Category: My Good Life

My mother and I are telepathically connected.  Just when Cynthia and I have exhausted all means to remove a foreign object that had been mysteriously embedded into the soft and fleshy underbelly of my right toe, just when we have exhausted all explanations short of labeling the object as an alien implant – a gift from the return of my recent alien abduction, and just when I was thinking of calling my home in Hong Kong for an answer, my phone rang.

“It looks like a piece of hair, mom.  1 cm long.  It could be inside for quite some time,” said I.  “How can a piece of hair get into your toe?  That has to be a splinter,” replied her.  Whether she is right or wrong, it is comforting to hear my mother’s voice.  And we agreed that I should see a doctor the next day.

Later that evening, Cynthia offered to take it out for me using a needle.  I adore Cynthia, don’t get me wrong.  But I doubt that she can play the role as a nurse, when it comes to working with my … big toe.  Cynthia laughed and said that if her mom in Indonesia was to know that I was going to see a doctor for this, she would be laughing hard.

This morning, the rain was horrendous.  Part of the road was flooded.  I braved the rain and walked to a clinic that was a few blocks away from where I parked my car.  By the time I was inside the consultation room, my shoes were soaking wet.  As I took off my socks showing my favorite doctor in town this strange foreign object inside my toe, he asked, “Have you been to the wood lately?  Were you barefooted?  When did this happen?”.

To be frank, if not for the recent occasional sharp pain and over the months numbness, I would not have even noticed.  I mean, how often does one examine the bottom of his feet unless he is diabetic?  In any given day, this chubby friendly doctor always looks happy.  But this morning, he looked serious.  Very serious.  I asked if he was OK.  And he said he needed to think.

OK.  I kept quiet, lying on the bed waiting for his next move.  I wanted to ask if he has done this before but that probably would not help the situation.  So I put my arms behind my head looking relax as though I was waiting for a foot massage by the beach overlooking the sea.  Still keeping mum, the doctor pulled out a small steel tray and started to line up the clinical tools in front of me.  Gasp!  That reminded me of either (a) a typical spy interrogation movie scene or (b) TV series such as “CSI” and “Bones”.

First, I felt a needle poked into the underbelly of my toe.  OK.  That was not that bad.  And then I felt the needle again, again, and again.  Deeper, deeper, and deeper.  Hmmm.  That was not looking good.  The doctor tried to pull the foreign object out using the tweezers.  And then I felt the needle; and then I felt the tweezers; and the needle; and the tweezers.  Ouch, ouch, and ouch!  I tried to get distracted but all I saw was a bookshelf, with not too interesting books.  If I was a doctor, I would have put a beautiful landscape picture on the wall.  Preferably a beach overlooking the sunset.  Sunset is good because it transcribes to: Time flies and it will be over before you know it.

Some say that having a religion helps with time like this.  I recited the Lord’s Prayer in my head in near fluidity only to be punctuated by the needle.  But I suppose if I was to recite Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – one of my favorite play – that would have had the same effect.  From the distraction point of view of course.

The doctor took out a bigger pair of tweezers, with more poking into my toe by the needle, but nothing seemed to work.  I saw a cotton soaked in blood.  I was breathing hard in pain.  At one point, he paused and called for the nurse.  The nurse entered the room looking calm and she wore a surgical mask and a pair of surgical gloves as the doctor explained, “There is a splinter inside.  I need you to open it up like this.”  Uh-oh.

By the time the good doctor managed to pull out the foreign object, I was in joy.  He showed it to me.  Yes, it was a piece of hair, just as what I have observed.  “Do you want to keep this?” asked he with a smile.  Huh?!  Before I could reply, he turned to the nurse and said, “Get me a Ziploc bag please.  I am putting this inside for him.”  And she went: Huh?!  I am not sure if it is a common practice for patients to keep foreign objects as souvenirs, like bullets.  But I know for sure I don’t want to keep that piece of hair with me.  I declined with all my heart.  During the debrief, the doctor recapped on what he has gone through, why he needed to attacked from all angles (because the hair moves versus if it was a splinter), and as he gestured the operation in excitement, I thought of Starcraft and added, “So, this requires strategy.”  “Strategy!  Yes, strategy!” exclaimed he.  “Have you done this before doc?” asked I.  “Splinter, yes.  Hair, no”.  And we laughed.

When I called home later that day, my dad picked up the call.  He was as comical as ever.  And he said in all seriousness, “Yes, that happens.  That’s why you need to watch out and be very carefully when you take a shower.  And try not to step onto any hair.”  Whether he is serious or not, it is comforting to hear my father’s voice.

I am unsure if you have experienced something similar like I do.  Day in, day out, I do the same thing, travel the same set of roads, see the same group of people, the same set of buildings; the very sameness that is reinforced by the routine activities that burned inside my head like the burn-in of an old plasma television.  People’s names, bus numbers, addresses, telephone numbers, voicemail passwords, floor numbers, colour of the lifts, decoration of the lobbies, layouts of the office, of the shops, of where I live – everything that seems impossible to forget today.  Fast forward to decades in the future, how much detail would I remember?  Hardly any, I reckon.  But I think memory leak is not the only culprit.  ‘I forgot’ implies that a piece of my memory has vanished.  Yet, memories do not vanish.  Memories get overwritten by memories of similar nature.  Memories get distorted by the dreams that we generate while we are sleeping.  In short, some past memories get buried so deep over time that the more we attempt to peel away the layers, the more distorted they become, which in turn being moulded into something of our imagination.  Perhaps that explains why ex-lovers and past crushes always look exceptionally stunning and beautiful – in our minds.

Here is what I remember when I think of my secondary school in Hong Kong: Through the wooden front entrance, on the right was a row of windows.  On the left was a stall that sold snacks and beverages.  Beyond the stall was an open air spiral staircase that led to an indoor playground at a lower level.  Inside the playground, on the far end was a stage.  On the right was teachers’ office.  I might have been inside for several occasions but I only remember two significant ones.  One time I was being caned.  I forgot what crime I had committed but I remember what punishment I had received.  Another time I wanted to see the vice principal.  Thanking him for helping me to get the scholarship to study in UK.  To express my thanks in a more tangible way, I gave him the honour to give me an English name because I had this concern that British people would find it difficult to remember my Chinese name.  I could see from his glittering eyes that he was happy.  He asked if I wanted a common name or a rare one.  I asked for a rare one in a heartbeat.

Why did I do that?!

So my vice principal opened up a Catholic dictionary for names and picked one for me.  To ensure that I remember where my name comes from, he made a copy of the relevant page for my future reference.  That was before the days of Internet whereby almost anything under the moon and sun is just a Google away.  Till today, I still like the uniqueness of my English given name.  But I cannot deny that it has confused the living hell out of everyone around me.  People have tried to adapt.  Some insist in spelling my name the way they think it should be.  Like Wilfred.  One has taken the liberty to create a nickname for me.

You know how working is like.  There is one task you need to do.  And you have become so focused that people’s chatting around you no longer bothers you, how loud your neighbour types no longer bothers you, even the vacuum machine or the coffee making machine nearby no longer bothers you.  These sources of sound do not vanish.  They are merely overwritten by the internal thinking and dialogues inside your head.  One day while I was totally absorbed in my work, there was a small voice nearby that had become louder and louder until this new colleague of mine had to come really close to me, wave at me, and distract me.  He said, “Willy, I was calling you!”.  WHO?!  To give a bit of background here, he is one great guy at work.  The problem is that I am not trained to response to the name Willy.  I am amused in a sense that I get to relive the journey of how a baby learns to respond to his or her name called by others.  I am also amused in a sense that I could take the opportunity to assume another persona during working hours.  Willy to me is like Sasha Fierce to Beyoncé Knowles.  Wilfrid has integrity, he would not do certain things at work.  But what about Willy?  Perhaps Willy is a retard at work because retards do not need to do much but yet have a role to play.  Or perhaps Willy should be someone ruthless, brutal, who has the mindset of winning is everything, whatever the cost, whatever it takes.  Wilfrid could never be a CEO but perhaps Willy may have a shot?

Now how about that?