Lionel and the soulful Eyes

This story is dedicated to a cell mate I met in military prison who has now passed away. We may not have interacted much, but he reminded me that we all regardless our lives experience Dukkha.

He came in as the days of my sentence became a single digit. He barely talked, he was always reserved and chose to retire in a corner from conversations the other cell mates and I had. He had an extremely soulful pair of eyes, big, deep and bright, but they were perpetually downcast; slanted at the sides but nevertheless deep at their cores. Almost like the soot of a lone candle that threatened to extinguish its own brightness in an encasement, it was a quiet and dangerously fast transition that unfolded to everyone but still unseen by everyone.

We barely talked, he always said he was tired. The Melayus and Tamilans joked about his perpetual tiredness, even I myself am guilty of following along. He rarely ate, but he offered his vegetables when I said I'd take them from the other cell mates. Every time at night when I woke up to urinate, he'd still be up staring at the dark ceiling with that same expression he always had. We first talked when I asked about his medication, I told him I planned to stock up on mine so that I can take it the following afternoon to sleep; he replied he had Schitzophenia. 

We were both teenagers, boys on the verge of adulthood, locked up in a wretched place ran by other teenagers in uniform. We were just boys responding to our environments and circumstances. 

He shifted cell on the third day of his sentence, I won't deny I felt a tad lonelier. He didn't fare well in the new cell. The Melayus talked in Malay the whole time and they cannot understand his state. He withdrew deeper and deeper, but every other eye but his were oblivious to this implosion.

I last saw him being called out without his belongings to somewhere I don't know. His belongings were packed by the other cell mates and taken away by the MP.* 

I saw his name on the registry book on the day I left that wretched place. His signature neatly signed within the bounding boxes, unlike the other messy ones that showed defiance in their scale. 

I learnt that he passed away today, on the 8th of March 2014, but when did he leave I do not know. 

We are all warped in our own circumstances, blinded to the world and its casualness, convicted and convinced by a multitude of influences that life is a battle we had to fight for. We become arrogant in our perceived threat, we build egos in our campaigns to defend the Self. We may be physically looking beyond the mountains and the stars but all that we could see ware barely beyond our heads.

Our circumstances are merely our perceptions to the casualty of an unfolding impermanent world. Our attachment to our Selves suffocate us but we do not know this for the Ego is Almighty, blinding, yet essential to our social nature. Like the beautiful illusion smoke presents itself as, a seducing gracefulness that dances and twirls delicately before our eyes and fade off when we try to grasp it, we try to grasp all things physically desirable and get carried away by its visual appeal. Intangible are our illusions but blinded as we are the illusions become Real. And the failure to grasp these wisps of smoke makes us frustrated. We consult our Ego and declare a fight. And time to time to time and time again, we fail. 

Our nature empowers us to commit actions to the Self, and unfortunately this commitment comes in response from the inability to physically grasp the intangible. 

The past is the past, the future is the future. The past and the future both do not exist. Only the now which is all that exists. But even this present state of now, with every instance it comes into existence ceases into non existences to what we call the past - with nothing but our memory binding them together. Again we forget that it is in no where but our heads. 

Be free Lional and there is no gain without loss. The then present Dukkha has all but perished, the then physical state has now but perished. I have definitely perished, for your memory has perished. And what is memory but an ability of the mind that links up the present to the past. How can we call our minds our own when its survival depends on memory but not on our ego and self?

All conditional things bind us, and you are now free Lionel, from Lionel. 

Strive on with diligence Lionel, strive on and shine again.

Author's Note

* Military Police. There were other boys, some younger, rarely older than me who wore uniforms and were only MPs due to some order posting decided by a real upper force i.e the Central Manpower Base of the Singapore Armed Forces.