A wake

Half past midnight but I don't think I can sleep. The heart is too noisy with echos of conversations snatched between kua ji, people trying to be there for each other when a loved one has died. Suddenly, it seems comforting to hear about mundane things, about a comic and manja patient who refuses to open her eyes, about handphones that take photos automatically, because it isn't what we are talking about that matters, but simply being there that makes the difference.

I eat kua ji and peanuts, forming a large pile of shells on the disposable plastic table cloth. I help myself to egg tarts, siew mai, cheng teng, ling yong pau. I think, "She has her hands over a Bible, just like how my grandma did." She thinks of her own aged mother, and she cries, for things not yet lost. I think, "I know how you feel"; and the pile of kua ji shells get higher, as the hours fall into the night.

Life is bittersweet.