A Stolen Moment

All the man could see was red.

The man didn’t know then that he had been shot. All he knew at the time was that his body was exploding with the most excruciating pain he had ever experienced. And then a cloying wave of euphoria suddenly washed over him. The shock was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. The man had felt himself falling. And then…

The man felt nothing.

And all the man could see was white.

The white was intense, like a blinding light. But the man couldn’t close or even shield his eyes; he seemed to have no hand or eyelids with which to do so.

He didn’t seem to have… anything. No limbs. No breath. No body. No mass. Just a sense of… self.

And a sense of sight, though that could have been debatable.

The light seemed to be completely white at first, but now the man could make out slight shimmers of dull colors here and there. The colors seemed to be shifting in all directions, like shapes swimming through a fog, fading in and out of his field of vision.

The man could also hear… something. Lots of somethings. But the noises were very faint... muffled... as if they were distant and underwater.

By all accounts, the man should have been frightened. But all he felt was… serenity.

Suddenly, one sound became much clearer, though not completely sharp. It was a voice, a girl's voice.

A familiar deep voice rich and thick with a British accent.

"It's okay, Xummy. You've just had a bit of a shock."

"Dan?" the man tried to say, except he couldn't hear his voice. He would say it felt caught in his throat... if he had a throat.

The fog of colors seemed to lift somewhat... enough for the man to be happily looking in those sparkling sea-green eyes that he had been longing to see again for over nine years.

"It's me," the voice said to the man, as if she had heard him. While her eyes were very close, her voice seemed to come from very far away.

"But you're..." the man couldn't say. A realization struck him. "Am I...?"

Her unblinking eyes seemed to dart about a bit, as if she were shaking her head. And that's when the man realized that he couldn't make out her head at all, and could barely see the rest of her face. Only those beautiful eyes. "No, not really," the voice said soothingly. "It's usually best to leave endies be, but how often does a chance like this come along?"

The man caught the wicked tone, and saw the matching mischievous flicker in her eyes when she said that. He could almost imagine Dan’s puckish grin; how badly he wished that he could have seen it.

"Listen, Xummy... there is something I need to tell you.” The faraway voice suddenly sounded very soft… and desperate. “Something I should have told you... that night. But I was...” She paused. “Anyway, I want you to know that I--"

The man suddenly felt his heart bump in his chest with a surge of blinding pain. Everything went red again, and then black.

*****

The man opened his eyes, but his vision was fuzzy and confused. Without the aid of his spectacles, he had to turn to his other senses. He felt something light yet firm clamped to his face over his nose and mouth. It smelled like rubbing alcohol on an inflatable mattress. There was a burning itch in his nose and throat, as well as… “down there.” His mouth tasted of cotton. There was a loud recurrent hissing noise that seemed to be all around him, as well as a rhythmic beeping and a strange, unsteady mechanical drone humming and chugging just to his right. He stretched out an aching finger and encountered a thin starched bedsheet, and then a thick blanket. Both were tightly tucked to hold him in a slightly reclined, yet upright position.

It took a few minutes for the man to surmise that he was in a hospital room. His sensory analysis was constantly interrupted. Each breath, forced into a steady rhythm by the ventilator that astonishingly rumbled unrhythmically beside the bed, stabbed deep into the man’s right chest and released an icy river of pain down the length of his torso.

But that may as well have been a dull ache compared to the anguish of losing his first love for a second time.

The man almost wondered if that “white experience” was only a dream, but he knew it couldn’t have been. His dreams always faded into obscurity the instant he awakened. There had been a rare moment when he felt that he is close to recalling a small, murky fragment of detail, but it would always elude his cognitive grasp.

But every sight, every word, of his bizarre reunion with Danielle is fully retained in his mind with crystal clarity. Not like a dream, but a vividly real memory.

A voice caught the man’s ear; a female voice calling out in Cantonese. Through his hazy vision he could make out the shape of a nurse moving from the doorway of his room. He couldn’t help but smile faintly because she sounded annoyed.

The man managed to keep his eyes open, though it took some effort, and eventually he saw a bleary figure in white standing near the foot of his bed. His doctor, he concluded. The figure, a male, began to rattle off a number of statements in Cantonese. His tone was clinical and precise (as the man would expect from a doctor), and yet, surprisingly, it did not resonate any annoyance of even the slightest degree.

But, of course, aside from a few numbers, none of the words made sense. The man tried to hold up a hand, but it hurt too much to do that. Speaking also proved to be a struggle. The man wasn’t sure if it was due to the ventilator, the nasogastric tube, or his own fatigue. “I don’t… understand…” he eventually managed to rasp.

“Oh. My apologies,” the doctor suddenly said, and introduced himself as his surgeon who removed the bullet, among other tasks. He then proceeded to reiterate what he had said earlier in English. Not that the man’s understanding improved much. Fractures in his eighth right posterior rib and right fourth anterior rib. Diaphragmatic rupture. Punctured right lung and pleural lining. Some liver damage. To the man’s tired mind, the surgeon’s explanation of what had to be corrected during the surgery was just additional “white noise,” only a little more soothing than that of the ventilator. The man’s interest began to dim as the surgeon proclaimed how lucky his patient was. Lucky that the damage was minimal as the bullet lodged into that fourth anterior rib instead of ricocheting throughout the man’s chest cavity. And lucky that his operating team managed to resuscitate the man despite him being in the prone position.

That last statement made the man’s dull eyes suddenly snap to attention. The cold chill that gnawed at his right lung with every exhale seemed to creep over his entire body. “Re… resus…?” he tried to say.

The surgeon repeated his last sentence in a steady tone, as if it were an everyday occurrence. He then added a few details regarding a complication with the anesthesia during the surgery that resulted in cardiac arrest. While the medical team had successfully revived him, for about four-and-a-half minutes the man was clinically dead.

This latest piece of information was too much for the man to absorb. It felt like a great weight was pressed against his head. The man groaned as he wearily laid back against the headboard of his hospital bed. He could barely feel any surprise from the surgeon’s next revelation that the operation was conducted three days prior, even though, to the man, it seemed as if he was foolishly confronting the gunman in the convenience store about 15 minutes ago.

The man saw another shape, another nurse, appear in the doorway and say something to the surgeon in Cantonese. “I need to leave,” the surgeon said to the man. “You get some rest.” He followed the nurse into the corridor, slowly closing the door behind him.

The man closed his eyes, exhausted, despite having literally slept for days. He was clinically dead. The man mulled that thought over in his head several times, as well as the memory of his unbelievable experience with Danielle. Had he truly “crossed over” for a brief moment and saw his first love? He wanted to believe that with all of his heart, but his rational mind couldn’t help but wonder if it was all some fantasy his subconscious created in his mind to help him cope with the shock.

Despite his deliberation, the man was certain of three things.

First: real or no, he did experience it.

Second: he was very thankful for that.

And third:

“I love you too, Dan,” the man whispered in his head. Tears seeped through closed eyelids for several long minutes as he eventually drifted into a restless sleep.

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood…

It’s no secret to those close to me that I am a fan of British music from the 1980s. But what seems to take several people by surprise, including the woman who would one day become my wife, is that one of my most-listened-to albums was the self-titled one by Samantha Fox. But then, these people may have only heard her hit singles that were broadcast on the national/international airwaves: “Touch Me,” “Naughty Girls (Need Love Too),” and “I Wanna Have Some Fun” – which have strong sexual themes. And while such suggestive songs are not my usual “cup of tea,” two of these singles had, if you’ll pardon the phrase, touched me in a very different manner than the obvious one – as did a ballad by Ms. Fox titled “True Devotion” that should have received a lot more airtime than it did.

“Touch me, touch me/I want to feel your body/Your heartbeat next to mine”

My first exposure to Samantha Fox was in a college student lounge in Fall 1986, as the chatter in the room seemed to completely evaporate as her “Touch Me” music video started to play on the TV in the corner. I stared at the screen, spellbound, as did most of the mates around me as Ms. Fox pranced, gyrated, and moaned on stage in front of a crowd of obviously horny young men, demanding them to “touch [her], touch [her] NOW!” I think I pretty much explained why my mates had their jaws hanging open (this was one of the raciest music videos on the British airwaves at the time), but that wasn’t the reason for me.

You’ve probably experienced the phenomenon of a song “taking you back” to a particular moment or event in your life, with the memory becoming as clear as if it happened yesterday. In many cases, this song was either playing during the event in question, or near enough to the time of the event to make an association. In this particular case, I was watching this video for the very first time in 1986, yet my mind went back seven years to a particular day in October 1979.

The day I first met Danielle.

1979 was my first year – Form 5 – in a British school in the London area. A very uncomfortable year. I did have the advantage of taking Forms 1 to 4 in an English-speaking school in Singapore, so there was no language barrier to overcome. Still, as my family had recently moved to the United Kingdom, and my being one of the few Asians in the school (as well as a gawky 16-year-old with a funny name), I had some difficultly fitting in and making friends.

So this shy, awkward 16-year-old Asian kid was just leaving a mostly-forgettable English Literature class, except for the part where he made a supposedly “profound’ (the Professor’s words, not mine) conclusion during our review of Shakespeare's Henriad about how even the most unlikely of people (in this case, Prince Hal) can become great (Henry V) when given a little push.

As I shuffled along the school corridor toward my next forgettable class, I suddenly felt a pair of very small but very strong hands press against my lower back. I was so surprised by the action that I allowed myself to be pushed into a run down the remainder of the hallway toward the courtyard window. Catching my breath, I whirled around ready to hurl an irate “What’s the big idea?” at an obviously cheeky older classman.

And then time stopped.

Before me stood a beautiful blond British girl, about my height. Smooth light skin surrounding the most sparkling sea-green eyes I had ever seen. Her shiny blond hair cascaded in light curls down her head to her shoulders, the golden-brown roots betraying the fact that she actually bleached it. I also couldn't help but notice how nicely her form had filled out her school uniform (remember, I was 16).

“You looked like you needed a little push,” she said with a playful smile, and a smooth deep voice thick with a haughty British accent. “Sorry. Manners. Hi, I’m Dan. I’m in your Lit class…?”

I nodded, I have seen Danielle in class before, but didn’t seem to really notice her until that moment. I think my heart skipped a beat or ten. I couldn’t speak.

“This Shakespeare [stuff] is tough,” she continued, chuckling a bit at my surprise to her expletive (which I edited out of this family-friendly blog), “but you seem to have a good grasp of it. Could you possibly help me prep for next week’s exam?”

I nodded again, and eventually found enough power of speech to agree to meet after school in a library off-campus to study. My heart skipped another beat as I watched her walk away. This was the first person in the school to actually strike up a conversation with me. And she was beautiful, too. I then resisted dwelling on these typical high-hopes-of-a-16-year-old thoughts and reminded myself that she only wanted some help in her studies.

At the library, I had just finished arranging my books and notes on a large corner table I reserved when Danielle arrived, and time stopped again.

She was wearing a black halter top, a light-blue form-fitting denim jacket, very tight jeans with torn ankle cuffs, a leather and rhinestone bracelet on her right wrist, and perhaps a bit too much makeup. Her hair also seemed more curly and “puffed out” than before. I almost didn’t recognize her, until I looked into her heavily shadowed eyes and saw that familiar sparkling sea green. Her high-heeled leather boots clicked around the table so she could sit down next to me. I was still in my school uniform, by the way, and I immediately determined that we were from two completely different worlds and couldn’t possibly connect on anything beyond the subject matter.

Thankfully, I was wrong. Our discussion almost immediately faded from Shakespeare to talking about ourselves. I had never shared so much, so quickly, with another person before that day, but there was something about Dan that drew me out of my shell. And she opened up to me as well, and even admitted a number of times that she didn’t know why she was telling me things about herself that she wouldn’t tell anyone else. In that quiet secluded corner, voices hushed in whispers, we talked for hours about our families (and family troubles), our hopes and dreams (she wanted to travel the world), a mutual love of American comic books, and our individual issues with fitting in at school. While we didn’t get much studying done, both of us had definitely made a friend that evening. And looking back, that’s probably also when I first fell in love, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. I do remember being abruptly crestfallen when Dan’s boyfriend arrived to pick her up for supper.

I literally relived that day while I watched that almost-4-minute Samantha Fox video, and if you watch the video yourself I think you’ll see why. I’m not just referring to the singer’s attire (which had a few more... noticeable tears in the jeans), but also the way the bouncy Ms. Fox projects herself as carefree (okay, perhaps more frisky than carefree) and so full of life. That’s the type of person Dan was; and I knew that from the moment she clicked into the library.

“Then along came you. Now I know it’s true/Naughty girls need love…too”

A few years after the debut of the "Touch Me" video, I discovered my flatmate actually had the self-titled album of Samantha Fox, which included her hit single “Naughty Girls.” This song was essentially about a promiscuous, heartbreaking girl who unexpectedly falls in love. I suppose I was drawn to this song because it encapsulated my wish of how Dan would view our relationship.

Not that I ever thought of Dan as a “naughty” girl, but others in the Form 5 class definitely did. It probably didn’t help that, even in her school uniform, Dan was flirty with a lot of the boys on campus. Dan may have also been mildly flirty with me, but we had already became best friends by the second Shakespeare study session, so it was on a much lower scale (she’d call me “Xummy,” which I didn’t mind at all coming from her).

More important, being best friends, I knew that the “flirty Dan” wasn’t really her. She had shared with me her insecurities and fears, and admitted that she found it easy to use her looks in order to be noticed and liked. (This was true for most of the male population, I had noticed, though it was on a mostly superficial nature; the female population wasn’t very accepting of her, to put it mildly. Since I met Dan, I became aware of, and infuriated by, the whispered rumors and innuendo about her.) I also knew that, deep down, she secretly wished that more people would want to know the “real Dan” and like her for who she was. Again, neither of us truly understood exactly why Dan shared this part of herself with me, and only me. I theorized at the time that it was because of mutual understanding, as I was also wanting to be accepted and liked by my peers. I'm sure it was also because she somehow knew that she could trust me not to betray her confidence.

At any rate, I never, again, saw Dan as “naughty,” just someone who was desperately looking for love, but those boys she was interested in (and they were boys, even if they were a year or three older) weren’t really interested in finding love, only making it. I always made sure I would be there to offer a listening ear for Dan to vent about her unsteady relationships with the four unsuitable boyfriends she had during the five months since I had met her, as well as a shoulder to cry on after each breakup. I wished Dan would be with someone who realized how beautiful she was on the inside as well as out.

Or, to put it more selfishly, I wished she would want to be with me.

Yes, I did eventually realize that I was in love (as defined by a 16-year-old) with my best friend, but I said nothing. I’d like to say it was because she gave me signals that we should be “just friends,” or worse, “that I am too much of a friend to be a boyfriend." Or perhaps I valued our very short but very strong friendship so much that I didn’t want to risk losing it all by telling her I wanted us to be more. Well, this last statement is true, but it would be more accurate to admit that I was essentially a coward.

So I find myself replaying “Naughty Girls” as a reminder that all the hope in the world won't make anything happen unless you take some action -- and that life doesn’t have a rewind button.

“Inside this breaking heart/The pieces fall apart/And all I’m dreaming of/Your true devotion”

Samantha Fox’s self-titled album also contains “True Devotion,” another single that didn’t seem to gain as much popularity as her previous hits. Maybe the public wanted another racy number from Ms. Fox rather than this beautiful pop ballad about a woman realizing her relationship is about to end, even though she still loves her partner. This song has the strongest effect on me because many of the lyrics, while not directly related to me personally, are a reflection of Dan's words during a conversation she and I had one cold Friday evening in March 1980, concerning what I believe was the worst boyfriend breakup she ever had.

I was home in my family’s flat alone, my parents away on business, when there was a buzz at the door. The intercom never worked, so I went down the stairwell to open the main entrance door. Standing in the rain was Dan, dressed in another halter top and a very short skirt, soaked to the bone. Her makeup running down her face more from her tears than the rain.

She literally stumbled into me and embraced me tight, though I could feel her wanting to collapse right in my arms. She was so cold, yet felt so warm as I’ve held her for what seemed like an eternity on the foyer floor -- calmly quieting her many apologies for interrupting my evening and staining my shirt with smudges of rouge and mascara.

Dan and I eventually made our way to the flat upstairs. I let her use my shower while I made some hot tea. I also provided some dry clothes for her: a simple sweater and sweatpants. An advantage of my being a small Asian was that my clothes were a good fit for her.

As I was pouring her tea, I tried very hard not to think about how beautiful her face really looked without all of that makeup, and how good my clothes looked on her body, or the fact that she wasn’t wearing her black lacy undergarments that were currently tumbling with her clothes in the washing machine. Leaning next to me on the couch, she poured out the sad details about her breakup earlier that evening with her boyfriend of three weeks (number 4). He was three years her senior, but she believed he was her “true love,” and just recently shared her body with him. But he obviously didn’t feel the same way, and essentially got what he wanted from her and decided to move on. I wasn’t judgmental of Dan at all, though my heart had sank a bit at the news about the sex. I was more angry at the now ex-boyfriend and the words Dan told me he called her during the breakup, which I will not repeat here.

“Love is so unkind,” she said in-between tears. “Sometimes I wouldn’t mind just being alone.”

I understood. It seemed that most of the people in this beautiful girl’s life essentially hurt her. Not just the boys in these breezy relationships, but also her bickering parents and the jealous female classmates. No one deserved that.

Dan didn’t deserve that.

We had talked for so long that we forgot to put her washed clothes into the dryer. However, she already had to leave. Her family was visiting relatives interstate for the weekend. I grabbed my umbrella and walked her down an oddly silent three blocks to the train station.

Her ticket in hand, we were the only ones standing on the platform. The rain had stopped. She finally broke the awkward silence.

“It seems the only person I truly have is you, Xummy.” Her accent made her voice sound like a purr.

I gulped. “Well, that’s what friends are for, Dan. I… (had a chance and didn’t take it why was I such a coward) care about you a lot, you know.”

“Is that all? Just ‘care’?”

I didn’t have a chance to answer, for the next thing I knew, I was feeling a very soft pair of warm lips melting over mine. Dan was the first girl I ever kissed… at least like that. I could hear my heart pounding in my head as part of me hoped I was kissing her back correctly. The rest of me hoped that, despite my awkwardness, the kiss wouldn't end – and I was amazed that Dan had shown no signs of breaking it off. The kiss continued for several minutes. It was very long, yet not long enough – as we eventually heard the train approaching.

“I hope you closed your eyes, Boy!” she teased. My eyes were closed, but my inexperience must have been obvious to her.

I stood there breathless, eyes transfixed on Dan as she turned to enter the train, which was fairly crowded.

“I… I love you, Dan,” I stammered (finally).

She looked at me with those beautiful sea-green eyes. “I know, Xummy,” she said very seriously. She then flashed a cheeky grin. “We can give each other’s clothes back on Monday, ‘kay?”

I blushed as I heard the chuckles from the other passengers as the doors closed. “O… okay. Monday.”

I watched the train slowly rumble away until it was out of sight.

“When life is too short, we leave it too long/To find each other babe”

What just happened?

I could have pounded my head into the walls of my parent’s flat that entire weekend as my heart and thoughts raced a mile a minute. She knew I loved her. And it was love. I may have been 16 then, and may have had a very limited view on what love was, but that didn't make my feelings any less genuine. But Dan didn’t say that she loved me. But if that kiss (that kiss!) was any indication… Did she love me? She just broke up with a boyfriend she had lost her virginity to and she was devastated. What if she was on the rebound? Or just seeking comfort? But what if she does love me? I wanted us to be more than friends for so long. What if I screwed this up and the best friendship I ever had was reduced to “breakup number five”? The last thing I wanted was for her to be hurt... again.

My heart was aflutter with excitement and anxiety as I entered Monday’s English Literature class carrying an extra backpack containing Dan’s clothes. But Dan wasn’t there. There was no answer at her home when I called in the evening either. It wasn’t until the next day, during an unexpected school announcement, that I found out why.

Dan, and her parents, were killed in a car accident on Sunday on their way back from their trip.

It will soon be 32 years to the day when I had last seen and touched one of the most important people in my life. While the pain has faded significantly over the years, my time with Dan definitely stays with me. It would be another 24 years before I met my wife-to-be, Namiko. That's a story for another time. Right now I will say that I count myself very very fortunate to have found another true love in my life.

While a few of my now long-time friends knew about Dan, I had, before this post, only revealed to Namiko how the Samantha Fox songs had initially connected me to those very dear memories of my best friend and first love. She noticed that I had (and still have) the self-titled vinyl record (a gift from the flatmate) as well as the 12-inch single of “True Devotion” on my bookcase, even though my old phonograph had taken its final turn years ago. Namiko was so understanding; one of her first gifts to me was a CD release of Samantha Fox’s self-titled album to allow me to listen to these songs again. A more recent gift, which is on order and will arrive soon, is Samantha Fox’s latest album from a few years back, “Angel with an Attitude.” I have heard that it is the most autobiographical album that Ms. Fox had ever released. Selfishly, what I have admired most about Ms. Fox was how she helped remind me so very much of Dan, and this is truly unfair. So I look forward to listening to “Angel” and getting to know more about the artist who unintentionally has given me so much. Words cannot even begin to express my thanks to Ms. Fox for that.

I’ll admit that this has been one of the most difficult posts I have ever done, but I am very glad to be able to take you back in time with me to the pretty British girl with the sparkling sea-green eyes who in just five months has made such a tremendous impact on my early life. The one who encouraged me to open myself up to another person. My best friend who gave me a little push, and my first long-yet-not-long-enough kiss.