walking over, I see a human rucksack lying motionless in bed. It’s now seven in the morning. 

“Wake up Chase wake up.”

Without needing any help, he rises sluggishly and gets ready. His bread and full fat milk had already been prepared the night before. Yumi would never buy it from the supermarket. She hates it and can only take low fat. Since having both was never an option, she settled on her daily coffee.  Today, I decide to treat myself to matcha tea instead. The whipped cream is expiring tomorrow so I make 2 mini circles and a larger circle below them. With two faces, I keep one of them on the dining table and bring another into the bedroom to give to her to drink when she gets up. 

By the time I come out, Chase is already standing eagerly at the door with his backpack waiting for me. How time has passed so quickly that it’s been a generation since I went to school. For fun, I imagine what if all the adults from my class came back for a class. Just to relieve the moment and pretend we are stupid. Our form teacher has passed on but it doesn’t mean we cannot take instruction from a walking coffin. Everyone here goes to the same school anyway. I can easily call them back. I fish out the keys from my pocket and slide the door open.

Reminding him to be back by three, he logs himself onto his green bike. Making eye contact with me, he nods and turns left, setting off on a twenty minute ride to the school.

“Left already is it?” Yumi stands behind me in the living room, holding the matcha tea meant for me. 

“That’s mine actually.” 

“Well. Why not try some coffee?”

She takes the coffee mug in the shape of an oil barrel and forces it into my hand. She asks me what I want to do today and when I told her, she did not like my answer.

“Come on let’s do something. That’s why you took the off day no?” We were both taking the day off from our respective jobs. My boss was begging me incessantly to clear them even though I was fine with working extra. But they insisted on my wellness, and so I arranged them on the Fridays of the remaining weeks of the year. Energy comes and goes when it likes to. Drinking a cola is revitalizing. But excess makes me feel indifferent from before. The sugar retains its taste but loses its emotion in the process.

Something then lighted up inside of her about the nearby forest opposite town. “There’s an urban legend that deep within the forest is an abandoned cafe. And inside the fridge is a special matcha latte. If you drink it, you get one wish granted. You can wish for anything you want–a bigger house, travel anywhere, or perhaps a prettier wife.”

“I don’t need a prettier wife. I already have one.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Hello serious, I’m Tokimori nice to meet you.”

I love her enthusiasm but sometimes I can’t be asked to play games and so I make my own. Her eyes tell me everything as she gives me the look. In spite, she downs the entire cup of tea until setting it back on the table.

“It can’t be the first time you have heard about this.” She says. And indeed, it wasn’t the first time I heard about it. Hundreds of people go into the valley and come out not as a second person, but a one and a half version of themselves. I feel like she went here before but I can’t remember. She then tells me. “Well, I have a wish for you dear. By 9 am, I want you in your usual.”

Changing into my blue tee and beige track pants, it is as usual as it gets with me. Yumi changes as well into purple tucked into a grey bottom. We casually walk to the Whispering Grove until she stops me just before the entrance, “Toki before we go, there are some things we need to prepare. Like all castles, there’s a forest guardian protecting the cafe. I already have a list of things so just follow after me.” On the other side of the annotated map she brought is the mentioned list. “And whatever happens, keep an eye on the rail tracks.” 

Taking my silence as consent, we enter the mouth of the forest. Walls of trees line the sides as they merge above us to form a roof. “Here.” She points forward: On the ground, two parallel steel rails that are eroded by the soil elongate far and beyond. It probably hasn’t felt the warmth of a train in decades. Nonetheless, with only one way to go, we plowed through the dense air.

What do I want to wish for? As a human, it makes sense that I should have infinite wants. I can be famous, but everyone in town already knows my name. An existence that never ends sounds good on paper, but there is more for me in the afterlife I hope. Maybe last month, I could have asked to resolve my heart. But when I checked with the cardiologist, there was no need for any intervention. 

There is something maybe. Not a thing, but a place. I saw it once on a jigsaw puzzle at the museum. Somewhere across the ocean is a place. Sometimes it is there but other times it is not. Maybe that is the place in my dreams, the messed up dreams where everyone knows how to sing lyrics except me.

“When you get your wish, do you think you will be happy again?” Yumi asked. “Am I not happy?” “Hm, you could be happier. Also, we’re here at our first stop.” the rail tracks fade like a gradient into the ground before resurfacing a few feet ahead. The foundation of pebbles however remains. Going behind a tree, she grabs a tool and throws it at me. 

“There’s a chest around here.”

“How would you know that there’s a chest here?”

“Start digging. I know this better than you.” She gave me the same signature look that she had in the morning. 

Uncovering the rocks was easy. It is the soil beneath that is stubborn. Together we scraped the surfaces, leaving a pile of dirt behind us, growing to about the height of a few feet before finally my shovel made a clang. Rejuvenated with hope, I sped up and scooped out the sides, revealing a box the size of two dozen chocolates. Using the shovel as a pivot, she anchors the box up and into her hand. 

“These are the spectacles to see the forest guardian and its thoughts,” Yumi says

Opening the box, it appeared like any other ordinary pair of black circular glasses.

“Put it on.”

In that instant, I could see everything. The deepest valleys on top of the highest peaks are washed by different dimensions converging and diverging from one another. Planets stickered onto a record as it played an orchestra around the sun. Time was no longer counted but felt from by each beat of the heart. Building blocks that make up the universe are broken down piece by piece until it can be seen at its core. There’s a block for language, a block for love, a block for liberty. And then I could see it. At the heart of this ancient forest, resided a majestic brown bear, cloaked in a fur that is rich and dark for a king. On its head, it wore a crown of thorns and ferns. It calls the forest both its home and the wilderness. Its eyes are glowing orbs of amber. 

Yumi then took off my glasses with both hands and kept them back in their box in her bag as I asked what that was. “Connection. Come on, let’s keep going, we got more to find.” “Oh yes, and remember to drink up, it’s hot.” Her voice changes midway as she smiles at the last sentence. There are times when she turns into a different person. When I recall her memories, I feel encouraged. Does she still remember that time when we were seven when she lost her hat, and we looked for it together and found it in the bush? I want her to be safe and healthy. Let her write the life she wants with a cute bunny pen she will buy from a gift shop. On that pen, a little bunny will hold a leaf as an umbrella like how she would shelter herself from the sun. I make a promise to myself that I will bring her to the paradise as well. And Chase too. 

About half an hour later, we stumble into an old village within the forest. Hurdling over abandoned, collapsed towers, I saw shards of glass and remains of industrial foundations. “What happened to this place?” I asked. “It was left behind. People don’t like the taste of vegetables and rather eat Mac burgers.” “What are those? Oh, sorry you didn’t know, it’s a dish from before.” “Do you know if there are other towns here?” “Apparently there were. In fact, they were so big that they were called megacities. They spanned from one end of a country to another.” “But what happened to them? They got too ambitious. And a little too clever for their own good. Now they are gone.”

“I am asking this once more. How do you always know so much?” 

“My father used to tell me a lot. What things were like before I was born, and what his father told him, and the father before that, and so on. That’s how I found the place up above.”

The two of us continue walking alone in the forest, along the rusted, overgrown steel that was nailed to the decayed and softened wooden fibers. Blankets of moss layer over the tracks while roots clung beneath the metal. The rails wound around the hills that we diligently follow. Only when we ascended high enough, that I realize that we are the only major town in the area for a long distance. There is a trail of smoke stringing from the town’s main factory. 

At about a third of the way up the hill, we come across an old train carriage. The blue waves on either side are no longer vibrant, having been dampened by the earth’s marching of time. The door complains but still gives way as we find ourselves inside the relic of a time long ago. Through the remote specks of dust suspended by the sun, at the last seat is the hand grip of something stuffed inside the train.

“This is the sword that you will kill the forest guardian with.” 

Encircled by eroded coins and stains of blood, a sword that glints red, blue, silver, and gold stabs through the gap between the train seats. I try to pull it out but upon seeing me struggle, Yumi joins in to help by pushing from below as I pull from above. It’s rubbing against the internals of the chair but is not coming out. Now crouching on the chair, my cram up as I nudge it left and right. At the point where it was about halfway through, the sword finally slipped out entirely.

What happens afterwards is a burst of lightning that echoes outside the train window. As I look out, the sky temporarily goes ablaze and transforms into a celestial spectacle–an inferno of orange and pink as though the clouds have caught fire as little sparks scatter on the ground. I can feel my skin tingling as it gets paintbrush by the spiciness of the air before everything subsides back to normal.  It is like the earth had caught dementia and forgot that anything happened. Both of us got tensed up by its prominence. Yumi’s eyes are noticeably wider now and I can see through her that she too is worried. The grass standing just as erect beneath her. Now holding the sword, I believed that I could end the world with my very hand if I wanted to.  I remember getting a plastic colored sword for my birthday. Together with the neighbors, I would slash cardboard buildings and pin tiny insects to their innocent deaths. I have since lost the sword and haven’t touched one until now. 

It was then that we reached a cavity in the mountain. As if by prophecy, a secondary rail detoured inside a cave. “Lastly, for one to drink he needs to drink something else in return. There’s a pond inside. That’s the drink that will give you the energy to strike through the forest guardian.”

I told her I can venture in alone while she waits outside. The flashlight I brought just in case rising up to the occasion as it barrel rolls around the rocky confines for signs of a body of water. Physically I'm walking but mentally I was in a different world already. I imagine what the mirage looks like. It could be a giant cruise ship in the shape of a turtle swimming between countries. That could be why sometimes I see it, sometimes I don’t. Inside that turtle, little floating homes will be bridged together with wooden boardwalks. Or there’s a button which I can press anytime to get anything I want that makes me happy. That doesn’t make sense though. I can just ask for a button instead of the island. But this is for Yumi and Chase too. It has to be the mirage I wish for. 

By the time I found the pond, it was completely pitch black with the exception of the flashlight. It was crystal clear as far as its shallow bottom allowed it to. In front, there is a stone table with a round cup also made of stone. Confirming my surroundings first, I went and scoop up the now sparkling water. 

Bringing the cup close to my lips, I try not to think about it and down everything in one shot. Something cool and herbal rides gently down my throat. Without warning, an irritation pierces my eyes and so I squat down. Eyes closed and covered, I begin to shiver in the cold darkness. I don’t know when it started. With my eyes still closed, my eyelids turn into a movie screen as ripples of dark blue and yellow begin to play as my eyes get front row seats. Even weirder, the experience becomes 4D as a warmth envelops my head, purifying me from the feeling of toxins and evil temptations. I surrender myself to the feeling completely.

When it all stopped, I opened my eyes again. I exercise my arms and they feel the same(so are my legs and my eyes which I rollercoaster from the roof of the cave to the floor and back.) It’s impossible to measure, but I believe it to be true. 

Coming out of the cave, Yumi is standing exactly where she was when I entered. “You look different toki.” She said. “If you say so.”

It’s now about half past one and Chase would be on his lunch break. My phone has lost connection ever since we entered the forests. 

“You know Yumi, when you see enough things, you don't have a choice but to believe it, regardless of how surreal it is. If the sky changes to green. and everyone says it's green, it is green. Simple as that. Anyone who believed it was blue would be a fool.”

Holding my head in her hands, she looks directly into my eyes. “Now you see it. You accepted magic. Don't question it. Believe in it. Come on, the cafe is just up ahead.”

The world didn't change. I may never know what I'm talking about, nor whether what I am saying is true. But in Yumi's pocket, there was an abstract key, a key that turns the lock of the universe. Nearing the summit, we reached a chokepoint. We decide left and there it was. As sunlight filtered through the canopy of emerald leaves and bronze branches of adjacent trees, the exclusive cafe is hidden beneath the moss and secluded from wanderers who have never heard of it. A wooden sign written with the cafe’s name hangs from the entrance of the broken door. An archway stood at the entrance. There is a promise of a story untold and mysteries to be unveiled.

Yumi tells me to watch out when suddenly I hear a shriek and I see her curling into a fetal position while clutching onto her bitten ankle. Glasses on and sword still in hand, the fearsome beast is standing here with me now. Beneath the deep brown fur is an aura of terror and confidence.  A faint glow emanates around its outline to prove to others its mythical identity. It must have not attacked me yet because it can see I am armed. It stands no further than a stone’s throw from me. 

Initiating the fight, I arch my arm back and lunge towards the bear. It throws itself forward as well. In comparison to the scratch it managed on my T-shirt, my blade piledrives with pinpoint precision straight into the right side of its neck. The effects of the drink giving my body a life of its own. 

It tries again but once more but I anticipate the moves and block it with the sword. 

We continue to squabble for a while with the bear making little progress. Awkwardly realizing it couldn’t take me on, it begins to retreat and runs as I start to chase after it. If it wants to go down, I’ll make sure I bring it down as far as possible. From the cafe to the chokepoint, we dart across the other intersection of rail tracks on the alternative path as Yumi goes to lie down near the cafe. I use my free hand to pat the air, assuring her that I will come back. 

For a forest guardian, I am largely taken aback by its fear of me.  I was expecting a final countdown to the greatest battle of all time, instead the bear did some homework and calculated a losing battle. I thought I lost it but through the trees it is recovering a few branches ahead, at the entrance is presumably the bearhouse. Alertly pacing my steps, I circle around him so that I’m facing it’s back. It’s body inflating and deflating in rapid succession. I try to negotiate with myself that what I’m doing is not evil but a trade to transport its life in exchange for transporting mine as well. It is an order from the commander stationed in my heart’s headquarters, and I am a good soldier following his orders. I take my trembling free hand and combine it together with my other hand to hold the sword. 

I think of the broken Yumi, the promise of entering the mirage, the magic button, all that I can anger upon and channel into my right arm as I plunge the sword onto the brown lump before me, injecting pills of sorrow that will hypnotize the bear onto a train that is going out of control, going faster and faster until it crashes. 

And then it was gone. With the bear’s presence out of the way, it exposes the entrance into the bear house, and inside was a golden tabby cat resting on its cat bed. 

“Welcome. The cat said.”

“Hello,” I reply back, accepting the fact that animals can say anything they want now with surprising ease. It’s just the two of us. A man and a cat, in a life-size pet house, facing each other from opposite ends.

“What are you doing here today?”

“ My wife told me there is a magical cafe with a drink that grants me any wish. I thought she was joking but after coming here it turns out that might be true.” 

“There’s no need for you to go to the cafe. You can just ask me.” The cat says.

“Are you the one that makes the drinks?” 

“Yes,”

I don’t know how to frame it but I try to pitch the mirage with all the thoughts and theories I have. I was about to mention Yumi and Chase when he cuts me halfway. “Are you really sure you want to enter this paradise?” I ask him if there is a contract or condition with the wish. He explains to me that it is not that.

“For many years, people have been given the opportunity to choose their destiny and the destiny of the world. We call this the New World. Each age of time gave birth to new technologies as life tried to imitate art as well as it could. Their lives couldn’t have been any better. And that was the problem. There was nothing left to wish for. Children got bored of old toys and tried new fancy gadgets. The world was their amusement park, and when they finally finished all their rides, they’d leave and a new world would takeover. Usually, this takes the form of a global cataclysm like a super tsunami or super volcano. There was even one time we turned the earth into a giant snowball. Think of it as a ‘reset’ button. And every time was always the same story. Every mother, every couple, every world leader, every star spun the globe faster than it was meant to go. So we changed things up and left three things on earth: faith, hope, and love.”

“Does that make you a god?” I ask the cat. 

“Is it important whether I’m a god or not?” 

“So kitty, all those dreams were…

 

…

 

…”

 

I ran out of words to describe so the cat picked up where I left off. “Yes, what you saw in your dreams are the other worlds that age before you. Each city, person, and superpower, they were fiction turned reality. 

I hold my breath and release the weight of knowledge bearing down on me. “Who would’ve thought that behind everything was a humble kitty settled in its humble abode in the middle of a forest?” I tell the cat. “That’s true. But I don’t see myself as a legendary creature, just your friendly feline neighbor.”

“I see. And I still have to make a wish do I?”

“You don’t necessarily need to say it out loud, I’m a kitty god remember? I can read your mind perfectly and see the paradise you want. Also, you don’t need to wish for a paradise, it can be anything you want. Becoming a demi-god is just the most popular one, in the past I mean. Or if you’re perfectly fine, there’s no need for a wish at all. Many people have come up here and chose not to wish for anything.”

“So you’re saying the wish was to have no wish?”

“Yes, the solution was no solution. Kind of like a null set.”

“Well, I do have one wish.”

“Are you really sure you want to wish for that?”

“Yeah.”

“What if something happens?”

“It is what it is”

“Confirm plus chop?”

“Sorry, what?”

“My bad, It’s a phrase I picked up long ago. So you’re certain that this is what you want to wish for? Once I grant it, there’s no second chances.” The cat says. 

Without saying it, I confirm it in my mind and the cat sees it too. “Excellent choice. Coincidentally or not, the person before you thought of exactly the same wish too. I think it’s time for you to go back, the sun is about to set anytime now.”

“Can I always come back here?”

“My pleasure. Just return the sword and glasses back where you found them.” I sure will.

With that, I waved goodbye to the cat and returned to the other train track where Yumi was now sitting on a wooden log in front of the cafe. 

“Hey! Did you manage to kill the bear?”

I completely forgot about the bear. But I’m sure the cat took care of that, and so for the sake of convenience I said yes. “Great. Why don’t we head into the cafe and get the drink?” “There’s no need for that, I already got my wish granted.” 

“Oh, you met the cat already?” 

“How did you know I met a cat?”

“My dad brought me here last time.”

“Did he kill a bear last time as well?” 

“I wouldn't know what the forest guardian looked like. Only the one wearing the glasses can see it.”

“But I did manage to get my wish granted.”

I tried to ask her what did she wish for. “That’s a secret you’ll have to wait for.”

“So Tokimori, what did you wish for?”

“That’s for you to decide.”

 

END