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2004-07-19 - 7:51 p.m. Dedications ----------- I’ve done it before, writing out a list of names on a piece of paper. I’m not ashamed to admit it. Once, at an electrical goods store, I pestered my parents to buy a telephone with a redial function. On my list, the final name is that of the person I have a crush on, preceded by the phrase, ‘and last but not least’. A minute later I would revise the list to place the name in the middle, so it will be hidden and nondescript, so I will receive the greater thrill of having my secret read aloud on air to thousands of listeners. I have the list because I have heard how people stumble and stammer when they are making their dedications, a trail of names reduced to insignificant afterthoughts due to the doubtful pauses between them. On the telephone, I will be calm but not expressionless, enthusiastic but not excitable. In the background there will be silence, not a juvenile entourage of giggles nor the whirr of my stand-fan, which will only transmit the impression that I do not have an air-con in my room. I will not betray my eagerness by leaning towards the radio to listen to the sound of my own voice; I have learnt that this creates feedback and prompts the radio presenter’s carefully masked irritation. If exams are around the corner, there will be intense competition among students like me to dedicate songs to their classmates; so many fingers on so many buttons across the island. This is the best time to call in. Sometimes I think this is not so much due to a swell of goodwill or solidarity during exam season but simply because most of us tend to study late at night with the radio on. These things are recalled as I stare at the piece of paper that has fallen out from my Maths textbook. The exams are long over, and I had never managed to get through the phone lines even once. I have often speculated how the phone-in system worked and whether my incapacity was due to my geographical location, my telephone number, or the speed of my telephone’s redial function. Perhaps there might be a secret number one can dial that is given first-tier priority over the number announced on the radio. It doesn’t matter, the list is in my hands, folded in half, a reminder of rejection and my failure. His name, coincidentally, is sandwiched between those of two girls: one became his girlfriend in Sec 3, another in the later half of Sec 4. To the class of 2B at ABSS, all the best for the exams, study hard, and last but not least, allow me to share my secret with you. I, who am quiet in class, whose heart races when her name is called, whose scented notebooks have long lost their aroma, possess the awesome, accidental and ruinous power of prophecy.
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