The Second Last Chapter

I

 The Beginning Of The End

I was daydreaming. In my dream, there were herds of wolves chasing a farmer and soon a little girl cam into my picture and hummed a song. The song she hummed was barely recognizable but how could I miss my favourite song? Even though her tune was completely out and the tempo was in disarray, I could still tell it’s “I need to be in love” by The Carpenters. I knew this song since I was young . My mother used to sing it when she was doing household chores. Although I barely remembered her voice, I missed her and her singing. I missed this song, very much indeed.

 

From far, I could see clouds hovering on the sky, mingling with each other and fusing. I could also see a guy who was about my age kicking the stone on the ground. He was listening to an iPod and without any reason, I thought he was listening to ‘I need to be in love’. As if sensing my intrusion, he turned his head and looked at me. I blushed temporarily before I realized he was just staring admirably at the big tree at my back. Disappointed, I stood up, trying to inhale the fresh air but what I breathed in, was the air of still and faint trace of melancholy.

 

And then, I saw the girl. She was coming from no where as if she just came into the big picture of mine accidentally. Gingerly, she approached the guy. For a spur of moment, I felt jealousy welled up inside my turbulent mind. Then, she stopped in front of him, purposely kept a distance between them. Were they trying to fake their intimacy? I didn’t think so because there’s no one there but me, a reluctant witness of the untold stories.

 

They stared into each other’s eyes for a while. They didn’t utter a single word and neither did they move. All I could see were the tearful eyes of them. If one was not observant enough, he or she might not tell the difference between them because they stood so still and every breath and movement of theirs were so coordinated and unison. But, I could tell, the girl was in more pain than the guy.

 

And I also realized, they were not a couple and would never be one.

 

X

 

Shelton

A New Chapter

He told me a story in the cafeteria. We always went to the same cafeteria, not for the food sold there, but for the privacy. It might sound bizarre. Privacy in the cafeteria? Impossible, some people might say. However, once we really settled down, people wouldn’t pay more attention to us more than any Tom, Dick and Henry.

 

Occasionally, there were intruders passing by us and trying to pilfer some details from us. What did they get? They pretended to be contented with what they had just eavesdropped but I could tell the guilt running right underneath their insolent expression. They knew nothing. If they knew something, they wouldn’t have appeared again and again. Apparently, they were still in search of their Holy Grail, our secret.

 

He and I were seniors and juniors in our university. I knew him in a club and somehow we grew closer to each other. Eventually, we went out together which many of my friends considered as ‘dates’. But, I was the only one who held the truth, a saddening truth.

 

He was a good story-teller. What set him different with other guys I ever went out with was, he appeared ordinary when he was silent. Once he started telling one of his vast collection of stories, his confidence flared, his temple twitched and his charm radiated. His stories were always enchanting and if I were to nip-pick any flaw in his character when he was telling stories, it’s the trace of melancholy in his voice.

 

His stories largely were heart-warming. Positive message, he once commented on his stories. Nonetheless, he contradicted himself later by quoting Oscar Wilde ‘there’s no such thing as moral or immoral story, there’s only well or bad-written story.’ I once asked him, out of curiosity, ‘why you have so many stories to tell?’ For once, he pulled out a matter-of-fact expression and told me solemnly, ‘I heard them.’ Why so serious? I had never seen that expression again until this morning.

 

‘Hi, wanna have lunch later? Same place same time,’ I texted.

‘Ok, but I’ve got to rush later,’ he replied.

 

When I met him in the cafeteria later, he had that solemn expression hung peculiarly on his face. Deep down inside me, I could tell something was wrong but what could I say? Told him I felt uncomfortable with his peculiarity? No, I chose to keep quiet instead.

 

He took his own sweet time to finish his food, as usual. Uncharacteristically, he played with his fork and spoon, which was something he never did before. Later on, he shifted his attention to the chilly bottle on the table. Again, he never seemed to pay so much attention on the bottle that was always there.

 

Something was happening, right here, right now.

 

‘Is something bothering you?’ I couldn’t resist to ask.

Taken aback, he swiftly turned to me and his stare made me uneasy. ‘Let me tell you a story,’ on a spur of moment, I thought his normal self was back. His spontaneous urge to tell stories was back. No, he was not himself. He never told me a story with his shoulder slumped like a flaccid gunny bag.

x

Ronald

 The jigsaw puzzle.

She was different from other girls I had ever met. So different until I was so afraid to admit that she really existed. Once she told me, ‘different or same, they are both relative. Perspective determines everything.’ I must confess that the first time I heard this, I was totally lost.

 

But now, I completely understood the explicit truth of her words.

 

She was my friend’s closest friend. They went to the same school, they stayed in each other’s house sometime, they once had a crush on the same boy, they checked each other email and Facebook account, and they were totally different. My friend was a total extrovert and was omnipresent in any function and party. She, on the other hand, loved jigsaw puzzle, writing poems, reading Steinbeck’s and listening to Bach’s.

 

Difference, was the thing that glued them together, strangely. They ate together, they studied together, they cried together when time was hard and they both loved to hear my stories. I was a good story-teller and I needed not to boast it. My friends could prove it anytime.

 

That’s how I began to know her more. In one of my stories, I mentioned about a jigsaw which couldn’t find its way home. It’s not my best story. However, she later told me she actually loved it and refused to tell me the reasons. Eventually I found out that she was fond of jigsaw puzzle and she could do that all day long.

 

The more stories I told, the more I got to know her. Only by coming out with stories incessantly, by luck, I might stumble onto her another untold secret. Then before I was aware of my obsession in telling her stories, I fell in love with her. She proved to be less ordinary than I first thought. The more she revealed herself, the more I deeper I was in love with her.

 

Sometime I told myself that I didn’t really love her, it’s my obsession in secrets that hooked me. The explanation was not good enough. Her smile never failed to lift my spirit, her melancholy never failed to affect me and to put it in an overused term, I found myself connected to her.

 

I was not sure whether she felt the same way but she didn’t seem to avoid me, which was a good news. My friend knew it well, though. After knowing what I was up to, she earnestly advised me and asked me to think of this question, ‘Is she your dream?’

 

Without even ruminating the trick she hid behind the question, firmly and confidently, I gave my answer, ‘Yes.’  

 

‘Make her your reality, not your dream,’

 

Until today, the impact she made in me was still there although many things had been changed by the unforeseen circumstances. Her statement, like a meteor crushing onto the Earth, forced its way into my heart and refused to come out ever since.

 

I took up her advice and whatever happened after that, though memorable, was no longer overwhelming. The impact was not greater than that statement. The reality was not realer than the dream.

x

Samantha

 Piecing a dream

Everyone loved him. No, love would be an understatement which I personally found demeaning. Worshipped would be more appropriate word. No matter how hard he tried to play down the commotion revolved around him, the facts would never be fictions. Ironically, he loved telling fictions and somehow I believed in the made-believe world he created everyday tirelessly.

 

He was not full of surprises. He was boring sometime with his stories. I was never sure of what he was up to. My friend told me his stories were just a tool of his, to fish my secrets. I scorned at her so-called epiphany because it made me sound mysterious. I was not.

 

But I didn’t know how other people perceived me. Quietness was equated to mysteriousness, thanks to all the soap operas, I ought to be mysterious just because I didn’t speak much. To be frank, sometime I could be sarcastic but I didn’t hide secrets. I didn’t have tricks up my sleeve.

 

Playing psychology games was simply not my forte. Nor was he good in playing his little mind game. I could feel a slight tremor in his voice every time he was about to tell his new stories. The tremor was faint, nearly invisible and inaudible. It was there, nonetheless. Was it a sign or I was just thinking too much? At that time, I was never sure about that and you had probably heard of the girls’ six sense but as far as I’m concerned, I didn’t have that inborn ability.

 

Hence, there’s no progress. He continued telling his stories and I continued feeding him as much ‘secrets’ as I could. Like a tug-of-war,  we each tried to pull each other to our side and our relationship was a ribbon tied on the middle of the rope. It neither moved forward nor backward.

 

It’s frustrating and toilsome. Because as he told more stories, the more he made his intention clear. But our relationship was already stale, unless there’s a trigger, we would stay still no matter how hard we tried. I could be the one who poured out my heart to him and I could be the one who broke the silence. But that was a tug-of war, once you gave in, you lost and you fell. I refused to be the one who fell although the temptation was great. I simply couldn’t risk it.

 

He was not better than me. His stories became more and more melodramatic. The mood swing of the characters was no longer like a thermometer reading, it was like a tidal wave. It changed within seconds and was gone within split second. Waiting agonized a lonely soul and agony changed a hapless soul. Before I realized anything, he had changed. He was no longer as cheerful as he used to be. There’s lots of laughter before this and now it had gone with the wind. I could tell from the development of his stories.

 

He was in pain. Tug-of-war was slowly killing both of us.

 

Until one day, something was changed. He asked me out as he always did. I didn’t see it coming and without any warning, he confessed his love to me, in a very calm and pristine manner. For a moment, he looked immaculate once again as if the agony had deserted him for good. His eyes beamed and his body glow with a strange rhythm as if it was just emancipated.

 

That’s a moment of truth and the tug-of-war had ended. To thaw the ice, to sooth the pain, to massage the numbness, whatever you might call it, he told me…

 

‘You are not my dream because you are real, as real as I can hold you right now.’

 

And then I said something I couldn’t really recall. At that moment, strangely enough, all I could run through my mind was, I would be leaving this country in 2 months time. We had so little time together.

x

Ronald

 Unfinished Puzzle

She bought us a jigsaw puzzle for our first month anniversary. 1000 pieces. It’s a portrait of a couple holding hands in a park with a girl sitting under a tree. The shadow casted by the tree partly concealed the face of the girl sitting under the tree. We didn’t notice at first but as we started piecing the every piece of the puzzle, it’s revealed the girl was actually listening to a walkman.

 

‘What song she is listening to?’ She asked me dreamily, in a casual but luring way. ‘Well, you are a story teller, aren’t you,’ she pressed on when she heard no reply from me.

 

I needed sometime to think of a story but instinct told me, she was indeed listening to ‘I need to be in love.’ The idea just occurred to me suddenly and without much processing and reasoning, somehow I was convinced that she was savouring this The Carpenters’ less well-known song. Just like a pendulum, the title of the song gave me a push to upset the balance of the invisible pendulum in my mind. Now the balance was absent and my mind was churning out a story again and I told her.

 

As she listened to my story, she suddenly broke into tears. For a moment, I felt a sense of triumph welled up inside me like a pot of boiling water. That feeling didn’t last long before I realized something was not right. She never cried because of a story. In fact, I never saw her crying before.

 

For once, I was panicked.  

 

She was telling me something that day in a shopping mall we went together. We were in front of a shop that sold antique clocks. Out of curiosity, we went in and were awed by the sheer beauty of vintage. They were so meticulously crafted. I was so absorbed to the clocks and I didn’t notice she was no longer by my side.

 

She had gone outside of the shop and sat on a bench. I thought she must be exhausted by the long hours of shopping but she shook her head when I suggested we went home. She wanted to stay with me for a longer time. I didn’t think much at that point of time.

 

Now, baffled by her sudden overflow of tears, I understood. Her voice suddenly rang in my ears again, ‘I want to stay with you.’ What else could she mean? I was not unaware of her departure for the United States in a month. I was just not very prepared to accept the truth.

 

That always happened to me. Sense of urgency didn’t strike until the imminence enervated me. ‘She is leaving,’ I repeated that in my mind. I needed to clear my mind because wishful thinking began invading my veins. I dreamed of stopping time.

 

She wiped away her tears and said, ‘how much you love me?

X

 

One month later, as I sent her away to the States. I gave her a book. It’s written by me and all the stories I had told her were inside that book. I had them published and I wanted her to be my first reader. She quickly glanced through the title and flipped through few pages.

 

‘Why The Second Last Chapter?’

‘Cause I don’t want our story to be the last chapter. The last chapter, we must write together and the beautiful story we write shall be named ‘The Last Chapter.’ Will you write that story with me?’

 

She smiled and that smile, I swore, was the most resplendent and beautiful I had ever seen. Her smile, eradicated the sense of regret for not able to finish our puzzle. Her smile, gave me the answer I always wanted.

x

Samantha

Fonder heart

Long-distant relationship was not easy to maintain. The first real test of our relationship happened during my first month stay in the States. I was busy with all sorts of club activities. Life here had been so busy. There’s gathering nearly every night. There’s outing every now and then.

 

He tried very hard to understand. He hardly showed any discontent when I told him I had to go to such and such gathering. In fact, he never objected anything I said. No matter how encouraging he might appear to be, I knew he wanted to spend more time with me. I ought to share more of my time with him.

 

Even though I had done my best to call him everyday, set aside the time difference issue, I couldn’t just forsake my first university life. If I didn’t seize my chance to mingle with them, I would end up as another reclusive oversea student. I had seen lots of them who just locked themselves in their room and I refused to be one.

 

I hoped he understood and he did say it more than one time that he understood what I had gone through. But truth was always more convoluted than myth. The problems of our relationship, the miscommunication, wouldn’t be brushed easily aside by ‘I understand…, I see…, I know…’. Turned out I was right, we became complacent and we patronized each other. As if greeting was just some sorts of formality, our relationship grew sour. 

 

Both of us tried to reverse and relive the old days we spent together but it just didn’t happen. Problems kept rising one after another and we had our first big fight 4 weeks after I reached the States. Both of us blamed ourselves for not communicating well but at the same time, demanded more from each other. He said that he expected more. ‘Since when you stopped telling me stories?’ I rebuked and both of us fell into eerie silence than spanned few thousands miles.

 

Then we both apologized to each other and vowed to make our relationship meaningful once again.

 

Just when I thought that we had gone through the worst, I heard some gossips about him. All sorts of rumours started coming into my inbox. Some of them were malicious and some of the seemed genuinely sincere. I told myself I was not going to let them wavered my faith in him.

 

However, it’s impossible to do so. I was staunch believer of his commitment but the rumours, were like parasites. They might be removed from your body but the effects were still intact. Whenever we had disputes, the images would pop out instantly. ‘No, I won’t let those images dictate my life,’ I told myself.

 

Things didn’t get better. I was pretty sure that he had heard all those rumours himself. His life wouldn’t be easier than me, if not harder. His friend told me he had quit some of his club activities to avoid more conflicts with me and I was deeply touched.

 

What else I could do? I didn’t know. That’s why during my birthday, when he phoned me, I said something like ‘we have been together for 5 months, I wish it will be longer.’ I never did understand why I said that.  He immediately sunk into his dejected tone. I could tell when he was uplifted or dejected. He didn’t say anything about that after the incidence but I guessed he was pretty sore about my reply.

 

How I wished I didn’t say that! His email further distressed me. ‘Are we going to finish our last chapter?’ He sent me this after we had that conversation. Soon after I read those, I confessed to my best friend and as usual she showed her understanding. She never stood by anyone of us.

 

I cried because I knew I was going to lose him. We were not going to write the last chapter together.

x

Shelton

A story-teller’s story

The story he told me was depressing. Because it’s a true story. Nothing would be more depressing than the truth and truth always hurt. He told me about his ex-girlfriend. Everything they did together, the jigsaw puzzle, The Second Last Chapter, the life in the States, and the most depressing among all, how they broke up.

 

She never picked up his phone call after her birthday. She never replied his email anymore. She changed her Facebook status to ‘single’. No clean break-up, no explanation, as if she had gone missing.

 

He demanded for explanation. But what could he do? He was in Malaysia, she was in LA. He tried calling her everyday, sending her offline message and email. When all these attempts failed, he even called her parents. They didn’t want to talk much about that and were evasive.

 

He didn’t know what happened and he was furious. How could his girlfriend just broke up with him as if their relationship mattered nothing? Where had all those deceiving promises like the last chapter and jigsaw puzzle gone?

 

What made thing worse was 1 month after he lost track of her, her Facebook status was suddenly changed to ‘In a relationship’. Moment of truth! He once thought. She ditched him and now she went for the other guy in the US. Strangely, after he found out about that, he was somehow calmed. The ripple stirred by her sudden departure finally showed sign of recession. But, he wanted more than that. If she had fallen in love with other guy, why couldn’t she tell her? Why?

 

So he sent her messages again. To no avail, his effort was never replied. Saddened and baffled, he decided that life must go on despite of all the peculiarity and surprises that were even more melodramatic than his stories.

 

Letting go was easier said than done. Getting over was even worse. There’s no easy way out because her image just sprung back and upset the balance of his life anytime. He still couldn’t help but routinely check out her Facebook status and tried to contact her. Although he refrained himself from calling her friends, he still made some calls to them occasionally. Excuses like he just wanted to make sure everything was alright were dropped.

 

And he still hadn’t decided what to do with the unfinished jigsaw puzzle. ‘Should I leave it there or should I just chuck it away and never look at it again?’ He once questioned himself. But he didn’t do anything about that. The jigsaw puzzle was still there and he was still melancholic. Stories were still narrated but the narrator was becoming more and more detached from his own stories.

 

Then, something which he always considered as ‘miracle’ happened. She told him she would be coming back at the end of the year to celebrate Christmas. She would confess everything and give him the explanation he had been waiting in vain for one whole year.

 

‘Now, it’s time to close the last chapter. Like a Pandora box, I finally get to close it. No matter what will follow, I think I’ll recover,’ he said that to me in the cafeteria.

‘I must close the chapter,’ he repeated it once again but his voice had been reduced to a nearly inaudible murmur.

 

That’s when I chose to make the toughest decision in my life. I must follow him without him knowing. I cared too much about him. A part of me insisted to go after him and witnessed what would be unfolded, would there be any drama, tears?; a part of me attempted to tie me to my conscience, no you were not supposed to be there, his story should be ended by himself…

 

I made my choice. And I must go because his eyes told me so, his body language whispered to me and his story forced me to act. I was no longer myself. Before I realized that, I was already part of his absorbing story and I would always be there, for him.

 

I

 

The Second Last Chapter

 

Perhaps you already knew my identity, perhaps you hadn’t. But did it matter, for this story, for ‘The Second Last Chapter?’ I guessed if It didn’t matter initially, it mattered now. Because it’s all about me and without me, the story wouldn’t exist in the first place. Without me, the story would have ended abruptly the day she said ‘we have been together for 5 months, I wish it will be longer.’

 

Samantha died tragically the day after her birthday. I was with her at a park when a drunkard suddenly hit her skull from behind with a beer bottle. The moment the bottle shattered into millions of splendid ruby gems, I knew what I needed to do next. Her story should be sealed. He should not know the truth because he still had the illusions that they were destined to be together and the last chapter would be written together.

 

Truth didn’t work that way. Samantha was my best friend and we always shared each other’s story. From the beginning to the end, I was the one who knew the most. How they got together and how moving their love story was. She confided everything about him in me.

 

Not surprisingly, I also knew about their promises to each other, their struggles to keep their dream alive, and their conflicts. She cried the night she was supposed to celebrate her birthday. ‘I don’t know why I said that to him,’ she shook her head in despair and for once, I felt the helplessness arisen in her. For once, I sensed the deepest fear and doubt she had for this relationship.

 

As usual I kept quiet, not because I couldn’t help her, but I wanted to let her be herself. I still remembered his promise to me, ‘I want to make her my reality, not my dream.’ No reason I should lose my confidence in him back then. And when she was on the verge of collapse, I asked her, ‘why are you two together?’

 

I could never forget her answer right until today. I sat under the tree, listening to my favourite song, ‘I need to be in love’, looking at the hovering clouds, trying to reminisce as much as possible what happened after she told me her answer and I was moved. There was no tear but my heart was wrenched. It had been a long time since I last had this feeling.

 

Memory was a painful ability. And her reply, ‘We are living up the dream we have together,’ after so many months still had the same effect it had on me on that day. They were supposed to be together, chasing the dream of reality and live up the reality of dream.

 

She might have survived if she summoned a one last deep breath before she died. But instead of doing that, she gave up. Perhaps she was tired by all those dream chasing, perhaps she thought the story should be left unconcluded… I never got to know why but one thing for sure, she didn’t want him to know.

 

That’s why I logged into her Facebook account and changed her status to ‘single’. He tired to reach her frantically. He called, he sent email, he texted, but he didn’t know all his efforts ended up at the wrong end. I read all his mails to her and I didn’t reply. I had a story in my mind. Both of them, he and she, should be in the story.

 

He must have resented her. She, who no longer lived, was given a new life, new relationship and new memory. People might be abhorred by my selfish act and I would be reprimanded by all my readers. However, this was a story. Fiction, from the beginning to the end. Lies were built on truths and truths were built on lies.

 

In my story, he must move forward. He shouldn’t look back and he shouldn’t know the last chapter of the story. Because ‘The Second Last Chapter’ was always more beautiful and more often than not, it’s more like an ending than the actual last chapter.

 

He should still live in the harsh facts that she left him for other guy. He was not good enough for her. And his stories ought to be continued with someone else. What was gone was gone and he had to accept that. Perhaps that’s why I always surmised that the second last chapter was more readable than the last chapter.

 

The twists, the ‘truth’ revealed in the last chapter made a real story phony. A good story should never have a last chapter.

 

From the place I rested myself, I could see him and a girl confronting each other. He was surprised to see her there. ‘Why you?’ He was genuinely surprised. She was not the one he was expecting to see. The girl, her name was Shelton, wasn’t it? She was yelling at him, telling him that he should never see Samantha once again. ‘It’s for your own good, forget her!’ She exasperated.

 

Watching her and all her deeds, it deepened my conviction that Ronald should never know the truth. I came back not to tell him the truth, the last chapter. I was going to tell the lie, the second last chapter, that hurt less than the truth. Then a strong and ferocious feeling was brewing inside me. The feeling was so intense and so real and that’s the time I realize my mistake.

 

I shouldn’t even have considered telling him the lie! I shouldn’t have disguised as Samantha and sent him the mail in order to ask him out. My efforts were all in vain because my mind which was always rationale clearly understood something.  

 

 He didn’t deserve the lie if he was still after the dream. Long time ago, I had already warned him about the dangers of dreams. He was still insisting on chasing a shapeless dream and choosing to neglect the reality in front of him. I couldn’t tell a lie to a man who couldn’t even differentiate dream from reality.

 

Hence, I stood up and turned away from them. I muttered something I could barely hear, ‘I couldn’t tell him, I couldn’t tell him, I couldn’t tell him…’ Suddenly, tears were tumbling down my cheeks and once again, I asked myself, why couldn’t I tell him the truth, perhaps the lie?

 

I had no answer because I myself  lived in my own second last chapter and refused to know the last chapter, which might free me from my excruciating pain.

Schubert's Symphony No.8 - Unfinished Symphony

Many people didn’t get you. They confided in me, they complained to me about you, they asked me about you but no matter what they did, I knew they were just trying to pilfer your agelessly stunning beauty.

To them, you were not a mystery at all. You were always under the limelight, subject to all sorts of intrusive personal dissection. However, you didn’t even blush when their hands were all over your body, when the last trace of privacy evaporated. To no avail, I advised you, be careful with the deadly sins of humans. You were not one of them and so that you wouldn’t understand how treacherous a man can be.

No, you told me, ‘life is short, like Shubert’s Unfinished symphony.’ Symphony No.8? Why Shubert never got to finish it? Was it because the symphony was simply too heavenly to be true, even he himself never surmised that he could come out with this chief c-oeuvre? Or there’s a simpler explanation, the life was just too short, like a short-lived insect?

Either way, it’s bad, you argued that. How so? I asked. People never saw through your beauty, as if their surreptitious glance was not piercing enough; they never fully understood it, just like listening to a Schubert and concluded that Schubert was just a lucky composer who managed to decipher the secret of harmony and melody.

Life is short, you said, it’s beyond any dispute. At any given moment, your beauty might become the history of today’s glory. News gave way to mundane bedside stories. ‘that’s why I dance, like a desperate baroness amid the crowd, trying to garner a pitiful hug,’ you lowered your head and muttered inaudibly.

Suddenly, there’s all sadness, like a vagabond tied to an addiction. She sighed. ‘I don’t belong to here,’ she continued, ‘ I might as well go back to where I was from and forget myself.’ I pretended I was listening to what she said afterwards but my mind was wandering somewhere else in the scenic depiction of Schubert’s pieces.

And then I saw what I was seeking for. The beauty of flaws. Her beauty didn’t make her invisible. She was flawed just like everyone else, just like Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. But did she even care to correct whatever that was deemed wrong? No she didn’t even care and she suddenly seemed more resplendent than ever. Light of flaws was emanating from her divine feature and she flashed a smile. A smile which carried the impact that was tantamount to the renowned Unfinished Symphony, simple yet grandeur.

Beauty, behind the curtain of perfection,

Is the imperfection.

Beyond the imperfection,

There’s unfinished symphony played,

Through a single brass,

That sounds like a full orchestra.

That’s beauty, so real…

Fear

Something is in my stomach.

Heavy in emotions,

Light in nausea.

Vertigo? 

No, more intense,

I feel like riding a rollercoaster. 

All my organs suddenly lose their synchronisation,

Like a dysfunctional clock,

Hurled into mayhem.

Something is missing in me.

The more I search for it,

The bigger the void inside me.

Sick?

No, more intense,

I feel like dying.

Everything becomes so normal,

Until normality loses its meaning.

I fear this moment.

Something must be wrong.

A Love Story

I cried on the day I knew she was not going to be mine.


After the initial shock wore off, I naively thought that I could get over this unscathed. I told myself that I was strong enough to stand it, but once again, she proved me wrong as you always did.


The first time I saw her, she was with her group of girlfriends. She was not the prettiest, she was not the hottest, but she was the one I noticed. One of my friends ever equated love on the first sight to the thunderbolt. Once you were struck by it, the effect would be lasting in you. Astounded by her beauty, perplexed by her charm, I found myself inferior, that's why I never approached her until that fateful day.


Tossed and turned on the bed, I could only ruminate over one thing. What love was? Was love as banal as the passionate lovemaking in those soap operas or was love as noble as the deed you would only see in the Bible? I couldn't come out with an answer.


Now facing the imminent death of mine, I realized how silly a man in love could be. All those sleepless nights, in retrospect, were so rich in emotions. The sensation of having emotions welled inside you, was still indescribable. As if the flow of blood just went into opposite ways, emotions choked me and my limbs were strangled by some invisible mantles. They were so strong and overwhelming, then before I even fought the losing battle with the emotions, tears were welling in my eyes and blurring my vision.


Being insomniac didn't make me a smarter man. i still couldn't grasp the essence of love and so I acter like a fool. Fool, contrary to conventional wisdom, was not always bad. Only by being a fool, I managed to muster all the courage I had and at last, to my delight, I finally got to know her. And that's how she proved me wrong for the first time.


In one of the sleepless night, I tried to picture her. I created an imaginary her and like a tireless puppeteer, I played her story. As ludicrous as it sounded, I even gave her a second life. In her second life, she was quiet and melancholic. She came from a broken family and she fought hard to come to the state of life she had today. Again, while I looked back to all this, i could feel blood gushing through my ears and my face was burning. How could I defile her in such an obscene way?


She, in fact, was cheerful, talkative and strong. No longer a frail girl in her second life I granted to her, she impressed me even more. The more I listened to her captivating voice, the more i surrendered myself into the endless illusions I created now and then.


That's when I thought those tormenting sleepless nights had finally departed from my life.


Again, she proved me wrong. The day I found out she had a lover, I was totally broken apart by this harsh sobriety test. Never once in my fantasy that I had surmised that she might have a lover. Maybe that's why i called it fantasy. Fantasy was supposed to be something you couldn't achieve in your real life. Now, though I was wiser, certain parts of this story were still inexplicable. Why could i be so wishful back then? After so many painful years, amazingly, I hadn't learnt any thing. Optimism, which was normally helpful, was a coup de grace to me.


After I found out about her lover, I suddenly found myself at the crossroad of my life. I could either wait for her, god knows how long should I wait, or, god forbid, I could forget her totally and pursued for what I deserved. Two choices, I must choose one of them, the right one or the one I want. And, I chose for the one I want, not the right one.


That's when all the tragedies and beautiful things started happening simultaneously in my life. I became her friend and i bought my time. My friend who knew about this girl advised me that I should go aggressive to wrestle her from her lover. I refused to do that. Until today, i still couldn't tell whether it was a right decision. Only thing i knew back then was, if she were to leave her lover for me, she might as well leave me for other guy. Perhaps I was wrong, but one thing for sure, I was adamant to my decision, I never wavered.


Hence, the only thing I was able to do was, wait.


I waited faithfully. Waiting, turned out to be not as easy as i first thought. Whenever she mentioned about her lover, I felt my heart twitched in agony. His name didn't make me jealous. But the his name intimidated me. 'You are a coward' taunted my friends. I wasn't angry because deep down inside me, I knew they were right. i was afraid to lose her, I was afraid of holding her, i was afraid to erase my pasts...


Miracles only happened in the Bible, claimed my best friend. Just when I was about to succumb to the fact that miracles were rare, if not unheard of, she told me she had broken off with her lover. Even before the euphoria which was supposed to make me insane registered in my mind, I reflexively held her tightly in my arms. Impulsive? I only knew I couldn't care less of other people's curious gaze. It's such a magical moment. While I let my reflexive reactions dictate my every move, I hardly noticed that she was expressionless.


"Can I ask you something?" asked her softly in my arms.
"Why are you doing this?" She didn't even let me answer her first question.


x


I still cried whenever this question was reverberating in my ears. The sheer brilliance and simplicity of this question still astonished me because i still didn't have an answer for that. Why all the tears? Why all the passionate hugging?


I was still speechless, just like the day I first heard this question. i could have answered her in thousands better ways. However, I was tongue-tied. She stared at me, waiting anxiously for my answer. My mind was shrieking at its highest pitch, my body was burning at its highest temperature. But, my tongue was glued.


To say, "I love you", on a spur of moment, I realized was not about promise. it's not even about commitment. I perhaps had practiced for that moment thousands times in my dreams. Reality, eventually, was still different. I could deceive myself and her. I could have just patronized her and got what I always desired. But, the waiting had changed me.


I might still hold her in my arms impulsively. However, the thrill of holding you had long deserted me. And I realized, it's the real love. Real love was not tantamount to a crush or infatuation.


What i discovered was, I was still stuck at the infatuation state of 'love'. There's no real love because real love didn't take so long to register. Real love never came late. Real love never came after impulsion.


Staring straight into her eyes, I felt the world had suddenly become hollow. I didn't know what to say and I didn't know where I was. So, i just turned to my back and started running. I ran, I cried with her image hanging in my mind before I was lost, for good.


A part of me was gone, with the love.



p/s: A simple story is the hardest to write. Finally I understand what do they mean. This story is so soapy, so normal, so mushy, but it's ultimately tough to write.

I have a dream

I have a dream,
that I happily live in, without worries, without reality.
Spring is everlasting in that dream,
Birds are chirping like a symphony,
Breeze smells like barley.


I have a dream,
that I dread.
Because it's too scenic,
Because it's too deceptive,
Because it's too luring.


I have a dream,
that I call delusions.
Winter is omnipresent in that dream,
Symphony sounds like merciless taunt.
Wind brews like inevitable disaster.


I have a dream,
I too indulge in,
Until I can no longer differentiate,
What lies and truths are.


The dream I have,
So fictional yet so real.

Rose Of Solitude

I made you a rose. A yellow rose, to be precise. Why rose? Why yellow? Why now?

Why solitude?

There's a dark prophecy about the yellow rose.





When you receive a yellow rose from someone you love, the tree of love inside you will wilt. You will miss that person, but you could never find the impulsive love again.

I used to think that I'm not a person person who believes in horoscope and those myths as well as the legends. To me, yellow rose is just a yellow rose. It signifies nothing, it proves nothing.

I used to believe. I used to.

Not until I folded you my first yellow rose. It's so delicate in my hands and I was afraid to crush her. Everything was magical. Though i tried to be casual, to my dismay, I couldn't. While I held her in between my fingers, i felt life. Life that is neither present nor past. People call it memory, I call it love.

Love is a large illusions. Delusional it is, I succumbed into her hug, accidentally, painfully. I define love as a life that is caught right between present and past time. It can be skewed to either side. Nostalgic love, passionate love, those are lives created by you and me.

Then suddenly, it's all gone, like a bubble, disappears without a trace. Reluctantly, I'm hoisted to the present, facing my coldest nemesis. Life is my nemesis. Every time i stray too far away from my path, he drags me back, mercilessly, forcefully.

Solitude is omnipresent. Final drip of passion evaporates and coldness descends. Time has come. She walks among us, breathing word of wisdom into our ears and she sings...

Why you despair?
Why you refuse to leave?
Why you stand still?
Why you weep?
Why you remember?

We forget everything.... I forgot, i returned to my life, I faded...until I made the yellow rose once again.

She brought back everything. The apparition of everything is just too astounding and all of a sudden, I find myself breathless again, just like the first time I saw you.

Friendship, is the mother of everything. Slowly she morphed, painfully she crawled, exuberantly she summoned me. What an amazing yellow rose I have folded! Effortlessly, she explained everything and I listened like an obedient school boy.

That's it. That's it. Friendship! One term that has been absent in me for quite some time. She is the mother of love. She is everything I have.

Even though it's just a friendship. I tried to care and I will continue trying.

Oh, you are the jollity.


Oh, you are the friendship.


Oh, you are the life.

Rose of Solitude

Vivaldi's Winter

I've never seen flakes of snow tumbling down from a clear blue sky before. To me, winter is an abstract term. I saw snows on tv, I heard about snows from my friends, and I felt snows inside you. The very first time I saw you, you reminded me of Vivaldi. Violin pieces laced with staccatos and short notes, that's you. People might find it difficult to picture a person in a violin concerto. I used to think so, but not after I met you.


You are the winter of Vivaldi. Agitated, anxious, ambiguous. Unpredictable you are, I find it rather intriguing. I introduced myself to you. You didn't look surprised. I was the one who was chilled to my core. There is certain quality in you that I can never fully grasp. You speak with conviction and I'm awed.


I've never seen a real snow but I can still portray it in my mind. I draw it and it's you I'm thinking of. Or it's just your illusion I'm mulling of? It's a touch question to answer, even tougher to ask. I don't have the guts to question anything in you. You are the winter of Vivaldi's wildest imagination. No, I don't think so. Vivaldi didn't have you in his mind while he composed The Four Seasons. It doesn't make sense as well. Are you his prophecy?


I'm lost, in the confusing mayhem of my mind.


How will i define you? Allegro non molto, allegro or even resplendent largo? I refuse to define you. Define your beauty is tantamount to defile your body. The temptation is unbearable, the waiting is excruciating. Answer, is the final key to the Holy Grail. You have the answer, allegro non molto, allegro or largo?


When I tell you I want the answer, flicker of disappointment flashes in your pulchritudinous eyes. You tell me your voice is as weak as the winter's leaves. No rustle presents, you have become voiceless. How could it be? I inquire. You smile, a very faint grin, actually. And then you sigh.


When the snow thaws, I'm no longer myself. I've a new life, perhaps when that time comes, I'll have an eternal voice that reverberates in the history, for good.

Allegro non molto
To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
To run, stamping one's feet every moment,
Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold

Largo
Before the fire to pass peaceful,
Contented days while the rain outside pours down.

Allegro
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of tripping and falling.
Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.
We feel the chill north winds course through the home despite the locked and bolted doors...
this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights

It's that hard to become myself? Maybe it's all Vivaldi's fault. Winter is too short to be memorable, you complain. Then, I smile for the first time, because I finally realize something. I don't own anything, including my life. You belong to Vivaldi and I belong to the illusions I created.

Ces't La Vie, This is life.

Piano Concerto No.1 - Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini

It's love at first sight. I saw her, in between contradictory choices and confusing chapters of life. She reminds me of Piano Concerto No.1 - Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini. Dramatic, cheerful than all she has, fall apart. Slump into her own dark water, she doesn't even try to swim. As if life no longer intrigues her, her feet are beating lethargically like life of Paganini. She never traveled, she refused to be Paganini. She ain't prodigy, she told me. "You are just like Paganini," I sighed. No, she refused to live. Her body is heavy. Her mind no longer plays Rachmaninov.

Life no longer matters. What's so special about this daunting journey? "I'm just like Paganini," she exclaims. Anticlimax and quiet demise, no, she doesn't want to have one. Hope, ya, so what? It's like clouds, shapeless, not holdable, she sings. A-flat major? No, she is wrong. Rachmaninov's piano concerto no longer reverberates.

She breaks down and she sinks. I scribble down something and I play caprice of Paganini though I don't play violin. What matters? Journey, road. Anticlimax? Fuck those people who go all in to make your life un-Paganini. You don't like Paganini and you want to die? Fuck off, i don't want to see you. And then you sink and you disappear.

There's a road,
Where everyone is walking on.
It's not always long,
But it definitely is a daunting journey.

Once again, I fall in love with this piano concerto just like how I fall in love with her and you.

Who knows?

Sweat is dripping down.
Body is falling out.
Mind is going forward.


The race has just started.


I'm startled by the sudden crave for lies.
"This is not going to be true!"
And I start the race, reluctantly.

Nerve is tense.
Movement is lame.
Memory is false.


What I have is the race in front of me.
Perhaps lies?


Who knows

Totentanz (Part 3)

9. The Portrait Of A Lady

Everything was in fast-forward motion, as if it were controlled by a huge remote control by a god-know-who. Could be recollect any memory of his way back from the hospital? Any bumps and hitches had his attention? Something autonomic had taken over his body, propelling him forward but just like a machine, there’s no thinking.

The fast-forward only stopped when he was back to his home, after managing to beg or to put it a more evasive term, persuade his daughter to send him back from the hospital. He was glad that he still had chance to break free from the draconian nurses and cemetery-like hospital.

Back to his house, the first thing he did was to inhale the scent of his house. 2 weeks in the hospital made it such a long time that even a faint scent of his room nearly brought tears to his eyes. Sitting up straight on the wheel chair, he lost his usual agility but at least, he was not bedridden, a fact which he cherished as much as his life.

There’s a family portrait hung on the wall of the living room. It’s so huge that it nearly cover the whole wall and some of his visitors ever commented that the portrait was more pressing than the wall. Pressing? He was wondering what’s more ‘pressing’ than the wall, which was an eyesore due to the poor interior design of this apartment.

“Oh, just forget about the portrait,” he wondered since the portrait had become so irritating. Before being admitted to the hospital, every morning, when he was going out for breakfast, he would stop in front of the pictures and savour any detail he might have missed in his previous visit to the pictures. It seemed in every ‘visit’, a term coiled by him, there would be a fresh surprise awaiting him.

Two days before the operation, he spotted a mole, which he never knew existed, on top of his cheekbone. There it’s, not very obvious, but apparent enough to stir his curiosity. Was that an omen? Was he destined to be paralyzed? One day before he spotted the mole, he found out there were exactly three lines of wrinkles on his meticulously-tailored tuxedo.

Portrait inspection used to be his daily routine, but not today. He was in no mood to entertain the ridiculous portrait. Neither could he explain the dissatisfaction brewing inside him. Hence, he put his blame on the strenuous operation and the haunting atmosphere of the hospital.

Sitting on the cozy couch now, he felt a sudden affiliation to the handle of the couch. He placed his palms on the wooden handles and summoned all his strength to his palms. Slowly and cautiously, he used his arms to support his whole body up from the couch. Panting, he was excited nonetheless. There’s a message behind this, certainly there’s one and he didn’t need much time to figure it up.

He could stand up again. The strength, which was once draining away from him had found the way back to his body. There’s no doubt that he could walk again. Amidst the euphoria, he ignored his daughter calling from the kitchen. “This is my world, this is my world,” he muttered.

Then everything was set in fast-forward motion again. Somehow, he was carried back to his bed by his son-in-law without any awareness. He couldn’t recall any detail of his ‘exodus’ from the living room back to his own room. Perhaps, that was the sign of his recovery. “I could walk as fast as this, it’s not over,” he could hardly swallow his exuberance. But, he was too lethargic and he dozed off soon he was put back to his bed.

He woke up 2 hours later. As phantasmagoric as it felt, the nap he just was laced with incongruous juxtapositions. Visions, intertwined with contradictions danced like a baroness in his dream, as gracefully as it seemed. After this nap, he discovered not only his visions had been altered, but also his five senses had been enhanced.

His apartment was on the twelfth floor, but he could hear distinct chattering of the children playing in the playground of the park. Terrified by his newly found ability, he forced himself up, hands on the frame of the window. He could barely raise himself up from the bed but that’s sufficient for him to get a full view on everything outside of the window.

Then, he saw something bizarre with his own eyes, with eyesight newly enhanced. There were no children playing in the playground. Instead, he witnessed some other things that looked very familiar like he had just visited one by one. “I need brainstorming,” he surmised. And he outlined what he saw into ten parts:

1. There’s an ice-cream vendor with lilac colour umbrella. A boy was standing under the umbrella, extending his hands warmly to a couple, presumably his parents.
2. A man was lying on the bed, with heavy bandages wrapping around his head. A lady was holding his hands and wailing heartily. The boy was looking straight into his mum as if he were searching for something he didn’t even know.
3. 98 people were at a cemetery. The two who were visible was the boy and the wailing lady. She was hollering like a beast while the coffin was lowered into the crypt. Confusions broke out, like an earthquake when the lady pointed her finger to the boy and shoulder, “It’s your crime we have to shoulder the punishment.”
4. In a lavishly designed mansion, the lady was holding a bottle with label ‘malathion’. She shut the door of her room and poured the content of that bottle into her small mouth.
5. The boy was standing at the doorway, gingerly, he pushed open the door. He didn’t scream when he saw a body lying lifelessly on the ground and bubbles were oozing out from its mouth like boiling water. A faint smile was hanging on his face.
6. The boy was now a teenager. He was in his room, writing some kinds of notes. The handwriting was nearly illegible but everybody could tell it was repetition of ‘crime and punishment’.
7. A man was standing by the window, looking down from his apartment. Before this, he had arranged all the furniture and cleaned all the corners of the house until the hose was sparkling clean. Then, without any hesitation, he mounted the window frame and pushed open the grill. With the same faint smile on his face, he leaped into the glorious evening sun.
8. A man was making love to his wife in a small room. Amid the ferocious love-making and gusty groaning, his wife said, ‘it’s not your crime’.
9. That man was at the same cemetery again. Despite the heavy rain, both of knees were anchored in the moist soil. People could no longer distinguish whether the moist on his face was tears or the rain. The tolling of a bell could be heard from a distant church.

Before figuring out the tenth part, as if struck by thunderbolt, his whole body went stiff. “I know what this is!” The visions no longer seemed strange to him with every pieces of puzzle came together in the right orientation.

“No!” he howled dejectedly.


10. The Heart Of Darkness

“Let me guess, the ten pictures or visions, they all are in metallic black colour right? You don’t have to answer me and I know you won’t. Why black? Why metallic? Story of darkness, maybe… There are many parts you yourself can’t possibly expound right? Pardon me for my haughtiness, you seem uncertain with your own story. Firstly, why the guy had to shoulder the punishment for the crime he never committed? Unlike my story, there are causes and effects. Nobody ran from the responsibilities. I think you try too hard to give this story a splendid ending but you fail ultimately. Tell me, are you trying to reconstruct a irreversible destructive ending? There are no ways, let’s stop those illusions…you are talking about life! Not something you can toy with.

When the darkness slowly encroaches in your story, you must be aware of that. Instead, you try to dispel the glowing darkness and build a whole new make-believe world. How naïve and how amateur you are as a story teller…”

I listened quietly to his forceful comments. At certain points of his comments, I wished I could stop him but I refrained myself from doing that. Perhaps, because deep down inside me, I knew perfectly that he was right. But when my weaknesses were exposed in such unscrupulous way, it’s hard for me to control my fury anymore.

He fell silent suddenly. Instinctively, I turned to my back and to my dismay, the ‘stalker’ was back, it was just outside of the plaza. It was slowly approaching me and I didn’t even have much time to consider my options before I sprinted to the exit of the plaza.

As I scrambled to the exit for life, I still could hear, “You are a lousy story-teller!”


11. Atonement

He was now flying, without wings and wind. As he plunged down to the hard concrete ground, he rearranged all the visions. Satisfied now, because he had finally freed himself from the agony, the agony of the boy, the teenager and the man who always perceived this world as a shallow and closed globe. Once he was airborne, surprisingly, he became blind.

On a spur of moment, he was panicked. This wasn’t his choice, to die blindly. He wanted to see, wanted to observe, wanted to expound everything image he received. But soon as he passed by the eleventh floor, he was relieved to know that he hadn’t gone entirely oblivious. Although his eyes no longer functioned, a new system had replaced it and made his eyesight, which he once found indispensable obsolete and redundant.

Without gravity, he could no longer cogitate. New systems, new molecules, new memories had systematically fused into his body seamlessly but he had lost the ability to analyze. Before he reached tenth floor, he realized he had become a photocopier, who always received information faster than processed it. This mere idea saddened but he was relieved.

By the window of the tenth floor, he could ‘see’ a happy family, sitting down by a round table and praying together. How felicitous they were! How joyful this kind of life must be! This again punctured his ego even though he couldn’t care less now because he’s gaining speed now.

As he passed by each floor, he received new information but he hardly processed any of them. And then he also missed out few floors like eighth floor and fifth floor carelessly. Praying silently in his heart now, he wished this would be the last free fall he would ever have. Now, he was just one second away from the bone-cracking moment. But before plunging to the ground, he promised himself he would recollect what he noticed during his free-fall.

The windows of second, third, seventh and eighth floor were not opened. The residents of fourth and ninth floor were catching ‘Prison Break’ on the television. A middle-aged man whom he never knew was reading ‘Moby Dick’ by the window of tenth floor. Why closed windows? Why ‘Prison Break’? Why ‘Moby Dick?

He never had an opportunity to figure out the reasons just before the imminent collisions because his mind was already preoccupied by a book placed on a table by the window of his own apartment.

He mumbled, “Atonement,” just before a blood-curdling scream silenced everything in motion.


12. Totentanz

I ran out from the plaza, anticipating the collisions with the ‘stalker’ but to my utter amazement, it’s not there. Not only it’s no longer there, the street wasn’t there as well. I turned to my back and the plaza had vaporized already as well as Mr Average.

They were all gone! No lamppost, no ‘malice’, no ‘stalker’, no ‘crime and punishment’… The only thing I could see from my position was a bandwagon. It just stood there, empty but finely decorated. I approached the bandwagon cautiously, worrying the sly ‘stalker’ could strike me at anytime.

But as I edged closer to the bandwagon, my worries slowly degenerated into some sort of void but the emptiness was soon refilled by the excitement. The excitement was almost cult-like and it attracted me like a big magnet with unholy strength. The closer I was to the odd bandwagon, the stronger the attraction, of course I meant psychologically.

And then, I heard Totentanz once again.

I jumped on the bandwagon and without any warning, it set into motion. Fought or fled? I decided to stay for a while without letting my gut down. As the bandwagon moved, stably, forward to a place I couldn’t see using my own naked eyes. Somehow, the flawless piano solo conveyed something to me, ‘just rest, my son,’ and so I fall asleep. It’s a peaceful slumbering. Neither nightmares nor any worry intruded my tranquility and so when I was awake, I couldn’t recall how long had I been out. But when I woke up, I found out ‘Totentanz’ was no longer reverberating.

All I could hear was the distant chanting.
Procession of death,
Preceded by hallucinations,
Starts where it ends.

Fragments of stories,
No longer sound,
Buried deep into consciousness.

O, Holy Spirit at Pentecost,
O, Unholy Apparition of Beelzebub,
Gather and debate.

Where it goes,
Where it ends,
Totentanz shall rule.


Sihan 13/03/08

Totentanz (Part 2)

5. The Sound And The Fury (Part 1: My Name Is Red)

His daughter was cupping his hands, tears rolling down her cheek. She looked paler and this left his heart broken. She was never a tearful type of person. As a matter of fact, he seldom saw her crying even when her mother was canning her when she was young. He once joked to her wife, “she is going to be a tough one,” his wife insisted that her daughter would be a fine lady, graceful and refined.

And she became a piano teacher, following her father footstep. When she was graduated from a music college in London, in spite of the lure of higher paycheck there, she came back to serve with her father, a decision which made everyone raise their eyebrows.

He looked straight into his daughter’s eyes just like what he did many years ago. The gaze was unforgettable and it didn’t change much. Her stare was very consoling but he still felt disorientated, maybe the effect anesthesia hadn’t worn off. He found it hard to focus on his daughter’s eyes but this didn’t concern him more than his numb legs. Ripple of panic spread inside his body with each successful circulation of blood through his body when he found out his legs were none other than two lumps of dead meats.

He turned to his daughter. He thought he saw flicker of regret in her eyes but he brushed it off as senseless paranoia. But this paranoia felt realer than any usual paranoia. No, he told himself to think at the bright side. What colour would make him more optimistic? The green colour of the curtain? No, he hated green colour, it reminded of veggie which he loathed. The white bed sheet? No, it prompted the brutal memory of the death of his dog when he was young. How about the brown colour of the window frame? Worse still, the brown colour mocked him of his immobile and out-of-control legs.

Before finding the right colour, which could cheer him up, he realized he was paralyzed. Exactly 11 months ago, he was diagnosed as second-stage bone cancer patient. He was no fool though. As he attempted to seek for the right colour, which could easily be the relic to his illness, he stumbled on different kinds of emotions. It wasn’t too tough to identify fury as red. Upon the unveil of the diagnosis, he nearly blew his top. For so many years, he had put his thrust on doctors, so faithfully, almost zealously that regular medical check-up could save a life. He could still spell out the how the intensity of red colour escalating in his life even after 11 months, even after red had vanished. Everything morphed into indisputable red, plants, notes, clothing, piano and etc, quite incredibly but not unbelievably.

He almost likened the idea that there’s no tyranny in this world because nobody could be spared from being power-happy. Watching numerous of tyrants falling one by one from 20th to 21st century, the sensation was thrilling to him. He himself couldn’t explain the exhilaration, perhaps the news of the fallen grace served as a testimony or a congratulation to his little cult-like belief. But this time, he sincerely hoped red could be the last tyrant in this world because red, at the end of the day, was the least tormenting one.

As his condition deteriorated over time, the red was diluted gradually and eventually it became something he could no longer identify. It was something between maroon and lilac. He had no mood to determine what kind of emotion it represented but the thought just came to him in one morning after he was told by the same doctor that his cancer might already spread to the liver. The ‘malice’, the name he gave to the blending of maroon and lilac, was indeed a menace, an impertinent one. ‘Malice’, though how innocent it looked, foretold myriad of malignant-like prophecy.

In a nightmare of his, ‘malice’ came to here and commissioned him to stand up. He protested and argued with the ‘malice’ that he was unable to stand up for a time being. ‘Malice’ therefore demanded for a reason. He had lots of rebuttal but on a spur of moment, his tongue was twisted. Astounded and unable to speak, he gasped and he woke up only to find out he couldn’t feel the lower part of his body.

He was rushed to the hospital in no time. ‘Malice’ also followed him to the hospital, like a silent assailant. Frightened and intimidated, he gingerly asked his daughter who accompanied him in the ambulant, “Do you see ‘malice’?” His daughter replied nonchalantly, “ I see ‘malice’ everyday.” Whether she had met ‘malice’ posed a serious question to his own conviction until the doctor revealed the X-ray before him, like a clown who never ran out of trick up his sleeve.

“There’s a tumor at your ****, emm… that means spinal chord,” announced the doctor. He continued, “You may wish to have the operation as soon as possible, before the conditions deteriorate.”

“Does it make any difference now? I lost my mobility, I spoke to with you with my back stickled to the smelly bed, I couldn’t urinate with two feet stamped firmly on the cold ground, I lost everything…”

“But, you still have chance to recover, maybe 15%,” said the doctor sedately.

He hardened grip and shoulders crumbled like World Trade Centre. 15%, the figure unnerved him just as much as ‘malice’ did to him. And before long, he realized ‘malice’ no longer stayed along side. Something nearly colourless had replaced it. Let’s call it ‘Casper’, he smiled weakly, reminiscing the time he spent watching ‘Casper’ with his daughter. This thought drew tears to his eyes but for some odd reasons, he refused to whine in front of the doctor and his daughter.

Maybe he would cry to his heart content next time, but definitely in front of ‘Casper’. “To hell with you,” was the last sentence he muttered before entering the operation room.


6. Tales Of Two Men (Part 1: Crime And Punishment)

“There was a boy whose name I never knew living in a small town, too small to be known by the arrogant tyrant of this country,” said ‘Mr Average’. Obviously, he intended to narrate the story without my consent. Since there’s nothing I could do, I nodded, telling him to continue wordlessly.

“He had no sibling and in fact he didn’t even know where he from was originally. His parents who brought him up, gave him the best education were not his biological parents. In spite of their wealth, they failed to conceive a child after years of futile effort. At first, it was extremely hard to accept, but they still had to bow before the big hand of fate and resorted to the last resolution. Before that, foster parents was a term which was too alien to accept, but slowly, the prejudice thawed, perhaps because of the obedience and the attractiveness of this boy.

They already fell in love with this boy the very first time they had met the boy’s biological parents. He was perfectly normal, in fact, he was nearly flawless with no apparent defect. They were willing to pay higher than what his biological parents had demanded and they happily took over the cash and promised would never see this boy again. This promise pleased the couple.

They fostered this boy just like their own son. With the wealth they accumulated from the logging industry, the amount of gold he had amassed was enough to buy a small country. Although there were rumours circling in the small town that this couple had been linked with several most notorious triads, they appeared unruffled. Perhaps they were guiltless, perhaps they were not, but what undeniable was they gave the boy their best. People could see them walking their boy in the park everyday with envious and avaricious stares fastened to them.

But the boy wasn’t happy at all. Everywhere he went, he would detect hostility and the sense of guilt were stalking him clandestinely. The feeling of ‘guilt’ saddened him just like he was denounced as a liar while he was not and of course this feeling was nothing but a puzzle to him. Although he never had a full grasp on the ‘sense of guilt’ he felt, he knew it existed. It definitely presented, inside him, around him, behind him. Sometime in the night, he would dream of it and he would be woken up by his mother with sweats dipping out from his forehead.

He attempted to describe it to his mother whom he felt more intimate to. Without any effort, he likened the ‘guilt’ to a ‘bogeyman in the wardrobe’. But his mother never showed any emotion. Even when he got very delirious, she was gentle and the most she did was flipping open the wardrobe and declared, “There’s no bogeyman.”

With the nemesis like ‘guilt’ which never stopped nagging him by his side, he found it hard to concentrate in the school. Every gaze from his classmates chilled him. Was that the fault of his ‘guilt’? The young boy would never know until many years had passed. He didn’t have friends because he was unable to engage in a conversation between his classmates. All he could do was stay at one corner of the classroom, observing every gesture of his classmates. The more he observed, the more he wondered were they his source of ‘guilt’?

One day, he managed to confront one of them after mustering enough courage. He was unmistakably trembling when he asked cautiously, “What’s wrong with me?” The boy he confronted was caught dumbfounded and staring him blankly.

Still blank, he replied crisply as if he had rehearsed it few times before, “I heard you are not your parents’ son.” He just stopped his sentence abruptly and ran away without any explanation given, leaving him standing there stupefied. The feeling of ‘guilt’ didn’t just depart with the answer he got and so he deduced his nemesis would still stay with him. Hence, he concluded it’s time to confront his parents, though he didn’t actually know who or what he wanted to get rid of.

He never had an opportunity to confront his parents when something happened. His father had been admitted in to the hospital with skull cracked and several vital organs injury. But he didn’t care. All he wanted was piece of enlightenment on his nemesis. He never watched The Godfather but somehow he understood what ‘keep your friends close, but your enemy closer.’ Now, it could be his last chance, if not to defeat his woe, at least extinguish its arrogance.

While his father was bedridden, he discovered he didn’t have pity on this old man. ‘This was bad,’ his mind murmured but another voice was much stronger, a voice which was much stronger and more substantial. It’s authentic and it did exist. His mom, on the other hand, was wailing and shaking his father’s hand. She said something to his father but he couldn’t hear. Though how sober she looked, he couldn’t help to think this was all staged and phony. There’s trace of comic in her eyes suggested her infidelity and there’s something extraordinary happened between them, he and his father, he and his mother, his father and his mother.

“Is that a hint?” The ‘guilt’ appeared to be more omnipresent and more ponderous every time his mother wept. He had stayed with the ‘guilt’ long enough to smell the presence of it hundreds meters away. But this time the ‘guilt’ was different, it was somewhat more intense and penetrating. This ‘guilt’ was suffocating and that’s something he had never encountered before.

He explored carefully, inhaled every volume of the antiseptic smell air as if it were toxicant. Just as he was beginning to understand that the aura of ‘guilt’ emitted from his mother’s body was something entirely dissimilar, without any warning, his mother screamed. The scream was so loud that he could hardly hear the noise from the life-support machine anymore and for a moment, he reckoned his mother had suddenly ran into her ‘guilt’ and collided with it. He didn’t know what gave him this idea but he was sure something had just gone wrong, terribly wrong.

Wasting no time, three nurses pulled his mother away from his father’s bed. Her screaming grew even more piercing but no doubt, he could pick up some words she had said.

“It’s all your fault! This is the crime we commit! You deserve this… He was an evil, descended from that woman, he brought jinx, he brought omen…you invited him into our house! How could you leave me to face him alone? We shouldn’t have bought this evil!

The senseless rambling carried on not more than 10 seconds before the nurses pulled her out completely from the ICU. He was also escorted from the ICU and he noticed they had said something to his mother. “Why no one says something to me?” He was wondering with his eyes fixed at the mosaic pattern of the marble tile on the floor.

He pondered on what his mother had said. Could it be related to the ‘guilt’ he felt? No, he heard something else. Yes, it’s ‘crime’. Was it the real name of his curse? He was far too young to cogitate all these.”


7. The Sound And The Fury (Part 2: White Noise)

“You can walk again, we trust the doctor. I think you have a very good chance to stand up again if you are willing to cooperate. You must undergo series of physiology exercise before you can stand up again. Now you are weak, you are…”

He let his mind wandering in the arteries and the veins of this hospital. He felt sorry for his daughter because he had no interest in whatever she said. “It’s all rhetoric,” he convinced himself with a renewed conviction. At least, he still could maneuver his own mind and he believed in his mind more than his body. He neither put his blame on the doctor nor his daughter who never got tired in giving him false hopes because he had become a staunch believer of what he imagined, prophesized and rhapsodized.

He had long given up all his senses. “All I felt was nothing, all I saw was indeed nothing, all hear was indeed nothing,” he was more certain of his own little theory now. His daughter was speaking to him and all he could ‘sense’ was her moving mouth without even a slightest hint of moving. He could ‘hear’ but he didn’t know what’s that or perhaps he could ‘sense’ the ripple of air, but not the sound.

His world had slowly degenerated into a very primitive point of view. Everything, in this world, could now be categorized into one category only. For him, all things were white, all sounds were inaudible noise now. Perhaps the prolonged treatment of cancer had inflicted irreplaceable damage to his mind, nonetheless, he possessed no desire to seek for vengeance because he already felt nothing. Numbed legs, numbed ability to distinguish colours and too numbed to feel the numbness.

“You must stand up again, you know, without you, we…” his daughter sobbed again.

Watching the tears streaming down her face, a sudden disgust rose up inside his body. That’s hate, an unemotionally one. This feeling transcended any sense of emotion and this was something totally beyond comprehension. No matter how bizarre it might be, he wished he could tell his daughter that he could ‘hear’ emotion and he was able to decipher emotion.

The emotion he ‘witnessed’ was transparent and beyond the thin veil of deception, he saw something else which was altogether foreign. It’s the core of the story narrated by a mute story-teller. Beyond the emotion displayed, the narration proceeded without a hitch. There’s no doubt a story or two or more than two stories were being orated simultaneously.

A story of a boy, a disgruntled mother, a dying father. He was quick to dismiss that as miscellaneous and randomly-assorted combination of story line. But it was so surreal as if it just happened yesterday. He couldn’t help to spare more watchful stares at it and the next thing he realized was he was deep inside the story, becoming the boy, the mother and the father at the same time.

It’s all very confusing but he was completely immersed in the story. Whenever a potential danger poised to upset the delicate equilibrium of the story, he would shout in alarming manner, only to discover he was bedridden, looking at the green curtain and brown window frame.

The story proceeded slowly, too slow. With this pace of narration, it seemed this story would never end. But out of his surprise, the story suddenly vanished. It just vanished into the thin air, leaving no trace. And more surprisingly, the emotion also evaporated to nowhere. He no longer felt any presence of it and all objects had become white in colour once again.

That’s when he decided to go home and gave up his remaining hope on the next operation. He told his daughter bluntly there was no second operation because he was not going to have one. “I want to go home,” was the first sentence he said to his daughter since he regained his consciousness.

8. Tales Of Two Men (Part 2: Gulliver’s Travel)

“I have finished my story,” Mr Average claimed, “What’s your story?” he demanded subsequently in a extremely courteous manner.

To my dismay, his story ended in such amateur way, just like a story by a futureless novelist. I must say at first I was listening to his story without any expectation because the denouement of today’s events was causing serious indigestion in my crude mind. But as I listened more, I grew more closely to the story, as if I were bound to become one of them. I could even feel the molecules disintegrating inside my bodies, vowing to join the characters. This was the prowess of this story but suddenly, ‘pop’ the story ended, like a bursting bubble.

“What’s your story?” Mr Average pursued.

I wasn’t so sure about what story I wish to share. Maybe I was just reluctant to reveal my story or I felt inferior to share my filthy past, which elegance and brilliance could never outcompete Mr Average’s story. But at the same time, a story came to me out of nowhere. I ran through that story in my mind and realized I, in fact, never heard that story before.

I cleared my throat, trying to buy more time. “Should I share a non-existent story?” When I was toying with the idea of telling a story I myself had never heard before, Mr Average lifted his hands, hinting me to start my narration.

I cleared my throat one more time before telling the strangest story in the world.

“There’s a man coming from a rich family. He once had loving parents but something had changed and he was sucked into the vortex of misfortunate. Love had left him, affectionate had deserted him, leaving him in a state of solitary. In order to survive, he had to sacrifice and work masochistically.

However, he was never able to recoup his loss. Plethora of attempts after attempts, he never succeeded. The thing he lost was priceless. With the wealth he inherited, he could easily buy everything off, politicians, business or even love.

There’s only a thing he couldn’t afford was a thing named ‘atonement’. When he was an impulsive and compulsive youth, he had committed a crime, a crime he never meant to commit. From that day onwards, he was sinned. Everywhere he went, there was smell of sins lurking around him. Sometime, a cat would mock him sarcastically. Even a lamppost opposite of his house was against him. Everything, everyone detested him as much as they loathed the notorious triads. He guessed this was what everyone called ‘retribution’ or ‘punishment’, which he personally favoured more.

There’s a time when the punishment became too unbearable, he decided to kill himself. He jumped off from the fifth floor and by the twist of fate, he survived. The survival didn’t come without price, he lost his mobility. To translate it into a simpler language, he lost both of his legs due to the injury of his spinal cord.

‘I’m sinned,’ this was what he told every person since he was admitted into the hospital. Diagnosed as a mild depression patient, he was spared from legal action. But he slumped further into his own depression, murmuring to himself like a hopeless lunatic. Not only refused to get up from the bed, he initiated a hunger strike which forced the doctor to sedate him forcefully.

Under the strong influence of sedation, he felt his body was fleetly moved away from the hospital. The sensation of moving was very subtle and he couldn’t detect any vibration of movement at all. What made him think he was moving? Must be the stretching feeling of his body. Every inch of his skin was stretched and pulled and yet he felt no pain. A little pressure was what he could feel.

Soon, the sensation ceased. A eerie déjà vu of emptiness struck him. “Where was I?” This was an odd question because at the first place, how sure was he that he had moved? He might still lay on the bed, waiting for the dawn to fall. Tardily, he instructed his hands to move but to his horror, he was like old Gulliver, nailed to the ground, unable to move even a single nerve. Every attempt to move would result in immense pain that he had never experienced before. Or, the pain could well be described as something intrinsic. Whenever he conceived of a certain movement, he could feel that his limbs were indeed prepared to move, but his mind was as if crucified by millions of nails.

Yet, he refused to stay still, waiting for an onslaught of an unknown enigma until he was suddenly blinded by a brightly-lit object right in front of his eyes. Although the illumination was so dazzling, he estimated the object was only 3 meters on top of his body. Patiently, he waited for his eyes to get used to the light.

While he was waiting, before he ever realized, an epiphany descended upon him. “This was heaven!” He didn’t know where he got this idea from but the object, which he could see clearly now, was a perfectly square flat (curvature?) screen (a box?). Instinct told him it’s an oversize television or a water-down movie theater. Television in heaven? This was an absurd idea but this place, beyond his belief, felt exactly like a heaven. But had he been to heaven?

A sudden change of the intensity of light grabbed his attention. Nervously, he forgot he was ‘nailed’. He lifted his arms, trying to rub the sweat which plastered his hairs to his forehead away only to be electrocuted by the inscrutable pain. He cursed silently.

And then he resumed watching the ‘television’. For a while, nothing was shown. The nothingness was so profound that the aura of its was equally fearful. He was relieved when the nothingness was replaced by series of colourful pictures. At first, the pictures were very fuzzy. After a while, he could see every picture with the clarity that surmounted any picture taken by the best camera in the world. This deepened his unshakable conviction of he was actually ‘nailed’ in ‘heaven’.

Soon, the same pictures appeared again. He was baffled. And after another 9 pictures was displayed one by one, same picture came out again. No doubt, there’s no discrepancy in the same pictures came out again and again. But the more he buried his mind into the pictures, the more he was convinced there were differences. Were the branches of trees orientated at the right direction? Was the colour of the umbrella of the ice-cream vendors same?

And were the people same in each picture? At first glance, all of them looked same but not after some careful observation. No, every detail was not consistent each time the seemingly same picture came out. His mind raced frantically. Why changes? Why differences? He sank into deep thought. Few possibilities circled in his mind but none of them could explain everything. His reasoning was no longer sensible; instead, they had become rather mystical and singular.

Before he managed to decipher the riddles, before his reasoning could convince himself, of a sudden, he discovered he was on the same hospitals’ bed again, looking straight into the eyes of the doctor.”


To be continued

Totentanz(Part 1)

1. Of Stalker And Wall


I felt revitalized. The rigorous mind of mine which I possessed now was something I had lost in the city. As I strolled down one back alley with silence engulfed me, the mere presence of me filled the place told me this place was not a vacuum. Though there was no pressure, I could sense was light breeze and rhythmic percussion from somewhere else. I heard that, quite vividly and miraculously, I could even tell what that was, despite of its softness and vagueness. It was Totentanz, a masterpiece of Listz, which I played few years before in a competition, I could still recall every twist, every staccato, every chord, with clarity which itself astonished me.


Walking down a back alley was once a hazardous venture. You had to beware of the watchful eyes which followed you everywhere stealthily. Sometime, the existence of a half-opened window was sufficient to unnerve me. But not now. I felt assured by something I never knew in my life. As I walked down the alley, my heart was beating more erratically, not because of a half-opened window, not because of a potential harmful silhouette, it’s the existence of my own self sooth my choppy sea of mind. I couldn’t recall walking down any other alley could bring me such exuberance.


Being directionless, I didn’t feel lost. On the contrary, I glanced around, suddenly, I was astounded. For a moment, I thought when I turned, I could see the same street I walked down. What I found was a wall, just a tall and seemingly impregnable fortress. The wall looked new as if it was newly built. But deep down inside me, I knew a wall just couldn’t suddenly appear like an apparition. I touched the wall. It’s cold and as I waited for the epiphany which I surmised would strike me didn’t happen as I wished.


Chagrined and mystified, I continued my journey. This alley was longer than it seemed as I slowly dragged my feet inch by inch. Still, there was no sign of life. This place was deserted, I concluded. I strained my eyes, trying to locate any sign of life. To no avail, I placed my blame on the mystery that engulfed me like a big mist. Where was I and where should I head to? And how could I focus when I discovered a wall was stalking me like an assassin. Every time I turned back, it’s there standing abruptly and melodramatically in front of me.


Strangely, I was calm, although being followed quite inexplicably by a wall. Silence like a layer of snow, forcefully buried every over-heated particle. I wished I could think but the stalker, which is the name I decided to give to that wall, kept me vigilant like a porcupine. Having no choice, I had to calculate my every step quite carefully. I was afraid one I slipped, the wall my trampled on me or left me behind. I would rather have a wall following me than following a wall. I was not a stalker and neither did I aspire to be one.


I was just a wanderer, looking for something to commemorate my existence.



2. As I Lay Dying


Slowly, he opened his eyes. Every ray of light felt like a needle, pricking and piercing his delicate cornea. Again, his eyelids collapsed and instantly, immediately, there’s no light. He was already accustomed to the day without light and he indeed enjoyed the companion of the total darkness.


When he slumped back to the shapeless wilderness, he could hear laughter. At first, it was faint and then it gained its momentum. With each laughter died off, another laughter with greater amplitude replaced it. He was perplexed by the stentorian laughter. Knowing it’s neither a dream nor a fantasy, he was somehow relieved but he was no fool. How could he hear laughter when there’s nobody beside him? By the way, did he even know where’s him? So, who gave him the impression that he’s alone?


Lastly, the screeching laughter died off. Soon after that, he was overcome with a strong urge to fell. Of course he was protesting, there’s no way he could fell. Suddenly, gravity was nowhere. The sudden loss of weight floated him and he was panicked. He wanted to screamed and as he opened his mouth, heavy air sipped into his lungs and choked him. As if didn’t recognize the foreign particle, his body reacted violently.


Instinctively, he opened his eyes. For a while, he though his eyes didn’t recognize the light because all he saw was fuzzy shadow. Beside that, nothingness prevailed. Feeling trapped, he once again hesitated. To expose himself to a know danger or to explore an unknown reign? He chose the later and that’s how he met his future wife. A young and vigorous-looking nurse stood in front of him, busily recording details. Without shifting his head to other side, he knew there’s a doctor there and besides that, he also knew he had no visitors, even when he was lying on the dead bed.


Nauseated by the sudden influx of bright light, he sensed his head was giving way to the haunting laughter once again. While his eyelids sank once again, he swore he could hear laughter once again.



3. To Whom The Bell Toll


He fixed his gaze to the young nurse. Not very pretty but he had to admit she was charming. Now, laying motionlessly and dying inaudibly, a strange vision occurred to him. He was not sure whether to call it a ‘vision’ or an ‘apparition’. But he was not given time to muse before he saw he held the nurse’s hand and begged her. No, he was not begging and he saw himself doing something but definitely not begging shamelessly. Flummoxed by what he witnessed, he could even feel his palms were sweating. Nevertheless, a new vision temporarily shifted his attention again. It was a scene where he was holding an infant, way too small to call it baby. It was so tiny and delicate. Happiness quickly superseded the somber feeling and he indeed felt lifted.


The happiness swiftly drained away and it’s subsequently substituted by an unbearable heaviness. From far, he could hear the bell tolling as people scurrying into a small church with somber look on their face. He wanted to move forward so badly to see what really happened as his curiosity was stirred by the tolling bell. That’s when he discovered he could actually move. But this was not an ordinary sense of moving, to put it more realistically, he was hovering on the ground.


Nobody seemed to notice his bizarre propagation. It seemed he neither left any trail or stirred any disturbance to the still air around him. As he approached closely to the church, he ‘saw’ people talking. He could tell people were discussing about something but he couldn’t hear anything. But this time, he remained quite unperturbed. “I have had enough queer things,” shouted him to a couple walking up the steps to the church as if to seek for sympathy.


No response. Frustrated, he purposely stomped up the steps, hoping it could at least reminded myself of my invisible existence. The moment he walked into the small church, the choir was already starting without me. After getting used to interior illumination of the church, he started scanning every inch of the church. There’s no statue, there’s no bible and there’s no pastor. The only thing stood in solitude in the middle of the church was a coffin.


Mischievously, he dashed to the coffin, without knowing what he was actually up to. Then he was stoned. It’s the nurse. Suddenly, he recovered his hearing. As if having an orchestra in his ears, he kneeled and shook his head incessantly. Now, lying on the floor, he felt extremely exhausted. His ears was long accustomed to the incomprehensible orchestral. What he didn’t know was why the nurse was lying in the coffin.


He was in dire to know. But before he sorted out anything, he found out somebody was holding his right hand.



4. Midnight’s Children


The street was no longer dimly-lit. Now, it was flooded with tender light. There’s nothing that could escape from my eyes. With the little assistance of the light, I finally could make up what where was I. Strictly speaking, I was not in an alley. But in fact, I was trapped in a labyrinth-like alley. I scanned my sides, there were exits everywhere, each of them led to an equally deserted plaza. According to my calculation out of boredom, I estimated there’s an exit every 50 meters. If this alley was 1km long, there was going to have 20 plazas! The mere imagination of 20 eerily deserted plazas was enough to enervate me.


Just when I was distracted by the plazas, the shadow casted by the irritating ‘stalker’ in front of me brought me back to the reality. Like a nagging grandmother, it just couldn’t give me a break. I clenched my fists but after realizing how naïve the idea of fisting a wall was, I decided to look more clearly how did my stalker look like.


To my utter disappointment, the wall was simply nothing. No graffiti, no chewing gum, no flaw. But I had to admit that amidst my disappointment, I was quite mesmerized by the meticulously built wall. My stalker seemed having no flaws at all, not even one. It was just a combination of thousands of carefully crafted bricks. Of course, there’s no indication or whatsoever about where the bricks came from.


“Hei!”


A childish voice coming from a plaza at my left side made me jump. At first, I thought I was fantasizing this but the voice was unmistakably calling me. I was first shocked and then grew weary. My situation could be well described as a set up. But it was a ludicrous idea. I turned to the origin of that voice.


A boy was standing at the middle of the plaza. He looked like a dot from my point of view and so I estimated he was well 200 meters away from me. The reflection of the bright light on his face almost prevented me from identifying him. I managed nonetheless, not without staring at him forcefully for more than 10 seconds.


“Would you come here?” He inquired in polite manner, which is a twist I never expected. I never thought he would speak to me except saying hi. I had also no idea why he gave me this impression. I just keen to portrait him as a mute, lonely and hapless. But he seemed more cheerful than I expected.


“How long have you been here?” Before I had responded, he asked, “Am I the first one you have seen?” I had no idea what was “the first” he referred to. The first human? The first light? The first boy?


I didn’t reply. The plaza was huge but it was empty. All I could see was the boy standing in the middle of this plaza. Perhaps the reflection of the light from the marble tile amplified the emptiness of this plaza, I was deeply indulged in the affectionate and pleasant air of this plaza. The air here was fresher but the trace of staleness was hard to be ignored. Temporarily oblivious of the presence of the boy, I continued inspecting the whole building without any reason. Perhaps, I was intimidated by the grandeur of this plaza.


“I guess you are never much a speaker, are you?” He winked at me.


He was ordinary. Too ordinary in the sense of normal people, though how normal they are, at least they would have one extraordinary. This was the miracle of DNA. But the boy standing in front of me defied all the beauty of random selection. Nothing from him suggested he was indeed different with other people. His attire was something could be seen on the road everyday. Although I had never met him before, I decided to call him Mr. Average because he was too ‘average’ in everything.


“Do you tell stories?” Mr.Average’s abrupt question had me taken aback. Stories? All of a sudden, I thought of the ‘stalker’ once again and I checked my back, no sign of the ‘stalker’ anymore. But it seemed uncanny things never ceased to happen.



To be continued...