Chapter 25
If you are given $86,400 hard cash and the condition is to spend it within a day. How would you spend it?
Would you squander every single dollar on yourself? Making sure that you pamper yourself with the nicest clothes, bags and to have three wonderful meals for that day?
Or would you buy something nice to share it with that someone special? Taking her on a shopping spree making her the feel like the most fortunate person in the whole wide world?
$86,400 is not really a huge amount but definitely something nice to have.
What if it’s not $86,400 but 86,400 seconds that you were given.
How would you spend it?
Would you want to spend every single second all by yourself? Doing things you like and enjoying the peace and quietness alone?
Or would you spend the 86,400 seconds with that someone special. Both of you may do nothing at all, just enjoying each other’s company. You may joke around and rekindle the good old times during the times both of you have experienced.
86,400 seconds is actually 24 hours or a full day in our life.
It’s not an awful lot of time consider how long we are going to live.
But it is still a fraction of our life as we age.
What do we do in a day?
We get up, some of us go to school, some of us go to work, some of us might just go back to sleep.
Then we rush for the stupid bus that always comes early when you are late. When we reached office, the files and documents that stacked our desk seems to be a lot higher than yesterday.
After a day’s work, we go back to our home and greet our loved one with a tiring smile. No matter how hard the day it has been… the feeling of going home is undeniably sweet... because we will enjoy each other’s company and shared all the things that happened to us today.
How would you spend it, the 86,400 seconds of your life?
How you spend it, is not really important.
Who you spend it with is.
“Clog…..… Clog……..…Clog………”
The sound of heels walking slowly clattered under the quiet alley. Away from Clark Quay as the lost soul seek place of asylum. Christine was the first to react in the hullabaloo as she was so awkwardly disappointed.
Disappointed with herself, for lay her shoulder on Shaun,
Disappointed with herself, for letting Mark saw her doing that,
Disappointed with Mark, who was with the girl…
Christine wanted to be away, escaping from all the confusion and misunderstanding that had occurred earlier.
“Will he think I’m with Shaun? I don’t think so… Shaun would have explained… who was that girl….? Why was she doing here with him? Were they a couple? Why didn’t I ask?”
Christine looked at her watch; it was almost one in the morning. Though all the walking had tired her physically, none could be compared to the emotional turmoil that she was exposed.
“I’m just tired of everything…”
Christine told herself as she hailed a cab home.
If not for the customer request for proposal her boss had wanted her to complete, she might just took another day off.
It’s only thirty-two more hours to see him again.
These thirty-two hours seem like eternity to her as a long night of insomnia begins.
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The three survivors left standing from the ordeal as Christine ran off the moment she saw Mark with Sharon.
Mark was clueless about what was going on except the fact that Shaun was staring at him with rage.
“Mark! ~ What the fuck are you doing here with Sharon???”
Shaun pulled Mark one side.
“Wait.. hey man! What’s you doing?”
Mark was caught with Shaun’s sudden burst of incense.
“Fuck you!”
Shaun cold-bloodedly attacked Mark.
“Shit man Shaun, cool down. What’s wrong? Is Sharon your ex-girlfriend? I can explain you know.”
Mark tried to block the on-coming fury.
“Shaun… What are you doing? Stop it!”
Sharon tried to intervene.
“Shut up Sharon… I won’t let this creep get advantage of you again”
“Wait.. WAIT~ What the hell is going on.. Can someone please explain to me~??”
Mark too couldn’t take it any longer.
Shaun paused for a breather as he pants heavily. Mark stared in astonishment as Sharon went to aid Shaun instead of himself.
“Sharon, how are you related to Shaun?”
Mark asked he tried to get himself up.
“Shaun… is… my cousin..”
“Cousin?~!?!”
Mark couldn’t believe what he had heard.
“Thought you said your Aunt was single?”
“Shaun lives only beside our apartment and Aunt Rosy had always treated Shaun like her own son.. so we were like cousins from young.”
Sharon explained.
“Then what does it gotta to do with me?”
“Shut up you bastard. It was you who cheated Sharon right?”
Shaun finger-pointed at Mark as his eyeball enlarged.
“Shaun… no no wait… I think you’ve mistaken… he’s not the one!!”
Sharon suddenly realized she was the center of this misunderstanding.
“No??”
“Yeah! of course not man! Shaun.. how long you know me.. two years? You always know I couldn’t get over my ex-girlfriend.”
All the shouting and fighting had lure many attention as bystanders begin to crowd the three of them. The uproar came to a halt when Sharon stood in the middle of both of them.
“Let’s go to another place to talk..?”
Sharon suggested as she dragged the two men out of the scene.
They came to a coffee shop not far away from Clark Quay.
Sharon looked at Shaun.
“Shaun… this guy is not Jason. Jason is the one whom I nearly took my life for… This guy, Mark indirectly is my life saver. He thought I had jumped into the sea and tried to save me. He almost got himself killed in the process if not for others who helped him.”
Then she turned to look at Mark.
“Mark, Shaun is my half-cousin as you know earlier. We know each other since I moved to Aunt Rosy and we got along very well. Well… Shaun is like a confider to me, as I’ve always turns to him for advice… My job at the café was recommended by him too...”
As cars zoom right across the face of the table, the 2 guys looked at each other face to face again. The fury had ended as Shaun’s slowly tried to put on a smile back on.
“Eh.. bro… pai seh about just now.”
Shaun wished there was a hole for him to bury himself with.
“What do you want me to say?”
Mark just covered more soil on him.
“Well… I’m sorry.. Oh Man!!.. It’s really sissy to apologize in public you know.”
“Then we’ll call it a deal if you let me beat you up?”
“Mark… he already apologized… I apologized too ok?”
Sharon used her sweetest look and voice on him. It was something she developed to allure her bait into submission.
“Ok… ok… forget it… I was joking anyway.”
Mark tried to hide the fact that he had fallen for her trick.
“You’re the man! Bro… let’s have supper? It’s on me”
Shaun patted Mark’s shoulder with a more relax approach.
Supper came and they indulged with the pure fragrance of bak kut teh alone Mohd Sultan road.
“Oh yeah I almost forgot… what was Christine doing with you? Is there something that I didn’t know about?”
Mark suddenly remembered the fourth person earlier.
“Er… I don’t know what to say man…”
Shaun tried to avoid the question.
“Both of you together?”
Shaun didn’t reply but looked at him with the widest smile.
“Shit!!! When did that happened? How come I don’t even have the slightest idea?”
“Aiyah, Shaun is always so shy... How can this type of thing be so open?”
Sharon suddenly disrupted the conversation.
Shaun just looked back at his bowl.
“Bro, you are so wicked. You got the cheek to ask what did we do in Shanghai and you told me Christine all along liked me?”
“I was…. Only…….. Testing you…”
Shaun replied softly.
“Hey man! These types of things you gotta let me know in advance. I’m not that type of person you know.. Well no doubt Christine is not bad looking… but if I know she’s my buddy’s girlfriend I will surely know my grounds”
Mark joked as he finished up.
“Let me send the two of you home… ”
The mood was a lot better during the trip home as Mark and Shaun joked about their daily life in the office with Sharon listen attentively in the rear.
Then Mark turned on music to relax everyone as it was getting late.
Maybe the tiredness had drained her out as Sharon slowly fell into slumber as she listens to the music.
“bro…”
Shaun asked as he checked Sharon one more time.
“Yeah?”
“You liked Sharon?”
“Nope… I never had such ideas..”
“You despise her of her past?”
“Of course not, Why would I do that?”
“Then can you please help to take care of her too…She has suffer too much”
Shaun then unwinds the window and the incoming breeze blew his hair.
“Don’t worry.. I will..”
Mark replied as the car arrived at their void deck.
Shaun tried to wake her up but Sharon was too deep into her sleep. He then lifted her up as both of them walked towards the lift.
“its ok bro, I will send her to Aunt Rosy.”
“Yeah Shaun,… you better give Chris a call later on..”
“What for?”
“To tell her you’re home? Thought that’s what couples do?”
“Oh… ok… I will…”
That was his reply as the lift closes.
Mark then went back to his car and drove back home.
It was really a remarkable day of event.
First event was the relationship between Christine and Shaun… then it turned out that Sharon and Shaun was related in a way too.
“Shaun has always been so low profile… ,feels like I’ve known him better today…”
That was Mark’s last thought as he closed his eyes in that night.
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Sharon looked at Shaun as he carried her to the front door.
“Shaun…”
“Yeah..?”
“Are the two of you really together?”
“………….I….. of course we are…. I hope…”
“Why was she crying before we saw you?”
“Sharon… can do your good old cousin a favor?”
“Yeah…?”
“Don’t ask anymore questions… I have enough for today…”
Shaun said as he allowed her to get off before he turned his back to go back to his own house.
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Mark woke up almost noon time when his mother came into his room.
“Wake up lah… MC can sleep until so late to skip breakfast and lunch?”
“Ok… it’s really tiring..”
Mark replied as he stretches himself.
Mark already had his off day planned out.
First stop was at MPH Bookstore at Citylink… then he would catch the 5pm show at Marina Square.
Alone?
That didn’t bother him at all as he all dressed up to enjoy the off day fully.
The MPH bookstore was one of the places where Mark loved to go whenever he’s free.
The old MPH building along Stanford road and Armenian Street was one of the places where people of his age would have come to know a great deal. The freshly brewed coffee coupled with the latest hard covers was ‘freshly’ delivered to the vivid readers. As the building was given conservation status in 2003, Mark had to content with the other outlets he frequent, one of which was in Citylink.
It was there when he first met Jade… when both of them were still in secondary school.
Mark brushed his old memories away as he reached the Citylink outlet.
As he browsed the latest arrival.. there was a book which he had really anticipated.
It was Mitch Albom’s For One More Day. Mark was fascinated by the caption
“What if you have one more day, with someone you’d lost?”
For One More Day is the story of a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?
As Mark eagerly read through the prologue, he moved backwards to find a leaning support. His movements accidentally knocked on to someone who was backed facing him.
“I’m sorry…”
Mark replied with his eyes still glued to the book.
“It’s ok…. Oh hi…. Mark…”
[To be Cont]
