Drowning: Part 4, with deliverance

"Aiyah, Simon. What time do you want to sleep till, huh? Even the laziest rooster has gotten up, crowed and neatly made his bed! How is your novel going anyway? Auntie May's nephew, ah Ping, said he knows a shipmate who likes to read ..." My mother's morning chatter had woken me from my recurring nightmare of the past. I quickly looked at my empty right hand, and realized that the kitchen knife, safely placed in my mother's front apron's large pocket, had been restored to its rightful owner, who was now sitting on the left side of my bed and checking my pulse again. I smirked at my pathetic failed attempt, my drunken wrecklessness, and good fortune.

"How many times I told you no cutting fruits in your bedroom, ah Simon? Bad business, bad business! Anyway... nevermind, I made chicken congee, it will warm your body in this freaking cold weather. You get ready, ah Simon." Instinctively, I hugged my mother gently from behind before she could escape; she sat still for a moment staring aimlessly ahead, an air of bodily warmth permeating from her sturdy back. Her hands smelt of freshly chopped garlic, ginger and parsley. She obviously knew more than what she perpetrated -- sensing without deliberately knowing -- and only Chinese proprietaries prevented her from opening the lid of knowledge. "Ah, congee is overboiling!" She embarrassingly broke free and sprinted to the kitchen.

It was already 11am, and the high noon sun, like a mischievous child, was melting pockets of snow collected on the Maple branches overnight, and dropping them onto unsuspecting passer-by pedestrians. On a rare warm Saturday, a larger than usual crowd had long ago awaken and now walked the streets in gaiety, feeling the embrace from the sun's exuberant rays, like getting reacquainted with a distant relative after many years. Neighboring children, wearing thinner outer garments than their mothers would warrant, were running and laughing innocently in a game of hide-and-seek. Life outside continued without skipping a beat. I nonchalantly switched on the radio and lied back down. To this day, I didn't know if the myterious man who rescured me from the sea was an angel sent from God, or just a fellow war refugee altering my fate despite his own desperation and dearth of karma. I did know that though my spine was irreparably broken, my life was mercifully spared. But to what end? My life was still filled with never ending humdrums and sense of despair compressed into a stuffy apartment, and thoughts of ending it all were still never far away.

The radio was playing The Byrds' hit song. "To everything turn, turn, turn ..." My miserable failure means my life is given another day, and a sunny, warm morning it is. My life continues to float submissively, destined to wherever the water stream flows, though every day I am alive, I know I ought to love dearly the ones that love me passionately and illogically. "... and a time for every purpose under heaven ..." Heaven, at moments like this, seems so inconceivably far away, yet so intimately close at the same time; perhaps a tangible, palpable God is not a God afterall. "... a time of war, a time of peace ..." If one lives long enough, there will surely be fortunes and misfortunes. And who is there to keep count? Past remains the past and never will be again, and the future, unpredictable and always bewildering, is always a day away. I have this very moment to live, and no more. "... a time to kill, a time to heal ..." What can one expect from oneself except to give his all at any given moment? To expect less, it is a sin, and to expect more, divine. "... a time to love, a time to hate ..."

"Simon! Are you waiting for an imperial rickshaw to carry you? The congee is getting cold." I smiled as I leaned and reached for my wheelchair. At that moment, her voice had already warmed my heart.