Eden
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But as to what these ‘better things’ entail, I cannot claim to know anymore. The plans I’ve always had now feel like the leaves on the floor here—you never notice them fall. You’d already find them on the ground, unmoving. I know I don’t belong to better things. Every time I saw my friends buy a new iPhone, or a new designer bag, I knew; these things were, are, and never will be my things. I have this feeling of being constantly put in my place, no matter how hard I try. It never goes away. Not when I’m out of the office, or even when I leave Singapore. Everywhere I go, the ground I walk on is hollow.
I’ve been here for three years now and I spend so much time in the office. It’s only during the public holidays, when I finally get to go out, that I feel how far gone the year is. All the decorations along the streets and in MRT stations, all its significance feel like it's lost on me. Every time I look up and see a banner making a banal wish for a happy holiday, I’d shudder; I feel like I had no past and seemingly no future. So I’d bury my head into my phone, relenting to its temptations of a cheap escape, until I am out of my body.