- 2 -

Once, I was assigned a drawing homework in Primary 3, and obsessed as I was with perfection, I sketched an immaculately drawn artpiece obviously man-made in terms of the fruits' arrangement and positioning. My still life is literally a still life. Its stiffness and rigidity couldnt have beaten any other. Having finished the masterpiece, I ran up to my dad to earn his praise. Instead, he glanced over at my painting , tossed it aside, and sat me down on a table with a fresh sheet of plain paper. 'Watch.', he said, flatly. So I watched, as his nimble grubby fingers of an ex-mechanic maneuvered and skated black crayon atop the pale sheet. As the pastel danced, shapes materialized, one after another before I could realize it - finally, a basket of tropical fruits with a backdrop of bamboo sheets. As he proceeded to sketch the pineapples' scales, the orange's rough , dotted texture, and the bamboo sheet's plaited structure, I protested vehemently about his 'careless' dotting of the fruits, and lining of the textures. He frowned and stared me down as he said : nothing in this world is perfectly aligned. A lot of things, are random. And that, is art.

'But i want a perfect art piece!', I insisted.

'This is far from perfect! My drawing reflects myself - it had to be perfectly aligned !!!'

With a huge sigh , he gazed at me and spoke.

'Nothing in this world is perfect , but one.'

'What is?', i challenged.

'You are. ', he waited , ' I am. '

'But i cant play the piano..I cant...you wont let me learn, so i cant....'

'We all are imperfect in our terms and conditions,' he quipped, ' but we need to know one thing. We are indeed perfect. But we cant see it sometimes.You know why?'

'Why?'

'Because God never make a mistake. We are all perfect designs. Our lives, are perfectly fine as it is if we just try our best. But to see that, you need to first accomplish one very critical requirement.'

'That being...?'

He smiled a smile I could never dream of seeing again now. Not that I had dared to face him given my present state. ... There is a bitter laughter which I felt choking up my throat. I felt like laughing - but airy tears seem to well up my eyes, fogging my glasses as I thought of my imperfections. No, not yet . I have not finished living. To me, I am still too far, much too far from achieving perfection. But deep inside, maybe I am too afraid to acknowledge this.

Am I ready yet ?

If only I try to give it a go, is it possible that I could be ready?

But I am too scared , still, to give it a go. With hours left to count, should I try to accept defeat, or see death as defeat at all? I had always wanted to ask him this, directly, face to face, just for the sake of hearing his answer. Dad...have you ever regretted your 'perfect' life? Have you ever wished you are somewhere else, with somebody else but Mom and us?

'But first, you must learn to love yourself.'