Today, I received news of Vincent's death. It doesn't matter how I put it to myself. I've said it out loud, spoken it through my tears and now, I've written it down. It still doesn't make it any more real.

When I first opened the email, that rather bland first line didn't quite make sense - 'I am sorry to inform you that our dear friend, Vincent Chia, has passed away.' As a writer, I sometimes use the phrase 'reeling in shock' to describe a state of mind. Now, I finally fully understand what it means. That line made no sense to me, for all that it was written in perfectly good English. I wanted, so badly, for it to be a joke, for me to be able to scroll down to the end of the email and read a clarification, any clarification, but there was none, only an aching, blank space.

Vince was my little brother in everything but blood, and now he is irrevocably dead, and nothing I can do or want to do, will change that. What makes it all the more surreal is the fact that I am so far away from it right now. Outside my window, life goes on, cars and lorries continue on their nightly journeys and deliveries. For all that I want to stop the clocks and tell the world what a wonderful person Vince was, and what a wonderful person he was growing into, the world will not stop spinning, and so I am left in this world of blue melancholy.

I cannot believe that he is gone, and that I will never see his cheeky, mischievous grin ever again. I cannot believe that a person so full of life and laughter can just fall into non-existence, non-being, like that, go from living to dead in the blink of an eye, or however long it took for that knife to draw the life out of him.

There will be no new memories now, and all the memories of him that I do have will remain memories, faded leaves in desperate hands. I still cannot quite wrap my mind around the fact that he is gone, that he has been removed from this plane, that his song has come to an end. I cannot imagine the archery range without his easy and infectious laugh, his loud jokes and all-encompassing grin.

It seems incredibly unfair somehow, that someone so young should be so rudely snatched away in such a violent and casual manner, as if some god had gotten bored and decided to create a few ripples in the pond. I was, and am still, completely staggered by disbelief when I heard the news and read the short and cold newspaper clipping attached to the email. These things weren't meant to happen to people we knew, our loved ones and family. The victims in the papers were always strangers, other people in different lives. The newspapers, and the distance afforded by print, made it easy to objectify things - for a while we forget that the victims were also someone's sister or brother or cousin or boyfriend - and so it is easy to cluck sympathetically and move to the sports section.

Now, I think of the pointless way my little brother died, and shudder. I wonder what his last thoughts were, or if he even had time to form any, as he slowly began to realise that he was not going to live. Did he even realise this, or did death fall upon him like a shroud, a fog?

We all know that life is short. But despite knowing this fact, we don't seem to have really properly understood it. Indeed, at least on my part, I never understand, till it's too late. I would never have thought that I would never see him again after this summer, that he would never get to tell me about his China experiences, or that, far from my not being in Singapore when he came back from his attachment, it was he who would not be in Singapore, and who would no longer be among the living, when I went back to Singapore in June.

That said, I am not going to forget him. For as long as I live, he will always have a place in my heart. Indeed, I will never be able to draw my bow without thinking of him.

Love you, little brother.

last - next