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Tales From the Down Under: #19- Getting Lost

I conclude the incident that evokes my greatest bewilderment is getting lost. Lost not in an utterly unfamiliar land but a familiar labyrinthe where all paths lead to the same starting point. It is like tracing your way out in the lines of God’s palm which proves indisputably futile the attempt. Several synonymous experiences I’ve had, much to the general disbelief, stamp on my nightmarish horror.

Few of the many trips to Singapore consist collisions with festival days. I slink from overwhelming hubbubs so any authentic festivities are stranger to us. However once after a gorged supper on greasy Thai culinary, I raised an uneventful suggestion of taking a walk around the vicinities. My curiosity of nightlife was then still in its embryonic and most fermenting stage, and a further suggestion was made of ambling to the harbor through the festive crowd. An outrageous stomachache ensued when my family and I were obscured and almost swallowed by a looming mob of people. Witnessing lines of streams of people flooding to me, through me only psychologically or physically intensified the ache. Such experience shouldn’t be lingered upon too closely on the description. I eventually went back to my hotel safely and made a beeline to the toilet punctually before any disaster ensued, I will sum up my story thus. The incident though left two indelible marks in my principal thinking: whenever there is a razzle-dazzle happening my first instinct is to shun it; whenever traveling to an unknown place I always want to ensure that hygienic toilets are at my disposal.

It wasn’t until years later when seeing a scene in Rosemary’s Baby with multiple naked bodies approaching the protagonist half-consciously did the aforesaid incident was again dredged up. After hindsight, I did recall the place almost with dismay that it was actually not far away from my hotel. The roads muddied with exuberant festival-goers played a crucial role of debilitating my sense of direction and common geography. Certainly should some short cuts be discovered and considered I could get back to the hotel before any waves of intense cramps hitting relentlessly my stomach. Nevertheless, how could those short cuts be executed if they were more or less already preoccupied with numerous noisy fleshes? It was only once in my life that I wanted to trample all those people ruthlessly, stride through their heads without mercy.

When, a few months before, writing on my assignment about the theory of uncanniness, I stumbled upon a chapter considering the same issue on Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams. Freud’s intricacies of mind eluded me and I could hardly understand what he was writing about, but through some glances I assumed he did mention how most people are haunted by the memories of getting lost in the most familiar place with the most unfamiliar experience.

When a chamber of horror is unwisely opened, there are still a lot to write about, but that person who first stated the belief of writing out to exorcise your inner monster- he/she is categorically a nitwit, since the monstrosity is only getting more formidable.

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