Holding a Light

Last Saturday I went out with a friend. As we walked past a row of shops, one window caught my eye and we stopped. The entire display was full of rich colours and patterns- Zippo lighters, a whole wall of them.


The designs were so varying and creative, from the wings and blue chrome on the Harley Davidson models to the artwork on the limited editions. Yet even among the beauties in this technicoloured mosaic, one lighter managed to stand out.


Thick vertical stripes- dark purple, black and white- lined this one in such eye catching contrast. It was vivid, and boy was it gorgeous.


But… wasn’t there another lighter I had wanted all along?


Since the time I first took an interest in lighters a few years back, there has been one particular design that I have liked. Simple, almost to the extent of being plain, but beautiful to me. Dad had gone to Hong Kong to get one for me, but came back with a Zippo of the wrong design. I still took care of it, but it went missing in my JC days. Since then, a few others have given me lighters- from the really stylish to the blowtorches- but that simple standard one has always been at the back of my mind.


So why didn’t I just get it?


If you wait that long for something, it means more to you than its face value. Buying it myself on a normal day would cheapen its significance. So I await the right time, as long as that may take.


But now… That simple model there at the top right corner of the shelf looked so… standard. It was placed with the range of lighters you could call plain, and with this vivid new one staring at me, the old one seemed to have lost it’s place at the back of my mind for a moment.


So here was the dilemma. To hold on to the one I had waited for, or to set my sights on this newer one. The older one was a standard model that never went out of production but this new one was a limited edition model- it would soon be gone. The old one was cheaper, but the newer was worth more. The old was simple, the new was beautiful but controversial- it had a big white playboy bunny on it. The new was an impulsive want, the old was a considered decision. Did I wait this long for the old one just to be sure it was the one I wanted? Maybe, but now that I see a nicer one, does it mean I let go of the old?


A shifting dilemma in the middle of the shop with my friend staring at me. With too much confusion on my mind, I left the shop in a hurry.


I wonder… if you understand what I’m really talking about.