In and out of time

Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and remember it is a Wednesday and between brushing my teeth, I think about what I did last Wednesday or the Wednesday before that. I remember that last Sunday I watched a play or last Monday I was out having dinner and there is an inevitable juxtaposition that goes on. I have a habit of placing days alongside their past selves. During this period of late nights, early mornings, waking from the guilt of a twelve-hour sleep, I am thinking of the same period last year and all that comes to my mind is a woman I met, shook hands with, and have completely forgotten until now.

I think she was twenty-eight or thirty-one and I was eighteen. She was on the brink of going to jail and it offered me a change from my stamp licking, book binding days. I have to remind myself to subdue the excitement that arises from visiting her in Changi’s Women Prison or the flurry that takes place inside me when I took my place beside her lawyer in court. There is an unabashed happiness that lies unconcealed in my note-taking, the happiness that arises from first experiences, first times. I am thinking of her now because one year has passed and that translates to one more year left for her to serve. When she went to court that day, she had glasses on because her lawyer told her to look remorseful and to colour her hair black. But all that does not really matter to me, I am only realizing that one year has passed, in the snap of hair growing longer, I am again comprehending that time is fast.

It is not enough to say time flies because time is a concept I cannot understand. When I peel parking coupons, the first option stumbles me already-should I jab 07 off or is it 06 now and is 07 actually next year? It is strange to be alarmed by the days running by because so many Christmases, New Years, end of school terms have passed, one should get used to it by now. But time is a scary idea altogether because it allows me to compare with the past times and the awareness of how things have changed or have remained renders a bite of the lower lip.