In Joyous Anticipation For The Next Heart I Plan To Break

Fiction

By Zackary Chong

We shall play it like this – I’m the best guy you’ve ever met and you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. I’m the most dashing, most intelligent, most charismatic person you’ve ever met and you’re the equal part to it; because I become undone when I read what you write.

We shall play it like this – This is my second time (proper), and I’ll do everything to make you stay. You have tried the rigamarole once before, so you are cautious. You will confide in me all the failures of men in your life – and I tell you that I will never be as stupid. You will believe every word I say. I do too.

We shall play it like this – We will have a good three months before I go into the army and we are convinced this will last forever. I think of how your name would sound like with my surname. We think about what to name our children and we decide that if we have a daughter, I’ll name her – but if we have a son, you will. We will be deluded in love together and be too blind to see that we are human beings and not characters in a novella.

We shall play it like this – When I enter the army you will enter university. You’re smart as I know, so you will go to King’s College to study. I will enter Tekong and hate my time there. Though apart, you write to me endlessly, and I will respond. I will respond as soon as I can, but carrying the SAR21 every day will numb my understanding of the outside world. I will talk to my brothers and my new found rifle-wife that I think you’ll probably cheat on me in university, because I’m no longer the most dashing, most intelligent, most charismatic person you would meet. My brothers will haunt me with ghost stories about how their women have all left them. They call it potong jalan.

We shall play it like this – I will not know this, but you try your best to stay faithful. You decline outings and go back to your dorm instead of the pub. You have seen what bad men will do for even badder women, and you vow that you shall never base yourself like they do. You have seen what it does to your family and will not be hurt again. You write back, but I stop responding. I will be too tired to listen to what you have to say and I will ignore you when you need help. This will be because I saw you post on your instagram stories that you were out with a group of friends and there were people there that were not me. This will make me bitter, and I will only give you close-ended responses. You will get sick of these non-responses.

I shall play it like this – Some time in my first year of service, I will be peer pressured to go clubbing with my section-mates. There, I will meet an old friend that I had not seen in years. She sat in front of me during classes in Secondary 3 and I always found her cute. I would not have told you about her. There, she will look as stunning as she did before and I will learn that she just recently broke up with her boyfriend and is dancing her grief away. I will down a 5th shot of Vodka for the night, and I will tell her, me too.

You shall play it like this – You will meet someone new in your class and spend a wonderful summer with him. He will listen to what you have to say and guarantees his loyalty no matter what. You will tell him that you’re taken already, upfront, and he says that he doesn’t really care because he sees you as more of a sister than someone to fall in love with. You will feel safe around him, and find a friend in his company. You will feel guilty about being close with him because you know about how bad my trust issues are, but you figure that this is just a friend and there’s nothing wrong with that. You will meet his parents. His father is a retired Literature professor and his mother a housewife with a small bakery downtown. You will talk to his father about your favourite book, which was To Kill A Mockingbird and coincidentally he will be an expert in 60s American Literature. You have a wonderful tea with the old man and he will ask you if you are dating his son. You tell him, no sir.

I shall play it like this – On the following summer, you will return back to Singapore to meet me. I will meet you at Changi Airport during my Book Out day and we will hug at the arrival hall. I’ll ask you how you have been – and I will think about how much I detest how you present yourself before me, and my head will be full of leading questions, wondering how many boys have made their rounds on you while you were away. You will tell me you’ve been doing good, and be silently surprised at how my gaze has hardened over the time I have been getting ready to die for Pedra Branca. You will meet your mother whom you have waited longingly to come back to. You will spill your heart to her about how you feel split between two worlds: about wanting to stay with me, but also wanting to date that boy you met in university, how it’s a bad idea. Your mother will look at you and sigh, telling you that you’re still so young. You will hug her and cry. I will go back to my military base and kiss my rifle-wife goodnight.

You shall play it like this – During this summer, you will decide to go on a date with me and I will begrudgingly agree, despite the fact that I was thoroughly exhausted by the week of military obligations and having to walk around in pointless circles to please our Prime Minister and praying that the guy in front won’t miss his step. During this date, I will be distant and spacing out and I will have someone else entirely on my mind. You will snap at me and ask me what the hell am I even doing this for if all you’re going to do is just stare at nothing? And I will tell you that I will be sorry (I won’t be) and I will continue staring at nothing. We will end our date at Bugis MRT station and you will silently hope that I will ask you to come home with me and stay the night. I will not do so. I will say goodbye at the station.

I shall play it like this – When you go back to start your new semester, I will meet that girl again, this time intentionally, and I will ask her how she has been recently. I will learn that she is studying Business Management in SMU and I will tell her that I haven’t fully decided what I want to do yet but I want to do something related to Political Science. Then, I will finally throw caution to the wind. I will ignore you in my mind, and everything that you have or haven’t done to me – for all of it will blend together in a terrible cocktail of misunderstandings and misappropriations of anger and lust. I will go down deeper and further with her because I never got over how she would stare at me even when I was 15. Following this, the lock-and-key hypothesis would be proven – like a substrate on an enzyme, I will become undone. I will turn alive in her.

You shall play it like this – You will know nothing about this and will tell your boy best friend about the frustrating summer you spent with your boyfriend and ask him for his advice; whether it would be better to simply break things off with me already. He will be as diplomatic as possible and tell you calmly that this is not something that I can pass my judgement on innit you just have to talk to him about it and communicate these feelings with ‘em and you will thank him for saying what you already know but cannot bring yourself to do. You will turn to ask for the help of strangers on r/relationshipadvice and they will tell you a similar story, albeit with worse grammar, more pointed and angry responses about how much of a demon that I will be.

I shall play it like this – Eventually, I will find myself in the arms of the new old girl and she will see this as just some triumph of the flesh, with all her brains and her beauty to boot. She ultimately wins this head-to-head contest. We will go for months without speaking, and you will finally decide to pull the trigger and send me an essay. You will tell me in this thesis that i dont know what i think i did or what i did do but whatever it is. im sorry. i dont think we’re compatible at all and it's better we just go back to being friends. ive tried everything to make it work with you but you just never have any time for me and it really sucks to see this happen to us. i wish you all the best with everything, i guess. I will then proceed to ignore this message and forward it to her, to which she will laugh and tell me that I’m finally free. I will not tell you nor her how agonisingly I will lament this predictable calamity. Instead, I will react with a single thumbs-up emoji.

You shall play it like this – You will tell your best friend that you’ve finally broken up with your worthless boyfriend and he will silently be elated but will not say anything to your face. He will ask you if you need someone to talk to about it, and he will offer his shoulder to cry on, which you will accept. I will go back to my daily scheduled program and finish being cannon fodder for the country. I will then proceed to get drunk with her, and I will send you a message writhing in seething jealousy and hatred, with a picture of my proud rebound and myself. I will attempt to scrub my flesh clean of guilt, and force myself to accept my self-fulfilling prophecy. I will run through countless permutations of everything that vidicates me, but I will find no comfort. You will cry over this message for many weeks. I will, too.

We shall play it like this – We will move on with our lives, and never speak of each other ever again.

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Zackary Chong (@zankett) is a monkey with a typewriter. Sometimes he vomits words coherent enough for people to lick up. His work has been featured by The Paper Plane Press, Ranger Magazine and Anglo-Chinese Independent Stage. He is always open to new writers to connect with.