i feel awful.

i've been reading this brilliant book called The Buddha-tree by Fumio Niwa and the author's observations and portrayal of human weakness, hypocrisy and religion is so deftly handled and if i do manage to get that lit S paper, this book would definitely be a book i'd critique.

except that i've lost it.

and it's a library book.

IT'S SO HORRID, I WAS (rather) UPSET THE WHOLE DAY. first of all, because it's a library book and it's going to cost so much to pay for it, and i will be paying for it cos i borrowed it on my brother's card. secondly, i haven't finished reading it! now i feel so incomplete and well, dangling. usually i wouldn't be so affected, save for the monetary aspect, but augh i want to know how it ends! the characters are formed so poignantly, i really love the japanese sense of aesthetics where everything is handled in a stoic manner, so quiet and dignified which only makes it more beautiful.

so much heart pain! just thinking about the book being on the dirty bus floor AUGH. i've never felt so heavy-hearted over a lost book before.

i've been lugging it around with me for some time and likewise, this morning on the way to school. on the bus, i fell asleep and suddenly! the uncle sitting beside me is furiously tapping my shoulder because woah i've reached school and all other felloe cjc students were filing out of the bus. very flustered and harried, i sprung up saying thankyouthankyouexcusemeexcuseme and got off the bus.

forgetting that the book was in my lap.

and no, i've already called SMRT - almost immediately - and they said the bus driver didn't find anything, nor had anyone returned it to the interchange counter. this, despite the fact that i had valuable information like knowing that i got off the bus at exactly 07:25. i suppose someone could have found it, the nice uncle maybe, and is on the way to returning it to a library near you? i hope so. do you think? so much heartache.

the worse thing is that the reason why i was so sleepy was because i was watching (finally!) The Talented Mr. Ripley the night before and i suppose this is very overdue but oh my, that movie is brilliant and painful and oh oh. so now, by an unfortunate habit, i'm going to always associate the movie with this loss.

<3-ache!

it's odd how a relatively trivial thing like losing a book can have this much emotional impact. is it trivial though?