I just read a blog entry of an old friend on Facebook. Cyberspace is kind of strange, the way it shrinks the space between people and make them feel closer to each other than they really are. Or the truth could be that it makes them realise that they are closer to each other than they appear.
The entry talked about observing an old uncle with a paper bag trying to cross the road. He was mumbling and singing softly to himself, but failed repeatedly to cross that bustling road.
A helpless look on his face. Strange looks from all around, those who gathered at the bus stop waiting for each of their rides.
Was he singing a Hokkien song, or some inconceivable dialect?
No one really knows.
Some at the bus stop thought, perhaps he's quite mad. Not my friend. The old man continued to hum to himself, a secret song. And my friend thought secret thoughts. "I wish you happiness, singing-uncle-by-the-bus-stop."
A novelist writes. And so does a journalist. Both observe the common life, and also the very uncommon.
A journalist, seeing such an old man, will think: Why what when where how? Is there a news peg? Is there a story? What's my lead?
But a novelist. Ah. Sure, he thinks, is there a story?
But he is also a quiet observer, drinking in the people seen, the sounds heard. For in them, the secrets of life lie.
The novelist, upon seeing the old man with two paper bags, will think - and write - that it just is.
Yep it just is.
