Ok, i seem to be real shit at this thing. I promise I'll get better, but anyway here's something:
I’m not the only one there. It’s mid afternoon, or early evening; I’m not sure which. Being inside, and coming straight from an MRT station, it’s really difficult to tell without the aid of a watch. I have a black one with a square face and red numbers that I don’t like wearing. It traps the sweat that’s always present in this tropical nation. Not at the moment though, the air conditioning in this place is top notch, as it is inside every building. Still I’m nervous, an excited nervous. I’m wondering what shiny gem I’ll find, what little soul shaker or heart breaker I’ll be able to bring into my life. For this is where dreams are traded, tears are sold and happiness is bought.
I walk through the doors with confidence, knowing that inside I’ll find something that will fill a hole. Even though I know when this hole is filled, another just like it will open inside. It may take weeks, it may take minutes, but there will be another hole. The cycle will start again. It always does. I walk down the aisles, on the end of each aisle there is a set of headphones. These headphones are connected to devices that let you hear a wailing, a crying or an ecstatic voice. Sometimes this voice is human, sometimes it is not. More often it is a mixture, human and artificial together. Their aim is to create a feeling inside you, make you react. Cause your emotions to become visible. If not to others, then to yourself. I stop at one and place the headphones over my ears, being careful not to knock my hat off. I press play. There’s a thudding noise, and then the screaming begins. I feel nothing. No disappointment, no leaps of joy. Nothing. This one is not for me, even with the pretty pictures on the cover, it doesn’t work. I move onto the next disc in this stand, and more noise is sent to my ears. This is more interesting, more of a crying this time. Only a happy crying. This doesn’t move me either. It’s closer than the last and perhaps one or two of the different voices and cries come closer than others, but it doesn’t fit in the hole.
I move on, wandering down the aisles. They’re sectioned. Perhaps according to the different feelings they can evoke in a person, but more likely to the differing voices and styles of voice used in each wail, cry or moan. I’m browsing. I don’t know what I’m looking for, and I don’t know the hole it’s going to fill. Or even if it can be filled today, so I continue to browse. Looking through different pictures, seeing different faces, I keep looking. Suddenly one of them catches my eye. Two men, side by side. One man has a beard, long and straggly. In the black and white photo it looks as if half his face has disappeared, along with some of his chest. The man next to him is turned away from the camera. Looking at something I cannot see, not the picture next his. The bottom of his ear is just visible in the shadow of his hair. On his upper lip there is one of the more impressive moustaches since Tom Selleck. I know that face, I’ve seen it before. I’ve also heard his crying, his screaming and even his moans. Sometimes his voice is alone, more often with an artificial voice or two, and sometimes it is even with another’s. A woman perhaps or even another man. I’ve heard him with an old man, at the end of his life. Trying to bring hope and happiness to anyone who will listen. I’ve heard with a beautiful young lady, just beginning on her journey. Full of sorrow and love, I’ve heard him alot. I pick up the picture and study the back. It looks as if it might fit. Fill the hole inside. So I take the picture to the counter.
Behind the counter there are three. One a man, one a woman, and the other another. The woman helps, and points me to a set of headphones as I hand over the picture. I walk to the end and put the head phones on, the picture is returned. Soft and gentle it begins, the tremble in the first cries, different pitches chiming through. Another voice starts, softly in behind others. Fitting together as if they were one. They voices take me away, to a different place from where I remain. My mind transported, through feelings alone. Like angels speaking, these weeping voices quietly share their holy of holies. Building up and becoming stronger. A movement in front of me distracts me and brings me back. My feet still planted, where they were before. My gaze now rests on some dyed blonde hair; she turns and smiling goes back to her work. Allowing me to return to the sounds. I stand and listen for a while more. Drifting into a different place with each new tremor, each new voice; only to be brought back every so often by the girl with the skull ring and the dyed blonde hair. She smiles behind her glasses and I’ve had enough. I take the picture and its attachments I need to deliberate. Back through the aisles I wander. Looking at this, looking at that; not really seeing that which I see. While my mind ticks over those beautiful sounds, the full rich voices that came from wood and wire. It suddenly occurs to me, the deliberation has been wasted. I’d known from the first strained tremors to the last whispers that I’d heard; I knew this had to be mine. I make my way comfortably back to the counter. The smiling girl with the bangles that shine is standing there waiting. We make a swap, the pictures and attachments are mine. For her a piece of paper, blue and with a face. To make it sweeter I get something red and a few little pieces of metal from her drawer. One last grin and I step away. Happy to know these cries and moans, tremors and screams, whispers and hopes, dreams and desires, losses and gains, they are all mine. To listen to again and again. For the foreseeable future to come.
