An audible sigh left Aaron Trong’s lips as he wiped of the tables of Continental Café,

the café he has been taking over for the longest time he could ever imagine - possibly after his father’s
ill-fated demise, six years ago.

In spite of the jarring reality he had to face, Aaron stood tall. Like a vessel in the
middle of a thunderstorm, he held his head up high. Through everyone else’s eyes, it seemed as if he
took the tribulation collectedly - grief concealed by the white lies he told with a beaming smile.

From time to time, he’d let his guilt crush him - for he knows, that the loop he’s stuck
in is inevitable. He is well aware of his mum’s dire state - that she’ll last for no more than five months.
But he vowed, swore and pledged, that for as long as the malignant tumour hitches her breath, he’ll
concede to his fate; of being trampled on, abashed and having his life in complete disarray.

Somewhere amidst the darkness, he stumbled across a light. A sanctuary, if you will.
He found solace through music, by the ukulele strums as he broke into song to the tune of La Vie En
Rose, or the gentle strains of a Haydn quartet. His love for music was genuine. I can hark back to the
time we met at the animal shelter down town, how his eyes twinkled as he questioned my hum to
Coldplay’s Everglow.

Though he had a lot on his plate, he had never once hesitated to partake in
volunteering - he’d croon to them whilst petting their heads, and would unfailingly drift the pups off in
the blink of an eye. The pups loved him, for he was tender and warm. The cats seem to always purr in
delight each time he was around. He was loved and adored.

Albeit, he had his dreary days. Times when his passions were hindered by the
calamities he had to resolve - from the financial predicaments from running the café to his mother’s
hospital bills. He never deprecated the weights put unto his shoulders, nor had he impugned why he was
responsible of all the liabilities which halted his way.

Aaron put on different guises for different phases, becoming a different person
depending on whom he was with, where he was; there was no continuity to his idea of himself. When
surrounded by others, it was a battle to preserve even the most subtle sense of who he might be.
Adversity wiped him out, erased him. It’s so hard to get what you want in this life. Everything and
everyone conspires to stop you. This was how it seemed to Aaron. He could not voice his feelings, and
his life, as he told it to others, seemed unreal. He often found that when he told people his story, they
looked at him with pity in their eyes. He despised it. So he stopped telling them. Instead, he told it to
himself in his songs. That way, he could at least grow from strength to strength from it and take a leap
of faith.
 He learnt to express himself from the tunes and melodies he’d strum on the
guitar and it was enchanting. His emotions seeped through his music, his sentiment manifested in his
lyrics. Every so often, he’ll put on a performance to the bunch of customers in the café, and more
customers started to fly in - flourishing the café itself. In no time, his musical career sky rocketed, with
resounding applauses each time he performed to the audience of thousands. In present time, his songs
touch the hearts of millions and Aaron has never been more contented than he is today.

‘The wonderful thing is to wake up knowing that nothing can get at you – nothing,’
he wrote to a friend.