nektros - Cynicism in a Hot Dish

Stupid mistakes coated with a blinding sheen of immaturity are an inevitable part of youth. The difference in the particular case which had attracted Tanya’s spite was that my stupidity had fallen on the wrong side of malicious, careening into a pit of downright contemptuousness for growing right the hell up.

The crowd was – as is only possible for the main lobby of a university in the throes of midday break – packed to the point of seducing a tantrum out of the most stalwart claustrophobic. Reaching the apex of the throng and preparing to enter the library by way of converting the books in my arms into flying battering rams, my jugular-targeting plans died in my head as they were overtaken by something else.

“I’m not exactly a wife-beater aficionado who’s making plans on joining the club any time down the track,” I said, “but really, they’re any normal couple who were only exchanging a few words.”

“Oh, please,” replied the purveyor of bad taste judgements present in all of our lives. “You know it’s a different story when no-one else’s looking. Back there it was a bit of shouting; for all we know, the rest of the time it’s backhands and NASA-approved, industrial-strength foundation to cover up black eyes.”

Everyone has that unique someone in their life whom I like to self-explanatorily ascribe the label ‘materialistic humble pie eater’. Put even simpler, they are part of a group who share the belief that objects hovering on the lower end of the inanimate thingamabob scale of worth can do no wrong in curing all ills, and procuring batted eyelashes doling out forgiveness in response to their screw-ups.

As an Asian born within the majestic borders of Australia, and raised with nary a friend who shared my ancestry, nor a lesson from my parents in how to manoeuvre the landscape of their native tongue, I have for a large part of my life been aware of my unique inhabitant status – that of perceived foreigner and actual, palpable native – which nevertheless has ne’er shone a shred of remarkableness on any facet of my life.

A few weekends back, milling around a ferry terminal as the preordained quota of swear words beggared by all forms of public transport reached its daily limit, I recognised a girl disembarking from the most recently docked hell boat.

She had belonged to a high-visibility group in high school, while I had remained comfortable in a no-visibility one. She hadn’t come across my radar in four years, much less spoken to me during the six preceding ones.

People with anywhere close to half-way decent dispositions have all faced a universal conundrum.

P1: Oh, shit.

P2: [approaching with a bag of potato chips in hand]