Serendipity

I was happily watching my television and enjoying my durian when I receive the sms from Huiping (ex colleague of CPF Board), one which totally and literally froze time.

"Is this a joke?" and "Which Ant are you talking about?" were the thoughts which ran through my head. I message back, "Huh? What happened? Are you serious?!"

And then I quickly called the sender up since it was faster that way. She told me that Doreen and herself received a friendster message from Anthony’s friend, informing them of his demise this morning (11 July).

Initially, like everyone else, they thought it was just a prank, and they ignored the Friendster message. Hui Ping was online and messaged Anthony, only to be greeted by Anthony’s brother’s solemn replies, that he has a bad news about Anthony, who has committed suicide.

I notified a few people, and I went online, and saw that abovementioned message. Surfed through a few person’s testimonials to him, and randomly check on his frd’s blog. Saw one girl’s blog, where she blogged about the news that she heard this early morning.

Messaged "Anthony" on his MSN, and the same solemn messages from his brother appeared. And he also asked how we knew each other.

I broke down again upon seeing how truth was unfolding before me, that this isn’t any joke. Part of me still wish this was just a cruel joke, but no, it is not. He has left us forever.

It is painful, because I’m not at the age to see friends go. It is very devastating and saddening.

Why? We were supposed to meet up for KTV this Sunday, and the date was arranged long ago, and he was the organiser, so to speak (I requested for him to do the organising).

He was one of the recipients to my forward sms which I accidentally saved as draft instead of sending it out yesterday (10 July). Now I know he’ll never be able to read it.

I remember how we used to take turns to reply the exponentially growing inbox of the helpdesk. We sulked, we complained, and like the rest of the temps there, it was fun poking fun at the silly employers to ease ourselves of the boredom and frustration.

When we were both at the previous company, he would speak in depth about his Maple Story game with Huai Hsi, a perm staff at CPF. It was interesting to learn about their interest in the game, even though I don’t play that game myself.

He was the flower amongst the thorns, since there were more girls than guys at CPF Board. I remember how I would tease him, and he would turn all red and blushing. There were the often crapping and lame quizzes that we’ll all take turns to ask.

Once, I chatted with him on MSN, and then there was a message telling people to put a "rainbow" emoticon next to their screen names. I passed on this message to him, and I realised that he’s the only person I know who doesn’t know about emoticons. Hence, I tried to teach him how to add a rainbow emoticon to his nick, which was formed by (R). Because if I typed (R) the emoticon will appear, I had to type the alternatives for illustration purposes. I typed (r ), ( r) and and I told him to remove the space (for the first two), and change the brackets to round ones (for the last). He typed exactly as my demonstation in his nick! We struggled for a good 15 minutes or so, and eventually he finally got it! From then on, I called him Mr Rainbow, and emailed the joke to my CPF colleagues.

From then on, everyone called him Mr Rainbow, courtesy of me. He was someone who was always smiling with his tiny eyes. Once on my birthday this year, I took photos with a few of my ex colleagues, and I complained how small my eyes looked when juxtaposed with the others. Then Anthony and I took a photo together, which he commented that we were in the same boat, that we have small eyes and we won’t pale in comparison to each other!

He was a hardworking guy, having to hold a full-time job and a part-time degree. He was always the socialable but shy guy. Reponsible in his work, he never fails to deliver.

His blog doesn’t say much about him, but you can read it here. All of us might be swayed in a moment’s folly, but this is so real. From 11 pm, I’ve had a few MSN windows opened, most of them are with CPF ex-colleagues. Most of us sort of know about it, and therefore we didn’t converse much thereafter.

It was a total shock and disbelief for all of us. We’ll definitely miss him. No one really knows what happened, and there could only be conjectures. Stress does bring a person down to his weakest, and there’s only so much that loved ones and friends can do. Till now, I cannot believe nor fathom the truth that’s so apparant in my face.

He was never attached, but I don’t supposed it would be a good reason why he chose to leave all of us. Like I said, we can only make guesses, he has left us for good.

For all my friends who know Anthony, please take care of yourselves. To others, please treasure all those around you, for you would NEVER know what might happen the very next day.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 11th, 2005 at 9:50 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.