Allison's Archives

It is the height of June and there is a dead bug on my table, just shy of my notebook stack—five Leuchtturms, one Moleskine. The bug is on its feet, as if it could flutter back to life any second. Its lack of movement is the only indicator that its time has passed. I wonder if the same maxim extends itself to us; could one stand completely still, enduring the passage of father time, and still call oneself ‘living’? The answer lies not within me—the older I grow, the more I do not know. I do everything and am nothing(; when I was younger, I did nothing and was everything). 

I haven’t known regret since last June and it’s because I talk to my younger self more often. It’s also because I started being more afraid of death. Recently, I’ve come to cut onions with the claw grip method to avoid death. That’s the method where you curl the fingertips of your non-cutting hand inward and have your knuckles lead the edge, facing the knife. I used to defy many’s advice—I make a really good art out of exuding ignorance when I am taught methods to evade death—by holding my onion by my bare fingertips, claiming stability as an excuse. But what use is stability if mortality stares over your shoulder? 

There wasn’t a sudden experience that had prompted this fear of death in me—it’s always been there—I just bring it to the forefront of my mind more frequently nowadays. I think it’s because I have more to lose. I think that is because I have come to better recognize the things and people that are non-negotiable, that I want to keep in life. I refuse to take anything for granted anymore, even the brief breeze on a warm day. I hold every strand of every day tightly and examine it over and over until they form a childish braid; my train of thought running on circular tracks. I don’t want to die without telling my body.

I inhale and the toothpaste nearly goes down my throat. My skin has finally gotten used to the products on my sink. I switch off the big light without looking. I toss and turn a handful in my sleep like I’m wrestling some unseen force but he doesn’t mind. He sleeps on his back and I sleep on my side. The wind rushes in from the open window to run itself through his hair. A melody goes through the back of my skull, whoosh like a steam train, and I try to catch it thinking it’ll make a good song. I haven’t written a song in two years now. I’ve been maimed by the melody and left for the word hounds to feast on.

Outside, the wind smells faintly of an ice cream truck and the inflatable pool at my grandmother’s house twenty or so years ago. I think the sun was bigger then, though not necessarily hotter. I think my mother’s arms were wider then. I think my brother was happier then. I think my words were simpler but held more meaning then. But a thought isn’t a truth and the truth isn’t always objective—it is simply the majority narrative.

My girls and I picnic in the sun by the water. We toss crumbs to pigeons and talk about the books that we’re reading and the songs that we’re listening to. We talk about art while being the definition of art. Children scream from the nearby playground and we intuitively cast judgmental looks as if we won’t have a small being calling each other ‘aunty’ in two decades’ time. We talk at length about Paris and cities beyond while picking up something from the makeshift charcuterie board in the middle. I should like to grow old with them—bottomless brunch at sixty.

The grocery store checkout line is long because some people struggle with the self checkout machines and I miss the feeling of having coins and notes at the bottom of my bag. Nothing is tangible anymore these days; nothing is really ours to hold onto. Is that why we have gone back to vinyls and Polaroid cameras, so we can hold onto a piece of creation? I wish I could hold my words in my hands when I can’t hold yours; I think they will feel like running water from my home island. Outside the grocery store, a homeless man asks me for change and I have to smile perfunctorily and hang my head in shame.

In museums, people walk past the art so quickly, taking a photo of each without reading the description or listening to the audio guide in its entirety. They will not be looking at their photos when they return home; even if they do, it will not invoke the same feeling as being there physically. The artist is speaking to you through the frame, not your screen. It pained me to see a Co-op receipt framed as art in Tate Modern. It’s not that I don’t agree that it’s art; I just couldn’t make sense of it and the thought of that terrified me. Sometimes, I imagine myself to be very far removed from the arts I claim as my birthright. 

I sit in the optometrist’s chair and he pushes the autorefractor towards me, asking me to lean my forehead into and place my chin on the plastic pieces. I wait impatiently for the little house on the hill to appear in one of my eyes. It looks nothing like my hometown yet reminds me of the warmth of home. Like if I made my way onto the hill and softly pushed open the door, there would be porridge on the table against the hum of a radio. My old building blocks will be scattered all around the living room and there will be magnetic alphabets on the refrigerator. My parents will be young again. The optometrist tells me that there has been no change to my eyesight. 

I sit on the edge of my bed just to be closer to the fan. June is as kind to me as a knife can be. Sometimes, when I think about how much I have offered up to get to where I am today, how quickly I outran the girl who wanted to arrange magnetic alphabets on the refrigerator for just a while longer, I think that there are worse things than death like choking on toothpaste, not appreciating the art in front of you, not finding home in small pockets of your day, and never coming across the smells of your younger days. I think they’re right in saying that only death and taxes are certain.

In the kitchen, a bug lands on the backsplash. I wave it away and watch it attempt to fly out of the window. It will no sooner be consumed by a bigger bug. I return to the cutting board and curve my fingers over the onion. June will soon be gone.