Where are you?

We were told to bring our uniforms a day before for some parade at 530PM today, so I brought it. Then they told those who, for reasons of negligence, ignorance, or irresponsibility, did not bring theirs this: you can leave at 5PM. Which is, incidentally, half an hour earlier than our normal dismissal time. The rest who did bring their uniform had to report for the parade as spectators.

Only in the SAF can you find such stupidity, such injustice. Like WHY in HEAVEN’S NAME should those who OBEYED orders be made to suffer PUNISHMENT (that is, leave later than our usual dismissal time; being a spectator to an utterly STUPID event is quite a punishment too) when those who didn’t reaped a privilege that is hardly JUSTIFIED anyway?? Argh.

Anyway, at the parade, I heard the military band play a marching piece I once played back in secondary school. The notes promptly brought me back to the past and I noted I didn’t look so unkindly on the band as I used to when I was in it. Comparing the two samples of emotions—one from the past and one from the present—I realized that the difference between them could either be accounted by the dissolutive quality of time, or the categorical degradation of my life.

I miss the horn. Maybe when I get $4000 richer I will get one as an ornament of some sort, though what I really am missing is the ten-year-old Holton H602 (or whatever it was) I used to have back then. It was so seasoned it could play such dark, mellow notes without me putting any conscious effort into it at all. It was so seasoned the keys were soft to the touch. It was so seasoned green mould grew on the bell. It was so seasoned the tuning valve always got stuck, almost as if she loved her parent too much. It was so seasoned they condemned the instrument after I left. I should have told them I wanted to keep it. Why didnt I?