May 03, 2006
A promise

I took the taxi only halfway, because it seemed suddenly ridiculous. Thanking the driver apologetically, I got out and began to walk the rest of the way to the hotel, taking the same route that I'd done the night before, only this time I was alone, with a backpackful of poetry and promises and art lost to the streets of a city I have only just begun to know. The night was quietening down, the final dribble of men-in-suits floated forlornly out of their offices with dejected-looking briefcases. Taxis dutifully queued up at designated street corners, their drivers arguing passionately in languages I don't understand.

How strange it is that the word "promise" has a secondary meaning that we don't often use. It seems to me that we tend to remember it more as a word to mean something that has been committed or a declaration of a commitment — and once we have been made a promise, we have a right to expect that this promise be honoured. Yet, almost in direct contradiction, if there is promise, it also means there exists a cause for hope, and there is nothing in the meaning of "hope" that contains an expectation for something to be fulfilled. Rather, it implies a mere possibility, anything from mildly probable to quite likely.

In the walkway that is formed by the upheld bulk of the Gardiner Expressway, the billboards on one side had changed from yesterday. Swallowing the discomfort I always have when walking under a bridge, I braved the hum and the noise and bee-lined for the other side, craving for the relief of open space. Looking up, I understood how easily one could lose sight of the world beyond, that we think ourselves invincible and in control, that promises have to be made and met. The skies were full of sodium-lit bubbles, inviting uncertain shadows against towering heights of fluorescent rectangles. And under these constellations, we would only know how to dream electric dreams.

Posted by sniffles at 11:43 PM | Comments (8)