YOn A Seashell Couch
We tumble onto the plush red seats, all six of us. It is rare for us to actually have a free afternoon together, and once we have it, we do not know what to do with it. Adora and I order lunch, and I easily persuade Nic to share my ice cream. We sit, silent, because we have nothing in common anymore except the past.
"Say something," I nudge Nic.
"Hmpf!" she goes in her comical Nic way. "You know my rule."
"We're not eating now," I point out.
She nibbles on her pocky stick. "I am!" And even though it was stupid, everyone burst out in laughter.
We talked. It was strange, making conversation--a bit weird, and quite difficult, because we hadn't met together for about a year. But we managed, and once we started, it was comfortable once again. I talked to Tash about history S, Adora and I complained about Hwa Chong, we found out that Nat and Carina are a year ahead of us and are going to uni next year.
Tash observed that the couch we were on, a red semi-circle one, looked like the one in the Little Mermaid. I wondered what it was like for mussels to have shells and poked at the empty mussel shells on my plate. We then started discussing the possibility of mussels having brains and Carina and Nic told us they reproduce by shooting out both sperm and eggs in a cloudy mixture.
Gross.
We played with the olive oil and vinegar, pouring them in a small plastic cup to see what they would look like. It was like we were children again, fascinated by how oil, vinegar, chilli flakes, butter and cheese looked like all mixed together. "This looks like a chem experiment gone wrong"--Tash.
Strange, how we were each reluctant to say we had to go, and even when we had frantically scrambled out of the place once the waitresses started cleaning up our mess, we still lingered outside Cine, wondering what to do, refusing to part. We planned for our next get-together, listed down the activites to do: K-box (lame but fun), Sentosa (blading and beach). No shopping because Carina hates shopping (at the moment, so do I). We followed each other to Somerset MRT, not speaking much. Sometimes you can get so comfortable with people you run out of things to say.
When we finally parted and I walked to the bus stop alone, I looked back at the afternoon--this rainy dreary afternoon. For one delicious moment in time, we became sixteen again.
jac was here with you
12/22/2005 09:26:00 pm
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