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Part 1/3: Things You Don’t See



Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.



His lover was buried. But his pain was very much alive. It breathed, ate and slept. It sucked the air from his lungs into its own. It swallowed up his appetite and claimed it as its own. It stole his sleep, his rest and every joy in his life. Gone was the wise-cracking Tsubasa with a mischievous grin and glint in his eyes.



He didn't even recognise himself in the mirror. The hollowness in his eyes, he had never seen them before. Seeing their reflection in the broken mirror, he looked liked a monster - a monster with a shattered face and multiple bloodshot eyes.



Tsubasa looked away. It wasn't just painful, something shuddered inside him. Bracing himself, he looked again. This time, he froze. He couldn't believe his eyes. They were crying blood. Crimson liquid streamed from his eyes and crawled down his cheeks to his throat. Again, he wanted to look away, but he couldn't. He could only watch paralysed as the blood formed into two blood soaked hands and chocked his throat.



'Ahhh!' Tsubasa yelled. Like a raving lunatic, he clawed away at his throat, tearing away the hands dripping with blood.



He didn't know how long he stayed trembling and gasping on the icy bathroom floor. But eventually, he staggered up. Daring himself, he eyed the mirror again. No blood, no tears, only cold sweat. His whole body was bathed in it, his body and his consciousness. In a fit of fear and confusion, he wanted to smash the mirror, like what Tatsumi did. Did Tatsumi see something? What did he see? Did it have something to do with his death?



The police deduced that his young lover was blow drying his hair when he slipped and fell into the bathtub of water. Electrocution was declared his cause of death. But Tsubasa didn't believe it. If it was really an accidental death, why was the mirror broken? Why did Tatsumi break it?



With his mind swimming in a hopeless maze of questions, the confused man felt himself subconsciously reach for the tap on the bath. A bath always made him feel good. But he didn't want to take a bath in the tub where Tatsumi had died. He couldn't. He had only returned to his home to pack up the stuff in his apartment before selling it off.



By now, the steam had begun to mist around the room and steam up the mirror. For a moment, Tsubasa thought he saw Tatsumi. The younger man was naked in the bath and smiling at him, invitingly. How could he sell this place? It held too many memories. And all he had now was only the memories.



Testing the water with his fingers, it felt soothingly warm, warm enough to comfort his broken soul. It would do his mangled nerves and shaken senses some good.



But Tsubasa couldn’t be more wrong. Like a mirage, the rising steam tricked him. The water was freezing, so cold it stung his skin and chilled his insides. It was like falling into a deep pond in the dead of winter. He wanted to wince and jump out of the tub. But he was frozen, frozen solid. Horrified, Tsubasa felt himself helplessly sink deeper into the bath. The chilly water swallowed his body greedily. Before senses returned to his fast numbing fingers, he was already fully submerged, trapped under an ice pond that had frozen over.



‘Help!’ He screamed. Water gushed into his lungs and drowned him out. He slammed his fists desperately against the thick ice. But it was impermeable.



‘Somebody! Help!’ His heart burst out. In vain, he continued to pound at the immovable wall of ice.



Only when his wild eyes saw blooding oozing from his pale cut hands, did the ice finally crack.



Like a prisoner on a run, Tsubasa scrambled out of the bath. Half falling and half running, he bolted for his main door. He didn't even have the sense to grab a towel first. He only single-mindedly wanted to escape.



But where could he escape to? For a long time now, Tsubasa could sense that he wasn't alone. Even when there was no one there, he knew was never alone. There was no escape. There was nothing he could do. He could only curl his naked self into a shivering little ball in the corridor and cry.



.................



When the last light of dusk was finally engulfed by darkness, Tsubasa staggered to his feet and sneaked his naked butt, as inconspicuously as possible, to his car. He remembered that he had a stash of clothes there for emergency. Since it would take ages before he would ever dare enter his home again, he opted to stay at Tatsumi's instead. Tatsumi didn't have any family. So it meant that sooner or later he would have to be the one to enter the latter’s home and clear away his belongings before the lease was up. If only pain could be packed up and discarded away. If only his pain had a lease and there was an end to it.



Tatsumi’s place was dark and dreary, so much so that it made him quiver. But was it just the gloom or something more?



Instinctively, Tsubasa felt for the switch. It wasn’t there. Maybe he had forgotten where it was. After all, he had only been in there once. It was a privilege earned after much pleading and the promise of homemade bento lunches for a whole month.


Edging himself on, he groped around one wall, and another.



‘It has to be somewhere,’ he thought.



Inching himself forward, Tsubasa tried for the window. After hitting one corner and another, there was none. In fact there was nothing. No furniture, no light, no window. He felt the third corner sooner than expected.



‘Is the room getting smaller?’



By now, Tsubasa could feel his inside shift. His stomach had tied itself into a knot and he was feeling sick again.



Soon, his outstretched hand felt the last corner. The room was indeed closing in on him, slowly crushing him. Panic stricken, he wanted to run, but he couldn’t find the door. There was no door. It had disappeared.



Tsubasa smashed his body against a wall, but it stood resolute. Running a few steps, he slammed against another wall. It too refused to budge.



This time, Tsubasa was sure he was going mad. Shaking violently, his mouth felt like sandpaper and the lump in his throat was causing his lungs to collapse.



'Stop it! Stop this! Stop all this madness!' He had wanted to cry out. But it only came out as a hard scratchy whimper.



In a last ditch attempt at resistance, Tsubasa groped around again. This time, he felt a chair. Griping it so tight as if his life depended on it, Tsubasa then hurled it into the darkness. It hit a shelf full of books. The moving walls had disappeared.



'What do you want from me?' He asked as he sunk to the floor, grovelling in fear and relief.



There was no answer. There never was. Not even when Tsubasa strained his ears so hard that his veins bulged.



Exhausted by the assault on his senses, Tsubasa soon fell asleep, on the hard and cold floor. It was a restless sleep. But at least he slept. And it mattered little, the hauntings in his dreams. Because he would forget them the next morning. He would forget the hazy faces he saw, of the boy, the young man and the adult much the same age as him.



....................



When Tsubasa awoke the next morning, his head was still pulsating. Thankfully, he found relief in a hot shower. As the warm silky fluid slid down his tight body, Tsubasa could feel his fear gradually drain away. He was even prepared to believe that yesterday was but a figment of his wild imagination.



But seeing the mess he made last night, the drumming in his head softly resumed. Tsubasa liked order. He didn't like books strewn about on the floor. It reminded him of the disarray in his frazzled mind.



Picking up the books, he carefully rearranged them in alphabetical order on the shelf. Halfway through, the neat freak stopped. It had suddenly occurred to him that one day soon, he would be re-packing them into boxes and giving them away.



Even if the grip on his heart felt tighter the longer he stayed there, Tsubasa was happy. Being there again, he had leant so much more about his dearly departed. There, he found precious surprises. At the same time, he lost them too. Lost or found, the hole in his heart only ripped further apart.



In the small apartment, there were few photos of chibi Tatsumi. Orphans probably didn't have as many pictures. Most of the photos showed a sulky child or a reluctant teenager. The young man looking back at him from the picture was a stark difference from the always smiling and obliging Tatsumi he knew. It was as if a different person was staring back at him, a person with a secret. The boy looked young, but he looked aged too. His eyes told of a burden too much to bear for an innocent child. And they seemed to sneer at Tsubasa, as if they knew of a secret he didn't.



As he was finishing up with restoring order to the room, Tsubasa chanced upon a photograph that had dropped out of an envelope. Finally, a smiling face. The face was much younger than the rest but Tsubasa could see Tatsumi in it. Chibi Tatsumi, dressed in a sailor boy uniform, looked so chubby and cute. The little child was smiling ear to ear. His family was smiling too - his mother shyly and his father, proudly.



'Father!' Tsubasa was shocked to see the somewhat familiar face. It was much younger but unmistakable…



Note: The poem is titled, Funeral Blues by W H Auden. It's the eulogy read in the movie, Four Weddings and A Funeral.