LOST PIECE OF PUZZLE

It wasn’t hidden, it is dark, not lit, but not always. Sometimes, the ages-old fluorescence light tube up in the ceiling lit up, and soon it is dimmed again. So far that I know, the room is there for some purpose… emm… to leave the unused clutter, for those unwanted sundries which seems still useful and some stuffs as old as the house.

The room sounds to be a worn space, full of junks and trash, full of dusts and spider webs and gives people a dreadful feeling. By odds, it can be a treasure hunting ground or a good hiding spot for hide-and-seek. And now, I realize it is where my memories of the 90’s kept, the 6 years I stayed in Sandakan.

All the broken puzzle pieces are in a red briefcase, an old-fashioned briefcase. My sister took him out this afternoon and all of us gathered around this mysterious dusty thing.

Some of the things are mine, some are my parent’s belongings ; but most of them are so strange to me and yet I should be familiar with. I found my childhood toys, shirt and clothes when I am months after birth. There is a small photo frame with my photo in it, with me and my sister on a tricycle. One of them, with bigger frame, is me when I am in…emm… 1994, yes, I guess so.

In the same briefcase, in a different compartment, hidden in the back, it was my parent’s photo album, those took the day they married. My mum look for the album for such a long time and always been wondering where they gone. Now, she found it. There are even some cosmetics, the eyeliner, which I think should been expired for at least a decade. Of course they are not mine.

I do take lots of childhood photos, but most of them are childhood after 6 years old, not much before I moved to Johor Bahru. In Sandakan, I found the clinic where I born, it is still there, a walking distant away from my grandparent’s house ; I found my father’s primary school, my mum primary and secondary school ; all the puzzle pieces that broken apart , bit by bit, reform a recognizable image, right in my mind. I don’t lost those memories, I just went through a 19 years circle and see them again.