11:33 and I cannot sleep.

My mind wanders.

I think about home. About my little red car, now sold, and whether I’ll drive auto still when I get another car, or whether I’ll get Dad to teach me manual again. (Erich calls Manuel “Manual”. Irrelevent.)

I think about food a lot – what I’m gonna cook next and all that, down to the miserable ingredients. Dinner tomorrow will be chicken porridge. Okay, but not the way Mom makes it.

Her spicy fried eggplant with minced pork. (Greasy as hell but heavenly all the same.) Her chicken peppercorn soup, and how everyone would stare at me as I crack some fresh black pepper into my bowl regardless. How she and Sis would (and still do, I hope) add a dash of soy sauce to their curry and rice. Dad and his supper surprises – char kway teow, fried oysters with egg, and the best wonton mee in the world.

Sis laughed, the other day, when I called her, to hear I cooked Chinese food now. Never realised it before but I never did cook back home, ‘cept for some things that would not pass off as pasta or pizza with my Italian friends. Chinese food. I cook that now.

Six days till Chinese New Year.

There will be no celebration here, nothing at all. How can I have a reunion dinner without my family? When will we be reunited? Never saw the significance of the tradition till now, now I’m an ocean and a continent away.

My mind wonders.

11:41 and I cannot sleep.