Twizel
It is raining.
Road trips have certainly never been a favourite past-time of mine. Who would enjoy sitting still and watching rows and rows of trees and forestry zoom by? Even more so when it rains, the raindrops patter against the chromium plating of the car roof; short, disconnected raps which wake me up with a start and prevent me from going back to sleep. The car moves through the downpour in swift solitude, tyres sibilant on the asphalt. The rain is a mantle which shrouds and hides the scenery from proper view; clouds bury the sun in folds of shaded gray. I press my hand against the window, ignoring the stinging cold as the sheet of water behaves like permafrost, clinging to the external surface of the glass. Rain can combine with wind to lower the temperature as low as ten degrees, did you know? What would seem like hours later, I remove my hand, skin pale yet strangely violet from congealing oxygen-poor blood, and cradle it, numbness making it seem like like it did not belong to me. Plastered on the glass is a perfect print of my hand in small drops of condensation, indentations and notches all perfectly duplicated, identical to the smallest detail and pattern. A five-fingered stain which means so much more than it looks like and touches me long after it fades. Somehow, I forget and overlook the fact that it is raining and completely ignore the raindrops on the roof, a rhythmic, perpetual beat that convinces me that the car might have its own rapid pulse.
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Twizel is a small town on the outskirts of Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand. Even from miles away, the summit stands tall and proud. There are few houses in Twizel, which are laid out in a Scandinavian fashion. Shops, the local school and parkland form a hub in the heart of the town, with the neighbourhood encircling the hub, forming the 'ribs'. The roads are relatively narrow and looped, but pedestrian crossings and streets are plentiful. There is an aura of serenity and peace about the town, the kind which rides in on the heels of Nirvana coming to stay. The drizzle casts some aspersions on the peaceful atmosphere, bringing with it some degree of depression and melancholy, but one can see through the rain to appreciate the town in its splendour. Traversing the town is not easy, and the slow pace of the car easily bores me. I lower down the window and extend my bare arm out of the car, allowing the raindrops to fall, cleansing the sweat off my palm and arm. Until the cold finally grabs all the bones in my forearm and fingers, until I am convinced that it must be raining acid, until I can imagine that the raindrops are melting away my skin do I retreat and pull my arm back in, glistening and trembling, but yet I still cannot feel entirely satisfied.
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You'd think that six days in New Zealand would make a person sick of the wind. Well, I would easily bet that I could spend six weeks here and would never get enough of the wind. I find myself opening windows everywhere; in my motel room, while travelling in the car, and even before I go to sleep and it is cold outside, trying to circulate the air even though I pile blankets on top of the electric blanket matting below the bed linen. Everyone protests, and sometimes I comply. When this happens though, I go outside, to the outdoors where the wind runs free. I wait for minutes on end, and continue to run, just to feel the breeze fluting over my skin, falling into my mouth and nostrils, and fool myself into believing that it runs through my arteries as well. It is a hypnotic, seductive element, and easily enraptures a person who lives in eternal summer. I want to be the wind itself, the epitome of freedom, whose only purpose is to cause enjoyment, destruction and have no shred of regret or guilt at all and no use for emotions.
I walk slowly down the street. It is early summer, the air crisp and thin, the tang of natural pine scent evocative of summer and the subtle hint of a temperature drop. I draw a deep breath and hold it there, the cold biting at the tips of my nostrils, and let go, my breath bursting out in a white cloud and fogging a pathway for me. My throat blisters with the aftermath of the rush of cold air, but it does not matter. Nothing really does when you don't have a worry in the world.
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What strikes me as odd is that I no longer find it strange that there are no condominiums or large office blocks for miles around. New Zealand, having a large land mass, has no use for space-saving buildings. I begin to wonder if I have become detached from Singapore, integrating slowly into the New Zealand culture. Sensing the chilly gusts around me, I try my hardest to recall the aroma of Singapore; the smell of gasoline redolent in the summer heat. But I can no longer remember.