In Continuum.

Mt. Palm

I forgot who taught me this little trick,but i used to pull it on every unsuspecting friend that i had back in the school days.It was one of those trick you pull on somebody,and subsequently they learn that same trick and pull it on somebody else.You can call it a sort of trick that deserves to be paid forward like that.

I think it was my sister who did it on me first,or was it somebody down the lane where my grandmother used to live in Taiwan.Anyway,so all you need is a pen and a paper,with an unsuspecting friend in sight.Of course,if it is a marker it would be better,but a pen would work just fine(Dont use pencils).Ask the person to place his or her palm on the paper,then draw a house at the pinky side of the palm and one on the thumb side.One of them you label as "Home",while the other you label as "School".Then,the game begins.

You make up a story that one day somebody wakes up in the morning and goes to school.Starting from the house,you draw a trail from there around the tips of every finger and finally arriving at school.But just then,you give a twist to the story and say that this person forgot to bring something,so he goes back home to take it.Draw a trail all the way back from the school and around the finger tips back to the house.Repeat this process a dozen times with different objects forgotten by our "main character",ending this part of the game at school.He gets sick of going home to get whatever he forgot,and just as the victim expects you to draw around his or her finger tips again,draw a line right across the back of his or her hand,signifying that the main character climbed the mountain back home.

I was writing the previous entry when i needed some resources from the drafts i did in the past.I wrote them in a black and white checkered notebook,the one i left in the corner of my room gathering dust now.I found what i needed,and for some reason the pages flipped to a page i intended to tear out,but havent the courage.It was the outline of a hand print,with "Home" written on one end and "MGS" written on the other.I played the game with her then,the time when she studied and i watched over her.I smiled,thinking about how she pulled her hand away before i drew the line across the back of her palm,how the trick was never completed.Her palm is so small,i thought,as i traced the tip of my finger along the thick black lines.I dont remember that you palm is this small.Not anymore.

I placed my own palm over it,and compared yours and mine.Wow,i thought.I do have alien fingers,like how my mother used to call them.One of the few things that remains,like relics of the past.Take something that is worthless,like a broken watch or a fountain pen.Dig a hole in your backyard and bury those items.A hundred years later they become antiques,like a capsule full of memories of the past.Like the broken watch,like the spoilt pen,it didnt mean much back then when we played the game did it?But burying it in the pages of this checkered notenook,for a dozen days under layers of dust,suddenly it's such a precious monument of the past,as i hugged it close to my chest.

That was the closest i ever came to shedding a tear for you,now that i think of it.There's even a poem that i wrote of that day,as you scribbled away on your own notebook equations,formulas while munching on the Smarties i bought.It's so bittersweet,it's so hard to leave.I got to tear away these pages and burn them,but i havent the courage to do it.I guess i am sentimental about such things,though i wish very much that i would someday become a hopeless romantic instead of a damned sentimentalist.

Nuggets and McWings
Chocolates and ice-cream
Scattered fries and just a bit
Of ketchups and annoying kids

Badly dressed girls and some text
Books and Oh,look.There's a fag
Those chinese ladies dressed in black
They way they ordered made me gag

Armed with my books and iPod
I'm not afraid that things will flop
No ladies and gentlemen,I'm not bored
Just a little worn out that's all

Halfway through her paperwork
She excused herself to the toilet
In this little McDonald's outlet
Is where i wrote this last line and burped