Would you like to know when you’re going to die?

Will the one I love continue to love me, will my liver pack up when I hit 50? Will I suffer from Alzheimer in my twilight? Will I have enough money to last till my last breathe? Eva, when we ask why do people get up early in the morning, shave, put on a tie and spend 8 or more hours in their cubicle – it all comes down to these glossary of questions. But more often than not most of us may not realize that life is often full of unexpected surprises and the part that I still haven’t figured out is. A large chunk of it can’t really be explained – you know stuff, like the whole idea of synchronicity, destiny, karma and fate – some people want to know the future; others however don’t even want to know what’s at around the corner. I happen to be the latter. Some feel powerful when they know what destiny holds for them. I don’t, I mean, if I knew that I was going to be smothered to death while making love to one of those big boned German beer maidens – a whole of things is going to change in my life; for one I would avoid beer halls and probably avoid anything beyond D sized cups and stick to flat chested women – not only that Eva, I would probably insist on staying on top and so and so forth – the way I see it knowing your destiny doesn’t really do anything for me. I much prefer escaping destiny by remaining ignorant about what’s going to turn up in the next corner.

OK, so we are talking about destiny, fate and synchronicity – but tell me why do take this matter so seriously Darkness?

I mean it could all be real right Eva – now let me share with you something that may sound like a really bad reoccurring dream. But you’re got to bear in mind, everything that I am telling you right now is as real as me sitting right here now and having a conversation with you. Are you ready Eva?

Yes, go on Darkness.

OK, there was this time, when I kept chancing on this person – you know it wasn’t as if I knew him or anything. But it just seemed, we always found ourselves either in the same train carriage, queue or building. At first I brushed it off by reassuring myself, “Singapore is a small place. You’re bound to bump into the same faces all the time.” Having said that, why haven’t I bumped into some people who I either lost contact with or owed me money? I mean it seems strange right? That I should keep chancing on the same fellow. So one day, I just when up to him and asked him point blank, “Are you following me? I just want you to know that I have a black belt in Karate and I can kill a man with a spoon.” To cut a long story short, we decided to sit down in this café and exchange notes – as it turned out, he was a stock broker and quite a reasonable bloke. But what’s telling in this conversation is we had absolutely nothing in common – he stayed in the South, I in the East and we had absolutely nothing in common in every sense of the word. At the end of it, we came up with a sort of gentlemen’s agreement. We both agreed to change our daily schedules, that’s to say Eva, we both wanted to change destiny so that we would avoid bumping into each other.

I am really sorry Darkness, but I cant for the life of me imagine two grown men sitting down over coffee and having such a childish conversation.

Just bear me out Eva – I understand if you’re probably having some problems understanding why two reasonably intelligent men would sit down in Starbucks for a full hour and come up with a plan to avoid the other. Truth of the matter is, both of us were pretty spooked by this whatever you what to call it. None of us mentioned it directly, but trust me when I say thought the conversation went as well as it could, or better, given that none of us admitted that there was some mysterious force at work that mistook us for gay people whose destiny was to fuck each other – anyway to cut to the chase, it was just incredibly spooky and we really wanted to see the back end of this twilight zone series.

So what happened Darkness?

Nothing changed Eva. We still ended up bumping into each other. You could say we were now bumping into each other so often by this time that we no longer really thought about it – it just became a fixture of life.

Go on.

Eva, there was this one time, when we paused and looked at each other across the two lamppost somewhere in Bugis. I know this may sound odd, but then again maybe both of us encountered a moment of epiphany, one where we both realized this was how it was going to be for now and possibly forever. So we had a drink. Eventually we became friends – and through that period of friendship, I saw him battle cancer, saw him marrying late in life, raising three kids, gripping about not earning enough and so on and so forth.
Now hold on. Is there a moral to this story Darkness?

Perhaps Eva, the only way to escape your fate is just surrender yourself to it.

The Suriman Tales – The Brotherhood Press 2011 – this conversation has been captured by an auto-bot and transmitted by the Niberian Class Starcruiser KDD Preatoria – brought to you by the Interspacing Mercantile Guild – The Brotherhood Press 2011