Sunday Entertainment

For once, my weekends were not boring! Thanks to the geniuses who decided to organize an outing, I was saved from being bored to death! I felt like crying. An exhibition followed by a hike – it does not get more enriching than that. You can check out Body Worlds.

The arrangement of the Body Worlds exhibition was designed to match the various stages of a human’s lifespan. In the first section, we saw jars containing fetuses in various stages of their development. Farther in were body parts encased in glass displays and plastinated figures mounted prominently in different poses. Initially the desiccated cadavers were still young – at least they were at the time of their demise – but they became ‘older’ the deeper we went.

The plastinated figures fascinated me. At first I thought they were cleverly produced models but upon closer inspection of their forms and reading the descriptions next to them dispelled me of my erroneous perception. Network of nerves and sinews ran across the figures’ opened up bodies, conveying a sense of horror and morbidity.

Interspersed among the figures were organs, and body parts, some of which showed signs of the ravages of disease. On the walls were mounted posters showing famous sayings about mortality, and also of scientific knowledge about the human body and its processes. A soft background tune brought to the images of life and its sacredness of it.

I had thought that a Viking funeral may be the most spectacular way of disposing my carcass after my demise, but maybe I should leave my carcass to science instead. All I need to do is to sign a form, send it to the relevant authorities, and I will be immortalized. I can imagine my acquaintances’ gasps of disbelief and awe as they look upon my desiccated form. Hey! That is my friend! They can display me next to a computer monitor and keyboard, title the exhibit ‘Overworked Bastard’ and hang our flag next to it. It should make the cover of Time magazine.

On second thoughts, they probably wouldn’t choose to put me on display. It takes an entire year to plastinate a human carcass and as Auntie Gwen said, they don’t want to waste the time and effort to plastinate a less than perfect specimen. This means that 99.9% of my countrymen and women can look forward to staying in a tiny urn in a crematorium after they have outlived their usefulness to the State, regardless of their intentions to plastinate themselves.

The exhibition also offered advice on how to live a long and meaningful life. Expectedly it was the usual canon about keeping stress levels down, being happy, eating good foods, exercising often and finding meaning in life. I don’t see how all these are possible when you are trying to make ends meet by working the longest hours in the world and being grossly underpaid for your labors. As for being happy, you might as well ask a Sudanese living in his shithole of a county to be happy. Happiness is not something you can will into being, contrary to what the Buddha said. (That’s right, I just insulted the Buddha. So I’ll come back to this shithole in my next life?) Happiness occurs only when the conditions necessary for its occurrence are satisfied. As for the exercising and eating good food, for some of us these are simply impossible. How in the Eighteen Levels of Hell can you find the time and energy to exercise when you work from morning till night and when you get home you are so fucking exhausted you cannot even have the strength for sex with your partner? As for eating good food, the slop in this shithole just isn’t nourishing enough. Just compare the average built of my countrymen to that of, say, a European or American. The fact is, despite being well-fed, we are physically inferior, and that is a fact! If you don’t believe me, just look at our professional athletes (I exclude *sports* like golf, bowling, table tennis etc). It is an embarrassment. Even the Africans are bigger than us (compare the Ivory Coast football team to ours). As for living a stress-free lifestyle after retirement, it does not happen for most of us. Go to any hawker centre and you will observe that there are plenty of old folks trying to sell tissue papers or picking drink cans from tables. They don’t do it to pass the time; they do it because they have no money. So much for keeping a songbird, playing chess, or entertaining the grandchildren and chattering with your neighbors after you retire. There is no dignity in growing old in this shithole. I hope to die as soon as possible when I am old and infirm and IF I am still stuck in this Hell.

Gina left earlier to attend her friend’s mother’s book reception at the National Library. It was a pity she could not join us. Maybe I should author a book one day. I suggested to XR on the bus that we should do a book on the Chinese martial arts. We should make it controversial by (i) disparaging all other books on the subject (ii) criticizing our martial arts and exposing its weaknesses for all and sundry (iii) writing it in a polished fashion and with proper referencing. I think with our talent and this brilliant marketing plan we should be able to make the bestseller lists. As the market here is unfit for a work of this stature, we should market it in Western countries. If there’s justice in this world - I’m dreaming so humour me – they will award us the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Anyway, I do not think they will waste a perfectly good cadaver by throwing it to the dogs. While we may not be aesthetically pleasing to be displayed in our entirety, I think our parts may be deemed suitable. They can remove my liver and point to its caffeinated state. Put a caption like ‘Liver from Overdose of Caffeine’ next to it.

In the rare event that I am rejected, it is not the end of the world, figuratively speaking. After my carcass is reduced to ash, they can scatter it across the seven seas. At least I get to ‘see’ the world at last and not stuck in some uninspiring structure in a shithole.

While the human specimens were interesting, they paled in comparison to the non-human animals’. I particularly liked the squid and octopus. They are like real sea monsters. I can almost imagine how horrifying their giant ancestors must have looked millions of years ago.

The giraffes were the biggest and tallest specimens. One stood over six metres; another was a collection of many slices of its cross-section hung laterally in a vague giraffe shape. In one corner two reindeers ‘pulled’ a wagon; in the centre of the hall a horse carried two riders. Maybe the next round they will have elephants, killer whales and giant turtles.

We left the Body Worlds show after around two hours or so. It had been an eye-opener. After meeting with a woman (who would be known as Auntie Gwen), the group then went to a food court in Novena Square for slop. I ordered holy meat. It was a shame that they gave me so little pork. It was shameful.

Anyway, during slop, the Auntie delivered an animated account of her trip to Peru. I listened with apt fascination as she narrated her group’s difficult trek up the hills, and salivated in response to her gushing over the succulent rat meat she ate in a Peruvian village. We laughed at the outbursts of her friend, who is a scholar and ‘a specimen barely five feet in length and with short thin appendages’. Overstressed by the rigors of her misadventure, this highly-educated and urbane lady was reduced to grunting one syllable ejaculations of ‘fuck!’ every time she went through a trial or tribulation. The moral of the story: Most Singapore scholars are useless when the going gets tough.

As is my custom, I publicized UniShit and its infernal educational standards. Diane and the Auntie looked quite shocked at my vehemence, with the latter soon verifying the truth of my assertions. She had the misfortune of working with UniShit graduates and they were pretty incompetent. I applaud her for her refreshing honesty. We need more assertive women like her.

A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step, so claimed the ancients. Being insignificance by comparison, our ten kilometres trek began with monkeys. There were a family of these bipedal rascals and at the risk of life and limb, I snapped a few pictures. They were anti-social delinquents, interested only in the scrapes of slop they found and not in interacting with their bigger cousins. I fantasized about throwing Psycho in with the lot. Fur will fly.

Anti-social bugger.

My photo-snapping meant that the main group had moved a considerable distance ahead, leaving XR and I with the monkeys. We tried to catch up with them but they moved at demonic speed. By the time we crossed the bridge they were nowhere in sight. XR did a disappearing act after we lost sight of them. He was taking pictures of the scenery and when I turned around he was gone, possibly abducted by aliens.

Confident that the aliens would find him boring and return him, I went after my group. I took big Neanderthal steps, loped, shuffled my feet quickly and after 20 minutes or so I appeared next to the Auntie, who was behind the two guys and two girls. After hearing that XR was taken by aliens, she chided me for leaving my friend behind and asked me to call him. This I did, but I could not get through. (I guess the reception was abysmal in the spacecraft.) At any rate, we continued for some time, constantly keeping ourselves out of the way of the joggers.

When we reached the river, Diane and Zhouyue decided to wait for XR. (They too, were confident that the aliens would return him, or they didn’t know any better.) So the two guys, Auntie Gwen and I carried on for possibly another one kilometre. We found ourselves next to a golf course and the reservoir. The weather was cool and the skies grey with the threat of rain. We spotted the trio in the distance. I waved my arms, and Diane responded similarly. It was like in a movie. We just needed Tom Hanks and his friend, the late volleyball Wilson.

Our next stop was a five or six-storied tower. The view was spectacular – I couldn’t see Alaska, but I could sure see a few flats on the horizon – and the air was cooling. The Auntie collapsed like a sack of potatoes and in her delirium, ranted about ice kacang and cold beers. At the risk of being thrown off the ledge by a delirious woman, I added that we should have ice kacang with durian and mango. The other fellows were enjoying the scenery as well. We saw many trees, but few birds. As if our brain drain is not severe enough, now even the birds are emigrating en masse in Exercise Bird Drain. I can’t blame the bird-brains though.

We reached a ranger station and after emptying and refilling water, we moved on. A short distance ahead was what looked like a military installation. There were some big ugly green warehouses in a fenced up perimeter. At the guard post a security guard struggled to keep the sandman away and a few metres from her a few monkeys seemed to mock her misery.

Then I was nearly attacked by a monkey. I saw this fellow squatting on the grass patch besides me and being the friendly person that I am, I went up to it, held out my palm and said, ‘Take me to your leader.’ Obviously unimpressed, this vicious primate suddenly charged at me. I had to backpedal furiously to save myself from a mauling. Bad monkey! No bananas for this murderous son of a baboon!

My fortuitous escape was followed by another. XR and I went to the wrong trail but we were fortunately Diane saw us and led the wayward flock back. Before her intervention I espied the buxomy Caucasian broad I saw at the ranger’s station earlier making her way down the other trail. By the time we returned to the right path she was already out of sight. Rats. Nice rack though.

As we continued up the trail I told XR about my incident with that monkey. He suggested that the creature, being the leader of his troupe, was probably peeved at my request that he take me to his leader. Quite possible. Unlike his fellows, he did not run away from him at my approach. Anyway, the next time I see him, his troupe will have a new leader.

XR, Diane and I shot the shit while we walked. There wasn’t much sunlight seeping through the green canopied above us, but thankfully the air was not as humid. I explained to my friends that the importance of running when absolutely necessary i.e. playing football, or getting money for my annual fitness test. Of course, when the scenery merits it, I will definitely be extremely motivated. Such situations involve a few voluptuous goddesses jogging, their ample bosom bouncing synchronously with their every stride, and me jogging alongside them and making polite conversation while basking in the full extent of their beauteous glory.

Dusk is the most beautiful.

Our entire hike took us little over than two hours. I consider it to be a remarkable achievement. We maintained a brisk pace throughout and even the Auntie, who was still recovering from her fever, kept up. Everybody was strong. I would even say that our group is physically superior to most of this shithole’s denizens. After our exertions we rewarded ourselves with slop at the Newton food centre. The Dumper should have been with us. We would have made pigs of ourselves. Long live holy meat!

And so we split up for home. I was a bit envious of XR. He has intelligent friends while over half of my friends are not too far from Ris Low. I seem cursed that nimrods, emotional freaks and other assorted horrors tend to come to me. My existence is so pointless.