by Aqilah Teo
The daily stampeding along that trail had left the grass no room to grow. Interestingly enough, everyone had stomped down the same route, so the rest of the grass patch remained green. Only that thin sandy trail stood out, stark against the verdure. (Sure enough, just a few months after, construction began on a flight of stairs right where the trail had been.)
With my brother marching alongside me, I took a picture of this little void deck under a block of flats made to resemble a greenhouse. I had always been fond of it. I also took a picture of the afternoon sun. The white rays set themselves in pink in the photo taken by that old camera.
We had done something so simple, yet I was happy, and Jan was happy.
That was our first “sunwalk”, as I like to call it. It was the first of many to come.
The 3rd Step
On our regular capers, Jan and I would walk far and wide, for hours and hours, with a large bottle of water. If there happened to be a few coins to spare, it was custom for me to buy him a souvenir for the day – a can of soft drink or a small bun to bring home. On days when our personal economy permitted it, I would treat him to a supper or dinner of his favourite foods. Then, as often as possible, we tried to look out for double-decker buses to ride home on. Jan loves to sit in the frontmost seat of the upper deck.
And so the sunwalks continued. We tread along beaches and on the banks of rivers, the sunlight making the water sparkle like diamonds. We conquered hills, and from their heights saw the ships and cranes at the ports, and the distant islands looking like gargantuan green beasts curled up on the water.
We walked around ponds and along the beach. We got baked under the sun and soaked in the rain, climbed up stairs and walls, explored footpaths and deserted nooks and crannies. We traipsed through flower gardens and sought hilltop views, catching hidden glimpses of the sea through secret apertures in the trees. We got ourselves hungry, thirsty, lost, happy.
Jan and I often climbed the pagodas in the Chinese Gardens, and my brother would watch the clouds sail from the highest one. Once, we narrowly avoided a confrontation with a furious monitor lizard which was going amok, thrashing its legs and tail and trying to make for us.
On one of our evening visits to the Botanic Gardens, I brought Jan to see the symphony stage, empty and alight in the pitch-black night. It was as though preparations were being made for a most wonderfully secret concert. Jan liked it when I showed it to him and told him a story about stages.
Once, we walked a little further out Marina South Park than we were supposed to, and ended up right under the Pan-Island Expressway. From where we stood, we could see the river streaming by the bridge supports and some old junk abandoned on the sand under one side of the bridge.
Before us was a wild deserted stretch of grass and lallang, across the river from the Esplanade, and we traversed that to the other end where we could see the port and cranes across the sea. It was a cloudy day and the Esplanade, grey and sombre, looked as if it was sleeping.
One night on our way home, my brother and I even saw a paraselene, or moondog, in the sky. I was once told by a friend who had taken astronomy classes that we are not able to see the North Star from where we are on the globe. What I learned that night was that we might not be able to see Polaris from Singapore, but our night skies do have their gems. The pearly lunar halo was beautiful.
Another thing Jan and I often did was to chase sunsets. I would do my research on the internet, then we would go and scout for the best and strangest perches to view sunsets from. My brother and I would hike to the most desolate spots, and I would use my compass to find out which direction we should face.
We would see the traditional egg-yolk sunsets. Then there were times the sun would hide behind clouds, setting the sky ablaze with kaleidoscopic colours. Streams of orange, gold, blue, violet and grey would waltz across the sky.
The pre-sunsets I loved best, which Jan and I would view through sunglasses, were the coppery golden ones with small cloud clusters in their way, their outlines spectacularly illumined. The rays would, at times, shine through the clouds, making them look like a wrap of cotton wool trying in vain to conceal a hoard of the brightest pirate treasures.
I suppose every cloud has more than just a silver lining.
Sunset views over water can be quite wondrous things to behold. I honestly would never have thought I should have been able to see the likes of it here.
One sunset Jan and I caught at Bedok Reservoir made the water look as if Midas had been swimming in it. The clouds were a glossy cream that had been smeared across the amber sky, like a vast expanse of mother-of-pearl. The few people who had been milling around the park stopped what they were doing and gazed upwards as well, as though we were all in one giant amphitheatre.
The 4th Step
My brother and I once witnessed what I called an “etching of embers in the sky” at Punggol Beach.
It was right after a storm. The sky was a dense quilt of textured blue-grey cloth. Out of nowhere, thin red-lined letters slowly began to appear in the thick grey clouds, as though they were being inscribed with a giant flaming quill. The hidden fiery sunset continued etching them out over twenty minutes or so. They were certainly not any letters from the Roman alphabet, but they spoke their own beautiful language.
Another day, at about four in the afternoon, we saw a green, blue and purple oyster in the eastern skies of Singapore. It had been suspended in a bright clear sky; a sphere-like mass of blue-tinted white, nestled in a bed of odd pearly colours. I looked up and instantly thought to myself, “That looks like a green, blue and purple oyster.”
As time passed, I became more aware of the shifting of the clouds whenever I was outdoors. I am no meteorologist but I became competently able to predict the sort of sunset heralded by the afternoon sky.
On our sunwalks, Jan and I read mysteries in the sand and dirt, wondered at dark trees, stood on empty beaches. We listened to the wind sing and howl the coming of thunderstorms, watched massive aerial armies of clouds steadily advancing towards us. I remember once as a storm approached and dark clouds raced to cover the sunset, the sky was seared in two, part gold, part stormy silver.
The 5th Step
I would bring Jan on boat rides to and from islands. He loves boats and ferries, and is lark-happy riding them through sea winds and churning, foaming waters.
We would gallivant atop islands and gaze at neighbouring ones from afar. We saw a giant on one occasion. Clouds had emerged from between two islands across the sea from where we were, a dense entity of fog and smoke, rising slowly to stand between them.
The 6th Step
The first time I brought my brother for a boat ride was on one to Pulau Ubin. It was a dark and glummy day. There were chinks and cracks in the clouds through which rays of pale orange light speared the earth and sea.
Looking back, I probably should have had better planned the outing, but these sunwalks of ours were always spontaneous affairs. The best bit of preparation I had, besides packing our umbrellas, was bringing along an old and outdated map.
It was the first time Jan had been on a bumboat; he was delighted and kept his eyes on the horizon as we sped towards the cluster of islands.
Of course, upon reaching the island we soon got lost. I knew we could simply follow the perimeter of the island back to the jetty, but we did not want to go back. My brother was not yet ready to call it a day and the sunwalk was not over. We are two stubborn siblings.
But our sunwalk was soon no longer one, as it began to rain. The wind blew a tempest, a thunderstorm descended and we ran for the nearest shelter. It was a creaky thing somebody had hewn from planks and pieces of zinc. Our umbrella would have done us no good against the rain, the wind made sure of that, and so we had to stay put where we were.
As I tried to shake as much water off our belongings as possible, Jan sat on a small, worn wooden bench. My brother watched the relentless rain, deep in thought, and listened to the raindrops beating against the gro
und and the whistling of the wind. He was more engaged by this performance Nature was putting on, than he had ever been by cartoons on television.
When the rain let up, we stepped out of the shelter to damp cool air and soggy earth and gravel under our shoes. The sky remained overcast; clouds were still hovering overhead. They seemed to be biding their time.
Then we heard a hair-raising sound of wild barking. I soon spotted some massive black dogs in the distance. They were roaming about some trees near a man-made cliff constructed of junk and concrete near the edge of the water. I assumed they had an owner; a couple were leashed to a tree. A few of their mates, however, seemed to be strays. None of them seemed very happy with our presence.
A couple of the feral beasts, still snarling, began to trot towards us. I was not sure what I was supposed to do. It is said that when you are confronted with a dog, running is the most unwise thing to do. (I am, in general, not frightened of dogs. Though if the dogs in question happen to be big, sinewy and hostile creatures, I might be excused for not wanting to frolic with them.)
The last thing I wanted was to provoke them. Odds were, they would be picking their teeth with our bones before either of us had a fighting chance to escape, and then we would be posthumous headlines in the news.
Jan stood there, waiting for my cue, watching the prowling dogs with languid interest. He is not overly fond of animals and I thought that he would be anxious to get away, but to my surprise he stayed perfectly calm.
In the end, after staying frozen for some twenty minutes or so, I very gingerly led my brother to back away down a lane of gravel.
The 7th Step
The episode reminded me of another canine encounter from our childhood. I had been about eight and Jan three. With mum busy at home, our father had brought us to the playground in the late evening.
There was no one else there except a young woman walking her two tiny fluffy grey dogs. I am not sure if they were Schnauzers; I am not a good judge of dog breeds. Before we knew it, the two charming little things somehow got loose from their mistress and arrowed towards us. I grabbed Jan’s hand, and we ran.
Our pursuers barked and snarled and hounded us for all they were worth. In hindsight, I suppose it would have been the funniest thing to an onlooker passing by; two children running pell-mell from two small yapping plush toys.
At the time, though, I was terrified. My little brother was squealing in fright. Our father’s and the dog-owner’s voices were drowned out by the barking, which sounded to me like the roar of dragons.
As we were rounding a corner at the playground, I stumbled and fell. Jan tumbled after me. As the dogs bounded up to us still snarling and snapping, I was convinced they were going to eat us.
As it was, dad came just in time to gather us up and the young woman managed to retrieve her little monsters, apologising profusely. Dad laughed at us and ruffled our hair, telling us not to be afraid and that those dogs would not bite.
My father is very proud of this tale of my derring-do and fond of telling it. He said that as we were running and even after I had taken the tumble, I had not let go of my little brother’s hand. At the time I had not really understood why he was so proud of me. I was sour at being laughed at.
The eight-year-old me had not thought anything when I had grabbed my brother’s hand. I had not even thought, “If I leave him behind, the dogs will get him”. It had been something instinctive, an instant understanding that we both had to run for it. It was only later, when my father pointed it out when recounting the story to my mother, that I remembered feeling bemused and thinking, “But the dogs would have caught and eaten him if I hadn’t pulled him along. He’s small and might have run the wrong way.”
Of course, I, the heroine, had tripped and fallen smack into the sand and had successfully managed to drag my brother down to boot, but I suppose it is the thought that counts. Still, it was a good thing that by the time we met the dogs at Ubin, I was somewhat wiser than when I was eight.
The 8th Step
The sunwalks gifted us with an exceptional sense of freedom. Ironically, they also made me realise that I am never really at ease whenever Jan and I have to pass crowded places.
It is not because my brother is autistic, or that I feel awkward or fearful of people’s reactions to some of his more irregular habits. The truth is, I cannot completely relax as I am always mentally braced for problems to arise, in case anyone tries to antagonise Jan. We have come across some unlovely characters on the streets.
When we sit in fast food places, for example, my brother would take his time with his usual ice-cream sundae. He would take a bite of ice-cream and chocolate fudge, then stare into the distance chewing, before taking another bite. One fine day, Jan happened to stare in the direction of a stout, tanned fellow whose grim mouth was puckered in a sneer.
This fellow saw my brother seemingly staring at him, and in turn, glared at us. We had mortally offended him. At first I paid him no attention. He would not let up and kept glaring as we ate, until I looked up and gave him the scariest face I could summon.
With a grunt of disgusted impatience, he got up and left. Part of me had wanted to call him back, slap him with a white glove and challenge him to a duel with plastic fast-food cutlery. But I did not. My brother was happy with his chocolate ice-cream sundae, and everything was alright again.
The 9th Step
A teacher from Jan’s old school once recounted to my mother how vexed she had gotten when she witnessed a boy with Down’s Syndrome, getting glares and stares and being pushed about in the train. The boy’s mother had been exhausted and unable to do anything about it. This teacher had gone up to the nasty bullies and gave them what for.
She said even thinking about it made her furious. It touched me how she had stood up for the child. Special education teachers have a fierce kind of commitment and devotion to these children. They go the distance.
Sadly, bullies are everywhere. They appear even in public toilets.
My brother needs to be accompanied to the toilet, and there are not always special “handicapped” cubicles outside the regular Ladies and Gents. So I have to bring him into the Ladies. Some people come in, see my brother waiting for a cubicle and instantly grasp the situation. They kindly leave us be.
Some, however, are relentless upholders of propriety. A special needs boy entering the Ladies when he really needs to go to the loo is an abomination, a corruption of virtues, a crime of the worst kind. So they act for the greater good.
For courtesy’s sake, I suppose, I used to apologise. The exchanges would go like this:
Person: “He’s a boy. He shouldn’t be here.”
Me: “I’m so sorry, my brother is autistic, and needs to be accompanied to the toilet, and I can’t go into the Gents after all, and the handicap toilets are not separated here, so I have no choice. I’m so sorry once again.”
Person: “Well, don’t do it anymore. How inconsiderate. Next time, get him to go to the toilet at home.”
After some time, the exchanges evolved into something like this:
Person: “He’s a boy.”
Me: “I know.”
Person: “This is a ladies’ toilet.”
Me: “I know.”
Person: “Why did you bring him in here?”
Me: “Try using your common sense.”
I do wonder now and again if I should just keep quiet when this happens. I should apologise, then apologise again. I should listen to the reproaches and the sermons and the foul remarks, and nod my head before apologising yet again. Someone once said, ‘They have a point.’ It is certainly true.
In an ideal world, I managed to change the bullies’ hearts and attitudes with my sincere apologies and explanations. They are touched by my earnestness and the innocence in my brother’s eyes, shed a few tears, then spiritedly encourage us to live life to the fullest.
It is a fairy tale that has not yet happened in other places, much less in public toilets where fo
lks are grumpy.
The 10th Step
Once, Jan and I came across a group of girls who looked no older than sixteen or seventeen. We were queueing for the bus and they were just ahead of us in line.
Jan stared at them. Or, more precisely, he was hungry and stared at the packets of food they were holding. It is difficult to direct his attention elsewhere if he is not inclined to listen.
The girls misunderstood and started whispering among themselves, throwing dirty looks at Jan.
I cannot even begin to describe how much I did not feel like apologising then. Very far from it.
At any rate, my brother and I were both tired and Jan was hungry, and I was weary of all the nastiness that was going on. There was only their ignorance and lack of powers of observation to blame. So I merely looked at them until I caught their eye, then raised my brows.
When I did so, they elbowed each other. Then they darted glances at me and my brother in turn. They looked a little uncertain, then turned round to face front stiffly and did not look back again.
The 11th Step
Once, during a visit to the clinic, Jan and I had entered the lift when a doctor stepped in as well. Seeing my brother holding onto my arm, she smiled at us.
‘Is he your brother?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘So you’re a good sister then,’ she said warmly.
I was embarrassed and only managed a kind of doltish smile by way of response.