Not A Dancer, Not Quite A Poet

Bachianas Brasileiras

2009-06-26T22:34:00.000+08:00

1. Bachianas Brasileiras No.1 ‘for orchestra of cellos’

If you order a frappuccino from Starbucks, the next thing you most probably will do is to find a secluded spot, sit down, perhaps grab a newest novel, put your Ipod on and of course, slowly sip the coffee you just order. That is the magical thing about Starbucks. Although their main selling point is their coffee, most of the customers actually pay very little homage to the coffee. On the contrary, books, free internet, music or even chitchatting are those trivial additions that help to define Starbucks.

To prove my point, now I will like to invite everyone to look around the Starbucks I’m in now. I’m standing in front of the counter, admiring the varieties and at the same time, reluctant to make my decision. In the sweltering afternoon like this, it seems perfectly sensible to order an ice-cold frapuccino. However, macchiato sounds like a better choice for me. Nonetheless, I place my order for a frapuccino because I decide that frapuccino suits the ambience better. I look around me for seat. This is perhaps a less busy afternoon for Starbucks despite the scorching heat outside the glass walls. Then, I see two teenagers occupying the different tables. My deduction skill tells me, they are strangers. Two different men with two very different lives to live in. From first glance, it appears that the only similarity they share is their age.

I choose a table farther from both of them. To be frank, I’m afraid that my presence might displace the fine balance exist between them. They are indeed not much different from me and I’m not much older than them. Funny thing is, initially I wanted to join them, perhaps said hi and shook hands. Now, I’m slumping into the couch and very much relieved that I didn’t join them out of impulsion. They seem inexplicably special. Perhaps they can fly or they have X-ray vision? Ok, enough of crazy thoughts, my coffee is ready and I go over to the counter and collect it.

From now on, I will address two of them as ‘A’ and ‘B’. Pardon me for this seemingly rude code name I have given to both of them. Code names thrill me and if I’m right, special people do need special name like super heroes, don’t they? To my right, A’s mug is half full and he is surfing internet using his Dell laptop. To my left, B, on the other hand, has his cup full of ice-blended coffee. He is reading Times. Nothing I witness can suggest that they are somehow extraordinary in their own way.

I take my macchiato back to my seat. As I walk past them, none of them even lift their head or even move a bit in recognition of the presence of me. That infuriates me. Am I the only one here who is very much agitated? They seem phlegmatic. Bachinas Brasileiras that comes through from the speakers soothes them, but not me. Villa-Loboos’s famous suites that stylistically fuse baroque Bach’s and Brazilian folk songs are very strange choice of pieces they choose to play in this unusually oppressing afternoon.

When I’m back to my table, I continue observing them. A is still immersing himself in the make-believe world of internet and B is still reading his Times. I’m bored by their indifference and so, I take out my laptop too. Once I begin typing something in Microsoft Word, I can’t stop thinking about them. Perhaps I should write about them, shouldn’t I?

2. Bachianas Brasileiras No.2 for chamber orchestra

A is the boy who can have whatever he wants. He discovered that since his parents first played Bachianas Brasileiras from the compact discs. A doesn’t particularly like the suites. He finds himself hard to digest the clash of modern and baroque music. If he were to choose, he would prefer someone like Mozart, quintessential classical; Schumann, real romantic master; or J.S. Bach, the central figure of baroque music. A dislikes innovation although he knows innovation is inevitable. Come and think about it, A realizes that what he dislikes is the transition before the innovation. Innovation can’t just jump right through the window of intellectual restriction. Too much of innovation will be dismissed as utter fantasy. That is why A always pities Nikola Tesla.

No matter how much he distastes fusion music, he can’t bring himself to denounce Bachianas Brasileiras. Because this piece helped him to bring the first ever snowflake to this tropical country. When he was 9 years old, he had seen enough of snows to know what real snows look like. One day, when Bachianas Brasileiras was played, he suddenly wished he could bring snows to this country. The moment the idea formed, the temperature dropped, then the snows fell through the sky. The next day, the country’s prime minister declared the state of emergency to fight imminent nuclear terrorism. Too much new stuffs, people couldn’t take it, they reject them altogether.

Young A was very mesmerized by the beauty of the snows that stopped once the music stopped. Later when he was older, more classical music was played to him. There was one that really held his heart, ‘Winter’ by Vivaldi. In his mind, snowflakes with Winter playing in the background would be just magical. He couldn’t find any other substitution for ‘magical’. But, no matter how hard he tried, how concentrated was he to try to picture the snow, he failed to summon the snows he saw when he was five years old. He never told anyone about this and neither could he muster enough courage to put the compact disc of Bachianas Brasileiras in the player once again.

After the snowing incident, he came across with Bachianas Brasileiras in several occasions. Once in his college graduation ball, he was with his date when the hall sprung to life with Bachianas Brasileiras reverberating in the hall. His date immediately sensed that he was petrified. He couldn’t move. It had been a while since he last heard that in shop that sells guitars. Coincidentally, Bachianas Braileiras No.2 was the choice of the ball DJ. The idea of snow promptly came out of no where. Before his conscious thinking even started to kick in, snows had fallen everywhere in the ballroom. Everyone was in ecstasy, thinking the snowfall must be another meticulously designed surprise. The organizer never denied their involvement although they were no less bewildered by the snowfall.

A glared at his date, having hard time to concentrate. This would be the time to show off some miracles. He concentrated laboriously to change the snowfall into a vast field of lavender, knowing his date would like it. And he did it. Everyone suddenly disappeared. Only he and his date was now in the field of lavender. His date was more confused than surprised. It saddened him. Before he could make any amendments to the scene he created, the music stopped- and they were back to the ball room. ‘I must stop drinking,’ she groggily whispered to him.

So much for miracle. His ability only added more misery to him. He was born with silver spoon and he was well-endowed with brainy mind. Every relative adored his brilliant mind. He excelled in everything and his parents gave him everything. ‘He can be a lawyer’, ‘He can be a doctor’, ‘No, he can even be our prime minister,’ all sorts of prediction fell into place since he was very young. And they were quite right about it- he was indeed good in everything; except that very one thing they miss, his ability. His childhood was filled with endless bouts between his ability and his normal life.

How could he tell everyone about that? His life would be ruined the moment he told everyone about that. Assumptions would soon dictate their reprimands. ‘So you are not that smart after all? You use that piece of classical crap to cheat in the exam? How often you use that? What else did you do with it? He could foretell every merciless lambast. Sometimes he was very amused by the fact that burden of expectations can change so much of people’s perspective. If he is just a Tom, Dick and Henry with average grade in schools, he will just be dismissed as a fraud if he ever tells everyone about his ability. People expect something spectacular from him, but if he has something more to showcase, he will be once again denounced as a fraud, along with his past achievements. People more easily fall into the trap of taking refuge in the worst side of humankind. They can’t see past anything.

They certainly are good guessers no matter how flawed they are. He did ace his exam and now he has to face an impossible decision, to fulfill the expectation or to go against it. He was just informed that he was awarded a prestigious scholarship to study medicine in the UK. Once again, he feels the burden is crushing him. He could raise few eyebrows if he ever tells everyone that he doesn’t want to be that special. That means, he has to accept the fact that a predestined path will be his destiny. He will be ultimately ordinary. On the other hand, he has to be special, at least in the eyes of his parents and his relatives. To them, he is so special, so precious. Indeed, he is unique, not because of his brilliant mind. He is stuck in an irony he creates for himself.

Now, he is in a Starbucks. A painfully recalls what happened the day he went to that guitar shop. He was just 16 years old that day, a very frustrated one. Hadn’t he stopped himself from heading to the road of perdition, or hadn’t the music stopped suddenly, what would happen to him? There is no way to find out. Or does he have a way, with the same familiar music playing in the Starbucks?

3. Bachianas Brasileiras No.3 for piano and orchestra

B, on the other hand, is too extraordinary because of his uncanny ordinariness. He once suspected that his life helps to define what ‘mean’ is. He is most probably right. Throughout his life, he sails at the perfect straight line of mean. His result is the average or mean of the whole class. Among 5 siblings, he is the third, two before him, two after him. You would also like to call that a perfect symmetry. The clothes he wears are of moderately old because he gets it from his eldest brother. His eldest brother reads a lot, his youngest brother never reads, he reads moderately, not too zealot, not too repellant of books- just nice. If you ask him about his life, he can endlessly and tirelessly tell you everything until you get really bored. In the end, you can just easily conclude it as ‘symmetrical life that is more average than any other average people’ and you can’t help wondering isn’t he too extraordinary to be so ordinary?

However, even a perfectly average life has some kinks in it. B will passionately tell you with clarity that will perplex you. Some of the ‘out-of-ordinary kinks’ in his life are some distant memories that you won’t be able to remember. Only he would be able to remember this kind of trivial matters. You can’t really blame him, can you? He has been leading a perfect average life, something special is always worth commemorating, isn’t it? If you see B one day, you can open up the conversation by asking when did the first kink of your average(tragic) life happen?

It happened when he was nine years old. He wore his usual moderately wrinkled and old T-shirt and he was not alone. He was with all his siblings and his parents. On that fateful day, his father had been in his particularly good mood. ‘Let’s go to the beach,’ he announced to 5 utterly flummoxed children. None of them had ever seen their father in such a jolly mood. But they didn’t say much, fearful of the sudden cancel of the trip by his father whose mood swing was famously unpredictable.

Hence, they all cramped into his father’s car. The car was a bit to small to house 5 siblings and their mother. None of them ever complained. The trip proved to be rewarding and they all had fun. Even their mother who was normally emotionless enjoyed herself as much as her kids. At the same time, B couldn’t help wondering something was very wrong with his father. B could tell you in spite of his ordinariness, he has some privileges those less ordinary people will never have- attention. Nobody pays attention to him since he was young. B could just do anything without scrutiny under everyone’s watchful eyes.

That day, he was a bit, just a bit less ordinary. He chose to be alone while his siblings immensely enjoyed themselves on the beach. As usual, nobody noticed that. He picked a spot, sat down, wondering how his life would be if he were at the another extreme? He pictured himself to be under the limelight. He fantasized that he could perform special superhuman ability. And all of a sudden, snows fell through the thick curtain of sky. He felt a chilling sensation on his shoulder at first; then his head; then his right thigh.

He fixed his gaze on the clear blue sky above him. The sky was cloudless and he hated a cloudless sky. The temperature around him dropped but he didn’t feel the chill as if a layer of insulator wrapped around him like a guardian angel. Guardian angel? His mum once told him snow was the guardian angel of sinners’ soul. Although he didn’t quite know what sinners meant, he liked the idea of guardian angel.

Meanwhile, his siblings and his parents were all bewildered by the snows. His father quickly hustled everyone back to the car, ‘play time is over!’ B remembered very clearly that he was literally dragged to the car while he was awestruck by the snows. He kept looking out of the window, hoping the snows would never stop. ‘Why the sea water never freeze?’ B found his question fall into deaf ears. Everyone was preoccupied by the phenomenon.

Now, he is reading a Time in a Starbucks. His first encounter of something extraordinary in his ordinary life still humbles him. People have no idea what kind of life I have been leading, they have no idea, he ponders it whenever he tries to recall what happened next that day- how their car skidded out of control, how their car fell over the cliff and how all his siblings and his parents were killed.

4. Bachianas Brasileiras No.4 for orchestra

A’s life was a perfect life that everyone slaves for it. His result was splendid and he was even offered a scholarship, big time. A fought hard for the result and he was proud of the fact that never once in his life that he ever attempted to cheat using his ability. Why? He has everything he wants. Why bother to fight so hard for something he already has? A has different desires. He doesn’t want to become some world-renowned surgeon neither does he want to become a lawyer-turned-politician.

He wants his life, not something everyone wants.

That is the reason why he is sitting in the Starbucks now. He needs the internet there to search for something, a scholarship. He still remembers the day he forwarded his idea to his parents. ‘I want to study music,’ his parents’ reaction was almost reflexive. ‘No.’ ‘I think you don’t understand, I don’t want to study medicine, music is my passion,’ he thought he made a very poor case. As clichéd as his argument went, his parents rebutted almost spontaneously, ‘you think the life out there,’ they pointed at the front windows, ‘is a bed of roses?’ ‘Do you know how materialistic the world out there? You can’t possibly hope to make a living out of some crappy reggae bars you are going to play in.’

The rest of the arguments were as banal as soap operas. But, it did happen. A’s parents were as astute as ever. ‘You all will regret,’ he ended their heated argument with a really hard bang of his room door. Is always an uphill task to argue levelheadedly with his parents when they do have their point. A let himself fall on his bed in frustration. How he wished he could change their mind… the music, the brazillian, Bachinas Brasileiras… the ideas came in fragments. No, B promised to himself that he wouldn’t succumb to the temptation of his ability.

‘You think you can change your parents’ mind?’ That is the burning question that has been languishing him. He feels weak. The sense of hopelessness descends unexpectedly when he is browsing the net. The search result isn’t promising. The frustration of powerless against his own life rolls like a snowball, it’s getting bigger and the urge of using his ability grows incessantly pressing. Throughout his life, he has no control of his life, he thinks to himself. He doesn’t get to choose. Who gets to choose? No, he has to have choices.

Without any prior warning, low rumbling of cellos and solitude violin is omnipresent in the Starbucks. It is simple and he asks inaudibly, ‘what’s this song?’ Circumstantially, a very muffled answer occurs to him- Bachianas Brasileiras No.4. He isn’t terribly thrilled by the answer. But something terrific is brewing, he just knows. The answer he just obtained was an abstract answer. Did he finally manage to summon an idea?

A reminisces his bitter incident in the musical instrument shop. He never told anyone about what he hoped to become one day to come. How could he tell his parents he always wants to become a guitarist instead of some bigshot doctor or lawyer? The moment he stepped into the shop, he heard Bachianas Brasileiras No.2. He couldn’t help wondering what would happen if he started thinking about something. How about bringing Jimi Hendrix to the guitar shop? And pop, the legendary guitarist was there. That was his first ever conscious attempt. How about Villa-Loboos, the composer of Bachianas Brasileiras? No, it would be too creepy to summon someone that was dead. Then he thought of something else. A concept, to be more precise. He has been summoning concrete and real objects in his whole life. He toiled with the idea of summoning something more abstract, let’s say his future. It turned out not an effortless task.

It was harder than he could imagine. Partly because he was reluctant to see his future, partly because he had doubts. Why sudden urge to look into the future which would be possibly perilous? He fled from the shop, never looked back.

Now, he is still in that Starbucks, with Bachianas Brasileiras playing in the background. Again, future is within his grasp but does he have the courage to move forward?

5. Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 for voice and 8 cellos

B was orphaned 7 years ago. Just when he was expecting a sharp abrupt turn to his ordinary life, he was coerced back to his average-ness. He again found himself to be the perfect balance in his new home. His foster parent was now his unmarried aunty. His aunty put him in the another school in which he once again became an average student. His ranking was still 25^thin the class of 49 students, 24 before him, 24 after him, no more no less.

He continued to live in the way he was. It never occurred to him that he was perhaps able to change. He just wanted to live ordinarily. It didn’t matter to him whether he could ever achieve anything magnificent. Nothing half as dramatic as the snows that orphaned him ever dawned on him after that incident. It was true that he didn’t want to be a standout. He detested it, as a matter of fact. The only time something out of ordinary happened to him, he lost everything he had.

So, he continued to live like any normal individual for another 7 years until the day he officially graduated from his high school, with average grade that would bring him no where. University would be a tall order for him. But he was not ready for the baptism of the society. What his aunty said now made a lot of sense, ‘you are too good to hit the street.’ After so many years, for once, he hoped his life could be little less ordinary. A higher grade would do. Sadly, reality worked in its mysterious way.

It was on the graduation ball that he realized he ought to be someone special, not someone that forgettable or someone that negligible. He went to the ball, alone. He didn’t have a date and he never wanted to have one. His high school years had been years of solitude. He hardly had friends and he was always seen alone during recess. When the class finished, he would be among the first to go back. Club activities were not cup of his tea. He did join some, as a normal member. Careful he was, not to show any enthusiasm when he joined any activities. Sometimes, he found himself running of excuses to defend himself. He brought all the ordinariness to himself.

Nonetheless, he did show up for the ball, to his classmates utter amazement. ‘Look at you, you are here,’ one of his few friends, Dan nearly dropped his jaw when he first saw him showing up with a suave tux. ‘Nice tux,’ he heard that compliments far too often that night. He began to suspect something was again, quite wrong. Uneasiness crept on his skin and the Goosebumps shunted him straight to the washroom. He could no longer stand the ball. He shut himself inside the washroom and let the turbulent emotion to overwhelm himself.

Then something magical thing happened. Somebody outside the washroom shouted, ‘Look at the snows! My god…’ Reluctantly, he dragged himself out from the washroom and he was instantly awestricken. The same snow he saw 7 years ago, the same texture, the same coldness… Everyone had gone insane with the snowfall except him. He found himself slowly walking to the middle of the dance floor. From there, he scanned the whole hall from that vantage point. His classmates and other students all stopped moving. They were dumbfounded.

Soon after he regained his full consciousness, a fear that was so surreal engulfed him. ‘What am I going to lose this time?’ He didn’t have much thing to lose after all but he was not sure whether he could take another big blow. Panic, like a fleeting white flash, seared through his whole body, shivering him. People might not notice but he knew he was shivering like someone with extremely high fever.

He wanted to flee from the ball and he saw a couple who danced rigidly. The girl looked confused and the guy was totally lost in his own world. Most awkward dance B had ever seen in his whole life. It was unbelievable to see those two still could dance in spite of all the ridicules. B reasoned, ‘they have no of the significance of this snow. Of course they feel nothing.’ He pushed back the crowd ahead of him to reach the exit. Once he was outside the hotel, he inhaled deeply.

What will happen to me this time?

Now, he is still in that Starbucks. Suddenly, the guy in front of him looked so familiar. The guy in the ball, the epiphany shivered him, not because of the fear. He was thrilled. Finally…

6. Bachianas Brasileiras No.6 for flute and bassoon

Surprisingly, both of them are very pale now. A covers his face with his palms. B is shivering with fear or excitement that makes his face paler than ever. I have been here, observing them for a very long time. My macchiato has turned cold and it is just too awful to drink now. I have been half-heartedly typing something on Microsoft Word but the truth is, I have been watching them closely.

B has stopped flipping his magazine since 10 minutes before. A has been hiding behind his palms for exactly 7 minutes 23 seconds and still counting. Something big will be happening here, right here. I wish I’m half as special as them so that I know what they think right now.

How is it to feel? No, it will be imprudent and impolite. Asking them risks exposing myself and inquiring too much will be a rude intrusion to other people’s privacy. I refuse to be known, like flute and bassoon. Flute and bassoon are always hidden, especially in a symphony. You can hardly hear any flute or bassoon when all the other instruments are played at full volume. The only time flute and bassoon can be heard is when they are doing solo. This is their show. I don’t want to be then who steals the show from them. As a matter of fact, I’m not capable of stealing show from them.

So, I continue to observe surreptitiously.

7. Bachianas Brasileiras No.7 for orchestra

A recovers from his struggles. He has been musing and weighing his odds. What if his future is not real? What if he won’t see anything? What if he sees something destructive? What if he can never change what he sees in the future? And he knows he has to reach the final conclusion. God knows when will they change the song again. Missed chance is no better than no chance.

Painstakingly, he tries to picture a concept in his mind. It proves a more daunting task. What is the concept of future? Instinctively, his brain will tell himself what it imagines. In his imagination, there’ll be kids, his wife and friends who are all faceless. He shakes his head in annoyance. Imagination is not what he wants because all the reality will be translated from his imagination. He wants the future projected to him, in its purest form, without the influence of his wishful imagination. He needs to know.

His vision suddenly becomes very cloudy. The interior of the Starbucks has turned dim and it is swirling in an irregular motion. It nauseates him. It is too dangerous to mess with the future. Before he manages to hurl himself out from the vortex of the swirling world, ever thing turns dark.

‘Dr James, Dr James!’ Who is Dr. James? He woke up and very surprised to find out there is no hangover. His vision is back to its normal clarity. He looks around, the same Starbucks. No, not exactly the same. Something is different. The design is quite different and who is that Dr.James? Somebody has been calling him over and over again.

He stands up to see where the sound comes from and he bangs against his table. The knife and the plate vibrate with the impact. Bewildered, he picks up the knife curiously. He sees something on the knife, perhaps the reflection. It is not easy to see one’s reflection on a knife with such an irregular surface. He stares straight into the reflection and he is alarmed. Something bizarre has been seen.

He turns around. There are two beds in a room. A curtain separates these two beds. Those two beds are not ordinary beds. One can only see them in a hospital and it only takes him a while to realize that he is now in a hospital. A stern-looking nurse is shouting straight to his face, ‘Dr. James’. ‘Dr. James, is this your stethoscope?’ He stares at the nurse intensely. The nurse was taken aback by the confused gaze and she apologizes, ‘Sorry Dr. James, I thought this is yours.’ And she walks past him, disappearing into the labyrinth of corridors.

‘What are you looking at?’ A voice startled him from behind.

Mystified, he turns to his back, finding himself in front of a lady he has never met before in his whole life. He touches her face and it feels soft. Without warning, he finds himself now in a comfy-looking living hall. In front of him, behind the lady, there is one television. On the immaculate wall, the clock shows 3.03pm. ‘I’m just looking at the clock,’ that is the first time he speaks since he finds himself in this peculiar realm of eccentricities.

She smiles. What a ravishing lady! He wishes to hold on to her for a longer time but something has changed. His vision becomes dark and cloudy again. Speckles of impurities mark over her face and the wall behind her. They are shattered and he wakes up, panting. That’s when the music stops abruptly.

He howls, ‘No!’ after realizing that he could never touch her face again. He pounds on the table like a madman with his eyes bulging. It takes 3 guys to hold him down. They, of course, don’t know what has happened to him. They only hear him muttering ‘I need to go back, I have lost her’ all the way back. Nobody knows what he means.

8. Bachianas Brasileiras No.8 for orchestra

B never stopped looking for miracles after that day onwards. Someone in the hall must have created the miracle. He or she was the one who was responsible for bringing B the most beautiful thing to his life and taking away the most precious thing from him. He obtained a list of people who attended the ball. 121 people were there. The figure didn’t discourage him somehow.

B started stalking everyone in the list. His ordinariness granted him some protection. None of the target he stalked was suspicious of being followed. Firstly, he would identify a target from the list. He would follow them and break into their house. Installing a spy cam in an unexpected corner of the house wasn’t an impossible task. Everyone had an untouched corner in their house. From the tv screen that was linked to the camera, he fastforwarded and rewinded the frames to check out every minor detail, every single frame might convey something and he must not miss that.

Day after day, he was hoping as he was going down the list, he would unearth that someone, who was responsible for everything. But as the list was getting shorter, the chance of finding that person was growing slimmer. He started questioning his rationale behind this. Was he wrong about the ball? No, someone, that someone must be there. How sure was he about that? When he was at the beach, no one was there except his whole family. His whole argument failed to connect with each other if someone were to probe deeper into it.

He had reached his bottleneck. None of the source yielded anything. He even hired a private investigator to follow some highly suspicious individuals. Negative, the result came back. ‘You have changed,’ his aunty commented. ‘Yes I am,’ offering no further explanation. It was true that he no longer cared to be constantly aware of being exposed.

He even called very few friends to talk to them, much to their surprise. They didn’t have to know the ulterior motive behind each call to sense that he had changed. He now went out more often. He started to buy trendy clothes. None of these changes was something he himself could explain. The only one idea was he was not supposed to be ordinary. He would find that person with ability and he would be the famous one. Although the idea of being famous still unnerved him, he was trying to get used to it.

Deliberately, he avoided being average. He sped, he swore loudly, he even modified his accent- just to be the extraordinary one. These changes were all gradual and subtle. Maybe he himself didn’t want those changes. It was the basis of his task that had thrown his perfectly symmetrical life out of the fine balance.

Despite of his numerous attempts, that person was still at large.

Now, B is sitting in a Starbucks, a café he previously wouldn’t even consider going. All the drama was unfolding in front of him as he gingerly put down his magazine. Watching that person who now appeared to him as the one who danced like a mindless robot in the ball, he laughs at his own stupidity. Everything has been so apparent, so lucid. He is the one. He causes all the problems. No wonder he still could dance!

As B walks over to help that person who was now seizing on the ground, he is all ready for this moment.

9. Bachianas Brasileiras No.9 for string orchestra

‘I’m his friend, I can handle this,’ B told the astonished shopkeeper. B moves A to the outside. I’m there to help A who is delirious. ‘You’ve got to move him somewhere else,’ and B nods in agreement. We move A to the backyard to avoid the watchful eyes of the passersby. I volunteer to go back to the Starbucks and get some cold water. ‘I need her,’ A is still in his semi-conscious state.

When I’m back with a glass of cold water, A uses his hands to support his body. A regains some of his consciousness back. B is watching intently on him, crossing his arms in front of his chest. A shakes his head and clears his throat, ‘can I have some water?’ I promptly give him the water. A takes it gratefully, ‘thank you very much.’ He gulps down the whole glass of water and he stares at both of us apologetically, ‘I’m so sorry for what has just happened.’

‘Why do you do this,’ B confronts A coldly.

‘What?’

‘You know what am I asking, how do you do whatever you do,’ he knows what he is talking about.

A’s face turns even paler. Any sign of redness has receded in favour of a sickly chalky white. ‘I don’t know. It’s just in my mind,’ A says without remorse. ‘I can’t believe you are the one, after so many years of searching, do you know how much have I changed?’ B is getting more and more agitated. Apparently, A understands what he is blabbering about.

‘Why are you doing this? You show me something miraculous and at the same time take whatever I have. Why?’ B kneels in front of A, tears are rolling down from the wells of both eyes. A looks straight into B’s eyes. ‘Do you know what it takes to have this ability? You will never know the misery. You have to constantly choose between being ordinary and extraordinary. Everyone expects you to be someone but you yourself are not even sure what you have to expect,’ B shakes his head defiantly and A continues, tears are visible, ‘I don’t get to become who I am. You know what did I see just now? My future, a future that is not supposed to be mine. I’m ordinary. If I’m extraordinary enough, maybe I can change it. But can I? I’m helpless in front of the impossible choices lie in front of me.’ A hollered.

‘You know what? At least you have choices. Do I have one? Everytime you perform your goddamn miracle, I lose something. I’m sick of everything you do. I’m sick of you,’ B whispers this softly, avoiding the eye contact with A.

‘What did you lose,’ A softens.

‘The ordinariness, the symmetry, the order, you take away everything. Because of you, I lost my family. I direly wanted to go back to my symmetrical life but I failed. Because of you, I had to search for you, abandoning everything that defines me and my life!’ B is shaking involuntarily.

‘I’m sorry,’ A concedes. Never once in his whole life he feels remorseful for whatever he has. With this exasperating guy sobbing like a completely battered soul, for once, he thinks he should stop blaming everyone for his downfall. ‘At least you have choices,’ B’s voice dampens his arrogance.

I witness their brawl from a corner. In my mind, there is a mind map of how two parallel lines start crisscrossing each other. No one can tell for sure how many times those two lines will cross each other again. Maybe they will never cross each other again. Maybe they will fuse to become a line. Many readers will be asking this question. Why not a proper conclusion? The answer is that simple. I never know what happens to them afterwards. I’m just a random point placed at the point of first intersection of those two lines. They move forward, but I don’t. to them, I’m just another customer they see in a Starbucks; I’m just another pedestrian that happens to be there to help them and witness everything. Thus, I’m not going to fool my reader by creating an alternative ending. A happily ever after ending will appeal to many wishful readers. A morbid ending is more of my liking. After reviewing everything I saw, I convince myself, ‘No, let the story end here.’

If there’s a Bachianas Brasileiras No.10, I might as well write about them thoroughly. However, that is life. Sometimes, just like A, we don’t have control on what we do, because it is life, c’est la vie. Perhaps everyone of us resembles B in a queerer way. We are just victims of being left option-less. And funny thing about their distinctly different lives, the one who has choices failed to change anything. In contrast, the one who is left with no choice, alters his course of life more than he can ever envisage.

But one thing they do share in common, they are both left hopeless in the course of their respective life. Maybe that’s how life is supposed to work, isn’t it?

Yesterday Once More - A Fairy Tale

2009-06-06T22:31:00.000+08:00

I had a dream and it was a strange dream. I could ‘see’ ships hovering on the cloudless sky. They were of different sizes; some of them were mammoth, some of the were just microscopically petite (how I saw the ship that small?). Then, they suddenly developed a glowing orange tide on them. Slowly, almost randomly, the orange tide receded, giving way to dark clouds. Now the sky seemed somber. Thunder was brewing and precipitating the eerie déjà vu- I could no longer wake up or I would wake up an entirely different creature, just like Kafka’s bug and Roth’s breast.

And I was wide awake, feeling my heart throbbing in my head. What a bizarre dream! Luckily I was never a staunch believer in dream that could mildly resemble a fairy tale or a senseless images that deprived me of hours of sleep. I turned and looked at the white Mickey Mouse clock on the table; Mickey’s arms were pointing to 5.30am. What a ghostly hour to have such a dream! Somehow, I was not so sure of my trusty Mickey Mouse this time. The playground I could see from my window was buzzing with activities. Frisbees, dogs, pregnant mums, I stared at them disbelievingly. It must be a mistake. I had never slept until 5.30pm.

My stomach was sick with the prospects of I actually slept for more than 17 hours. Pushing open the door, I was sweating profusely. I tiptoed gingerly to the living room, suspecting foulplay. Somebody must have drugged me to sleep. Recall, recall, I told myself. Was my drink laced? No, it would only happen if I were to go to a pub yesterday night. My mind was like wires crisscrossing and shooting current sporadically without any coordination. There was once my friend recounted a real story of being shell-shocked. A person who was facing an unexpected event would have their self-defend mechanism turned off for a moment.

What benefits could we possibly get from shell-shock? My friend shrugged.

As if waking up only to discover I just slept through half a day was not shocking enough, the moment I stepped into the living room, I saw me sitting on the couch. I was shell-shocked. He or I was tossing his (shoes I just bought during the sales!) shoes and slumped on the couch. No emotion was shown but I was him, I knew exactly what it meant. Tossing shoes, slumping, poker face, he was in bad mood. My depression had no cinematic impulse nor expressive grief. He was in every aspect, a me, my doppelganger; Or was I his doppelganger?

Suddenly, he stared straight at me. I had no idea whether he could see me. Once again, I found myself in an impossible position. Facing myself, as if it was not peculiar enough, I had to reason whether I was the unwanted one in his world or vice versa. One way or another, by all means, I couldn’t help but shivering in a morbid sense of excitement.

‘I had a bad day’ The slight pause in between ‘I’ and ‘had’ was deliberately created to invoke my curiosity. Suspense was his game. He loved the way he pronounced ‘real’ and he enjoyed every moment of teasing my ignorance. ‘why?’ He sighed.

How could he be so indifferent as if I meant nothing to him? How could he keep his cool when his mirror image was not acting in his own way? I was puzzled by him. Was I that normal to him?

‘I told her, I told her everything, the fairy tale, everything!’ his sudden outburst was inexplicable. I should have refrained myself. Instead, I asked like a caring old friend, ‘What happened? Didn’t she like the story?’

‘You had no idea what that story is, didn’t you?’

‘In fact, I don’t,’ How did I manage to hold my nerve? Talking to myself…

‘It is a fairy tale, I don’t tell fairy tales. To me, they are too morbid. Humankind is mocked by their simplicity and only in fairy tales, morality was nothing. People get killed all the time in fairy tales but… this story just sprung to my mind on night. The urge was so strong. I need to tell her, I need to confess my love.’

She… that was not her name. However, ‘she’ sounded like a déjà vu. Again, déjà vu, the thunder, the lightning… they all happened again! Who was she? She was in my mind but where was she in my mind? Every obscure corner, every piece, I needed to remember who she was. Who?

All of a sudden, the strange orange ships and the stentorian thunder were back. I was rudely awaken by the dream and to my dismay, same thing happened all over again. I rushed to the window, all of them were still there, doing exactly the same thing. ‘Was what I went through another dream?’ No, it was too surreal. My doppelganger would be sitting on the same couch if I were to muster enough courage to go out from my room. My heart was not strong enough for another encounter with my doppelganger, not after the surreal dream I had. Was it a dream? The question was back. However, I was more inclined to think so because if I was wrong, then, somebody might have pressed a ‘backspace’ in my life and refreshed my last few minutes.

That was even more disturbing.

Then, I saw him, my impostor. He came out from the washroom. He still looked the same, except he was humming ‘Yesterday Once More’. I should know better than anyone else. My favourite, the only song I would hum when I was in a particularly jolly mood. I couldn’t really remember when was the last time I hummed this song. It must be ages ago because I could hardly remember the lyrics. ‘You should be happier, you should do something to cheer yourself up, your all make-believe stories have gotten into your head, do they not?’ my friend who was concerned once asked me.

What could I say? I was not nihilistic, I was not even an idealist or perfectionist. But, happiness? Not my thing, I inadvertently distanced myself from them. Perhaps my friend was right, the stories I wrote influenced me more than I managed influence them.

Back to my doppelganger, he grinned at me. ‘Tell you what? I’m going to see her tomorrow.’ I threw an anxious look on the Mickey Mouse clock which was still there, 5.30pm. The calendar, one cross was missing. I had a habit to mark everyday I lived through by putting a big cross on the date. Today was supposed to be 11^th May but there was no cross on 10^th May. First thing that came to my mind was, I time travelled. Nonsense, how did I explain why all the scenes were still the same? Why the same dream?

‘She agrees to go out with me, finally. I asked her for a few times already but I was being unlucky for quite a few times. First time I asked her, she had an exam. Second time I asked her, she had to attend a wedding dinner. Finally, she said yes. Aren’t you happy for me?’

He painstakingly narrated all the tedium. I could hear and see the exuberance. But, how could I bring myself to tell him he was going to be heartbroken on tomorrow? All these things had been strange to me, I could hardly convince myself. He wouldn’t believe In me, neither would I if I were to experience this all over again.

I refused to open my eyes. It was all happening, all over again. The dream, the thunder, I was on the brink of losing my mind. Another refreshing of my life would ultimately force me to go berserk. I howled aimlessly. The Micky Mouse clock was still on the clock and it annoyed me. I hurled the clock out of the window in frustration.

Desperation, was a more appropriate term.

Without any surprise, I saw him sitting by his desk. He was writing something ferociously. The fairy tale! I suddenly recalled. Occasionally, he lifted his head and looked at the playground outside his room. The sky was dyed in the brilliant orange clouds. His exultance was reflective in the eccentric colour of clouds. What exultance? The fairy tale?

I wished I could surreptitiously steal a view on the story he was working on. Just before I was about to do that, he turned to me with a worried look on his face. The same face I grimaced at when it appeared behind the mirror. Behind the mirror, the face with its mouth opened, eyes wide, sweat crystallized on the forehead- they were all perfect testimonial of an infatuated heart.

He had tons of worries, the absurd ones, the groundless ones.

Without totally denouncing his paranoia, I advised him to take the middle way. Be nice to her, be the one she needed, be there for her… I was good in assuring him everything would be alright but ultimately, I was him. The worries were gnawing in me too. She, was a shapeless and formless apparition to me. But he didn’t know that, he assumed I knew her well; maybe I did, just that my memory failed me, at this crucial moment.

‘Why are you writing this?’

‘12^th May is her birthday, I want to tell her this, I think it’ll be a perfect story for her. I think she will be touched,’ he beamed.

His optimism touched me. For a moment, I thought he was going to succeed and 12^th of May would be altogether a different ending. The shoes wouldn’t be tossed and he wouldn’t be talking to a stranger who turned out to be himself. The story was on the desk. Somehow, without looking at it, I was convinced. She would be touched.

And I realized I had too much ‘would’, ‘could’ and ‘should’ in my own wishful thinking. Woulda, coulda, shoulda, three blind mice.

I no longer argued with the rational. The irrationality surrounding me no longer troubled me. Perhaps, I had grown used to it or perhaps, I was just very obsessed with his soon-to-be failure. As he continued scribbled down his final thought, I watched from far.

‘Why you want to tell her this story?’

He was startled. ‘I don’t know, she is different. I want to tell her that. She never gives me any hint but we can talk for whole day long. Tell me, can I be mistaken?’

No exactly an answer to my question. At least, one thing was confirmed. He was indeed a replica of me. Or he was just an ordinary infatuated teenager? No reason to fall in love, yet, believing in a reason that never existed with a conviction so strong that would tear him apart if he were to be rejected- he picked up the sign of falling in love.

Naïve, childish, impulsive, three blind bats.

‘I thought bats are blind naturally?’

‘Does that mean men are blind naturally?’

‘Love is blind naturally.’

‘Love is naïve, childish and impulsive?’

‘Don’t you know that?’

Then the orange ships marched in, I was awake, with hair plastered to my sweaty forehead. He was not In the room. He was not in the living room when I went out to see what was awaiting me out there. No surprise and should I consider this as a different type of surprise?

The dreams had left me pretty much dehydrated. And dehydration made me drowsy. I sat down on the couch, thinking of all the possibilities. The absence of him made me nervous. I was partly afraid of he would suddenly appear out of no where and was not entirely relieved either if this was not a part of my ‘refreshed’ dream. ‘Yesterday Once More’, what was the significance of the song?

The calendar hung on the wall seemingly foretold everything, including the significance. It was 18^th of March- my birthday. Was I going through another birthday? Which birthday was it? The 2008 one or the 2009 one or the even earlier ones?

Somebody was knocking the door of the apartment.

I was cross because my thought was disrupted. Who was the one who knocked the door? I decided whoever that person was, he/she was definitely not him. Wouldn’t he have the key to his apartment (technically my apartment also)?

Realizing the whole new probability, I weighted two possibilities. 1. It was a prank. 2. She was the one.

I opened the door slowly, half-expecting she would be standing in front of me. How would I know she was the one? No way to prove it nor to disprove it. Juggling such a variety of mixed thoughts was quite a headache. And it number my response. How did I know?

Because she was standing there, right in front of me the moment I opened the door.

I was shell-shocked for the second time, though the magnitude must be lower. I still could instinctively welcome her to my place. I still could mutter some mumbo-jumbos- which clearly made sense to her. She said something and I replied something else. We both smiled, though all of them didn’t really register in my mind. It was all reflex.

Hence, I couldn’t really describe her. Was she petite? Did she have an alluring figure? Was her hair black or brown? If my friends were to be here to witness everything, they must be laughing at my apparent state of autonomicity. ‘How can you fail to notice her hair?’ they would say.

I poured her something. I told her something. And now I discovered I was facing the mirror in my bathroom. The person behind the mirror was in every aspect, a quintessential me. ‘Clear your mind, ask the important ones, skip the miscellaneous,’ who was talking to whom?

I must ask her.

She was flipping through The Economist scattered haphazardly on the round table when I came back to the living room. There’s clarity in her eyes, eager to learn about me, eager to strike a conversation, eager to gain control. ‘Do you like yachts?’, ‘The orange one,’ she was taken aback by my question. Clearly, she didn’t expect me to ask a question first.

‘How do you know I like yachts? Orange is a strange choice, but it’ll be quite a stand-out if an orange yacht is anchored with other yachts.’

‘ Have you been to one before?’

‘No’

‘ Why you like them?’

‘ You are acting weird today.’

‘Answer me’

‘Hmm… they were once in my dream.’

‘What kind of dream?’

‘It was kind of silly but I dreamed of I was on a yacht with thousands maybe million of perfumes around me.’

‘Thousands? How did they smell like? It must be one hell of cocktail.’

‘No, they smell just like here.’

‘Here? I don’t understand, there’s no perfume here.’

‘ Don’t you realize we are surrounded by millions of scents all the time?’

‘You like perfumes?’

‘You are asking a lot.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yeah, talk about yourself. Why didn’t you say hi to me this morning in the campus?’

‘I didn’t? I thought I said hi to you and even told you about my birthday?’

‘No you didn’t, I’m sure about that.’

‘How did you find out about my birthday?’

‘Why are you at home during your birthday? Expecting someone?’

‘Are you here to celebrate for me?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why are you here if you are not here to celebrate?’

‘Just come by to meet my new friend.’

‘We are friends?’

‘More than that?’

‘What do you mean by more than that?’

‘More than you wishful thinking.’

‘What wishful thinking?’

‘About me.’

‘About you what?’

‘About how I like yachts and perfumes.’

‘I’m confused.’

‘Me too.’

‘Would you like to, you know, swing by and be my guest?’

‘That’s very generous of you. I guess I will see you more often?’

‘I think we are throwing each other too many questions.’

‘Are we?’

‘I think so, another question from you.

‘No question next time.’

‘Seriously?’

‘See, another question.’

Now I realized those ships in my dream were yachts. Old habits died hard. I had been calling them yachts since I was young and no matter how my mother tried to correct me, it’s hard to change. Orange yachts, lots of them were in my dream. They were on the sky and the sky was instantly dyed orange. I tried to close my eyes; the ray was too glaring. My eyes were closed in my dream. So, what could be so glaring until I felt like losing my eyesight?

The thunder roared and soon the yachts dispersed. The wind was too strong for them.

Ceiling fan was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. Mickey mouse clock was the second thing I saw. 5.30pm. The calendar was the third thing I would like to see. It showed 12^th of May when I stepped into my living hall. A huge tide of relief overwhelmed me. It’s now all over. No more doppelganger, no more endless fear of facing myself, no more ‘she’.

She?

She was completely out of my mind until the haunting images of the dream dragged her back. 12^th of May, 5.30pm, I ought to do something, something that sounded to eerily familiar to me. Reminder, yes, I kept a reminder. I ransacked my room and my study table for that piece of reminder. And I found it, right underneath ‘The Art Of Yachting’.

5.40pm- pick up her gift from the shop

6.30pm- meet her.

Her gift?

Yacht was way beyond me. I couldn’t have bought her a yacht. It must be something else. I found myself pacing in obvious irritability, trying very hard to remember. What gift? Another question from me. My head was overdriven by information and the couch suddenly looked so tempting to me. I slumped on the couch, musing about how I came to lose my memory. No, I didn’t. I once told a friend, ‘it’s all in your mind, it’s just a matter of whether you can remember.’

I was sure I didn’t forget.

Suddenly, my saturated mind was intruded by an untimely thought. Didn’t I look exactly like the ‘him’ I witnessed in the dream? Depressed, worried, jumpy… ‘Think like him,’ I tried to condition myself to think like him as if I was not him in the first place.

The story!

How could I forget the single most crucial link? I rushed into my room and flipped open ‘The Art Of Yachting’. A piece of paper dropped out. The story, my story, my story for her... my promise.

Once upon a time, there was a young man living alone in a humble hut. One day, a young girl passed by his hut and the moment he saw her, he was completely in love with her. He swore to everyone he met that the girl was the most beautiful lady he had ever met in his whole life. But, he never saw that girl again. All she left him, was a petal of flower. The scent of the flower, strangely enough, ever faded. It was the magic flower, he thought.

One night when he was asleep, suddenly an old man came to his dream. ‘I’m the father of that girl. In order to marry her, you have to complete three tasks. Firstly, you must buy the most expensive gem in the World for her. Secondly, you must build a house for her on the most dangerous cliff in the World. Thirdly, you must live in there and wait for her.

The first task, to him, was the easiest. He worked hard for 20 years in a nearby mill and when he amassed enough fortune, he bought the biggest ruby in the World. The second task was tricky. He thought all by himself, there was no way for him to build a house on the steepest and the most dangerous cliff in the World. But, with enough courage and perseverance, he finished building that house in another 20 years.

The third task, which was supposed to be the easiest, turned out to be the hardest of all tasks. Everyday, he was eagerly waiting for her to come back to him. Another day went by, another disappointment added. Nonetheless, he waited for another 20 years. His love for her never changed and wavered. He swore to himself that he would wait for the one who brought that heavenly scent to his life.

One day, the old man in his dream 60 years ago suddenly appeared at his doorway. The old man didn’t seem to change a bit but the young guy was now a frail and old man already. The old man said to him, ‘congratulations on completing your tasks, you shall now have my daughter’s hands.’ Then the young girl appeared in front of him. She also didn’t change a bit.

He was very sad. He was no longer young but the girl was still young. ‘I can’t marry her,’ he said, ‘I’m too old for her.’ The old man laughed, ‘do you know why I set all the tasks for you?’ He shook his head.

‘A guy doesn’t have to be rich as long as he is willing to spend for the one he loves dearly. A guy doesn’t have to be strong as long as he is willing to carry the one he loves dearly and be the one for her all the way. A guy doesn’t have to be immortal as long as he is willing to wait for the one he loves dearly.’

‘You are the right one for my daughter,’ as the father of the girl said that, the old man was turned into a young guy once again. He was overjoyed. He lives happily with the girl happily ever after.

The perfume. Mystery solved, the gift is a perfume! A perfect testimonial of love.

Such a simple fairy tale! There was only one thing in my mind now, I must tell her that. No more questions, no more careful calculations, no more searching for signs and hints. I must and would tell her everything.

As I held the paper close to my chest, I could see the yachts once again. Orange ones. The thunder was not in my sight. For once in my whole life, I felt the optimism caressing my skin, warming my heart, soothing my injured soul, once again. For once, I believed.

Another me must be watching me from far and I was sure, he could feel the happiness too. There would be a smile on his face.

A Fairy Tale: She

2009-03-31T17:29:00.003+08:00

She is coming, too soon, too abrupt.

Her apparition is an anticipated surprise.

I bow before her, I lean on her,

And I tell her a fairy tale.

That's the end of our fairy tale.

Fairy tale that's devoid of all its vital innocence.

We are becoming aware.

We stop moving, in awe of the fairy tale.

She knows.

Though her knowledge is not my wisdom.

Her riddles defeat me.

And she knows.

We are drifting apart and the fairy tale,

Repeats itself all over again,

Perhaps it's time for me,

To outgrow fairy tales.

And They Speak

2009-03-22T18:31:00.001+08:00

Like a lotus without roots that floats with the flow. – A Chinese Idiom

1. The Magical House Speaks

I just bought a magical house and moved in one month ago. Magical? My friends were suspicious. The last time they heard of this word, ‘magical’, was in a cinema while they were watching a movie, a cartoon to be precise. They house spoke to me the moment I stepped on its lawn. His voice was husky, restrained. I figured the house hadn’t spoken for quite some time.

Magical magical magical,

Ding dong ding dong,

I speak, I sing, I chant,

Oh, torment me with your presence,

Your presence is a venom,

Quick it is, silence departed.

Magical magical magical.

I concluded that the house did welcome my presence. He liked rhetoric, he liked the ironies. How did I know? Later on, someone would tell me this, or something? ‘When was the last time he spoke?’ I inquired cautiously, careful not to raise any suspicious eyebrows of the inhabitants in the house. The someone, the something. Let’s denote the unknown something/someone with an X first. X sunk into deep muse. I slowly sipped the coffee I brewed for no one but myself.

‘The day he was cursed. Curse, how terrible, how terrifying! How did he even survive!’ x’s replied was pregnant with uncertainties. My dear reader, I shall depart from the main conversation I had with x for while. I felt the necessity to describe X to you. Without any description, any move to convince you with X’s story would be ultimately futile.

I learnt my lessons from my friends who discounted my story with ‘Neh, you are blabbering’. I couldn’t really blame them, could I? X was a soloist. X was alone. X fed on solitude. X slept on single bed. X only played The Pictures of the Exhibition by Mussorgsky. X only read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. X had no friends and X was not the one who cursed the magical house. ‘Curse is a strong word, way too strong,’ he regretted uttering those harsh words in front of me. The house was magical, X knew that. No wonder certain degree of respect was displayed, although I had no idea whether X was being sincere or polite.

‘What so magical about this house?’ I asked that despite of the fact that the house did just speak to me. X broke into a radiant grin, ‘You are sly, aren’t you?’ Another lesson learned, X was not someone I should fool around with. X was way too smart for me. The house I lived in was a magical house. Regardless of anything, I must explore it on my own. X implied it quite clearly on our first encounter. I turned the door knob and X was right behind me, gave me a big fright. X introduced me to the magical house and what did he say to me?

Lotus and Mussorgsky.

Exactly, it’s the hint to decipher every mystery about this magical house who refused to reveal anything except the poem I heard. Lotus and Mussorgsky, Gosh, I was so inspired to unearth the truths. But I had to cautious enough not to show my excitement on my face. X was observant and X would know my secret. From now on, I knew I should keep a secret.

2. And the cuckoo clock speaks

Slowly, swiftly, I murder everyone

With my patience, with my determination

When the darkness descends, when the air mystifies,

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

I’m the one, the only one.

‘He is old, very old indeed,’ X whispered to me. X went on with the history of the cuckoo clock. How could I tell X that I was not interested with this maroon cuckoo clock which was not even accurate? My mind was saturated with lotus and Mussorgsky and what were the hints behind them. I hardly listened to anything said by X but out of courtesy, I nodded every time he seemed to seek an assurance from me.

‘The man who cursed this house bought this clock to replace his old clock which was always slower than the actual time,’ X roused my curiosity with the mention of the ‘curse’. The word now seemed peculiar to me because we were not living in a magical world. Realism dictated our world. But wait, I just heard the cuckoo clock chanting effortlessly in my presence. I was confused.

The cuckoo clock was hung on the wall, near the dining hall by the previous tenant who cursed the magical house. He liked the cuckoo clock so much and it’s definitely the love at first sight. He saw it in a shopping mall and it would cost him a bomb. Without realizing how exorbitant it was, partly because the madness of love had taken over him, he bought it using his credit card. ‘I was later told that that guy’s father own thousands hectares of palm oil plantation,’ X continued with a strange admiration and the tenderness of X’s gaze innervated me.

He cleaned the clock regularly. Unlike what I saw right now, the clock was sparkling immaculate last time. The wood body was constantly polished. The glass wall was meticulously wiped by the tenant. Partly because of his love to everything his father disapproved of, partly because of his lover, partly because of his love at the first sight, he was found too obsessed with the cuckoo clock. ‘He stayed up late to accompany it and he told me because the clock hates solitude,’ X’s indifference, again, was spine-chilling.

His father, on the other hand, hated this clock. The house which was magical, in his father’s eye, didn’t really go well with the clock. The cuckoo clock had its larger-than-life aura that the house, his father surmised, couldn’t contain. ‘The clock is too expensive, besides, it’s too big for the house, my son,’ his advice fell into a deaf ear, as usual.

The tenant was rebellious. He learned to ride a bike in front of a mamak shop although his father clearly forbid him of doing that. He refused to speak to his father for one month because his father openly criticized his decision for not taking Mandarin in his SPM. ‘Mandarin is a waste of time! In Malaysia, English is the kind, master it and you are notch ahead. It’s hard to get A1 for SPM, you do realize that, don’t you? This might seriously compromise my chance in getting scholarship,’ he once thought he was born to oppose whatever his father suggested.

His father was adamant in his disapproval of the tenant’s girlfriend who spoke no other language but English. She couldn’t speak Chinese or any mandarin dialect. His father was furious, much more furious than when he found out the cuckoo clock. That was unacceptable. How could he bring a girl who can’t speak mandarin home! He refused to meet her. The tenant stormed out of the house and that’s how he ended up in this magical house.

X was delirious with joy. I could tell from the story he told. He had no control what he wanted to convey. What did mandarin get to do with the cuckoo clock? On the other hand, I was not really into X’s narration. I was starting to relate his story to the ‘lotus and Mussorgsky’. I once saw a pool that was totally covered by the lotuses in China. China had something to do with lotus, it seemed ludicrous but, mandarin, China and Malaysian Chinese.

I decided to listen to X more since I was on my bottleneck of puzzle-solving. His stories might shed some light on my riddles.

3. And the piano speaks

Raindrop, raindrop, on the keyboard,

Chopin, Rubenstein, Rachmaninoff,

Virtuosos, pupils,

The piano concertos, the piano solos,

Reverberates in resonance,

When the piano player is alone,

In a dark room, with his piano.

‘This is the piano, you are right, the tenant bought it,’ X continued, ‘ for countless of his sleepless nights, the piano was his remedy.’ The tenant was found asleep on the piano once. He played good piano. He listened to Chopin’s and Rachmaninoff’s played by Rubenstein. However, he preferred playing Schumann’s Traumerei and Papillons. Chopin, to him was too subtle. Rachmaninoff, to him, was god-like and should not be defiled by his inferior skills. Traumerei was his lullaby, Papillons was his passion.

He played Papillons in front of his girlfriend who was a ballet dancer. ‘Madame Butterfly,’ he uttered this to himself dreamily whenever he saw her dancing in front of him. With her robe brushed against the floor, he would be reminiscing how they met each other.

‘Danso, danso, danso,’ he murmured that to his girlfriend the first time they kissed.

‘He met his girlfriend in a medical college in Kuala Lumpur,’ X stroked the keyboard nonchalantly. The tenant was under scholarship offered by Malaysian government but his girlfriend was not. Whenever he was asked about his scholarship, his story would always be recounted in this sentence ‘luckily I didn’t take mandarin in my SPM.’ Looking his friends, one by one, failed to secure the scholarship because of a single A2 in their SPM certificates. He would sometime, lament for them. Most of the time, he would just sneer at them.

To him, there’s nothing greater than the scholarship, the prestige. Mother-tongue could be put aside and again, he was proven right by everyone he met. In Kuala Lumpur, most of the Chinese spoke splendid English, because they didn’t speak Mandarin. Mandarin was like a distant relative, existence was none of their concern.

‘They are still Chinese, still celebrate Chinese New Year!’ His father exclaimed in exasperation. No, to the tenant, culture must come second to whatever that mattered to him. He didn’t care about the tradition. He ate mooncakes without bothering to know when was the Mooncake Festival. He didn’t even know what Dong Zhi was even though he ate tang yuen every year.

And his encounter with his girlfriend deepened his conviction. The first lie he told her, the first promise, the first step to his own perdition, all happened at one time. ‘I don’t speak Mandarin too,’ he told her the first time they met. Like a dying patient who was bound to the ventilator for life, he chose to relieve himself from the bondage. He thought he was free, he convinced himself he did the right thing, but, ‘he played Moonlight Sonata’s for the first time in his life the night he told the lie,’ X pressed on C-sharp heavily and filled the hall with ripples of rummy echo.

‘Why didn’t he tell the truth?’ I wasn’t expecting the story to be this intriguing and X’s answers baffled me. ‘Young man, ego, ego, is a terrible thing, a terrifying thing. Do you want to be different? Do you want to be special?’ X was playing Traumerei gracefully and yet, the effect on me was stentorian. Overcome by the curiosity, temporarily, I totally forgot about my riddle. I asked ‘What happened next?’

‘Let’s meet our pal!’ he was exuberant.

4. And the pond speaks

Splash, splash, the frog on a lotus leaf

No flow, no ripple, all silence on its surface

Lotuses grow, brilliant reflection

Like a lotus without roots that floats with the flow

There’s no flow, all silence, all dead.

I threw a pebble into the pond earlier that day. The ripple created by it was somehow no less ordinary than any pattern of ripple you would see in the world. No, in this house, ordinary was a curse. It’s unacceptable to be ordinary while everything was magical. Just when I was thinking about how ordinary this pool can be. It spoke.

The clarity of its voice is unmistakable. It’s so distinct that you could immediately tell that the pond was speaking although you had never witnessed a speaking pond. Just imagine there was a lift. You were inside with 10 sweaty office workers. The cocktail of perfume, lunch and boss’s saliva invaded and numbed your senses. However, you could still tell who wore the perfume this morning and had an orgasm yesterday’s night.

That was why I was unperturbed when X told me this pond was the central of the house while geographically, it was no where close to the ‘central’. ‘Everything happened here,’ X exclaimed gleefully. “Tell me, what do you think about a lotus?” X suddenly asked. I answered earnestly, ‘I think lotus is the saddest flower in the world, it floats and flows. No roots can hole her from flowing with the flow.’

‘Well, I don’t think the ex-tenant had a totally different stand,’ X slumped into another daydream.

A night, the night. Alcohol, jokes, junk food, the recipe for disasters. They gathered around the pond, some of them brought junk food, some of them brought themselves and he, as the host, provided all the alcohol needed. ‘Ah, alcohol, what a deadly attraction to every teenager,’ X exclaimed loudly and for a spur of moment, I found myself more confused than ever. Did X even go through that age of endless temptations and rebellions?

Cordon bleu, whisky, he didn’t even bother how risky it’s to mix alcohol, not to mention all his friends were drinking amateurs. Nobody really drank that much and yet, everyone boasted how much they could take and how many pubs they went before. To him, it’s all so fresh and scintillating. He never got that much of opportunities to drink. Coming from a traditional Chinese family, the only time he was even allowed to touch some alcohol was during Chinese New Year. The most he could take was beer. Liquor like cordon bleu, he didn’t even consider the repercussions, it just didn’t occur to him what alcohol could do.

‘Come and think about it, alcohol didn’t do anything at all. Later in his life, he tried to blame all his failure to that night, to the alcohol while he knew perfectly, the wind of change was already brewing, the seed of revolution was creeping somewhere under the skin,’ X threw another pebbles into the pond.

There was laughter, there was boisterous conversation, there were friends who behaved just like him, inexperienced yet eager to break out from his teenage cocoon. He was not quite ready for everything, neither did his girlfriend who was also there. Though cautious he was with alcohol, neither he nor his girlfriend could foresee the vortex of irreversibility. Life was all together foreign to them after that. However, while they were pokering with bunch of good friends, it hardly occurred to them that they were heading to their perdition. Perhaps, perdition might not be the most suitable vocabulary, but, he was sure a part of him died as the punishment of being sober.

People said, it was good to be sober. He must beg to differ. Sometime, he secretly wished he was the one who was drunk. At least, when people were drunk, they told the truth. Part of him wanted to know the inconvenient truth, part of him prevented him from knowing what he wanted. He was conditioned by all his lies he ever told, to other people and most importantly to himself. When he saw one of his best friend was not behaving herself under the influence of the alcohol, he conditioned himself, it’s good to be sober. When that friend of his leaned to another equally drunk friend and tried to kiss each other, he sensed something was wrong. His girlfriend who was always the more sensible and sensitive one advised him to separate them.

And he did what he was told to do. He asked them to wait for him in his car, he would drive them home.

But it’s no good, while his another friend who just couldn’t stop revealing his own secret, while he was trying desperately to separate them in vain, now, he could see them kissing in the car, hands on the hips, threatening to do something unspeakable.

He could no longer take it. A can of beer during Chinese New Year wouldn’t turn a girl and a guy unconscious, a kiss meant nothing to other people, but not for him who was brought up in a traditional Chinese family.

‘He realized that he was no longer a boy. The world outside the cocoon was not as good as what he might anticipate. A blame on his conservative father will do, problem solved. But, he knew he was running out of excuses. He couldn’t dislocate himself from the upbringing of the culture. He couldn’t detach from life he direly avoided. He couldn’t even bring his eyes to meet his girlfriend’s. As if the relationship was built on a false premise, he felt the chill. He swore that the moment he witnessed all the made-believe world he created for himself falling apart, he also saw the end of the relationship that was full of deceptions and betrayals,’ X narrated in a gusto that drew me closer and closer.

Unprepared, he promptly sent them home. His girlfriend was sitting beside him all the way and with those two drunken friends sitting behind them. Suddenly, the girl wept. The guy was partially brought back to the reality and he tried to calm her. Again, the girl was very drunk. She refused to sit still, she moaned, she again wrapped her arms around the guy’s neck. ‘What could he do besides driving the car silently? Realizing there’s nothing he could do, he attempted to condition himself,’ X paused.

‘Again, it’s no good,’ X concluded.

5. And the dining table speaks

Testimonial to everything,

I live for a very long time,

People sit across me,

Smiling taciturnly,

Conversing like victims of love,

Love of?

Culture? Life? Innocence?

He stared at her, across the table. 1 year ago, they used to do the same thing. Same cuisines, Close To You by The Carpenter, same awkwardness, the only thing that changed was now, there was no deception. Everything was clear to them now. The loss of innocence was the least of their concern, but he couldn’t just brush it away like it never happened because everything stemmed from that night.

The night by the pond.

However, the loss of teenage didn’t cause them to be less intimate. The alcohol hardly altered their relationship. Yet, like a chain that linked them together had been corroded, they were suddenly yanked free from the constraint. The life ahead of them suddenly looked mammoth and intimidating for them. They claimed that they were no longer childish, they were no longer disillusioned. ‘I will say they are still disillusioned, they just don’t want to admit. Both of them were guilty of what they did, they didn’t want to concede to the fact that there’s a life in front of them. They refused to acknowledge there’ll be more booze, there’ll be more kissing, there’ll be more sex waiting for them,’ X said.

I was convinced because I somehow could relate to their dilemma. I wished I could talk more about myself but I found their story to be more engrossing. Hence, I let X continue.

They broke up. He accepted it gracefully, almost unbelievably calm. ‘Let it come and go,’ she said to him, blankly, devoid of any expression. He wondered was it part of her so-called ‘I’ve grown up ranting’? He decided not to bring up the issue anymore. What he didn’t tell her (he no longer considered this as a lie) was, those two drunken friends were in a relationship now. The day after the fateful night, the guy swore adamantly that he was not interested in the girl. Weeks later, they were together. Perhaps the girl had forgotten how his hands were on her hips, perhaps the alcohol did all the talking for them, perhaps he was just wrong which he hoped he was, he still couldn’t accept that the World was larger than his teenage.

After he ran away from the tyranny of his father, he thought college life was his World. But little did he know was, his own World was modeled after his father’s. The all illusions he had was modeled after things he dreaded. His vision was his father’s, his grandfather’s, his friend’s father’s. That’s why when his girlfriend proposed a break-up, part of him was urging him to accept it immediately.

He was no longer innocent. His love which was built upon a blatant denial of everything he dreaded was deemed unsuitable now. He hoped his girlfriend could understand that. ‘ I pity both of them, so young, so childish, so simplistic view of World that’s much more complicated,’ X showed his sympathy for the very first time.

My throat was burning due to over-straining. I was excited. I temporarily forgot about all my quest for truth, the story mattered more right now. I even willingly gave up finding the identity of X. Second-guessing was just not my trait.

‘It’s hard to end a story like that huh? You must be wondering who am I, how do I know so much. Tell me do they matter to you than the story itself?’ X asked. I shook my head, the story indeed had more to offer. X broke into convulsive laughter upon seeing my response. ‘I must be one hell of story-teller!’

6. And they speak

I could hear nothing. I lay on the floor, looking at the ceiling. The quest ought to be ended. I mused about culture and what it had got to do with me. Then I realized, nobody could really run from the culture. Even lotus had to stop flowing with the flow one day, there’s no reason for me to be rootless. I must be anchored to something, a belief perhaps. Perhaps Lotus and Mussorgsky never existed in the first place. Picture of The Exhibition, what exhibition? Life itself was an exhibition, the exhibition of rude wake-up-calls and blatant honesty.

Thinking about all these things really hurt my head. To make things worse, X was no longer here. X vanished into a thin air, just like how he appeared our of no where. ‘Life is always beyond my grasp,’ I concluded. The moment I reached my conclusion, I heard a symphony, at first, it was all muffle. Then, it evolved and gained its momentum.

Now I could swear I heard X. However, it didn’t sound like X at all. It’s a cacophony of everything that ever spoke to me.

Where are you running to?

Whom are you lying to?

What are you going to do?

When are you going to wake up?

Which life are you choosing?

I was sleepy and thus I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was a new man.

May

2009-02-15T01:25:00.002+08:00

Dedicated to Tham May Wan who due to some special reasons, refuse to tell me something important. So, i use this to piss her off, hehe... Call me irresponsible, call me childish XD

Descends from nowhere,

With the voice so thin,

With the motion barely noticeable.

She walks right through me,

Like ghost, like enigma, like reality

When our paths cross,

Dreamlike intermediate are spontaneously generated,

Reality becomes unbelievable, magical time.

We sing the song of magics,

Of friendship, of life

Converging our path is,

the common path, i see no end to it,

Illusions? Hallucinations?

She whispers, May is yet to come,

Let's toast for the life,

Let's toast for the bets,

And finally, let's toast for her apparition.

Demise

2009-02-10T19:55:00.002+08:00

p/s: this is my entry for TheStar short story competition. So do expect a very long story. Hope you like my bold way of writing! At least, it's bold for me

Demise

“Why are you here?” he asked, rather nonchalantly.

I’m always taught to read between the lines. ‘Taught’ might sound a bit too methodical, ‘trained’ will suit my case better. Curious I am, I find myself often in troubles. Waist deep in a torrent of quicksand, I will always look back at what have I done and how my curiosity costs me. I learn from mistakes while I’m in a mistake but I will forget about it soon after I get myself out of the cobweb of problems.

The first time I saw him, I refused to read between his mysterious veils of disguise. However, my habit was like a tireless old friend. He nagged at me and I, eventually had to succumb to his charm, not without struggles in vain.

He didn’t look at me while he was asking me that question and I knew why. Because he loved this small town which is on a road of demise. The love his sowed in this decaying town proved that he didn’t want to be a part of the history of this town, long forgotten and banal.

The way he prepared the special Sungai Lembing’s fried noodle with tomato ketchup which you can’t find in anywhere else in Malaysia apart from the Kuching’s one which is quite different in taste was articulate. Every step, like a sacred cannon, was followed to the point of meticulous precision. To my greatest surprise, the renowned Sungai Lembing noodle was the material he took least care of. Tomato ketchup, unknown spice or even ordinary egg… Those were the things he attended with care.

“Why?” I wondered.

I got my answer much later, not because he didn’t answer me directly. He gave me some reasons which struck me as ineffable and inexplicable. I didn’t realize how deceivingly easy truth can be until much later when I was older and wiser.

“Same reason why you are here. By the way, you haven’t answered my first question but I don’t need. Everyone who comes to Sungai Lembing has the same reasons, same ulterior motives, same prospects and even same history. Don’t ask me why, look into yourself, why are you here, why you are curious, why your superficiality clouds your judgment, why you long for this dying town, why you want to eat the famous Sungai Lembing’s noodle?” he talked to himself, incessantly and the nonchalance evaporated.

His hands never stopped while he continued his narration, “The noodle, the roasted pork, the mountain, those are not the things you come for, do you? You come here to escape, to escape being oneself, to escape being part of stagnant flow of time. There’s no history and future in the big town you came from. Time stops there. Only in Sungai Lembing, time proceeds in one-way traffic. No turning back, no slowing down. It’s dying. She’s losing her radiance. You are here to for her funeral.”

Is there something to do with Sungai Lembing’s noodle? Why everything in Sungai Lembing must be so convoluted? Perhaps he was right, we oversimplify everything in the metropolitan I came from. The history, who cares about it? The future, who cares about it? The reasons, people outside this dying town are not even aware of their existence.

“Sorry do I bore you with my theory? I understand the noodle is what you crave for right now, but are you absolutely sure that there’s nothing that interests you about this town. We exist for reasons and from first glance, you might surmise I’m running out of my mind by using Sungai Lembing as the proofs for my little existentialism conspiracy theory. However yes, Sungai Lembing existed for reasons. Pardon me, she still exists for reasons, even though young men no longer find reasons in this town because she is dying. Look at the streets, empty. Look at the shop houses, vacant,” he hardly gave me anytime to respond while he served me another specialty of Sungai Lembing, la kian mee which literally means ‘spicy noodle’.

“I’m sure you won’t believe in me. The streets are buzzed with tourists during weekends and the streets are always jammed. Hard to imagine huh? Those tourists have no reasons, they are not reasonable and sensible enough to grasp the meaning of Sungai Lembing. For them, this town is small and the food is sumptuous. That’s all, superficial and banal. We exist for the sake of the history, not for the sake of tourists who couldn’t care less of the history itself as if it was an oblivion…” his narration went on and on. There were crescendos and decrescendos in his story. Laced with emotions and unmistakable sense of messiah emancipated from his eyes, but I couldn’t take it anymore.

It’s too overwhelming. The noodles were indeed highly recommended, the town was indeed small and quiet, the streets were indeed without trace of their weekends’ glories, everything he said was right on the point, without exaggeration and fabrication.

“We are part of the history. We will go down together and yes, not even reasons need reasons to justify itself. Have you found your Holy Grail? The reasons?”

His story ended with that very sentence. That’s 10 years ago, while I was still 19 years old.

10 years have passed since I last visited Sungai Lembing. During that period, I went through changes, some irreversible and some reversible, some went awry and some went better. Fundamentally, I’m a changed man. 5 years of med school prepared me for changes and another 5 years in the hospitals morphed and remolded me into a person I can hardly recognize.

The sheer attempt to seek for the meaning of compassionate, love and most importantly reasons are laughable. ‘Reasons need no reasons to justify themselves,’ what he told me, ultimately was true. Every day, I see patients in and out from the hospital, some are young, some are old, some are morbid. It doesn’t matter because the moment you lose interest in ‘reasons’, everything becomes a dirt. What I try to say is, it doesn’t matter to me or you or someone else whose conviction in reasons is shattered in the process of growing old.

Everyday, I see life falling apart before me. Denial, anger, resignation, acceptance, all lead you to nowhere but perdition. Dreams fall apart, illusions disillusioned, from a freshman from the medical school, slowly and painfully, metamorphosis takes place inside my body and changes me to a bringer of reality. I wish I can shout out my sickening dread of breaking bad news to a utopian dreamer. No, I’m the bringer of reality and I myself have to face the music. Reality, contrary to conventional wisdom requires no reasons.

Why people have to suffer? To make one’s life more memorable or more excruciating? Perhaps it’s just like what my colleague has suggested, people’s life is a dice of fate. Fate rolls dice and when tragedy strikes, bingo! Even his pessimism fails to convince me. What is fate and why fate rolls dice as it it was no one’s business? We don’t need reasons to neither live nor die. Everything is dictated by impulsion and boredom. It’s either you do something really extraordinary to free you from the slavery or continue to be chained to routine.

Maybe those are just my excuses to make another visit to Sungai Lembing after 10 years. 10 painfully monotonous reasonless years. I long for the boring man who indoctrinated me with his agnostic teaching. And I don’t need any reason to start finding more about Sungai Lembing on the internet. It’s once the second largest underground tin mining site in the World. Englishmen had set up a factory and numerous mining sites there. Local aborigines and immigrant Chinese from mainland China were brought to the mining sites. It’s once buzzed with a lively clubhouse, lazy stroll of Caucasians, puffs of smokes that spiraled into the thin air, noise, various kinds of dialects. Glories, wealth, sweats are all so foreign for the present Sungai Lembing. Since the mining company went out of business in 1987, even before the local sensed something had gone awry, they find themselves in a irreversible part of history.

“He is right, everything is like Oscar Wilde’s plays. They defy conventionality and they are cynical. Sungai Lembing will be created and destroyed in the ludicrous cycle of absolute reasonless,” I exclaimed loudly, in front of my laptop and later in front of a guy I meet in Sungai Lembing one week later.

To my utter dismay and disappointment, I can’t find the guy who whispered to me like a formless silhouette 10 years ago. I go to his stall which he used to make his unique tomato paste and he was no longer there. Somebody else has taken over his stall and although same variety of food is served, I can’t believe he who doesn’t believe in reasons and has no reasons to live or die has deserted this place.

I take my seat and try to scan around the hawker centre. It has been renovated and refurbished. I can hardly recognize the same seat I used to sit on and had my life-changing conversation. The new owner smiles amiably at me and dutifully recommends me some of his specialties which I tried 10 years ago. I decide that I need not to hurt his feeling by telling him the truth. Timidly, I feign a voice of innocence and order the specialty he recommends.

After the food has come, I try a few spoonfuls of fried noodle with tomato sauce. It tastes fantastic and I must confess with guilt well into my congested mind that it’s even better than what I ate 10 years ago. Sincerely I compliment his food and gleefully he has another plate served to me moments later.

Across the table, he stares at me and makes me uncomfortable. I feel my private bubble has been threatened by intrusion and occasionally, I steal a glimpse on him. He still looks at me with fascination. His lips curl up in curiosity and in a second or two, a sense of eerie déjà vu strikes me. That’s it! The beginning of the end, ‘Why are you here?’, the philosophical lecture, the painstaking narration and the taunting.

As I think I see it coming, and so I embrace and galvanize myself for the impact. However, his tone is mystically different, he inquires innocently, “ You were here before, weren’t you?” I become panic. My body is bare to constant onslaught because I have been disarmed by his innocent smile. “Yes, what happens to the guy who was running this stall before?” I’m running some simple math inside my mind, “Ten years ago, the guy who was here ten years ago,” I conclude with clarity that amazes myself.

“He just passed away,” he answers me with vagueness that is rare among long-gone memories and he’s observant enough to acknowledge my query. “Last month, he was found dead on his way home,” he refuses to meet my scorching curiosity. But he is wrong. I’m not curious, I’m shell-shocked. I have been running through all the possibilities, he might be bored by his own rhetoric, he might just give up on clinching on hopes. Death, is something that I never could conceive. It’s too abstract, it’s too unbelievable and it’s simply too distant, to put it this way, I came here to escape death in the city. Never once in my plethora of sleepless nights, with my hair plastered to my sweaty forehead, I related this dying town with premature death.

It’s not that hard to sense my bewilderment. He is so observant and thoughtful to let me suffering from perplexing death. “He was found dead after the dawn was breaking by a local fisherman. Someone struck him from behind while he was riding on his motorbike and caused him to lose control. Nobody witnessed and heard the incident,” he spares me from guessing game by giving me a brief summary which does very little to extinguish my curiosity.

“Tell me more about him,” I can tell my life has started branching out from his destined path. Branches after branches that lead me neither to my own perdition nor my final destination. I can see the beginning of the end in this story. But I never doubt the magnitude of this story, it might turn out to be a defining moment in my life, it might turn out to be another great-expectation-turns –awry moment. I can’t tell and I’m not sure.

He was Teo. Nobody knew his full name because he never told anyone. To begin with this story, my narrator changes his sitting position like a fortune teller. He told me that Teo was not born and raised in Sungai Lembing. That means he was not even a local. “He is not a local?” I couldn’t help but to interrupt my narrator with present tense that seems rude and inappropriate. My conviction in this story is further shaken after I’m being told that he was once a medical doctor in a hospital in Kuala Kubu Bahru, Selangor.

How on earth does he know so much while Teo was secretive enough to the extent of not telling people his real name. But I keep my suspicion in check because deep down inside, I’m somehow convinced to listen to the full story.

Nobody knows why he came to Sungai Lembing. Some of the locals who have been to Kuala Kubu Bahru surmised that the similarities between these two places might be the reason that brought him to this small mining town at the East coast of Malaysia. He was 25 when he first came to Sungai Lembing for mountain climbing. Again, I should be more sceptical on the precise age given by my narrator but again, I disguise myself.

He came here again 6 months after. This time, I can no longer masquerade my suspicion. It’s getting inexplicable but his sly smile that seems to extend from his lips all the way to the edge of his eyes suggests the best thing I should do is, wait and listen.

Turned out that Teo was forced to stay with the middle-aged story-teller who knows how to puppet his audience for nearly a month during Teo’s second visit. I’m totally oblivious to the fact that Sungai Lembing is flooded every year from November to December. And the sole connection to the World outside this mining town, will be cut crudely. The existence of this town is displaced from the map for at least 1 month every year.

He reminisces his encounter with Teo, “It was all started by an unforgiving torrent of rain tumbling down from the sky.” The monsoon came earlier that year and Teo who was planning for another mountain climbing trip, didn’t anticipate the early coming of monsoon. The rain was unstoppable and most of the locals were stranded by the flood. River overflowed overnight. I tried to picture the scene in my mind and it inevitably brought me to an experience I once had on a rescue chopper. The view from thousand feet off the ground was, I shamelessly admit, breathtaking. The river branched into numerous small streams. The roads beside the river were all small streams that branched further more into more tiny dead-ends.

Some locals who received the early notice moved out of the town in early November. “The place I stay is high off the river, I’m quite safe there but my neighbors all moved out It’s not easy to stay there during monsoon season. I don’t need to worry about flood water but everything is disrupted, water supply, electricity, routine,” he could go on and on, recounting his own collection of stories if not because of my anxious glare.

Reason is the replacement of an awful word, randomness in the dictionary of civilizations. People dread randomness. There must be reasons to keep everything in order and randomness stems from lack of reasons. That’s wrong. Fundamentally, randomness or chaos is created first and the World will only become more chaotic and random. Scientists of thermodynamic physics proved that long time ago.

Same thing dictates the encounter of the man orating intensely in front of me and Teo. No reason is needed. Chaos, in their term, can be translated to the zeal for mountain climbing. His story is like a big mothball, with threads radiating from its main body and now, I can grasp the shape by holding to one of the numerous threads. “I was a hiker myself,” before he can continue, I interrupt, “What happened?” He points to his knees and I nod. “I was supposed to be his guide. I warned him not to come in November but he insisted. I let him stay in my place and that’s how I met him,” he recounts it business-like.

Teo was offered to be shipped out of the town but again, his stubbornness insisted on staying here, being stranded, being deprived of basic amenities. He claimed that a hiker should not falter in front of darkness. Now, as I’m listening, I believe he came here, not to hike, but to confirm his philosophies. They were stranded in their small house. Randomness, again, converged the diverging paths of these two lonely souls. One month of solitude, one month of chattering, one month of gambles with reason, they shared more than each other’s stories. They shared each other life.

“That’s what will happen when randomness clashes with randomness,” he pauses for a while and continues, “it’s me who taught him how to cook good La-kian-mee.” For once, the story seems to be heading towards a different ending with endless happiness promised, not heart-wrenching tragedies that ought to be retold in business-like manner.

“He dreamed of reviving this dying town,” he resumes his story suddenly. Looking through my superficial disbelief displayed on my face, he knows I believe in his story and he understands the reasons behind my disbelief. “With all his pessimism, it’s hard to imagine that he once dreamed of shaping this unforgiving place that’s flooded every year into a tourists’ hotspot,” he apparently understands me thoroughly.

But he does miss a point. I’m speechless, partly because of my impression on Teo’s pessimism. The main reason is, why must he be a medical doctor? Somehow, without me realizing, the Earth or the path or whatever you will call it, is diverging, branching, converging, de-branching into Teo’s road to premonition. I can prophesize everything from now on. Thousands of stories of mine, only if I were to modify some parts of them, I will be Teo, I will get killed, I will get whatever bestowed on Teo.

Sensing my confusion, my story-teller pauses and tells me that he will get me some drinks. I or Teo or somebody else I don’t know are dying with hopelessness. Reasonless, some people might call it. He (unknown to me or Teo) escapes the routine, trying to seek for reasons that might be found somewhere in this World. Only to find out it’s a dead-end, before he has time to turn back, tragedy descends majestically or stealthily. He dies in vain. I want to ask Teo of his reasons he was seeking feverishly in Sungai Lembing. Has he found it? I believe not. There’s no reason. Randomness cheats us into the whole business of self-deception. Reasons don’t exist or no longer exists, like Teo, like John Doe.

Bedlam, I conclude in one word to describe my life. Born to believe in purposes, coaxed to believe in dreams, force to deceive myself into a self-loathing life. I still remembered I was once asked by an interviewer, “Why you want to study medicine?” I replied with my social responsibilities theory. Even though I hardly had faith in what I said, I was reserved in thinking that medical career is everything but nothing. I refrained from thinking about that there’s no reason behind a pivotal choice, perhaps the most important one I ever made in my whole life. “My father forces me into my medical career,” I confessed to a close friend of mine. Nonetheless, I never blamed him for making decision for me. In his whole life, my father believes in security. Everything comes next to security. “Only by securing your life with a career so distinctive, you have chance,” he shook his head while he was telling me this after I told him I had no interest in medicine.

Just when I am running through all the slides of my stories, my story-teller comes back and promptly confirms my worst fear. Teo, indeed had a very similar altered life with me. We were on diverging paths, only to be united by invisible forces, my father, his scholarship, Sungai Lembing…

Teo didn’t have a father. He never met his father. His abusive mother raised him up, with canes, reprimands, punishments, boozes, smokes, mahjoong’s clattering sounds. In spite of her mother unusual way of supporting the family, he excelled in everything ranging from sports to academic stuffs. He grew up literally in solitude. At night, he would be grounded in a dark room because he refused to help her mother on mahjoong table. He had no siblings. His relative deserted his family.

“I like solitude. I’m not comfortable with people,” Teo told that when he was asked whether he needed any candle to light up the dark house which stood proudly on a small hill that overviews the flooded river. I nodded instinctively because the moment he grew used to his own solitude, medical career will be his guillotine. Patients come in and out. Some are annoying, some are boring, some refuse to speak, some are uncooperative, all sorts of patients you need to face everyday. It’s the myriad of intruders that came into his private circle that made him miserable.

“Teo didn’t tell me that much about his family. He preferred talking about Sungai Lembing, her history, the mines, everything,” my story-teller is pouring me some Chinese tea. “His vested interest in this place actually drew lots of disbelieving look from the locals. Teo later unveiled his plans to revive Sungai Lembing and his plans to attract more tourists from nearby Kuantan.

My story-teller suddenly pointed his finger to some green-coloured buildings that stood in solitary on the small hill that overlooks the river. I immediately understand what I am looking at. Those are his inns or motels Teo built. The oppressive lonesome, the dull colour, the design, the same inns opposite of my story-teller’s house, those are the legacy of Teo. Once upon a time, a medical doctor who is devoid of reasons to stay alive, a doctor who dislikes strangers, a medical doctor had a dream. Random dream that requires no reasons.

“Who killed him?” I ask abruptly without really thinking of the logics behind the question. The murderer is never found until today. He was at large. He killed a man and he’s free. Another strong proof for the reasonless-ness. I was told that he was targeted by the culprit because of the money he collected from the small inns he owned. He was hit from behind, never really realizing what was happening to him. I wonder silently if there’s heaven, how anxious he must be in looking for reasons behind his murder. No, I might be wrong. It seems to me a bit naïve that after so many debacles, he can still believe in reasons.

“He totally loves this place and he’s orderly,” my story-teller inspires in great depth and I think the following story is going to be lengthy. I’m spot-on. “ He came back once again after the flood. I think 3 years later. It’s a very long time since I last saw him. This time, he had all his stuffs with him. ‘How about your medical career?’ I asked. He told me he had resigned from the government. ‘I’m free,’ he said with exuberance I never saw before and will never see again. He certainly had planned very carefully about everything. Actually, months before he came, he phoned me and asked whether he could stay over my place for few months. I said no problem, the door is always opened for him. He was really serious about his plans. Turned out, he had purchased a piece of land opposite of my house from several owners. The lands were owned by few people. Each one of them owned a little piece of land. In order to persuade them to sell the land, he had gone to Penang and even Sabah to convince them to sell him the land. That’s why he took so long time to come back here. After he reached here, the construction started immediately. He was no-nonsense in every detail. He would go and inspect the construction on his own. ‘Where does your money come from?’ I once asked out of curiosity. He claimed that he sold all his shares before he resigned. How he amassed such a fortune? No one knows for sure until today.”

“People here were suspicious at first and grew indifferent about his ambitious endeavour later. The locals were well aware of the fact that even if there’s any result, they might not have the chance to see the total revival of this dying town. At the same time, he wasted no time. He learned from me how to make quintessential local dishes. He even tried to learn how to roast pork from Ah Hee but he was rejected. Ultimately, he managed to convince Ah Hee to roast more pork during weekends, especially on Sunday. Have you ever wondered why the shops here are closed during the weekdays? Because they are only open on Fridays and Saturdays when most of the people who work outside of the town come back. Locals are largely oblivious of his plans. He confided in me about some of his plans. He admitted he was being ambitious and he couldn’t see the future. It’s risky. And he stared straight into my eyes, ‘Tell me what to do? Tell me do you believe in what I’m doing?” He suddenly stopped. A trademark storytelling virtuoso will always do that, stop and there comes the crescendo, everything raised to the climax and the momentum maintained to its cadenza-like ending.

“I swear that’s the most despair look ever you will see on a face of young man. You will only see that in a terminally ill patient or an old man who comes to his final revelation. I’m sure you see that before,” he seeks assurance in my eyes. I can’t do anything but nod. When I was still in the medical school, I was taught how to recognize such faces. Because it’s time to offer consolation, offer refuge that might only be found supernaturally, it doesn’t matter whether it’s sincere or phony. “So I deliver my final coup-de-grace, he is lost, I as a friend must act as a friend,” he justifies himself once again, as if it’s going to alter anything.

Unexpectedly, my story-teller sighs. Something bizarre is happening. Miracle, some people call it, but I interpret differently. He seems lethargic, he seems guilty, he seems relieved, he seems indifferent, he seems adamant. That look is composite of everything. Experience might sum up everything, but if I were to put it into words. It’ll be the sadistically victorious look. There’s no euphoria, there’s no satisfaction. Only end results matter.

“I asked, ‘Why are you here?’ ‘I’m not running away,’ he rebuked me promptly. ‘Are you running from your responsibility? Or, are you running towards your responsibility?’ I never gave him any chance to answer because I’m infuriated by him. I’m enraged by his indifference before all these. I’m angry because he became weak. I continued, ‘ I know you know what I mean. Do you always think you are responsible everything? Who are you? You have the messianic sense of perfection. You seek perfection, don’t you? ‘ Teo remained silent, dead silent. Emboldened by his silence, I went on ‘Do you always feel obliged to save everyone? Do you always want to seek for reasons to justify your failure? Is that the reason you came here because you couldn’t find any reason to justify your failures in your life?’ ‘Tell me, Teo, was your sleeping with strangers? Have you ever seen her doing that? Or, those were the reasons you were locked up inside the dark room? I have questions, please, satisfy my curiosity. One thing for sure, I know there’s no reasons in this world. Don’t smile that! I know you are clinching on your Wilde’s tongue-in-cheek,’ I remembered I almost went berserk when I saw a impolite smile that curled out of the edge of his mouth.”

“I never got any answer from him. Because the next day, he moved out from my house and I was disposed from his memories, for good. Do I feel sorry for him? I don’t know but my faith in my allegations was never wavered. I believe in everything I said to him, though it’s crude and unpolished. He was mad. He felt responsible for everything. Everything was his fault. Unable to get close to strangers, his fault. So he detached himself from his life. Unable to make his broken family right, his fault. His mother lamented on him and he couldn’t bring himself to witness how her mother will eventually die in his arms one day, ironically, mockingly. Unable to make a good doctor, his fault. So, he came here, escaping his nemesis. Unable to make reasons out of this senseless cuckoos’ nest, his fault. So, he was here to search for reasons for everything that ultimately traces all the way back to his inability to reason. He thought he was a messiah.”

My story-teller sighs again. There’s something enchanting about his body language. He is everything but languid right now. Highly spirited, highly inspired, he could go on and on. But he know the precise moment to deliver the final punch, the final push to the carnival-like or tranquil ending. What sets him apart from other story-tellers who I encounter later in my life is his facial expression. Contradiction is his forte.

“He went on with his plans. He managed to attract tour buses that came all the way from Singapore. He even went so far to promote the food in Sungai Lembing to the international stage. Once there was a Taiwanese reality-tv star who came here and tried all the famous food here. He even went to climb the mountain and visited the cave. He was quite extraordinary because he stayed with the locals for quite sometime. He went to the wet market. Until today, people here are still talking about this. Many of the locals were so thrilled to be on national tv. But he was totally out of the picture of my life. I never reconciled with him. Partly because he was busy all the time despite the fact that those tourists only come during weekends.”

“I miss him and I still feel sorry for him,” his bitter smile will haunt me for quite sometime. And as I tell this story again later in my life, I always tell my listeners that smile was the bona fide defining moment of my life.

Later on that fateful day, I went to experience solitude. I went to Sungai Lembing museum and look for legacy left by people who were here before Teo. They were all parts of the history, so was Teo. I also went to the abandoned tin mining site. There’s no one there and that’s exactly what I wanted. Solitude and serenity. I sat in the car, turning my air-con to full blast. I needed to clear my mind because everything that happened before this was simply too suffocating.

I didn’t have any reason to believe that my life was somehow clashing with Teo’s life. Two parallel lines started crisscrossing at each other. I couldn’t remember the precise moment that I lost control of my life. I couldn’t tell for sure the precise moment that I blamed myself for all the adversities. Self-pity came and went away in my life, like tourists who visited and left Sungai Lembing.

If I were a modernist, I would continue seeking for the truth like Teo. Reasons existed or not. The end-result was discreet. It’s either this or that. If I were a post-modernist like my story-teller, I would continue seeking for contradictions and the very meaning of reasons or chaos. It’s neither this nor that. But I was neither of them. I was not interested in truths and ironies. My life was not meant to be a metaphor. Metaphor was not my scapegoat. I was running out of excuses.

The truth was, Teo was killed by some petty robbers who eyed for cash. The contradiction was, Teo can be considered as the breadwinner of Sungai Lembing. The last saviour killed by greed. Last time, it happened in the Bible. Ces’t la vie.

I walked past the old mining sites. The opening had collapsed and what was behind that, I was totally clueless. Just like Teo, I knew nothing about him. How he was killed? Why he was killed? Who’s her mother? What was he running away? Blind rage had surged inside my heart, I felt justice was not served. I felt the reasons were not sufficient. I felt there’s no reason in the world. Yet, I decided to drop the case later on in my life. In this World, I must concede that there were many things I had no control over it. Internal locus of control, external locus of control, I was oscillating in between these two. Should I gain control or should I not?

It no longer mattered. As I drove past the town, it’s all quiet. Shops were closed, a corpulent lady was making kuih kapit in front of her house, my story-teller was cleaning his stall. I tried to picture everything that happened here in the past. All was too fast and furious. People immigrated here, people died here, people prospered here, people marked a page in the history of this dying town. I should have a reason to believe there’s no reason for all this to happen.

Truth was, I must reconcile with my father and my career. Irony was, no one told me what to do, except Teo whose intention was still like an enigma, shapeless and tragic. I took up my phone and replied a few text messages. Then, I dialed my father’s phone. I made up my mind to tell him everything, not to seek for forgiveness.

I had no reasons to tell everything.

And They Speak

2009-01-31T23:21:00.002+08:00

A magical house,

Houses magical moments of rowdiness. Rowdy quietness.

And it speaks,

Word of no one can hear. Everyone understands though.

An antique clock,

Clocks in and out, standing against the tides. Feels lonely.

And it speaks,

Time of no one will miss. Everyone feels it at night, though.

A majestic grand piano,

Piano concertos and string quartets. Soloist still, melody subdued.

And it speaks,

Sound of no importance. Everyone hears its stentorian silence.

And I speak,

Solitude is a magical house,

that offers long-lost comfort to wanderers of this chaotic world.

Heart

2009-01-15T20:12:00.000+08:00

My little foolish heart,

No longer beats, because he has a new job.

He listens carelessly, nonchalantly.

He morphs into a victim of killing smiles,

Because listening is disheartening, deceiving, deviating.

Oh yeah, I shouldn’t have listened to James Morrison.

Or, I should have control over my mischievous heart.

Once, he was a tardy heart.

Long before he falls for smiles that frost his boiling veins.

Beat gleefully, almost exuberantly, with rhythm I took pride of.

Now, scattered in disarray, literally and metaphorically.

He is a curious pilgrim of his own eccentricity.

Ignorable pedestrians, worthless friends, they seek refuge in his conviction!

They swear for celibacy.

He leaps in joviality, nothing excites him more than equal peculiarity.

Bang!

The great expectation shattered.

They laugh like crazy men, insane and senile,

Though none of their action is mockingly ludicrous.

Felicity emancipated. My heart then concedes.

For once, he feels like a piece of jigsaw puzzle,

Created but not allowed to join the bigger picture.

He weeps shamelessly. How cliché and banal it sounds.

Why should I be an odd-one-out?

In one of his boisterous monologue, he asked.

That was long before he finds his long lost sangfroid.

Time the elixir cries for him.

People continue to poke fun of his conventional wisdom.

Too bad.

I somehow symphatize my failing heart.

Fragile he is.

Sways with the direction of wind, turbulent in infinity.

Yet, taunts rain on him, incessantly.

How much more could he take?

The Second Last Chapter

2008-12-04T22:24:00.000+08:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

2008-10-30T14:02:00.000+08:00

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

2008-10-23T15:23:00.003+08:00

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

2008-09-25T17:23:00.004+08:00

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

2008-09-21T22:47:00.002+08:00

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

2008-09-07T13:46:00.005+08:00

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

2008-09-04T08:57:00.003+08:00

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

2008-08-11T14:51:00.004+08:00

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?

2008-08-05T12:17:00.002+08:00

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)

2008-07-26T23:41:00.000+08:00

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)

2008-07-16T23:44:00.001+08:00

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)

2008-07-16T22:10:00.001+08:00

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...

Lost and Found

2008-06-21T22:50:00.002+08:00

Loneliness surged.
Reasons vanished.

I look around.
There are lovers, hugging each other.
There are couples, bickering over trivial matters.
There are strangers, savouring the last crave for lust.

Then

Loneliness intensified.
Reasons found.

I can't read

2008-06-21T22:41:00.002+08:00

I begin a journey with a poem.

Then I write it out and recite it.

But, I couldn't finish my recitation.

Because my throat felt funny.

As if there were grease flowing in my throat.

I discover I can no longer whisper.

Like a dead poet.

No, it's too beautiful.

I must finish it.

Every prose appeals to me like a mazurka

Every word narrates to me like a nocturne.

I want to break free of the enigma in my throat.

To no avail, I break down and cry.

From that day onwards, I no longer write poem.

Because my best was already written.

Too bad, I can't read.

Perhaps a love poem is not supposed to be written in this way.

Or perhaps I can no longer love.

Wait

2008-06-20T04:54:00.002+08:00

I've to stop, to hear my own murmur,
And the quiet protest of my mind.

As if there were a whirlwind in my stomach,
I refuse to stop, inexplicably.

Maybe I have grown used to this journey,
A never ending journey.
A journey without arrival and departure.

And so I sigh,
Rest, since further and further away,
Like a star in an unreachable galaxy.

Or, to rest, is tiring and exhausting as well.

Unfinished Job

2008-06-10T11:06:00.002+08:00

There are always plethora of unfinished jobs.

Looking at the falling leaves, wondering when does the falling stop.
Glancing at the moving trucks, tracking the prints they left.

I always have a feeling that life will not just end,
Without a finale, a final judgment of all your deeds.

But come and think about it,
A finale means nothing nonetheless.

Because what matters in life is not how many mistakes you make in your life,
How many mistakes you recognize is what matters.

There are jobs, undone and unfinished, at any moment.

Listening

2008-04-15T07:39:00.002+08:00

I listen to the beauty of the World.

Because World is not meant to be seen.
Seeing is disbelieving.

I listen to every story of the World.

Because I believe,
There's story behind every creation of God.

Look at the clouds hidden behind the lush green canopy!
Look at the pedestrians crossing the road!
Look at friends sitting silently beside me!

I know I'm not alone once I learn how to listen.

A Very Short Story

2008-04-03T21:55:00.000+08:00

The very short story which i always wish to tell is about a story which is purposely written in one sentence to prove nothing.

And there's a very long story which I always wish to tell is about a story which is purposely written in length just to prove its existence.

p/s: Don't be mad with me. I believe everyone can come out with different conclusions why I wrote this post. Of course, there are reasons I wrote it.

A Chance

2008-03-28T21:28:00.003+08:00

I need a chance,

To make mistakes,
To hurt somebody,
To cry.

So that,

I can learn,
I can grow,
I can remind myself of who I am.

Meaning

2008-03-20T10:14:00.002+08:00

I personally, oppose any form of disgruntlement and vengeance. And for so many years, i have been believing in this crap. Unbelievably, I even worshiped myself, for my capacity to forgive and forgo. Perhaps, I was too ego-driven or I hadn't been experiencing real life.

But now, I'm awake, with sweat dripping down my neck and hair plastered to my forehead , like a terminal patient awakened by the call of God. The realization has finally descended upon me.

I'm not a saint.

I'm unable to forgive or perhaps, I just can't swallow defeat. However, I want to question you, are you ready to? I bet you are not better than me. We are both losers but possibly, you feel nothing.

And so nothing is torturous. Or, you can just keep on pretending that there's a fact.

We are both loser.

But unlike you, I feel sore, as a loser but not a pretender.

Give And Take

2008-03-16T10:19:00.001+08:00

“I want to play a game with you. A game there’s no turning back. Once you embark on this endeavour, never look back because nothing will stay the same ever.”

“What the hell is this?”

Baffled Gabriel cursed inaudibly on the message he just received. “Is this a joke?” He wondered why people became so obsessed with riddles and cryptic codes. He had received no less than 3 this kind of messages over 2 months and routinely, the sender was unknown. He tried to recall the last two similar messages he received, one during he burned the midnight oil and one during his condemning exam.

“Look around, who gives who takes, who are you?”

“Give or take, it all depends on you.”

Damn, what’s the sender up to? Extortion? Moral lesson? Oddly, he had an inkling that there’s a sender, not senders. He tried to track the number in vain. Therefore, he deleted it. Now, he regretted because this might turn out to be a trap to set him up and pose a danger to him as well as his family. “Damn it, why hadn’t I thought of this before? I should have sent all these bullshit to the police and let them handle the prankster, psycho or whatsoever. But this message also made no sense, it’s not threatening, it’s somehow more philosophical than intimidating.

His phone bleeped again. He nervously tightened his knuckles and stubbornly held his breath. Stealthily, he stole a look on his phone as if it were contagious. “Dave, damn it, since when I became so paranoid.” He could feel an invisible grip on his thorax released slowly and finally, he could exhale not erratically, but smoothly.

He decided to save the message, just in case if anything happened, this message would prove vital. “Goddamnit, he really freaks me out.” He couldn’t help to curse the God. By the way, how did he even know God was a he?

Dear diary, it has been few years since I first placed my trust on you and you have proved that you are my only trustworthy friend. Never did you try to gossip my secrets with others and forsake me when I was in need, not even once. I once asked, who are you? Why you stay in the dark and remain enigmatic? Definitely, you are not void. Are you intrigued by me or my stories? I don’t know, where’s your curiosity? You are not a cat, aren’t you? Maybe you are, if not, why are you afraid of facing curiosity? Tell me, can curiosity really slaughter you? How? Cut through your throat or break your backbone? Speak to me, behold of me. Give me answer, not taking my secrets selfishly and turn your back on me.

He could feel his hands shaking like a Parkinson’s patient. Trembling involuntarily and juddering as if with a tremor. “Here you are back, tell me what you want, tell me what you fucking want!” He was almost reduced to senseless shrieking streak before something crossed his mind at this pinnacle of his insanity.

The threat was imminent. Everything was as real as a goddamn soap opera.

Reading the message, it’s like putting a pernicious dagger around his neck. His eyes were popping like a dying fish and he just couldn’t stop mumbling meaninglessly after received the clandestine message once again after having lunch with his friend, Dave.

“Are you prepared to prepare? For a game you’ve to play. Tomorrow, you will be an angel and there’s a challenge awaiting you. You might encounter your friends or foes. All you need to do is to abide by the rules and play your game. Oh, before I forget, I would like to wish you good luck and enjoy your game.”

Who was the sender? Dave or a hitman or a fallen angel. What the hell did he mean by becoming an angel? He meant the thing that could fly and always spreading good news as fast as an insidious disease?

The more he pondered, the more he felt unsettled. He attempted to locate the faintest hint shown in the message to no avail. Nonono, it all went wrong, nothing in the message made any sense. Every vowel and consonant were like twitched together, reduced to some hapless abyss state and everything was a fallacy!

Dear diary, tomorrow will be my 20^th birthdays. Tell me what should I expect tomorrow and you shall be forgiven for high treason. You treacherous wretch, how dare you defy my order when I asked you to give me answer? Are you the sender of the message? Did you just make some humourless jokes with me?

Dear diary, tell me why there’s nobody ever remembered my birthday? While I saw people with piles of presents, I envied, I became jealous. Why should I receive nothing when everyone else is drowning themselves in felicity during the birthday?

Dear diary, what’s the nature of giving and taking? Why I always give but never did I ever get any fucking thing. Pardon me with my profanity, I was just an furious soul with troubles chasing me like an trigger-happy assailant. Perhaps you are that assailant? I deeply suspect you, my dear diary.

The first thing he saw in the morning was a girl he used to lust for. Her figure was always something he fantasized when he masturbated in his room alone. Now, with her lying aside, he discovered his pants were gone, but where’s the erection? His penis was limp like a wilting flower. “What’s wrong with my penis?”

He was panic-stricken. Partly because of an unconscious girl, stripped naked lying beside him, partly because of his petite penis. Where was him? This was the second question. He was nowhere. No room, no topless model poster, no porn, no textbooks, no wind, no movement. What he had was his nude dream girl, himself and a blood-stained bed. Something must have gone horribly astray.

What’s that fucking blood? Was it oozing from her juicy vagina? Gosh, was she a virgin? ‘Was’ was a right word and then who took her virginity? Gabriel? Gabriel felt dizzy as if he were staring something down from the tallest building in this world. Maybe she was just menstruating, fuck, she was not, definitely not. Wait, she was a virgin? She didn’t have other guys before?

Gabriel was lost, with no sense of triumph at all even he just got a girl’s most precious thing mercilessly/mercifully. Still jumpy, still terrified. “Fuck the goddamn god” He shouted vociferously when he still couldn’t feel any movement from his penis.

Gabriel was an angel. Some said angel was genderless. Some insisted that Gabriel was a man. Whatever… His origin was unknown. Whether created by monotheist’s God or by atheist or some epics, nobody cared. People just worshipped him(let say he had penis). Sickened of continuous quest of his identity, who created him, who nurtured him, what’s him made of, he drank his sorrow in a dilapidated bar everyday, watching people brawling over soccer matches and witnessing collapse of absolute morality.

Everything just went astray and uncontrolled like a galloping wild horse. So one day, he sat down and thought, what could he do for this world? He decided to give everything to men. Everything, good news, dough, gossips by using his power endowed by some god-knows-who.

One day, he stumbled on a country that was so wretched. War-torn, atrocities, wailing children…Hope was sucked and the feeling of emptiness unnerved Gabriel. That’s when he saw a pregnant woman who claimed she was a virgin while she conceived her son.

Intrigued, he descended in front of her and something inside the woman’s belly caught his eyes. That was…

“Who are you? What the hell are you doing here? Tell me is this a fucking setting up? Tell me this blood doesn’t belong to you, tell me you remember something.” Strings of incessant questions were babbled out from his mouth with unambiguous clarity.

But the girl lying in front of him now was staring at him as if nothing had ever happened. “For god’s sake, please say something.” He exasperated and still, the girl was unfazed. Didn’t she realize she was naked? Where’s her shame? Was she the dream girl he used to like so much? Yes, she was but where’s her conscience. Nonono, she was a bloody whore.

Amidst the chaos, something was vibrating in his pocket. He dutifully took out the vibrating thing without realizing what’s it. The moment he touched it, his face turned pale. Was it a joke? It’s his phone and it showed that’s a message for him. He could feel his heart almost leaped out each time the phone vibrated.

He pushed the button and started reading.

“Do you enjoy your birthday present? In case you have forgotten her for which I doubt, I shall inform you that she is Amenery, your dream girl. Can you reminisce what happened 2 days ago? You can’t, am I right. You looked straight into her photo, masturbating shamelessly until you ejaculated. Such shameless act was used to be despicable but not anymore. Now, you are free to commit any shameless act with no more restraint from man-made morality. And please be responsible, she was fertile the night you took her virginity away with such valor.”

“Damn, what have I done?” He sunk into desperation, ignoring his flaccid penis and her reddish clitoris all together.

The woman’s belly was glowing like a lantern. And there was something odder; Gabriel thought he could see through her belly. But this was not one of his boundless ability, was it? As he locked his gaze on the woman’s belly obscenely, he thought he could see more. Not only how the child would look like, but also the whole saga of this child. He was an adorable male infant and he was going to be extraordinary.

He would travel around this country, performing magic and showing miracle. What’s it? Wait, was it the scene that he turned the plain water into wine? The picture refreshed again. Now he was going to feed hundreds or perhaps thousands of hungry believer with hopes and biscuits. But was he going to die very soon. Yes sir, he was destined to die on the cross. What’s the crime he had committed? Oh, somebody framed him. Who was the villain?

The picture went fuzzy again. Now, Gabriel could see he was carried into a cave after being crucified. Gabriel could feel the moist in his eyes, that guy was dead, for good. He was not messiah! He was not greater than me. He wasn’t giving enough, he died to young. But what’s that? Did Gabriel just saw him rise from his grave? Yes, he did.

Suddenly, all the pictures and glowing light disappeared. What’s those pictures Gabriel just saw? A coming of a messiah or a decease of an angel?

I know you are frightened. You are frightened, too afraid to venture too far. I can see you, lying beside a naked figure. Perky breast, nicely trimmed pubic hair, everything is just in place. What grudges do you have now? You have a lot of complaints huh? But I thought you ask for present, so I gave you one. Shouldn’t you feel gratified? For getting what you desired for, scent of her body, her virginity, hype of ecstasy…?

Tell me why you fret? Flaccid penis? C’mon dude, you are just another loser. Getting what you want but hesitate to take it, to use it. Now, you tell me, what’s your hesitation? Is it taking too much until you are afraid of what you have?

Let me tell you, greed is not about taking only. Giving is an equally greedy act, don’t you realize? When you give, have you ever thought of getting back what you’ve given? No? What a pathetic liar you are! You never understand, do you?

There’s nothing wrong with greed because you can either give or take, which both two are equally abominable. Some people are meant to give and some are destined to receive. Is it possible that everyone is giving? No, it’s not. A person can either give or take, not at the same time. You can choose to give at anytime and to take at anytime, but not giving while you are taking.

You are confused, aren’t you? I could see a flickering of confusion dancing in your eyes. You still don’t understand right? What a loser you are!

One piece of advice for you, you are not a saint you think you are. You give and you shall receive. By the way, she is waiting for another stroking to climax.

Tell me Gabriel, you said you saw me in my mother’s womb. Was it true? I don’t believe in you. If you really did see me, why didn’t you warn me beforehand for my vain attempt to cleanse human’s soul? I died on the cross, to save people, to give people what they always want. But are they prepared to prepare? They aren’t even prepared to prepare, miserable souls they are.

Tell me Gabriel, are you afraid in taking what’s yours? I thought I saw you holding your dick but hesitate to penetrate your lover. You are also a loser, aren’t you?

Tell me Gabriel, are you real? Have you ever doubted your own existence? I think you must have myriad of questions but too afraid to ask. May I know why? Is that the reason why you lost faith in your give or take theory?

Perhaps you are not angel, are you?

Dear diary, does angel exist? I want to know because I suspect I’m an angel. Really? An angel with no conviction, an angel doesn’t know how to tell the good news to everyone. Nonetheless, I’m still an angel, am I not?

But, if I’m angel, who sent the message that lured me to commit unforgiving sins? Who’s looking at me while I mounted her? Who’s talking to me? Who’s looking through the woman’s belly? Who rose from death?

Maybe I’m them, maybe not.

A Rhetoric

2008-03-15T10:19:00.004+08:00

Mistakes, more often than not,

Accompanied by mistakes,

Replaced by more mistakes.

Lessons, more often than not,

Accompanied by misinterpretation,

Replaced by more misunderstanding.

Deliberate distortion,

Unscrupoloue extortion,

Accompanied by mistakes,

Replaced by more mistakes than understanding.

We stand in the world, where,

Definition of tolerance no longer distinct, instead,

It's vague.

We fight the war, which

Tolerance never fully understood,

Mistakes never fully learnt.

We chant the rhetoric, which

Meaning never fully grasped,

Action never translated from words.

Enlightenment, at the end of the day,

Masked by plethora of mistakes,

Clouded by misundertanding,

And ignorance.

Hard to be myself.

2008-03-07T11:40:00.002+08:00

I told myself, there is a stronger me in this world.
I fooled myself, there is a smarter me in this world.
I deceived myself, there is a me in this world.

I'm not strong, lacking both determination and perseverance.
I'm not smart, lacking both psychological and philosophical depth.
I'm not myself, lacking both love and hatred.

I vowed, not to be disappointing.
I swore, not to be failed.
I soared, not to be useless.

I'm disappointing, with hope slowly draining away from me.
I'm failed, with reality gradually drifting away from me.
I'm useless, with purpose crisply spiraling away from me.

I'm not pessimistic.
I'm not nihilistic.
I'm not antagonistic.

So what?

I'm not myself, I conclude.

Drizzle

2008-03-05T09:32:00.004+08:00

Drizzle, as rhythmic as ever,

Like a lullaby of yesterday’s fairy tales,

My mum used to tell me before I turned in.

Drizzle, it murmurs to me,

Like an old friend, a guardian

So passionate yet so tender is its susurration.

Drizzle, tell me have you changed?

Do you still nourish languished souls?

Do you still tell stories to estranged sons?

As far as I’m concerned,

Your scent doesn’t change.

The mixture of hometown’s soil and folklore still perturb me.

I’ve seen death.

Death of love, faith and youthful dream.

During my exile to foreign soil.

Only you are still there, faithfully and dutifully.

Call my name,

And be a part of me, when death disillusions me.

Can’t everyone see you?

Why there is always people turn their backs to your call?

Can’t they smell your scent, which is well-blended with melancholy hometown’s soil?

But, now, it’s not my concern.

I’m overcome with joy.

Joy that rhymes with your gentle percussions.

So great to see you once again.

Define Love For Me, Oxford

2008-02-09T21:38:00.000+08:00

Do you really think I can remember you for good? I think I can’t and I hope you won’t. Remembering is venom. It doesn’t make thing more precious, it doesn’t make it more valuable. On the contrary, it makes everything simple. At the end of the day, everything will be reduced to a mere memory, void and hollow. So, I ever asked you are you going to forgo your hatred and cherish your happiness that was right in front of your eyes. And your answer didn’t disappoint me.

Needless to say, the day you said yes to me, was the second happiest day I have ever had in my life. What’s the first? Forgive me for keeping this little secret to myself for a while. Born to a middle-class family, you were once a very blessed child. Being the eldest, everyone, more or less, had a crave for something that you might give in the future. Doubtless, your future was very promising and you indeed was a very smart girl, a prodigy, everyone might say. That’s what everyone commented after seeing you skillfully rebuked every mischievous trivial question asked by the adults.

I don’t think you were not very prepared for the sudden departure of your father the day you turned 10 years old. On a fateful and yet blissful day, you lost your father to leukemia after wrestling time with God for more than 15 months. Did you cry? I still waited for the answer of this question. But judge from your gaze which is illuminated by fire of perseverance, I guess you never shed any additional tear except the first few mourning tears.

Although I always tell you it’s unhealthy to keep too much secret, you still choose to remain silent sometime. I remember (bad habit) there’s one time I try to convince you that secret can corrode a person’s mind with an article I read from American Scientists. As always, you smiled politely but I knew skepticism was gnawing under your resplendent smile.

From your smile, I learned two things. Firstly, you don’t believe in me. Secondly, you don’t believe in love. My thumb-printed Oxford defines love as affection, fondness, a warm and tender feeling. Before I met you, my staunch belief in this definition had not been wobbled and challenged. You are the one who forces me to forsake this understated and undervalued definition. There’s no greater definition than my metamorphosis. We often hear people exclaiming how they manipulate love and boasting how love changes everything. How innocent they are! Love doesn’t just change everything. As a matter of fact, it changes itself.

A simple definition, can be altered anytime under different circumstances. While I was undergoing my rapid evolution and metamorphosis, you chose not to believe in shifting tectonics of love. For you, the love died 9 years ago with your father, buried, forgotten and left to decay. Realizing this saddens me even more than getting know the reason of your skepticism in me. Maybe I was not good enough, maybe I was not observant enough, maybe I was a jerk, maybe I was ordinary, maybe I was immature…

I was adamant in my refusal to concede. My definition of love morphed again. It’s nothing but obsession. If there’s anything I loath more than memory, it’s most probably obsession. Fortunately, you were patient enough to turn off my obsession one by one. In my little green notebook, under the possession of dominating obsession, I wrote down my little ’99 ways to touch you’. Rummaging through old magazines, jotting ferociously keywords in Google, reading avariciously Nicholas Spark, during that time, I thought I was going to wrestle you away from your father triumphantly.

If you ever ask me how it feels like living in ignorance and compulsive obsession, I will say it sucks. Now, I see everything with renewed clarity. Obsession no longer reigns my mind, compulsion no longer prevails, I guess I feel better now and my heartfelt gratitude will always go to your obstinacy. It’s your obduracy that extinguished my obsession. You let me know love doesn’t work this way and Nicholas Spark is only fiction.

I’ve long given up my route to self-destruction before you chose to tell me your secret one fine day. Did I feel indifferent? I surmised that my seeds of obsession were germinating again the moment you decided to tell me your secret. What kind of secret? Little bits of anticipation with little fragments of illusion, hope welled up in me.

We met at the same place we usually went. What differentiated routine and speciality was the optimism and euphoric I newly found. What happened next was not very well remembered. I guess this is what we call evasion.

I can’t bring myself to repeat what you said to me. Every word, every gesture, every stirring of coffee and every light tingling, they haunted me even until today. That’s the moment I wished I could say ‘To hell with you, memory’, which would most probably pull a scornful stare from you. Maybe what I needed to say was ‘don’t leave me!’ or ‘you can’t leave me like that’. But, what came across my mind was ludicrous cursing.

I conclude I was not in my right mind at that time. Why I reacted so bizarrely? Perhaps not because you were leaving, not because I felt betrayed… How many ways had I tried to impress and ‘touch’ you? 98? Where’s the 99^th? No, I told myself, not again. There must be a reason behind my peculiarity.

Chagrinned and mortified by my dysfunction, I barked at you, I cupped your palms desperately, like a drowning sailor. Then, I was stunned. Your smile! Same melancholic one! My last definition of love surfaced, quite fuzzy and hazy at the beginning. Slowly, a picture formed, a story drafted, a song written, a plan materialized.

From that moment, I knew this letter was going to be written, by all means. I foresaw the lucid language I would use in the future. I prophesized everything. Right now, I take out my handphone, dealing three numbers. It’s sufficient. I utter few words into the phone and all I can hear now is static.

Out of old habit, I check how Oxford defines sacrifice. Give up, offering. How pathetic is the explanation! It not only fails to expound love, not it screws up sacrifice too.

Let me tell you now, what sacrifice is and what’s love. Constant surprises, teddy bears, chicken soup and prayers, they are not love. They are offering, they are as banal as Oxford, as hollow as empty promises.

Feeling oddly contented now, I must thank you for everything you gave me, so far. Thank you for teaching me love is not equal to small gifts. Thank you for telling me that obsession hurts both parties. Thank you for enlightening me that how love works. Thank you for everything. Please don’t cry, I’m becoming insomniac because of you. Every time you weep, you suck the air out of my head, you bring the blood down to my feet, forcing me to tear myself apart.

At the end of the day, remember what I said? My Oxford’s definition of love was first disposed by your smile. It’s your smile. Live with joy and you shall be awarded with happiness although I won’t be there when you are able to smile again. Promise me, don’t look back for me, don’t stay because of me. I always stay with you, with my heart in you.

Believe in me. Oui mon amour.

p/s: Today is my happiest day in my life. Too bad, can’t enjoy for full 24 hours.

Relatively Silent ( A Memorial To Someone)

2008-01-27T13:08:00.000+08:00

Rowdiness derailed.
Silence falls like snow,
Blankets everything, freedom and passion.

Choppy sea of a rebel's heart,
Is invisible.
What seen is deceptive and misleading.

Tranquility is relative.
There's no absolute silence,
Because noise of oration is relative.

Let's the snow fall!
Let's the wobbling mind calm!
Let's bury and silent the rebel!

Again,
Voiceless is not silence.
Void is not hollow.

He'll be back.

Revenge

2008-01-19T20:08:00.000+08:00

"Love can be unconditional but not happiness."

The day I took revenge, everything was as normal as ever.

I stared upwards. The sun was on the edge of the building in front of me, the diffraction pattern of the sunlight was glorious. It was 4pm. Humid but there was light breeze caressing my face. I just liked this.

I passed by here every evening since I moved here 2 years ago. Of course many things had happened and many irreversible changes had been made, but life went on. This evening, everything was normal except the diffraction pattern of the sunlight was slightly different.

That’s why I lifted my head and gazed upwards, something must be wrong with the masterpiece of God I never believed in.

A figure was standing at the edge of the top of the building. He/she was wearing a black t-shirt with a faded jeans.

I lifted my hand to cover my eyes from the ferocious evening sunlight, trying to focus on what I saw. Was that figure smiling? Was that figure whining? I was not sure but he/she definitely drew a lot of people here. The crowds were doing exactly what I did, also trying to know what had happened.

My eyes were sore and dry, I thought everyone here had exactly the same problem. What on earth was she doing?

Suddenly, everyone drew a deep breath, that figure had moved forward, now with one leg dangling at the edge of the building. The figure moved forward, slowly as if there were an invisible path on the air.

Now, everyone stopped their chattering, they just watched. I watched too but I was distracted by an irritating mosquito. I turned away, trying to find that mosquito that gave me an itchy back. Then, I saw. Stunned, dumbfounded, terrified and frozen expressions from all the people around me.

Trying to make sense what had happened, I turned to the direction everyone was pointing. That figure was now airborne, falling like a piece of broken brunch. Distant sirens were approaching.

Thud!!! A light thud woke up everyone. All hell broke loose, some people were scurrying away from that woman, who was now lying motionlessly on the ground. Some people were screaming, some were resuming their chattering, but most of them just stood there, petrified perhaps.

The blood was oozing out from his mouth, while other pedestrians swiftly shifted their gaze away, I stared intently into it. I know who had previously owned that body. It’s me. I was dead, on spot, with no pain and glee felt.

So, I was finally dead. I looked at me, somberly, tears were welling in my eyes. But was I sore? I felt no pain and no emotion. For so long time, I had wanted to kill myself, in front of my own eyes. Ever since I knew I couldn’t love, my heart was growing weaker and my mind was growing wicker everyday. Every morning when I stared into the mirror, I could see some dark spots had gradually protruded from my temple. I understood it was a sign of wickedness.

I once loved somebody madly, if not unconditionally. I killed myself because of her and buried myself under layers of guilt. Then I emerged as a new-born child. I could no longer remember who was my old self and neither could I recognize my new self.

After embracing the ambiguous and the ubiquitous identity, I brought myself to love that person. Trying to give her everything, I had killed myself several times. Afraid of being unearthed, each time, I buried myself at the different places.

Did I say prayer to myself when I murdered myself brutally? I didn’t think so. How did I kill myself first time? Was it hanging myself in a church, hoping myself could be reincarnated in the church and be blessed forever?

Nonono, that was the second time right? Oh ya, I swallowed potassium cyanide the very last time I killed myself. Why cyanide? Maybe that’s the most painless way to die, I had been gone through a lot, I couldn’t imagine if death also came in agony and piercing pain.

However, every time I committed suicide, I was always alone. There were no witnesses, no shouting, no scrambling, no prayers. Therefore this time, I chose to die in front of the crowd, hoping that person was there.

And I was right. That person was there, smoking cigarettes graciously. I approached and confronted that person. I could sense that the person was not intimidated at all. That person looked at me in my eyes and uttered nothing. Then, that person just walked away with no qualms and guilt.

Maybe that person was right. Love perhaps was unconditional but happiness was not. The day I took revenge, I should have thought about it carefully. Now the corpse was just beside me, but I was not amused, no sense of triumph at all. What were all these revenge plans?

I killed myself for what? For that person? How naïve I was!!! I drew a deep breath, trying to make sense of everything. I was too befuddled to think, maybe all I needed was a heavy downpour to rinse my new self.

And the rain did come.

Soon after that person left, there’s a heavy downpour followed by melancholic drizzle. The corpse was not there anymore, blood was there. That person was not here anymore, scent was still there, memory still intact. Watching the blood being washed away by the drizzle, another suicide plan formed in my mind.

This time, I killed myself for nobody.

回、离，离

2008-01-17T21:43:00.000+08:00

My first mandarin post. Sigh, it's not as good as what i've anticipated but I still hope you all can enjoy it. For readers who can't read chinese, I'm so sorry because I can't offer you any translation and normally translation spoils the essence. Again, I'm sorry.

坐在从前所熟悉的老巴上，看着昨日还历历在目的小路上，仿佛世界变得并不多。摇晃的巴士不甚舒服，但总数昔日熟悉的景象已像倦鸟般的一一得回巢。除了已随风消逝的的以及曲而代之的异乡人，昔日的繁华还是有的，只是少了一些轻浮，多了一份务实。

有些东西的确需要提醒才记得牢，童年也是其一。如果不是刚路过那个记忆里不堪回首的肮脏菜市场，我险些忘了我曾经为了一颗彩球伤心了一夜。如果不是听见那令人难以忘怀的福州式的叫卖声，我还真是差点儿忘了外婆为我精心炮制的十全大补汤。

缓缓摇动的巴士，恍恍惚惚的心情，真是一个百感交集的一天。不爱花费太多时间的我，渐渐地有些性急了，为何还未看见那熟悉的巷口? 可能离家太旧的我以被城市的急性子感染了，但是事实是这样的吗? 我前头那顶着一头银丝的老伯，难道他不着急吗? 我自问。我身旁的人，都不赶时间吗?

数着路边那徐徐向后退缩，然后消逝的尘土与景象，我才发现我的数学，就像我的母语般，没想象中的妙。有了少许阿Q的我，还自我安慰般地把尴尬怪罪在颠簸的道路上。然而，我到底在数些什么，到底在憧憬些什么，魂不守舍的我终究也没法说服自己，更不要说别人。

莫非我是在盼望着上次拥抱遗留下的遗温? 上次? 多么可笑的念头！父母双亡的我，没有享受遗温的优待，只有遗忘的痛苦在肠子里荡气回肠。纵然外婆一手养大我，归属感终究不在。难道我的心胸如此狭窄，竟然连爱都无法容下?

看着那些路边的荒野，成群结队的野狗仿佛都在笑我无情。多么恐怖的念头啊! 然而，我井然就是个不孝‘孙’ ，要不然为何连个电话也没拨回? 回想中学时代作文里常见的开场白的那句‘爱如浮云’ ，本以为天真的想法到了大城市注定要被淘汰的，哪懂得反而加深了对爱得偏见。

就这样东扯西想，我竟然把家的巷口都忘了。一直到刺眼的午后余辉引入眼帘后，我才顿时惊醒，但是那巷口已以往都没过得速度消失。奇怪的是我还能习以为常的数着街边的一切，历史、人文、包袱、野草、电灯柱和她的倩影。

爱无力的我就在这是决定别了那辆巴士，走向可以找到她的地方。一阵扰人思绪的欲望徒然升起，阔别了那么多年，也不能说她从未出现过，但每回的探访都是那么叫人纳闷，深思。郁郁寡欢的离骚还真是挥之不去，由其瞧她还是一副若无其事的模样，我不禁民名火徒生。

事后当我试着回首时，她的错愕总是让我大为尴尬，仿佛不认得喝过洋墨水的我。但老实说，我倒不计较这些年来她带给我的惆怅。若不是当时的错愕，、我还会浑然天成地认为我变得并不多。但是伤害总是有的。仿佛过去的那些以灰飞烟灭，化作文人笔下的隐士。或许只是我没文人般的自娱娱人的幽默。

所以阔别多年的重逢并没想象中的催泪，也没有传说里的大圆满。唐突的问候、危险的试探、小心的观察，结论还是一样地让人不寒而栗。在那假惺惺的寒暄下，不是过去天真的糖衣，而是挥之不散的假面具。‘一朝君子一朝臣’ ，‘沧海桑田’ ，恐怕没有什么更令我吃惊了。

我有看错吗? 还是脑袋里的盲点在作祟? 有些东西都没变，老套一点，或许是我变了。简单的装扮、含糊的咬字、红色的肩带，都没变! 我开始回忆这你的体香，那温柔的灯光，滚烫的双臂…… 天哪！这一切还真吓人！

我用尽双眼所能表达的一切，触摸遥不可及的你。或许你并不是不在，只是时间与空间是相对的。离乡背井的我，不止学会了凡夫俗子的粗俗，连与时间赛跑的节奏，也如出一辙般的寒心。加快的脚步、扩张的距离、慢下的时间，相对论……

家，试问何处有寒舍? 试问和处冷暖在? 无情的摧残、恶毒的推手、是非颠倒、春夏秋冬、喜怒哀乐、家、家，家……

爱，笔划不多、不难表达、但幻影太多，沉默太深。

幸福，被时间点石成金或吞噬?

归属，被家引导、被爱左右，还是被幸福召唤?

我回家了。等待离别。

A Chest Of Dreams

2007-12-27T00:10:00.000+08:00

'Humans collect two things, money and memory. '

Who am I and what do I’ve? This was what I used to ask relentlessly in my prayers.

Thank God. I might be nothing but I’ve a chest. An ordinary chest, to be precise. It’s not very stupendous as well. Perhaps stupendous is a very misleading word, but I don’t care, do I? I’m sure you are intrigued by my boastful introduction. Well, everyone has a chest, a wardrobe, a bookshelf or anything that can store things. I also said that it’s ordinary. So why I still care to describe it to you all tirelessly?

Because I don’t know how to use it.

I used to ask around and inquire anyone who appeared to be wise. My mother told me the colour of the hair indicated the intelligence of a mortal and my father added to that by telling me numbers of wrinkles may reveal the depth of a scholar. I believed in my parents. But my parents’ little trick backfired when I asked them how to use my chest.

They were astounded. Busily concealed their grayish hairs and dreaded wrinkles, they sought for the long gone youth. From that moment, I understood one thing. Even a wise man wouldn’t know how to use my chest.

But I never gave in to my ill-fated life. I continue to ask, hoping someday, somehow somebody can tell me how to use it. Then I heard people say, ‘why don’t you ask the person who makes it teaches you how to utilize the chest of mine?’. I just shrugged and pretended as if I had no idea of its origin. Of course I know the origin, but knowing it doesn’t make me wiser. In contrast, it makes me look like a complete fool.

I made the chest myself.

I’m not a carpenter nor am I hoping myself to become one. I made that chest many years ago and the exact date was already forgotten. Nor do I remember why I create it. The purpose? The material? I couldn’t remember at all.

Maybe the absence of the chest in my life has already erased the trace of its origin. Maybe it’s just I already get used to the life without the chest I created meticulously and painstakingly. Pardon me for not be able to recall any detail of the making of that chest. If you are willing to assist me, we must solve the more pressing issue first.

How to use that chest?

I’m sure you know a thing that serves no purpose will soon be discarded, forgotten and eroded by the marching time. It’s bizarre that after so many years of life without it, suddenly, it has come back to my life. It just springs back to my picture, too abruptly, all of a sudden. Maybe it’s really useless, but now, I ‘m more determined than ever to find the way to utilize it. Don’t ask me why, I loath it. Perhaps I’m too exhausted to answer that or I don’t even have an answer. Too shameful to answer it, I choose to be evasive.

I once asked my parents why I don’t know how to use it. They said because it has no shape and container that is shapeless like a bottomless bottle, stores nothing, serves no one. Till this moment, you are still baffled by the dimension of my chest, aren’t you? I don’t blame you.

Because it really doesn’t have shape.

But the detailed description won’t help, will it? Who will want to use a shapeless chest? As I continue to seek for the answer, there were few times I thought I had come close to the answer. At the end, it’s just another futile effort. Eventually, determined to make the chest ‘seemingly’ useful, I decided to put something in. Therefore, I started writing my ‘wishlist’ or my ‘dreams’ in some colour papers and casted them into the chest.

Until now, I still put my ‘dreams’ inside it, fantasizing that somehow my dreams will come true if I continue writing my ‘dreams’ on the colour papers. I’ve no idea what am I doing. All I want is to keep the chest occupied, not being abandoned unavailingly.

There are many things I can’t reminisce but I could still remember my first ever ‘dream’ I wrote was, ‘I want to become a physicist.’ At that time, sci-fi comics are a new buzz in our society. Shortly after it’s introduced, it had created an immediate sensation and with the production of the sci-fi movies, the hype was pushed to the record high. That’s when I wished to become a scientist.

Later when people got bored by unrealistic flying and invisible men, a new social realism slowly displaced the fantasy. That’s when I wrote ‘ I want to become a president.’ Watching our president, who was renowned for his polemic oration addressing his supporters enthusiastically, I vowed to follow his steps.

Soon after that, I’ve written few other dreams. Most of them were products of the hormone infatuation when I went through a period of inferiority complex and insecure. When I was introduced to an enchanting next-to-door girl, I scribbled down ‘ I want to become a good lover.’ After I realized I was just being duped by the seemingly innocent girl, I maneuvered my pen furiously, ‘I don’t need a girl.’

So many years have passed since I first wrote ‘dreams’ to my faithful chest. Now, my interest in its real usage has been rekindled, inexplicably and bewilderedly. I try to recall all ‘dreams’ I have casted in. Some of them have been forgotten, some of them are still remembered vividly.

‘I want to be successful.’

‘I want to be a singer.’

‘I want to be a pianist.’

‘I want to be a bodybuilder.’

As I flip through every ‘dreams’ in my mind, I can’t help but to smile mirthfully to every youthful and willful dream. Then, I notice that.

None of the dreams I chucked into the box has come true. I owe a cramped apartment, not a lavishly decorated mansion. I excel in all subjects except physics. Even an easily achievable dream like ‘I want a watch’, I failed to secure every single one of them.

Dismayed. I concluded the chest is indeed good for nothing. But commonsense tells me everything exists for a reason. Is there a thing that existing for being useless? I doubt.

There is nothing I can do as well. Self-doubt is like a venom, gnawing in my veins. As hopes, even false hopes gradually recede from my picture, I decide to make my one last wish. Reaching for a pen and a piece of a green-coloured paper, I scrabble down ‘I want to use you.’

Knowing readily it’s a fruitless effort, I still fold the paper carefully and cast it one last look before putting it into the chest. Unbeknown to me, the moment I’m watching the colour paper disappear in the chest, something crosses my mind. It’s the question I used to ask when I was young.

‘Who am I and what do I have?’

‘I’m a columnist. I’ve a writing career,’ answer me instantly. As if struck by lightning, I’m petrified and speechless for a while. Can I be wronged? I break into convulsive spasm and tears of relief drift down my cheeks.

I guess you’ve already realized what’s happening. If you have no idea, I give you a clue. Of all ‘dreams’ I wrote, columnist or writer is not among my ‘I wants’ list. O, I’m getting delirious now. Please feel free to interrupt me when you don’t understand anything.

Clueless? Let me tell you. The chest I’ve, is not a wish granter. It’ll never grant me wishes. That’s why nothing I wrote ever came true. On the contrary, whenever I’m drifting off from my destiny, this chest draws me back from my seemingly promising fantasy. I’m destined to be a writer! Not a president, not a scientist!

After so many years spent in made-believe wilderness, I never fully realize that may chest stores yesterday’s fantasy and childhood dreams, which is pivotal. I can’t imagine being a person who is bounded by plethora of unrealistic illusions. Neither can I imagine a life of thaumaturge and legerdemain. Such a simple wisdom takes me so long to grasp and comprehend. Maybe I’m really a fool.

Wasting no time, I reach for my fountain pen and stack of blank papers. Then, an article comes to mind. Subconsciously, I pen down everything and make sure there’s nothing left unwritten. I’ve even decided the title. It’s going to be ‘A Chest of Dreams.’

Feeling contented, I sob again, this time in unrestrained jubilance.

The Way You Are, My Little Kampong (Ignorance)

2007-12-17T13:40:00.000+08:00

Devil and evil don’t exist, ignorance does. ~ PC Wan

His head was about to explode, at least this was what he felt right now. The joyous laughter of his neighbour’s five mischievous kids and the noise of the motorbike rhymed together like some oxymoron orchestra. The longer he heard, the more unsettled he became. “For God’s sake, can’t they rest for a while?” He was annoyed by their mother who just sat on the bench, witnessing everything unfolded in front of her eyes, but did nothing.

He tried to concentrate on his novel, which he bought few days ago and dutifully devoted in reading it dutifully. Reading was always his only pleasure, while girls did arouse her sometime, he preferred to rhapsodize the fiction he read in his imaginative mind.

Unable to concentrate, he stood up and stared at the kids and hoped their daydreaming mother would stop them before they had the chance to demolish the house. The oldest among the boisterous children, was only 11 years old, and God blessed him, he was now riding on a motorbike with his 3 brothers following behind like herd of pilgrims. There was another girl, who was his youngest sister, wailing and howling in top notch incessantly out of jealousy.

“They really know how to raise kids, don’t they?” His mother grinned sarcastically while she was watching drama unraveled in front of her.

So nice of neighbourhood right? He still remembered he once wrote an essay about the disastrous deterioration relationships between city dwellers. But, the scene right in front of him, reminded him the relationships between kampong dwellers was nothing less than calamity. That’s why he always reprimanded cynically when he heard somebody trying to say ‘how nice to live in a kampong’.

“There is nothing nice living in a kampong. Yes, we don’t have congestion in our arses and traffic, thus we will be healthier blablabla… But we have people burning their old furniture unscrupulously in their courtyard, even the police is so impressed until they are willing to jump on the bandwagon of burning spree. They burned whatever they could find, plastics, papers, conscience etc. Who cares about driving without license when we can bribe the police with cheaper price? Unlike metropolitans like KL, bribing a police here isn't going to cost a bomb. There’s also myriad of poor managements going on in kampong, uncollected rubbish, porous roads which resemble stomata on leaves, static water which breeds nothing except Aedes sp. The bus will never be punctual or there’s no bus service at all sometime. Vandalism is rampant, road racing is commonplace, reckless driving is part of our life, so tell me what so nice about living in kampong?”

This was the way he showed his fury when he was irritated by illiterates (according to him, it means people who ask senile questions).

“Another problem comes…” His mother was looking at something.

Now, he heard that and he immediately knew what that problem was. A faint groan of car engine approached amidst the noise of the motorbike and kids’ annoying holler. His another neighbour was back with his ageing yellow jeep.

He still remembered how he used to blame his parents for not buying a corner house so that he was not going to suffer these two torturous families, The Chims and the Chais.

To his left, the one with kids darting with motorbike like scud missile, belonged to Chims. To his right, the one with yellow jeep that was always parked perpendicular, not parallel to the road, belonged to Chais.

To hell with ‘the more the merrier’. His family was the last to move to this neighbourhood and this house which situated right middle of these two families’. Mr Chai who had two dashing sons and one ravishing daughter, was a retired teacher and a renal failure patient. Perhaps the removal of one kidney had retarded him or somehow slowed down his reaction time, Mr Chai had already managed to crash two times into his own rubbish bins and three times into his neighbour’s.

He never knew how to park his car properly and worse still, we had proverb sounded ‘like father like son’, his son had somehow inherited Mr Chai’s superior parking skill. His son was a busy man. He seemed like chasing the time all the time because he seldom reversed his car slower than 40km/h, which deemed as an incredible achievement by Mr Chim’s sons. Everytime he reversed his car, stentorian applause would break off from Mr Chim’s house and both kids would stare at his godlike reverse skill enviously.

Mr Chim, on the other hand, parked his car properly, but had difficulties in keeping his car keys out of the reach of his unusually motivated sons. His eldest son ignited his car in one fine morning while he was only 8 years old. He second son, unprecedentedly, reversed Mr Chai’s 4x4 when he was 7 years old and crashed into the gate.

But, Mrs Chim, remained unperturbed. Neither the crash scene nor the motor-drifting stunt in her house’s very own courtyard would move her, even a little bit from her adored couch, which situated perfectly perpendicular with a TV set, equipped with state-of-the-art satellite (illegal).

She once complained to his unfortunate neighbour that his sons (daughter as well) wouldn’t listen to her and she was too busy and preoccupied (by?) to look after them. What kept her so busy? Well, it still remained as a great mystery to her neighbour until today.

Today, while everything presented in front of his eyes, Tash shook his head. After living in this neighbourhood for more than 10 years, he had been witness more grievous stunts before. Motor-drifting in house? He surmised that if the kids were given the truck’s key, they could drift the truck as well.

“The way you are, my little kampong.” He scowled while the exhaust gas emitted from the motor hit him.

God worked in His own way. Tash couldn’t agree more with that. People here, though was not as busy as city’s white-collars, they would always wish there was one more hour for a day, ‘how nice will it be if we’ve 25 hours a day’ was what he often heard in this small neighbourhood.

Mrs Chai, whom Tash suspected reincarnated from a troubled slave who had thousands of grudges was unusually hardworking, compared with her compatriots (women) in this neighbourhood. She was a fishmonger. She never parked her car in front of people’s house because she was bad in maneuvering anything that was mobile. The last time she mustered enough courage to reverse a car from her house, she crashed into her neighbour’s house, which was one street across. She vowed she would never drive again.

She never complained that time was terrible insufficient. Despite her workload, woke up 3am every morning, worked until 5 pm, she never uttered a single complain. Mrs Chim, on the other hand, jobless (housewife), often spotted in her neighbour’s house, telling how terribly insufficient her time was.

“You know what, taking care of the children is the most toilsome task in the world.” She told Tash’s mother on morning. Tash just shrugged.

“You reading one ha? Boring stuff isn’t it? I can’t lay my eyes on book for more than 5 minutes.” She told Tash’s mother. Oddly, she regarded that as some sort of glorious achievement.

“I’m very busy one, how to read? Though I like reading…” That’s what she told Mrs Chai in another occasion. God told Tash people could change, for once, Tash questioned God.

Tash wondered when a woman, methodically watched 5 hours of TV a day, faithfully went to KTV at night and then woke up at 10am, would 30 hours a day ample enough for her. On the other hand, Tash was also amazed by Mr Chai, who was once a “Great Teacher Award (GTA)” winner. Always baffled by the criteria the panels chose the ‘Great Teacher’, he asked Mr Chai one day when he saw Mr Chai stepped out from his yellow jeep, which was 50cm away from Tash’s rubbish bin.

“You interested in becoming teacher meh? No secret one la, I also don’t know.” He smile anxiously as if he had just spotted how close his car to other people’s rubbish bin.

Tash couldn’t agree more with that. There was no secret to become a ‘Great Teacher’. All a person needed to do was to feign ignorance to everything around him/her. Never read, was the first golden rule. Never took initiative to know, was the second golden rule. He had once seen Mr Chain struggling to recall their current Minister of Education’s name. He had once overheard a heated argument between Mr and Mrs Chai over the location of Moscow. Mr Chai, remarkably, insisted Moscow was located in Latin America.

In this neighbourhood, what people cared was ‘interesting’ news aka gossips. Who divorced who was the all-time favourite while sodomist and child rape were becoming increasingly popular among flibbertigibbets (both males and females). Everyday, Tash would see couples of gossipers sitting by the roadside and exchanging news like CIA spies. But what befuddled Tash most was sometime, people who were always ‘busy’ and ‘preoccupied’ also joined the gossips-study group formed informally.

“So much of integration, so much of kampong spirit.” Tash was about to greet Mr Chai’s eldest (or second?) when he suffered sudden lapse of memory. “What’s his name?” Tash was vexed.

If not because of a bizarre comment he heard few months ago, Tash wouldn’t even remember his face. Few months ago, in an oppressively sweltering afternoon, he overheard a conversation between Mr Chai and his son.

“Nothing interesting today ho? I mean newspapers.” (God bless him, he read!!)

“No rape case ma…so boring nowadays.” His son said that.

Tash’s mother reacted more viciously when she heard that.

“Let’s have our fingers crossed that anything will happen to his gorgeous and curvy sister.”

Mr Chim, on the contrary, not only good in parking his car skillfully, he was as enigmatic and as nocturnal as an owl. Tash seldom saw him and he had no idea what Mr Chim’s occupation was. When he was home, he would slam his door shut in spectacular fashion. When he was not at home, he would either leave his cigarettes carelessly on the table or his car keys imprudently in front of his children, like a dangled carrot in front of few rabbits

If Tash was asked whether or not Mr Chim was a good parent, Tash’s answer would be an unequivocal yes. He left his parenting job, sensibly, to his ‘busy’ wife. Being a head of a middle-class family, life could be implausibly arduous and tough for a man like Mr Chim. Hence, he claimed that he didn’t have time for his children. That also meant he could turn a blind eye on his children’s awe-inspiring motor stunts without qualms.

Apart from agonizing workload, he claimed that he had to socialize. Rather than called it a part of obligation, he would prefer calling the activities like participating in inaugural fishing competition, boar hunting competition and golfing ‘leisure activities’ that played a pivotal role in fostering goodwill with workers and bosses.

Being very prudent, he avoided all the lure of lapsing into complacency. He always wanted to have the best for his 5 children. Leaving them at home was a plan to teach them how to become more independent. Letting them reversing the cars on their own was to nurture them to face the challenges as early as possible and leaving a packet of cigarettes together with a lighter was to let them know the smoking was a health hazard.

Despite of his majestic and thoughtful plan, clearly his wife wasn’t impressed because he and his wife could never stop bickering. Determined to fight for everything they both had diverged opinions, sometime, Tash could hear faint sound of percussions on the wall, breaking plates and strange conversations like:

“You know how busy am I? I’ve to look after all of them!! All five of them!”

“Why you let them drive the car on their own again?”

“Can you please shut up, later people hear, very malu one le!!”

Tash would refrain himself from listening to their conversation if he heard something like that.

After the ferocious brawl like that, out of Tash’s surprise, he saw them holding hands together again the morning after the fight. Moment later, he saw a furniture company lorry stopping in front of Mr Chim’ s gate.

“Surely he has a hand over his wife.” Tash thought.

Tash refused to take a grim view on kampong spirit but what happened around him was too true to ignore. Mr Chai’s son-in-law, again, blocked Tash’s way out by parking Mr Chai’s car comfortably in front of Tash’s house.

At the same time, Mr Chim’s youngest son (5 years old) was putting a cigarette into his mouth, again. Gossipers were still as motivated and agitated as ever. Tash still didn’t know name of Mr Chai’s son.

But at least, there was something Tash could take solace on.

As long as Mr Chai didn’t lose his another kidney, he wouldn’t (hopefully) crash into Tash’s house.

As long as, Mr Chim was still sober enough for not leaving his truck’s key, which his adorable sons always lusted of, on the table, Tash’s house would be spared from imminent annihilation.

He kept on telling himself this and he even convinced his parents that Chais and Chims were none of their business.

As long as Chais didn’t crash their rubbish bins again, Chims didn’t throw their plates over, the gossipers didn’t spread malicious rumour about Tash’s family, all the absurdity around them could be tolerated.

But little did he know, it’s this ‘as long as’ attitude that overshadowed the kampong dwellers very slowly and gradually.

Because of this ‘as long as’ attitude, Tash thought he could just turn his back on everything. But, he was wrong.

Because of this ‘as long as’ attitude, Mrs Chim, thought naively at long as his sons didn’t kill anyone on road, everybody would be safe forever. But, she was wrong.

Because of this ‘as long as’ attitude, Mr Chai could console himself by pointing out the fact as long as he could be ‘Great Teacher’, who cared whether he read or not? He could stay ignorant forever. But, he was definitely wrong.

Because of this ‘as long as’ attitude, kampong dwellers could still continue gossiping idiotically as long as they could sustain their life. They thought they would be indispensable in this competitive society. But, they were gravely wrong.

‘As long as’ attitude should be reprimanded, quite obviously, because it’s one form of ignorance. It’s true we should never prophesize everything because it’s simply humanly impossible. But at least what we can do is to identify what’s nonsense and what’s not. Shed the ‘as long as’ attitude, we can avoid pitfall of abominable complacency that hinders us from prospering and improving.

Always remember, what always plagues a society, a country, isn’t disease that can be eradicated overnight, it’s ignorance. We can always tell ourselves how great we are, how magnificent is the kampong spirit, but it’s just ignorance and nonsense. At the end of the day, they are just deceitful illusions.

Ignorant or smart, do or die. It’s time for you to choose.

Absurdity rules, truth obscured.

Blindness speaks, conscience buried.

Ignorance exists, lies told.

Over and over again,

Until enlightenment overcasts absurdity,

Light outcasts blindness, and

Wisdom outplays ignorance.

Disclaimer : This is not a description of my neighbourhood. This is just a metaphor.

I Saw Her

2007-12-10T15:29:00.000+08:00

I see no bravery, no bravery, in your eyes anymore. ~ James Blunt

Although we are the products of our past, we are not prisoners of it. ~Betty

An eerie howling broke the delicate balance of an unusually silent night. Unease spread sporadically and that’s the first time I saw him. He looked like anything except human. Blood stained head, distorted face, hollow eyes and strange scent from his body, nothing from his body would suggest he was once a human, a private who fought courageously against the rebels.

He was carried out from the militia jeep and the doctor with some nurses approached him in hurry. Little commotion broke out around the jeep, spontaneously but oddly, the immediate chaos didn’t seem bother the faces of the medics at all. Their gaze, though was warm and encouraging, hollow at the same time and there’s no flicker of fire I could see from the eyes of the combat units.

Fierce exchange of words between the driver and the doctor and the rapid-fire instruction given by the doctor welled my eyes with tears and my throat with disgust. This was the third day I had reached the centre of the battalions. The whole land assault unit was based in this war-torn town, which was surrounded by inferno and occasionally blasted by surprise air raid.

I still remembered 3 days ago while I was sitting in a similar militia jeep with one sergeant and a lieutenant, we were utterly surprised by a massive air raid carried out by the rebels, the Union Of Liberation (UOL). The whole jeep was buoyed the sudden quake incurred by a scudding missile that soared past us and hit a building behind. The aftershock threw my stomach upside down and the ringing in my ears nauseated me. I threw out few times before we reached the hospital, which once was a stadium.

En route to the stadium, though it was a starless night, I could still see rubber, collapsed buildings engulfed by merciless inferno and mutilated bodies. Misery was omnipresent and floating along with the heaviness of the dusty air and the scent of the charred bodies, which one of them pointed its finger towards the sky.

Unable to cope with the distraught image in front of me, I threw out for another time.

The injured private was laid on a bed and he was just given an injection of some morphine. A circle and a cross were marked on his face with a chalk by one of the nurses. The mark, which I immediately knew, meant ‘poisoned’.

He was now, lying calmly and stiffly on the bed. I was not a medics but I somehow could move around in the ward, which was the changing room of the athletes. Maybe everyone was just too preoccupied to notice me or they were just too numbed by the existence of human beings.

There were no familiar faces in this ward where only the terminal patients would be warded in. Put it in another ward, infantries who were admitted into this ward, largely were beyond help and once admitted in, nobody would expect them to come out from that alive.

Even the medics there thought so. They did their best to bring last comfort and what they could do next, was just had their fingers crossed that miracles could happen. Realizing nothing much they could do, layers of dullness had gradually overshadowed their, once optimistic and hopeful, gaze.

There were only two patients in this ward. One of them was having a thick bandage around his waist but one-half of his face was nowhere to be seen. I was later told his face was ripped apart by the brutal force of flying shrapnel from exploding mortar. Another one was the man I saw at the entrance of this ‘hospital’ and was closer to me.

Distant explosion could still be heard, followed by the light quakes that would shake the whole building slightly, displacing some sands from the roof. Watching the sands falling from the roof, it’s like watching a sand clock, I wondered how much time those two injured infantries have.

At the same time, the one who was closer to me said sometime. He sounded like he wanted tell me something but his voice was blur. Perhaps it’s the side effect of the injection of morphine.

But I swore I heard he said “I could see her, an angel.”

Panting.

He was lethargic. The feeling that somebody was following him made him nervy and uneasy. Listening carefully to any suspicious sound, he moved forward with his rifle ready.

This was a starless night but it wasn’t dark at all. Distant explosion of mortar and the constant crossfire lit the path before him. It was muddy. Normally after a heavy rain, the battlefield would become extremely muddy but the more unbearable part would probably be the heaviness of the air. Every time he inhaled, his chest would be groaning uncomfortably.

He was sweating. ‘Be careful of dehydration’ his trainer’s advice was reverberating in his ear but all he wanted to do was to survive. ‘Goddamnit’, was the first word he muttered after he discovered his canteen had been dislocated mysteriously.

His head was throbbing, throat was burning, but he knew this was not the time to stop, he must find his battalion back. Surrounded by tropical canopy, he felt trapped. That was the feeling he couldn’t shrug off, but it was useful, at least it kept him vigilant.

“Where am I now?” He cursed inaudibly.

Suddenly, he heard something. A high pitch shrieking.

‘Bangggg!!!!’ One mortar hit a tree not far from him and exploded in a spectacular fashion. The wave from the explosion unbalanced him, the noise was deafening but what he was more worried was the deadly shrapnel that was scattering everywhere. He knew he couldn’t stay on the ground, he needed a pithole to cover himself up.

But, surprisingly, there was no shrapnel. His stood up but sill pretty much disorientated, confused, he fell again. The next thing he realized was he was surrounded by layers of misty gas. “What the….” Now he knew what was that gas. Characteristic mustardlike smell, greenish colour, it was mustard gas.

No time for hesitation. He rolled on the ground, trying to keep his head low. The path around him was covered by the same fatal greenish gas. Panicked. The irritating ringing was still reverberating in his ears, his situation couldn’t be worse.

Desperate, he stole a look around, trying to seek for anywhere to hide. No luck, all he could see was naked land. He knew he might be exposed to the enemy gunfire, he didn’t even know whether he was within the shooting range.

His vision was blurring. His body was burning due to the exposure to the gas. His energy was draining away from his body.

Struggling, scrambling, fighting.

Finally he collapsed but before that, he thought he saw something.

He swore to me he saw her amidst the yellowish and fatal smoke. I had no intention to fight with him, realizing life was edging from his body, I couldn’t bring myself to argue with him. He insisted he saw her extending her arms to him in the smoke.

“Who was she?” Although I knew perfectly there was no one, I just asked him, thinking it might at least ease his pain.

“Don’t bother, my brother. But I swear to my sweet Jesus that I saw her.” He refused to tell me.

He went on telling me how excited he was when he saw her because he thought he was not going to make it home. But against all odds, he saw her, as real as ever.

“Was she beautiful?” Tears, again, welled my eyes. But I was too shameful to even cry. While a dying private who was going to meet his imminent death didn’t even shed a single droplet of tear, I was too timid and too scared to even cry to my heart’s content.

“Yes, she was, of course, of course…” He repeated his answers for few times as if he were trying to seek for some sort of recognition.

I sank into my deep muse. Therefore, I didn’t really pay any attention to his murmur. Knowing he was not fully conscious, I didn’t blame him. He reminded me of a story I had written few years ago. It’s about infantry, who defied all odds, survived the war and went back to his hometown only to know his parents were both dead.

He committed suicide the day after, leaving a note.

I saw angels,

Angels who brought me home safely but killed my parents.

Now I see death,

Death who brings me to back my true home and kills me.

Many people questioned me how could a devastating man could ever write a poem? I simply told them dying people always saw angels. The angels could be their pasts, could be anything. It took various forms and it had different ways to recount the stories right before you died. I never knew where I got this idea. Perhaps this was merely another arrogant speculation. But the man before me had just proved me right.

“I tell you, you’ve to believe me, she is an angel.”

He spoke with such clarity and confidence. Hard to believe it all came from a dying man who wrestled time with God.

“Tell me, did she change?” Perhaps I was a little too anxious to know the answer, I instinctively raised my voice which brought a wary frown from a melancholy nurse.

“Nope, she never changes. She still keeps her cute side bang with her, just like the first time I saw her. She even spoke to me, with voice I’m familiar with. Though her voice is somehow laced with a new maturity, she didn’t change much. As beautiful as ever.”

He was as agitated as me. Coughing and jerking violently now, I was hit by ripple of panic that he couldn’t finish his story in time. The saddest story, to me, was always the story untold. The story which was frozen under layers of snow had no meaning. Story was meant to be read, to be cherished and to be debated. If he died now, the story would diminish for good, nobody would ever able to immortalize it in books, plays and songs.

“What did she say?” To no avail, I tried to push him harder. But my conscience halted me, he was an severely injured infantry, not a story teller.

He went on telling me what she said to him amidst the gas. Though there were interruptions in between, he managed to tell me all. He himself seemed relieved as if the story itself were a heavy burden he didn’t wish to carry with him to the grave.

Amid the piercing gas, he saw a silhouette in front of him. At first he saw her ankle only because he was lying on the ground. The gas had gradually shut down his sense. His vision blurred, his hearing was distracted by the echo of the explosion, his skin was sore and dry. He crept forward, now he knew who she was.

She was Mora.

He opened his mouth. No voice was coming out. He moved his fingers frantically, trying to warn her to flee from the battleground, mortar was shattering the ground everywhere and the bullets were penetrating every inch of the moist soil.

“I forgive you. It’s not your fault, it’s my fault. Please come back to me. Please…”

Did she just tell him he was forgiven? Droplets of moist fuzzed his vision, he no longer cared whether it’s tears or sweats. All he wanted was to listen to what Mora had just said again.

He tried to focus on her and had a final look on her. But now, every inch of his body was burning. Every movement would bring unthinkable pain and eventually a futile attempt to lift his arm had completely knocked him out.

He thought he saw her again.

“Who was she?” Again, I asked this question, subconsciously. Barely knew what I was doing right now, I received something from his trembling and extended arms.

He didn’t say anything and he returned his gaze to the ceiling again. I opened the humid paper in my palm. It’s barely legible and the room is dimly lit, therefore, I went out and read.

Dear Valor,

It’s been a while since we talked to each other. I just heard that you’ve signed up for the army. Your decision surprised me. I know your temperament, you are not the kind of person who is combative and blood-thirsty. You adore writing and reading more than anything.

I ever saw you, shutting yourself in your room, writing for whole day and came out with nothing. But the happiness I saw from your face deceived no one. You are willing to spend whole day on something that doesn’t yield something. That means something. God wants you to continue writing. I know you’ll never believe in God, but He really has his own way. Believe in yourself, you are a writer, a poet, not an infantry. You wrestle with pen, not rifle and magazines.

I know you still feel sore. I’m grateful you’ve confessed everything to me but love doesn’t work in that way. You can write me poems everyday but that doesn’t mean I’ve to fall for you. Valor, you are always a brave man, just like your name. Maybe my frankness has hurt you, I’m sorry about that but you should never live in your past.

Move on, I’m sure there are plenty of girls who will fall for your love poems. I’m sure there are people who are willing to stay by your side and perhaps write together with you. Sorry once again, I can never be that person.

Valor, how can I change your mind? Can you tell me?

Yours sincerely,

Mora Doloridoe

The letter was not complete, many parts of it had been censored and some part of it was simply too illegible.

Volar, who now bedridden in front of me, was certainly a big fool. Had he regretted? He was just another wretched teenager who sought for love, love he didn’t deserve. By committing to Mora wholeheartedly, he thought he would soon be rewarded.

Nonetheless, I was moved. The story was crippled but was too beautiful and at one moment, I doubted if I could ever rhapsodize it into dancing alphabets which were coined together to breath life into strings of words. Gnarl of doubt was consuming my confidence. As I continued reading his story, at certain point, I wished to stop him, sensing the beauty of the story was beyond my grasp. To tell an ordinary story, I needed authenticity. To tell this story, I had to be honest and explore the darkest corner of my heart, the corner I would wish to conceal forever.

I was stripped naked before the story, by its honesty and frankness.

I started visualizing Mora in my mind. Who was she? Had she ever laughed like an angel? Did she have a sweet voice?

These questions had popped out one after another but the sudden spasm of his body drew me back to the ward again. He looked more wretched. His eyeballs were protruding out like an elf and the subsequent violent spasms had finally drawn the preoccupied doctor back to the ward.

Politely, the doctor asked me to stand aside. The nurses were all standing by the bed and listening obediently to every instruction by the doctor.

Suddenly, my tears streamed down my cheeks. His image was diffracted into millions of crystallized jigsaws by my tears. I tried to wipe my tears dry and scrutinized his hollow eyes for one more time.

I saw nothing but sorrow which crawled out from his eyes, finally. How long had he pretended he could take all this nonchalantly? He was still a fool, even before his imminent death.

Maybe he still wanted to tell me something, but I knew it’s all gone now. Sands had stopped falling from the roof, so did his lethargic heart, stop beating at last. I lied against the wall, too exhausted to even cry.

He had passed away. He could never quite forgive himself for turning his back on everything, Painful love, solitary poems and the immaculate angel. He had never seen an angel, in his dying second. Actually he saw himself. Whatever the angel said was what he always wanted to say.

“I forgive you. It’s not your fault, it’s my fault. Please come back to me. Please…” was what he always wanted to say to Mora.

But it didn’t really matter now, because he could finally free himself from the prison of his past and rest in peace forever.

p/s : writing this post has been a very painful experience. Striving to give my characters more depth, I've modified and remodified and reconstructed the whole story. So far, this was the most difficult story i've written. I hope you'll like this post and accept the darker side of mine. But if you wish to read a very touching story, sorry once again, I think I'll disappoint you.

C'est La Vie

2007-12-06T23:25:00.000+08:00

Ripple of prophecy irrupted, there is bedlam.

Disorder spreads, like vice, sporadically, gleefully.

Soon after the calamity, whole self is plundered, into unceasing havoc.

Flowers blossom, memory rekindled. Oh, there is no order.

Abased souls, mortified mortals, chagrined poets, possessed by insanity.

There is no control, no attempt as well.

Nocturnal melody accompanied by delirious disarray.

Irony arises, hope resurrected, amidst the deadly reincarnation of subdued lore.

Chronicle unthawed, dormant ideas awoken, in realm of uncertainty.

People scream for departed tales, watch their back, masochistically.

No man is sure, whether the departed is alive or simply frozen in melodramatic stanza.

To no avail, poets commemorate the lifeless, with ravaging amount of determination.

Like a drowning man, like a somber preacher, like a trivial poet,

People are no longer scared of unexplained peculiarity.

Trying in vain to grab something,

Mysteries finally unraveled, like the Christmas presents which are eagerly anticipated.

Nothing could be spared, when chaos erodes itself, until routine prevails.

Under ferocious churning of endless trivia, feverish quest for realism.

Obscure stories are forsaken and forgotten, like yesterday’s banality.

Depth no longer interests, height no longer intrigues, miracles no longer amaze.

Chaos, just like any coup, destined to be slumped.

Robust time gets fatigue.

Unassailable survivors of tests, ineluctably exhausted.

By hackneyed epoch.

Stand firm against the ingratiatory and tantalizing coziness of aftermath,

Story-tellers are determined.

To stir the placid bay, to prompt hibernating minds, to sow suspense,

To recount vanished nostalgia, to recoup lost voice, to condense vapourised narration.

C’est la vie, of a willful rebel.

Call Me Billy

2007-12-01T15:42:00.000+08:00

I’m Billy

I would like to tell you a secret. Perhaps you’ve no interest whatsoever in listening my unworthy secret, I wish to tell you nonetheless. I fall in love with a lady! A lady, is it possible? People tell me, dream less and you will be more realistic. No, no, no, you are wrong, I’m truly and crazily in love with her.

Ok, I will tell you her name, but please don’t complain because this is not going to be a fairy tale. I would say this story is a mixture of chocolate and alcohol, the heavenly bitter sweet flavor blended to my heart’s content.

Her name is Belinda Lane. I saw her in a function and she was, I tell you, the most stunning, sexiest and the most outspoken in that function. She danced like a butterfly who tirelessly waving her wings to humble desperate souls around her. I fell in love with her at the very first sight.

Well, this is my another shameful secret, but I would tell you dutifully since I already promised you, didn’t I? I couldn’t help but locked my keen gaze on her bosom. They were just, whoosh, pretty. Staring at them made me wonder what’s the feeling to fondle them with my, emm, ardent and loving hands?

I guess the feeling will be heaven like. That’s why when I approached her and greeted her with my exquisite manner, I purposely shook her hands longer than I should. Her hands felt like silk and I could imagine the intoxicating pleasure I would have (hopefully) when I mount her.

Sumptuous. My patience burnt out in precipitous pace, my head was throbbing while her gaze danced elegantly on my body. Was she trying to scrutinize and fantasize my jittery masculinity?

Now, I can tell you now shamelessly? Why? Because I tell you, she was a horny bitch. I could still recall the pleasure when she pressed her delicate bosom on my chest and groaned “c’mon baby”. We were still in that ballroom but did we care? We couldn’t care less!

She rubbed against my body, told me she would like to have me cut into pieces while her hands were playing mischievously with my aroused masculinity. Again, we didn’t give a damn to people around me.

“Are you fake?”

“Oh, can’t you feel them? Can’t you savour their greatness?

“I’ve bad hands.”

“Then, use your mouth.”

She winked at me and I knew this night wasn’t going to be brief.

I’m not Billy

I’m standing here right now. Ok, you can strip me, I afraid neither being naked nor obnoxious. But, before this, I must tell you I’m not Billy. Who the hell is Billy anyway?

The character I created yesterday? To hell with him.

Now, you choose to listen to me, so whatever Billy says, you should forget about it. His view about the world is totally blasphemy and insulting. Be sensible, whoever listens to me should never believe in the world Billy fantasized.

He is not real. Undeniably, isn’t it?

You might not believe me but what if I tell you I’m a novelist? I sense worm of doubt gnawing inside you, how dare you! You are the one who come to me first but now you tell me you have doubts on me? Ludicrously foolish, aren’t you all?

Yes, I’m a novelist. Billy is a character I created yesterday, not with mud just like what God has done, but with my adored fountain pen. Please don’t accuse me for acting like God, I’m just a hapless writer, the characters I created have no souls. They lived in a virtual world where whores are available and sex is permissible everywhere.

Talk about sex, I must confess, I’m a virgin. But I’m proud, like an actor who just won an award. Why? Because sex is meaningless. Pleasure? Don’t lie to yourself, you don’t need pleasure. Tell me, do you need pleasure to continue writing? Well, despite being an amateur in sex, my few novels about sex were both award-winning and bestseller.

“Didn’t you have better thing to write about? How about politic?”

I rebuked with amble of anger slowly creeping in my body.

“Politics? Are you an imbecile?”

Who cares to read anything deemed as boring stuff? Sex is the only thing that will arouse my readers’ interest. I don’t feel sorry for those who just bought my recent bestseller, they are just senile enough to believe in anything I purposely put inside my unworthy novel.

“Hei, have you bought my newest bestseller?” I postulated my question in nonchalant and little lackadaisical attitude.

Silence prevailed but I can still some people busily concealing their angered masculinity.

I was not Billy

Don’t get confused. I’m still Billy but I was not called Billy after I have met her.

Her scent was still on my body, like a radiating aura, so brilliant and resplendent. If you are easily embarrassed or your face will blush in brilliant red easily, please refrain from listening to my narration because it’s going to be inevitably erotic.

Moments ago, our bodies were intertwined. After making love like the two lunatics, she finally asked about my name. Didn’t I tell her? No, I didn’t.

What should I tell her? I’m given no name by my dearest ( foolish as well) author (creator as well). This really troubled me and caught me off guard.

“You are nameless?” She was more persuasive than what I had anticipated.

Unsure, I told her my name is Billy. She cogitated for a while and I seized this opportunity to look at her attractive bosoms once again. I couldn’t believe I had just mounted her! I nearly cried out in joy when she asked suddenly, “Why Billy?”

She knew I was nameless. Panicked, but still managed to remain my composure, I turned my gaze to her LV bag left pathetically on the carpet.

“Belinda Lane I Love You."

BLILY ~ BILLY.

She gasped. Was it because of my talent in anagram or my futile attempt to please a lady?

“That’s very sweet of you.” She moved her slender finger to my chest and caressed it tenderly.

“I’m always as tender as spring breeze frozen in Shakespeare’s stanza.” I proclaimed confidently.

I am destined to be Billy

I thought I heard something while I was cracking my head, trying to add predictable yet entertaining twists into my novel. I knew Billy was going to die, no matter what happened. Death aroused hibernating people, didn’t it? I was sure most of my author would be intrigued by death, especially it’s imminent.

Who cared about life? I always wondered why people were chasing around plot that’s not going to materialize in reality and chose to neglect whatever that’s going to happen. Anyway, I didn’t want you to hear my grudges and lamentation of my insignificant life.

My life was worthless and uninteresting. So was my sluggish story, lacked of mocking animation and crystal clear sound. If I were going to write story about myself, it’s going to be distorted and annihilated eventually.

Thinking of that, it made me grief.

I whined like an old lady. I screamed at top of my voice, out of desperation, out of despair. I couldn’t be Billy, could I? Did I need to compromise and masquerade myself and stepped into loathed Billy’s shoes in order to be noticed?

I refused vehemently!! But that voice I heard was ringing again.

Someone just told me I will end up like Billy and even predict my ultimate demise. After hearing that, I waved my arms in defiance, I can’t be Billy, can I?

But, he convinced me I would continue writing about Billy, until I instinctively breath my life into Billy, thus giving Billy an unwanted soul. Then, Billy will live like me. How terrible will my life be!

That person told me, a novelist will never write something that he/she doesn’t even know. On the contrary, a novelist will write like the other novelist, imitating each other.

I cried in utter bewilderment, “But I never read any novel by other novelists! I will never imitate!”

“But you are imitating my narrating style right now.”

“It can’t be true!”

“Not if I’m your novelist.”

Oh my God, you are God!

“You are right.”

I will always be Billy

My writer told me he will be me. He just told me and I’m really telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?

What is the churning feeling under my belly after I heard the news?

Disorientated, I’m still skeptical. How can he be me? I’m a Don Juan, he is a nerd. I can’t live without woman, he can’t live with woman around. That’s another secret, he has erectile dysfunction, so his masculinity has wilted hopelessly. Did he tell you he is a virgin and how proud he is? He is a wretched liar.

Deep inside me, I know he also lusts for embrace of sensual body, I know he is aroused by sensual pleasure derived from staring at the hardening nipples. Only he will naively reckon I will never know his ignominious desire.

He is a mediocre novelist, as he always has surmised. I wish I can tell him personally and spit on his despicable face. How can he lie to everyone who reads his books so loyally?

He likes to be spectacular, doesn’t he? He always imagines he’ll perhaps write a novel that can touch so many people. Tell me, did he ever tell you all he wishes to be a prophet? No, he didn’t? Pathetic liar.

What should I write? I often hear that while he is pondering for his novel. Sex, nope… Violent, nope… Love, nope…

He possesses no courage, he doesn’t even know how to kill me whom he always wants to kill. To him, I’m his enigma and nemesis. He tells himself he must eliminate me before he can become a martyr, how myopic he is! Doesn’t he know I’m him and he is me?

Please tell him, all of us are dice to one and another. He thought by creating me, he is no inferior than our Almighty Lord, but he’ll soon know he is also a story, written by another braver novelist, who reluctantly creates him but skillfully kills him slowly.

“Who is your die?” Belinda asked.

“I don’t write story, I enjoy being a story.”

“I like your arrogance.” She smiled slyly.

I’m becoming Billy

Painfully, I’m morphing. Can you hear my requiem clearly? I’m in a cocoon, lamenting my fate.

What takes to be a writer?

Guts or Guards?

Compromise or Contemplate?

Be a story or Stay out of a story?

Both of us are Billy

We will never write a good story without bravery. But if we are not cautious, we will be too absorbed into our own story. Are we ready to compromise? When other despise our story, when your love one tells you frankly your stories are dry, are you ready to change? To write a good story, of course we must look clearly into our subject, what we want to write and what message we wish to convey.

To write a good story, you should neither be a story nor stay out of a story. What you should do is write a story as if you were not a writer and tell a story as if you were the listener. Am I understood? No?

We don’t blame you because we are both Billy. Who’s the writer and who’s written?

p/s : No offense to Intec's Billy...