|| (being forcefully productive) ||

|| (being forcefully productive) ||

The afternoon was an alien one. That afternoon, familiar Queen Street distanced itself from me. Or rather, I had decided to ignore everyone else - the laughing passerbys, the persistent hawkers with an evasive smile; the awkward friends with a deathly frown. My eyes would rave everywhere while my mouth was dry from disuse. I evoided perfectly with headphones blasting music loud enough to seep into ears a meter away. Thankfully, it was neither raining nor windy; perfect weather for an outing, yet isolation was a blanket, draping over my shoulders, hopefully to make me invisible.

Aphasia.

The hassle of talk was gone. Or rather, forcibly bereft. Inconvenience perked up frequently, but being alone, staying alone for once was a reprieve from bothersome interaction. The doctor had insisted it was temporary, asserted that it had come and would go. He was such a liar.

Two days before, my family had been shocked silly when I said,

“The documented breakfasting rakes in of dog and scripting outside licking animals.”

Well, they had thought it funny at first. Thought I was giving them a laugh. The peculiarity was that I had not noticed the irregularity. Perhaps it had been just how casually it had slipped out of my lips. As the entertainer of the family I was always received with a hearty round of mirth. A few more minutes went past with silence; I was the only talker, usually.

But after those rounds died out, concerned faces finally emerged above plates and bowls. Urgency burst out, expressed by action, and words I had understood yesterday were thrown at my face as a din of gibberish. I heard, listened, but could not comprehend.

The next day had been hospital, doctor and family.

And now, attempting to frustratingly indicate that I could not speak while buying a bus ticket, I realized how bad an idea it was. Whipping out pen and paper, ink flowed fluid on white to make a hotchpotch sentence with glaring errors in grammar. A wordless scream later, I make an apologetic face and escape hurriedly; I could not understand what he was saying anyway. Possibly he had been asking for identification.

It was being deaf, mute and illiterate at once.

It was so shoved into my face at that moment that some people suffered this illness permanently. The doctor could not explain why I had it – magic, was one of the many not amusing jokes he had cracked. Of course, any effort at conversation with me failed at that time, so I had to hear it second hand later on. Magic. What hare-brained professional opinion.

Lyrics in my music had become a foreign language. Songs I enjoyed on a daily basis retained their melody, but meaning fled, words entering in one ear, exiting out the other. A part of my mind was absentmindedly appreciating the new experience, and another quivering, appalled that it could be like this for the rest of my life. Sitting there on a bench, chewing on cookies, confusedly entertaining every possibility, that was me.

My train of thought hopped along to what else I had taken for granted, all this time. Whole limbs… Hands, eyes, sound mind, healthy body. Well, perhaps not so healthy at the moment. And then the ultimate optimistic thought – it could have been worse. I could have been blind as well. Consoling myself from self-pity would be the description. I ended up feeling worse off; remembering now I should have continued to wallow in it, persuade myself that it was not a fancy of the moment and was a valid, life-changing determination on the cusp of life. Given the circumstances, it truly could have been so.

Not this cynical, procrastinating cesspool of negativity of a human being I am now, but rather a changed man even simply by inversion of those traits. And possibly God-fearing and pious as most Asians of the hard-working ilk are. I was, and am not one of them. Perhaps it was simply that prospect - an irrational urge of refusal to worship God – that deterred further reflection of my carefree life like a sob.

I had however, learned one defining lesson. This incident concreted all the cliché quotations that prattled on about enjoying the shortness of life in my head. Yet of course, my head was not thrown up to the clouds by this experience, so it simply dictated henceforth to do what was necessary to make your life enjoyable.