By Patrick Sagaram

At this party to celebrate my friend's birthday – Daryl's had recently turned 40 and his wife decided to surprise him by calling family and close friends over to his home at Thomson Hills – I found a group of my old friends from university outside by the porch drinking and smoking cigarettes. Some of them I haven't seen in years. It was close to midnight and my wife was expecting me hours ago because I told her I'd drop by for a while but I lost track of time. It was a cool night, the moon sparkling overhead, a slow breeze was going and my friends huddled in a circle. I pulled up a chair, sat down, raised my glass and everyone smiled. It felt like old times.

"The plane lost power and began to fall," Bryan said. "We heard the engines wind down and for a split second there was absolute silence before the aircraft dropped, tossing people upwards and along the aisle, tumbling and crashing into each other." Fiona shook a cigarette out of her pack, offered one to me – which I refused – while keeping a steady gaze on Bryan. Aside from Bryan and Fiona who remained single, there were Victor and his wife, Charlene. "I kept my seatbelt on because I'd forgotten about it after takeoff, a lucky thing, I suppose. Because the cabin turned into a flicker of light and bodies thrown everywhere. I saw a flight attendant crushed by a food trolley," Bryan said.  

Victor let out a breath, shook his head. I saw his wife squeeze his hand. "It seemed to go on forever," Bryan said, "before the engines came back to life and the pilot levelled the plane. We landed in Bangkok." He finished his drink and reached for the bottle. "The cabin was like a war zone. Oxygen masks dangling from overhead panels, glasses, utensils and blankets strewn around," Bryan said, squeezing lime into his drink, stirring the ice cubes with his fingers.

"We filed out of the aircraft in complete silence. Some carried away on stretchers and wheelchairs as the rest limped out, keeping their eyes on the ground." He paused, and continued, "In those brief moments," Bryan said, "I felt a kind of fear quite different from anything else, a fear so pure, with the knowledge that you had only seconds remaining before pieces of you end up in the sea." He put down his drink, and lit a cigarette. "I don't know if this makes any sense," Bryan said.

Daryl was standing behind, listening but I was so gripped by Bryan's story to notice, was the first to speak up. He told us about how a few months ago, he came back from work one night to find a thief in his house. "He escaped by jumping off the window," Daryl said.  

"Up from the second floor?" Victor said.

"Exactly – can you believe it?" Daryl said. "He must have panicked or something. I suppose he must have picked our house after observing that I'd be coming back very late every night after work," he said. "Except on that night I got home early and caught him off guard."

"Luckily, Marjorie was overseas on holiday with her friends," Daryl said. "But I couldn't stop thinking about it. For the next few days, it kept turning over in my mind, in slow motion, all the things that could have gone wrong. He could have been carrying a knife. Seriously, it was all I thought about and nothing else. I realized I had worked so hard and made plans for the next part of my life and I hate to think of not being around to experience it."

I saw the faces around me looking dour and pensive. Clearly the mood had shifted, replacing the joy we felt earlier in the evening.

We began talking among ourselves afterwards. I couldn't quite keep up with what they were saying but it had to do with an oncologist and a CT scan and results that showed a 'shadow of sorts throwing itself across the negatives.'

"Did you read in the paper about this guy who took a gun to the hospital after doctors decided to take his son off life support? Did anyone read about that?" Bryan said.  

All of us shook our heads.

"The son was declared brain dead by doctors but the man was upset about the hospital moving too quickly on the decision so he got all drunk and decided to take matters into his own hands and a stand-off with the police ensued," Bryan said. "It took hours for his wife to talk him out of it before he gave himself up."

Bryan said, "The man later told the police he only wanted to protect his son because the son couldn't protect himself. He admitted to having broken the law but it was broken for the right reasons."

"You can't break a law for any reason," Daryl said. "You can't walk into a hospital with a gun and take people hostage. That's plain crazy."

"Put yourself in his situation," Bryan said. "What would you do?"

Daryl went quiet for a moment, as if having run out of things to say like having reached the end of things.

"We should be asking you for your opinion instead," Bryan said turning to me, adding, as a parent I might be able to offer another perspective on the matter. I wanted to say that all of us experience situations where we can lose sight of distinguishing right from wrong and it was just unfortunate for the man to have things turn out that way.        

"How did we end up on this subject?" Fiona said, draining her glass. "Let's talk about something else." Everyone smiled plaintively and the conversation changed to vacation plans and electric cars. I fixed another drink, sat back and listened, but my thoughts crossed over to my previous life, the life before my wife and kids.

My days spent drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes and reading Spivak, preparing for classes and writing papers and at some point in the evening, my friends would drop by my room for beers and listen to records before heading over to Chaplin's for more drinks. I had completed my postgraduate studies and made plans to begin my doctorate, which never happened, a decision I still regret today.

It was bound to happen, the slow fading away of friends. Daryl was the first to go after joining Park+Associates, rising quickly in the company and his job took up all his time. Bryan and Fiona left to work overseas – Bryan to Sydney and Fiona to Hong Kong but have since returned home for good. Victor – who fell into our group much later – and I kept in touch, but we never quite clicked and soon he was gone as well.

At first, I felt stranded and even if I had a couple of relationships nothing worked out. I thought I'd be single until I met Eliza and things changed quickly and I began to spend time with her friends, couples like us with young children. I missed my friends and often thought about them and yes, while tonight felt like old times, it was rather unfamiliar so at some point I got up, said goodbye and went home.

   "What are you doing out here?" Eliza asked.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Sunlight came through the window. I had fallen asleep in my clothes on the sofa. When my younger son, Timothy, started to have bad dreams, he'd climb into bed with us. To give Eliza more space, I'd sleep outside in the living room. My son's dreams have since stopped but I've got used to sleeping on the sofa, right in front of the TV.

"Came back late," I said. "I didn't want to wake you."

Our apartment is small, and just walking around is enough to make noise. And we have two boys – and expecting a third, a girl by the end of the year – so the place has things everywhere, half assembled puzzle pieces, plastic toys and piles of books.  

"Go wash up," Eliza said, putting her hand on my lap. "I've got the doctor's appointment today."

"OK," I said.

"But first," she said. "We have to drop Brandon off at football practice."

"Sure," I said. "I'll get ready now."

In the bathroom, I could hear Brandon in the hallway bouncing a football, Eliza raising her voice at him to stop. A dull ache was pushing behind my eyes. I brushed my teeth, glancing at my reflection on the mirror, the grey hair in my beard, my thickening waistline and I thought about last night and my friends and the way and many of them looked more or less the way they did years ago. Their lives also looked so much brighter. Earlier that night, I overheard Bryan and Fiona talking about going to another new restaurant the following week and making travel plans to faraway places, places I'll probably never have a chance to visit. Victor and Charlene, like Daryl and his wife, don't have children and have passed that point, recently bought a brand new Audi electric. Daryl mostly does consultancy work now and I know he and Marjorie are going to take the next few years off to travel, extensively as he put it, "the next part of my life."

I heard a knock on the door, Eliza saying, "We're running late."

"Give me a minute," I said.

I waited outside the doctor's office, watching Timothy make a crayon drawing on rough paper. On the way over here Eliza asked me about the party and I said it was good to see my friends after so many years but also odd. I tried to explain what that meant but she told me our son has been having those dreams again, even if it was not as bad as before. A few nights ago, she woke up to go to the bathroom when she heard him, stirring in the other room while his elder brother was fast asleep. Previously, when it got bad, Timothy would describe it for us or draw the visions in his head and the pictures looked ferocious, like Goya's Black Paintings when the ageing artist produced frightening images of existential despair.

"It will eventually pass," I said.

Eliza looked worried.

I stared at her. "I can tell you don't believe me."

"It's not like that," Eliza said.

"Look, if you think otherwise," I said, "then we should do something about it."

Eliza knew exactly from my voice what I was thinking. While it had been easy with Brandon, it was different with Timothy. He was a sickly child and there were lots of visits to the clinic, lots of tense moments when we couldn't decide if a stubborn cough or a spiking fever was a sign of something more serious or another false alarm. And these things, add up. Our kids made us happy, no doubt but there were times when Eliza and I tried to figure out where the money went – of course some of it went for school, the weekend art class and paying the football coach – but money kept slipping away from our fingers.             

"You're right," Eliza said. "Let's wait and see."

I looked at Timothy as he kept working on the print. It had washed-out greens, pinks like Monet except hazier. The room was quiet even if there were other couples waiting and I could hear the hum of fluorescent lights as I imagined the kinds of thoughts passing behind my son's eyes. 

"You're awfully quiet," Eliza said.

We took the kids for burgers, sat by the corner booth, Eliza going over the numbers, blood pressure and weight gain and blood test to screen for markers. On a Saturday afternoon, the place looked as if a carnival was going on, loud laughter and smell of french-fry grease.

"A little tired," I said. The pain behind my eyes was getting worse.

"A little too much last night?" she said, quietly.

"No," I said. "I didn't get enough sleep."

"Go take a nap later," she said.

"It's okay," I said, "I'll be fine."

"Did you have fun at the party?"

I was going to tell her about my friends and the stories I heard but also about how strange it felt to be around them after so many years but out of impulse I asked her how she felt about me going back to school.

She shook her head, picked up a napkin and wiped ketchup off Timothy's face.

"I've been giving it serious thought," I said.

"So you say," she said.

"What does that mean?" I said.

"You told me the same thing last year," Eliza said. "And the year before."

"I don't remember," I said.

"Do you really want to get into this?" she said, turning away and stared into the hard afternoon light.

For the next couple of hours, we walked around the shopping centre and I took Brandon to look for a new pair of boots. Then we dropped by the stationary shop to get a supply of coloring pencils, crayons for Timothy. Eliza said very little to me unless it was about the kids. I suppose this was the way things have been for years, but especially so lately. Back then she used to pay attention to my plans, always eager to go along with my ideas and it felt like we had undertaken a new way of life, done something important and done it together.

At home, late that night, I was in the kitchen making coffee while Eliza was in the bedroom taking a shower. I'd taken a pill for the pain in my eye and felt some relief. The boys were already in bed, fast asleep. I took my coffee to the living room, where by the corner next to the TV was my old stereo and a stack of records. We kept our home softly lit and these days, I'd spend most of my time on the sofa, marking papers and playing my old records. There was also a shelf lined with my books. It's the only spot at home I get all to myself, away from everyone and everything because in a couple of hours it will be daylight and alarms will go off, doors opening and closing. I sipped my coffee and picked out my worn out copy of Auden. I read poetry once a year or so but when I did, I liked to sit with the text without letting my thoughts get ahead of me. But tonight I was reading in search of something even if I didn't know what exactly as I turned the pages: hell is neither here nor there…

Outside, I could hear the sound of cars passing by and the loud laughter of young people in the air. My thoughts turned over again to my friends especially on those nights when we would come back to hostel, very late, and very drunk, laughing and singing 'Bizarre Love Triangle' completely out of tune. I can't remember when I turned into that person who listened to the laughter from the person who used to laugh.

Just then Eliza came into the living room, wrapped in a towel and her hair slicked back in rows.

"Are you coming to bed?" she said.

"Not yet," I said, glancing up at her and back to my book. Eliza sat on the edge of the sofa.

"Listen," she said, "what I was trying to say earlier today."

"It's fine," I said.

"I honestly don't see you finding the time," she said.

"I think you're right," I said.

She gave me a sympathetic shrug, got up and walked into our bedroom and closed the door firmly behind her. I kept reading but my thoughts kept going back to the last few years where I'd been feeling detached and restless, a feeling of being cut off from a larger purpose or as if there were things left unfinished, loose ends that needed tying up but I didn't feel any need to act upon it until last night when I met my friends and the phantom of my past began to pull me back.

I must have drifted off to sleep but I was shaken awake by a tug on my sleeve. I looked up and blinked my eyes until Timothy came into view.

"Dad," he said, and I could see he was scared.

I sat up on the sofa. Even in the dim light, I could make out the lines of sweat on his forehead.

"It happened again?" I said and he gave a little nod.

"Why does this keep happening?" he said.

"I don't know," I said. "It will pass, sooner or later."

"So you keep saying," he said.

Even if the dreams would leave in the following months, that night as I sat looking at him thinking about what he just told me and trying my best to find something to say but I also knew I had nothing to say that would make any difference. He must have known as well because he climbed sleepily into my lap and put his head against my neck.

As I held my son in my arms what I had refused to admit was how close I felt to my past life even if there was no way of going back. No way of listening to the whispers of the past, those looming shadows just above the wall beckoning me every now and then to try and reclaim something I had abandoned years ago. It would take time for me to accept this fact. As I considered, foolishly, how to get some of it back, a slice of things I'd missed but now felt within reach, I looked at my son fast asleep, a strange bemused smile on his face. 

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