A Melburnian Rebirth

Still swirling within that vast spectrum of emotions, I had some final arrangements done to my room: the professional steam cleaner from FastTrack (a wog I believe) dropped by at 7.30am sharp. I had to help him carry some heavy artillery (I exaggerate) to begin that steam cleaning process, which involves spraying liquid on my carpet, and then drying and deodorising it at the same time. A 5-minute task for an obscene AUD$45—but better than paying $75 to the management for a work not done (my housemate Jessica, who has now left for the summer hols, had told me once how when the previous tenant of my room left, they didn’t even steam clean my room even after he paid the required $75. Apparently they only steam clean the rooms once a year -__-).

And so today I woke up at about 7.30am, slept back, rinse repeat till about 9.30am and left to pick up Estee from the Flagstaff Railway Station. She came over to meet me for a final time, as well as to copy some pictures from our recent trip (and a few others), and then produced two packets of the Homebrand French Onion soup that Esther, Auntie Betty, and I had bought for our Great Southern Touring Route trip. We cooked one packet for breakfast, and we both had expected a creamy texture, but still, the end product was surprisingly delicious despite how quick it was cooked (5 minutes) and the way it looked.

We also had some pandan cakes that she had baked (“very easy using the pandan mix!”) and some remaining strawberries I bought 3 days ago for only $1 for a large box (eating it with sugar was lovely).

We chatted over breakfast, talked, then went up to my room to copy more pictures, proudly showed her some HDR pictures I’ve produced from our road trip, and we chatted some more. When she was about to leave, we decided to snap some pictures together as a final momento.

And so I walked her to the station, saw Neil coming back from work (presumably) near Flagstaff Gardens, and then I started talking about Neil and him being 1/4 Asian, his high-paying job as a cashier in a bottle job, and the German girl whose hairy arm grazed my hand in the City Circle Tram yesterday. When we reached the top of the steps where the staircase lead downwards to the underground railway station, we bade each other goodbye and I promised to ring her should I ever be in Singapore.

I made my way back slowly to my place, watching the towering construction site puncturing the skylines of the city from a distance, the cyclists that paddle by, the men and women walking in whichever direction, and the occasional person sitting on the grass and the seats. I absorb these sights—drinking, swallowing them, and I felt so strangely at peace today. It’s almost similar to how one would feel when one has come to terms with his or her impending death, about to die or to be euthanised.

As the time of 9.45am tomorrow morning, when a bus would pick me up (for only $14, $3 cheaper than the SkyBus!), drew closer and closer, I attained something akin to a Zen-like serenity. I’ve accepted the inevitable, bade my goodbyes, and I.. probably have picked up that shard of my soul here, somewhere, and pieced it together. My room looked impeccably clean now, having vacuumed it after months of neglect, and wiped the tables free from dusts. There are a few remaining items left to be packed and returned—Desmond’s fan, Jessica’s Australian extension plug—and I’d be ready to go.

Perhaps it’s that Mushishi anime series I’ve been watching since coming back from The Great Southern Touring Route—its calming effects rival that of Kino no Tabi and Haibane Renmei. And the sun has finally set now, at 8.50pm, leaving twilight and blue hues in its wake. And soon today’s dry and scorching 35C would be replaced with cool temperatures of 21C.

It has been 6 months since I arrived in Melbourne, and I’ve acquired experiences, friends, and (cooking) skills to last me a lifetime. And so I must move on from this world to the next, acknowledging and accepting the end of my time here in this Melburnian world, and return to that world where churches are torched by bigots. A rebirth into a world still plagued by insecurity and insensitivity.

Today I talked to Matt’s mum on Skype for a whole of one minute. It was amusing, pleasant, but made me feel all the better at being acknowledged amicably and gracefully that way.

Inexplicably, I’m excited for Subang Jaya now.

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Edit: I messaged Ivan on MSN but turns out he wasn’t in, so a while later I managed to catch Adi on Facebook, messaged him, and then he opened the doors for me (stupid connecting door was locked by someone), and I brought a bowl I sold to him for $1, kept Desmond’s fan in the storeroom of Unit 5 (Adi showed me the oh-so-comfy sofa they took in just outside Unit 5 when someone dumped it there, sigh at the things I’m missing out), and stashed away my excess food ingredients in Desmond’s cabinet—salt, soy sauce, oyster sauce, a pack of instant noodles, a can of tomatoes, black pepper, etc. When I mentioned to Adi that I have a laptop fan cooler that I wanted to discard, he wanted it and told me “I’ll pay for your laptop cooler man, it’s not nice if I take it for free”, so he came over to check out the cooler and got it off me for $5. In his room when he paid me the $5 (initially he wanted to transfer it to my bank account), he wished me good luck with my remaining studies, we hugged, and mentioned about keeping in touch via Facebook.

At nearly midnight, Ivan messaged me back on MSN—he wanted to come over to my room, but silly locked connecting door prevented him from doing so, so we went outside on Walsh St and sat on the curb right next to the dumpster and we chatted. “I know how you feel right now,” he said, as he puffed on a ciggie, and I nodded, looking at the yellow streetlamps and the skin centre at the corner, taking in the cool breeze blowing at me in just a tee and my boxers. And he told me that he’d find me when he flies back to KL.

Ali came by sweating from some rounds of jogging presumably, and for some reason, one of our conversations revolved around Dubai’s tallest building and we briefly pondered over its sustainability and feasibility.

“Talk to the person next to you in the plane,” Ivan had suggested. That was how he met Andrea in a flight from Melbourne to KL, and became really good friends.

And now I’ve said my final goodbyes. I can finally leave this Melburnian world in peace and with little regrets.