crying dreams

you know those dreams where you cry in your sleep
and at the same time, cry in real?

ya, one of those very perplexing things.

I haven’t had this for a long time,
crying in your dream, being so emotional and crying for real

This morning was a struggle. Half awake, half asleep but just very angry.
I hate that kind of frustration.
You want to blame someone and yet you know it’s best to forgive.

My dream was about me being “CCV” (close circuit video-ed). Dream setting was at my old home, my mom’s home. There was this pin-hole needle head lens that was camouflaged behind the ceiling lighting that has a complicated design. Turn out to be that my bloody sick-minded neighbour was viewing me and my family. He even kept burned CDs of our lifestyle. And if that’s not all, my uncle knew about it. When I wanted to expose the scheme, my uncle stopped me. Then it dawned on me that he knew and just kept mum abt it. Heck. How could he, as my uncle condone to such a maniac act? And to make matter far far worse, my godma knew abt it too! Heck. I strangled everyone I saw. I strangled them on the neck and as I strangled them, I cried. Cried and thought to myself, how could they? How could they know and not do anything? I am their niece/ god-daughter/ whatever/ so how could they possibly say that they love me when they bloody hell didn’t do anything to protect me? Worse still, now that I want to expose the hell neighbour, they didn’t support me. Freak. I was very very hurt.

So ya. I cried.

***
The truth is that there was such an encounter.
But I didn’t strangle anyone.
Perhaps that’s why im still hurting inside.

***

When I was young, I had this neighbour who was a police man.
He lived at the corner unit next to my old place. HDB.

When I was 7-10yrs old, his wife and him would bring me out with their son. They would bring me to their family reunion, shopping, hawker etc. healthy nice neighbour or so I thought.

His wife and my mom were rather close friends. Quite ok, chatty and friendly.
His mother was the neighbourhood’s “kuey seller” (selling steamed cakes in the hawker centre). They have a good reputation and were widely accepted in the entire Singapore River Old Neighbour Clan. (our forefathers were all Singapore River Merchant settlers)
He is also the RC member, you know grassroots member that kind of PAP activities.
So ya, you see, they are the model average family in my neighbourhood.

I don’t know when it started but there was one nite I caught him peering into my house’s windows. I was returning home and came out from the lift, so it was quite an unexpected arrival and he jumped up in fright. i was 16-17.

He didn’t back off. In fact, he became bolder. One bloody morning as I woke up to go to school like 6am I think.. those impossible school days.. there was this torn-off page from some prono magazine being slipped into my windows landing on my window still. Fuck that bloody hell person. I was too shocked to do anything. Another nite, I was returning to my bedroom and I saw half a head from the glass panel of my window. I tried to scream but because I was drinking water and my mouth was full, I couldn’t. hell.

Every time we catch him peeping into our house, he will pretend to be bending over to do some stretching exercise. You know, bend and touch your feet that kind of warm-up exercise. I said “we” because my parents also caught him in the act.

But we tolerated.

The last straw was when he pretended to be painting the pipes outside his house. Yes he was painting I can see but he was painting and peering all the fucking time. I closed all the windows and hid under the window, ready to surprise him. When I saw his bloody shadows lurking at the window again, I pulled open the window in full force. Stood up and looked him in his bloody eyes. He jumped out of his skin and fell back. But he recovered in 30secs. He starred right back at me. That was when I decided to call the police. The mistake I made was that I called my mom before I called the police. My mom asked me to drop it. She said he is stressed from work and is unhealthy-minded. We must forgive when we can. I was fuming mad and argued with her. But she begged me not to create trouble. By then, I was considering too many things to have taken action. The neighbour’s son is my sis’ classmate, his wife is my mom’s friend, he is in the same RC as my dad, and his old mother is old and had stroke. So do I want to put him in hot soup knowing that he is a police officer and might be in double jeopardy. In the end, I didn’t call the police.

Whatever the case, they moved out 2 years after that incident.

***
Till now, I am still angry. With him and with my parents for being so weak and for not giving me the support when I very much needed. And with myself for being so weak. I really shouldn’t care about his welfare. But I cared about his family’s welfare. They were innocent. They were living with a monster.

If time were to rewind and I have this opportunity to set things right, I might end up not calling the police at all. But I would gather evidence and show to his wife.

I know that in life, there are no clear cut right and wrong, black or white. It is always grey. But I am angry that I didn’t get the support to right some wrong.

This is probably why I had this terrible dream.