I woke up to what I thought was going to be any other Saturday. At the counter of my neighborhood coffeeshop I stood in a long line of people catching an early breakfast and waited for my turn. It was taking longer than usual. I turned my attention to the newspaper rack behind me.

I immediately recognized the face in the picture. In the spilt-seconds after the gravity of its accompanying headline had sunken in, I was in denial. I could not comprehend the reality staring at me in my face.

Hwei Yen. Gone. Brutally gone.

I first met her a decade ago. She was then the girlfriend of a guy I had befriended while I was in boot camp. It panned out that she and I had more in common than him and I, and we became fast friends.

As I stared at her photograph, I remembered the one afternoon we had spent sitting by the pool of her estate, talking, as usual, about everything and anything. And I remembered we each had a bowl of instant noodles whipped up by the maid.

Then, inexplicably, I recalled her fondness for The Teletubbies, and how I would jibe her mercilessly for it. In another time, the thought would have made me smile.

The only thing I could think to do was to reach for my phone and find a connection to her. The ex-boyfriend. But the number was no longer in use.

In the years after the army, we were swept into the working world, and my contact with the both of them diminished to the occasional chat on MSN. I last spoke with Hwei Yen a year ago, most likely when I had called her on her birthday.

It would have been her birthday in a little over a month’s time.

* * * * * *

Update 2.12.08

The number listed on the screen was from China, and not one that I recognized.

“Hey,” the familiar baritone voice crackled over the line. “It’s me.”

It was Ty, an old army friend whom I had not heard from for well over four years. During a recent reservist exercise I had attended, his name had come up when I bumped into a mutual company mate. It was then that I learnt he had relocated to China four years ago. 

“I’m sure you know why I’m calling,” he said.

Suddenly I did. In writing the earlier draft of this post, I had forgotten that he knew Hwei Yen as well. Back in 1999, while I was on National Service, I gathered a bunch of friends and made a short film. It would seem that, in my attempt to forget that embarrassing and amateurish effort of a short film, I had also forgotten that I had another mutual friend of hers. 

Ty had been the stills photographer on the shoot documenting the making-of process. As for Hwei Yen, she had a small acting part in the film, her screen time no more than a minute and in just one scene. As Ty and I chatted on, I replayed her performance in my head, the way she talked, the cadences in her voice. I could also recall every single one of the photographs he had taken. 

“Remember we gave her the nickname ‘Chatterbox?’”

I did. We christened her the name during one of the numerous coffee sessions we used to have at the Seattle Coffee Company that once stood at the corner of North Bridge Road and Stamford Road, where we would sit and gaze out at the world passing by beyond its large picture window fronting the road.

At that, and in the reassurance I was feeling from our phone conversation, that I had finally found a connection with whom I could talk about her, I was able to smile. 

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