In Continuum.

January's Chill

My chin was rested comfortably on my palms as I stared at the computer monitor with lazy eyes at 3am yesterday. The download of the Waking Life soundtrack was taking forever, and I was forced to watch Yanni Live in Concert at the Acropolis videos. I almost forgot how amazing this musician is, and I remember attending his concert when I was a lot younger. He should come back to Singapore some time soon, especially after his concert more than ten years ago, I believe.

Anyway, while waiting for the download to finish I took a strong to the balcony again, not with anguish or distress this time but rather with the sole purpose of breathing fresh air. My bedroom window has been closed shut these days because of the monstrous winds, attacking the new white curtains mercilessly. I don't remember it being so cold in January, but then again it's not like I have spent the last two Januarys at home anyway. They were spent in camp for the past two years, and when you are finally home the weather is the last thing you care about really, with everything else dominated by food, sleep and other social activities.

The tiles beneath my feet felt freezing, and I was forced to hug myself as the midnight wind unleashed it's full power at 3am. The moon looked like a light bulb somebody left alight in the midnight sky, shining down from above alone and almost with melancholia. Oh yes, this time two years ago! I thought to myself. I was out in my first outfield at Tekong, crawling out from under my tent to admire the night sky over there. On the light pollution free island, the sky is at it's most beautiful. I recall the beautiful full moon and the constellations that surrounded the moon, accompanying it before dawn breaks, and the silent snoring all around me that night. I was afraid and I was scared right then, hugging my knees as my buddy Christopher fell quietly asleep. I was afraid of what to expect, because I didn't know what to at all. At 4am I remained awake after a trip to the 'toilet', and sat in front of my tent and felt at peace. Those were the days, those were the days indeed.

As chunks of my hair fell off my head, as the razor surfed through my hair, they fell upon my thighs and all over the apron that I wore as the barber trimmed my hair down to merely a centimeter long. My first time getting my hair shaved, and as if it wasn't enough, it was my first day in the army. Until this day, I still firmly believe that my first day in the army was probably the worst, because of the emotional uproar and of course, the two weeks away from home was excruciating. Every minute crawled like hours and every hour seemingly didn't move at all. The cold winds of Tekong struck the back of our heads, as if to mock our first days as a bald man, and that sent shivers down our skulls and through our spines. It didn't feel good either, as shampoo rolled down your head uncontrollably, and the cold water from the shower head blasted at the skin directly. You felt no self-esteem, you felt no pride at all, and everything that comes along with those drained away into the dirty dark hole in the corner of the bathroom.

They always say that Tekong is always one degree hotter, and one degree colder than the main island. I'm not sure if that is the truth or not, but I sure remember the January days I spent on that island. Sure, there were people all around you, sharing the same toilet and the same bunk, doing the same shithole jobs with you while grumbling about the sergeants, missing their homes and crying for their loved ones. But still, you don't feel comforted by being in a group of people, who feel the same way as you do. This is not a group therapy session, you don't encourage each other to feel better because, how do you mend somebody else when you are in need of it as well? That is what I felt, and I never told anybody of my agony, late at night in bed, hearing strange noise from the metal cupboards. I remember hearing the ghost stories on Tekong, the weird sounds at night and the chants, and the green light from the exit sign that hung outside my bunk sure didn't help me feel better. The cold wind blew, and I tucked myself tighter into the sheets.

Mornings on the island were tough, because high on the fifth floor of my company line, wind surged through the corridors from the sea just beyond. And every time that happens, you hear groans and moans coming from inside the bunks and outside, complaining about the cold weather and the damned sea breeze. I remember it got so bad at one point that I actually hugged my blanket to the toilet to brush my teeth in the morning. On some days, it's become so cold that I would remain in bed and refuse to get up. Of course, that is until everybody decides to head downstairs.

Last year's January was no different either. I remember a day or two after I got back from Taiwan, we went on this overnight 16km route march in the pitch black. It was an interesting experience sure, but an experience I am not willing to relive. It rained that night, on and off for hours. And the boys hugged their weapons and pulled their hoods low over their faces to keep the raindrops out. Myself, I was shivering all over throughout the journey, with the MG slung on my shoulders I almost murdered my superiors with the weight of that accursed weapon. Our destination was Elephant Hill, and you can read about it from the entry a year ago. But basically, I remember at the top of the hill as we waited for the sunrise, nobody gave a shit about it anymore. We cuddled together in small groups, braved against the mighty wind and drank hot milo that came in small plastic cups. We were desperately in need of warmth, and nobody gave a shit about the rising sun. "We get that everyday, anyway." I managed to say in between my teeth, freezing my ass off.

So yes, it seems to be normal to spend the nights and mornings like today's in January's chill. I almost forgot about it, the cold arms that January brings, the remnants of last winter's chill. But this year, it just feels a little better spending it at home than out in the field. I am beginning to appreciate the coldness of it all actually, getting atoned and used to the weather and stuff. If only it remains this way throughout the year, how nice would it be? I'm sorry Janus, for calling you an anus at the beginning of this year. I promise to come with a better word that rhymes with your name soon, okay? But for now, keep the wind coming and keep it blowing. Send my hair go flying into the wind, because I know this won't last for long, and for now I am loving every inch of it.

Oh, before I go. A little magic from Yanni to warm your souls.

Yanni Live in Concert from Acropolis - Within Attraction

Masked Villains

I had a series of joke books when I was younger, and my sister and I were fascinated by the questions inside. That was probably the origins of cold and lame jokes, and I remember being humored by the stuff they wrote in there quite a bit. One of the joke was this: "Why do doctors and dentists wear masks when operating on their patients?" Of course, the sensible answer would be for hygiene purposes. But the answer to that question actually was: "So that when anything bad happens, they won't be recognized". Which sort of makes some really senseless...sense. But speaking of dentists, I went for one of my long-overdue appointment, and as usual I had a middle finger stuck way up, stuffed into my pants' pocket as she drilled into my teeth and gum, threatening to disfigure the lower half of my face.

Now, I have no complaints when it comes to dental hygiene. I mean, I do recognize the importance of having a nice set of teeth, healthy and tar-free. I'm not exactly afraid of the hooks and the drills that the dentists stick into your mouth, or the gobs of blood that you spit out every time he or she instructs you to rinse in the basin. What I am more afraid of, or rather irritated of, is that mouth of theirs. As they operate, they will go on and on about how poor your gum health is, how you should brush your teeth this way instead of that, and if your dentist is anywhere above the age of 35, you are in for a good lecture afterwards involving a tooth brush and a fake set of human teeth. Basically, back to the basics for you on how to brush you teeth and floss it afterwards. She might have re-educated me on the ABCs and I might have found that a little more useful.

Dentists and I seem to have a bond of some kind, a bond I'd rather not have. My braces-wearing career started in Secondary Three, after much persuasion and convincing from my parents. As usual, money never was the problem, and they wanted their son to have a good set of teeth. You can call it a sort of investment perhaps, so that when he grows a little older, he might attract a girl or two and hopefully, get married and have a bunch of grandchildren. That might be true, but right then being in a all-boys school it didn't exactly matter if you were good looking or hideous. Nobody cared anyway, save for the Gay Club from A class.

The dentist of the school was Shaun Liu's - my classmate - mother. And every time somebody comes knocking at the classroom door for you to go downstairs for a checkup, people would glare at Shaun and blame his mother for all the troubles. Most of the time, a bunch of boys would go together, because a group is always better than a single person when taking the road down to the dentist, with the thoughts of deadly drills and hooks drifting around in your head, you want as much bullshit-talks as possible before meeting your eventual fate.

So, that happens about one every three months I think, and I remember instead of hating the dentist, we usually end up talking with the dentist and then waiting for our friends to finish before actually heading back to class. Well, doing anything other than having a class was better, even dental appointments. Besides, if your gum health is good she might even award you with a candy or two, and that was definitely a plus factor for going there once in a while.

But of course, I had my braces and done and that was probably the worst years of my life, in terms of my self-esteem of course. With braces, one would naturally cultivate the habit of smiling with your mouth shut. I remember the first days of my braces when I actually had to put 'rubber bands' in my mouth, I took a full hour to do so. And sometimes if you are not weary, it will snap halfway through class for example, and you will scream for somebody next to your to stick the 2B pencil into your left temple because it hurts so much. Not to mention the wire might stick out at the very end at times, and it will poke into your flesh whenever you try to talk. That's not even half as bad as when you get ulcers, and whenever your mouth moves, the ulcer would rub up and down against the metal brackets, and you find every way to find a partition between the teeth and the ulcer itself. I tried so many different ways, I can actually write a book on it (I even tried Kleenex!).

That's not to mention when you have to have your teeth abstracted, or before that process when they force a rubber ring in between your teeth to create a sort of space to place in the brackets. I chewed down hard on a single piece of popcorn when that happened and cried right in front of the Plaza Singapura Box Office once. It was excruciating, and the experience of having your teeth abstracted is not something you want. The long ass needle that comes towards you as your lay helpless with your mouth opened, the sensation of that needle going up into your gum and the liquid that flows through until your head feels weak and numb. When I had that abstraction, the assistant held on to my head, and the dentist came with these giant pincers from outer space. Grabbed onto the teeth and started shaking it right and left, with the assistant struggling to hold on to my head. After half a minute of struggling, you feel and hear this ripping sound in your gum and you see your bloody tooth out of your mouth and in between the claws of the pincer, dripping saliva and blood. I remember walking out of the clinic after four tooth were plucked, and actually had drool all over the place because the anesthetic was too strong.

All those agony caused by a single group of masked villains, and the society embraces them...well, sort of. I know that people are probably better off with a nicer set of teeth, but then again not everybody is willing to visit the dentist to have their mouth scrubbed, plucked, picked, washed, polished and then reviewed. No, not everybody is willing to do that in our society. Of course, perfection comes with a price. But whoever set the rule that our teeth needs to be at a hundred percent? So what if this teeth is a little crooked, so what if it is a little dirty? Sometimes I wish that I can pry the mouth of every single dentist open, and if I find any decay or dirt I will drill them with my own pair of hands. "Don't worry!" I will say. "You guys done it on me a million times, I know how to work around it!"

Now my teeth feel like they were scrubbed by a giant polishing machine, the ones you see janitors pushing around in shopping malls and hotels. This is probably not going to last very long, but I am going to try to do whatever I can to keep it this way. Not really because of what the dentist tried to convince me to do, but really because I don't want to see her face again (Though, she was covered most of the time).

The suction tube that was stuck into my mouth made strange sucking sound, and it almost sounded like a bunch of people screaming at the same time. I swear, at the end of that tube there must have been an amplifier of some kind, and the sound I heard was my inner-being, screaming for somebody to stab the dentist with a dental hook. The light on top looked like something out of a Star Wars movie, or the mechanical probe from War of the Worlds, glaring down at me emotionless and almost deadly. Now, this is how turkeys feel on Christmas time, when they lie on top of chopping boards. The inevitable pain followed by the helplessness that you feel afterwards. I might swear off turkey and chicken, depending on the situation from now on. Thank God I wasn't skinned, had my hair plucked, or had garlic stuffed up my ass.

But still, I hate experiences at dentists, and the worse part is that they almost make it sound like they are trying to help you, when all they want is more plastics with Yusof Ishak on it. In Singapore, people always say that it is better off dead than to be sick, and that is true. My mother's breast scans cost two hundred dollars. Two pieces of X-Rays and a ten minute consultation, that's it. In Taiwan, the same price with fifty dollars added can get you a full body checkup. Now, that's exploitation for you guys, keep that in mind. Better die than sick in Singapore, especially when you have dental problems. Knock some teeth out with a hammer and a vice, you might save some bucks for the soccer betting season coming up.

Our Sand Castle


The doors to the elevators opened, my mother and I emerged from the inside, with myself armed with a blue plastic bucket and a plastic shovel. There were other tools as well, by they were negligible because those two were all I need to build my empire, those tools were all I need to construct my castle in the sands. The long dark corridor that led to the playground was dark, and at the very end the square of light welcomed me into the warm afternoon sun. I started with the first hole, slowly proceeding downwards and then sidewards. There was a little island in the middle of the circle of deep gorge, and I remember waving my mother over to see the orange and red sand that I dug up from the ground. "Can I find diamonds if I keep on going?" I asked my mother with those innocent words. "If you are determined enough." she replied.

*

It came in a big yellow package, stuffed into the mailbox by the postman, roughly and unkindly. The edges of the envelope were crumpled, and I wondered if the contents of it was destroyed at all. It was one of those secret and random trips down to the mailboxes again, something I don't usually do on normal occasions. I think my mother already observed the abnormality, since the action of me volunteering to get the mails from the mailbox downstairs is something of a rarity. But until this day she never asked why I did those, quietly understanding why I did whatever that I did, trusting her conclusions to her own imaginations.

I brought the envelope back up, hiding it in the front of my t-shirt. I gave my mother the rest of the mail, saw as she looked through the pile and then tearing open some of the more important letters while throwing away the trash ones. The yellow envelope was in my t-shirt, and I held it tight against my back, afraid that she would ask about it, and I wouldn't be able to answer for it at all. But she never asked, even as I turned and got out of the room with the envelope now in my hands. I'm not sure if she saw it, but I was just thankful that she didn't ask me about it, even after the click of the bedroom door was heard down the corridor, and myself behind the desk opening up the envelope.

Inside the envelope was the book that she finally sent over, after so many days of delay. The diary that we have been sharing over the months was laid out before me, the brown pages of the book had both our handwritings written all over. I don't remember when we started writing, but it was probably sometime in July of 2000. She proposed that idea to me over the phone or something, about exchanging diaries by mail every two or three weeks. I never had a blog back then, and it was my first attempt at diary writing. And since it was a joint venture of sorts with a girl that i kinda liked as a person, I agreed on doing so with her. So she bought the book one day and started writing first, documenting her days at school and her shopping trips with her mother, the usual diary entry stuff.

There is something she wrote that I clearly remember after all these years. We continued doing so for a year, and afterwards we never went on for some reason. She kept both the books that we had, and in the end I lost all the little memories that I diligently poured into the pages of the books. But I remember this one time when she wrote about playgrounds.

*

The sand under our feet still felt moist and wet, as we climbed the steps onto the first platform. The early rain made the place rather wet, but we cared not for that but the privacy that we needed somehow, especially after the trip from Orchard. The bridge creaked under my weight, and I stopped in the middle of it, looking back as she made careful steps down the planks as well. We found a spot just before the slide, the platform still mildly wet from the morning's rain. "Is it wet?" she asked, as she felt with her palm around, trying to find a dry spot. "That's what jeans are for," I told her. "When you wear these, you shouldn't care about the ground's conditions."

The man over the microphone kept speaking loudly, his voice traveling down the streets and the neighbourhood. The contents of his speech ignored by the occasional passerby at the playground, all eager to go home or to somewhere else. His voice was taken over by a woman's dreadful singing, and even that faint to dim the beauty of the night at the playground, as we sat cuddled up in the corner of it, with the soft chilly wind of the night coming in from the direction of the road, and the both of us forgotten by the rest of the world despite the buildings rising up from all sides. There was a warmth from her direction that I couldn't explain, the urge to hold her closer. Urge, or was it this fear of her leaving me? Was it fear, really? The accompanying emotions of a perfect moment, the fear of the fleeting instant. That was probably it, as I stared upon her sparkling eyes in the night, two dark pools of water staring back at me, with the mouth below them slowly curling into a smile. It was a perfect moment, I told myself and then her. It was just so perfect.

*

The water kept seeping through the sand no matter how much I poured into the gorge. I made an island in the middle of it, with my beautiful castle built upon the middle. With only a shovel and a bucket, I told my mother. I was proud of myself. She sat quietly on the orange bench in the corner as I rolled around in the pit, getting sand even if my pants and mouth, but I didn't care. I loved the castle that I built for myself so much, that it wasn't enough. I needed protection from the enemy forces, a sort of water that surrounds the castle. Isn't that what they do in real life, back in the ancient times?

No matter how many buckets of water I fetched from the toilet beyond, the gorges just refused to be filled up. My mother came over in her slippers, and devised a plan with me. She gave me a couple of coins from her purse and asked me to buy a couple of stuff from the mini-mart down the corridor. Of course, I refused because I was afraid of the white-haired auntie that resided inside. She always had a gloomy face hung up upon her forehead, and always unfriendly to children, probably because some idiot decided to shoplift from her shop. But anyway, she told me that it was the price I needed to pay to get a fully working gorge, though I didn't know exactly what she was talking about. She mentioned also, to ask for a plastic bag or two extra from the auntie, and though I was terribly anxious that afternoon, I took a tight grip of the coins and then bucked myself up, braced myself against the menacing old lady that dwelt amidst the cans and the drinks of the mini-mart, the creature behind the counter.

*

She loves sandy playgrounds she said, and not the ones that are rapidly taking over the playgrounds of Singapore. She spoke about this one playground near her house, and the swings that they actually have. But they were replacing that playground which she grew up in, transforming it into a modern safe-for-kids type of playground with rubber flooring and everything. She despised that idea, and expressed her frustration over the pages of the book that we shared. I told her about the one remaining playground near my place that still has sand instead of those rubbery flooring, but she told me that it is different. "It just is." she said, and I asked no more.

*

I came back with the appointed items my mother asked me to buy. Soft drinks, canned food, stuff like that. I actually had a hard time lugging them back to where my mother sat blissfully in the afternoon sun, reading her book with her legs crossed. But I did it anyway, and placed the bags on the bench next to her. She removed the contents of the bags, and then with bags she came over to the castle that I was building. First, she laid at the bottom of the gorges the plastic bags that I painstakingly carried all the way back, making sure there were no gaps or fissures in between them, and then asked me to fetch a bucket of water from the toilet again.

I did that again and again, countless times I don't even remember now. I felt like a machine, just rushing back and forth fetching water. But finally, as I kept on pouring water around the castle that I built for myself, the water was kept in the gorges that I dug, and I cheered and waved the shovel in the air. "The castle is done! The castle is done!"

And then of course, the triumph over the glory of the castle was short-lived. The rain came down upon my mother and I, and the both of us took shelter under the roof of the club house. Before me, the towers of my castle came crumbling down, the gorges overflowed and washed away the bridge that I carefully constructed. The towers fell, the walls broke away, succumbed to the merciless rain that fell from high above. I watched, with the shovel and bucket still in my hands, as my handy work was being wasted away, one grain at a time, back to square one.

*

She was and still is a unique girl in my life, loving butterflies, apple trees and sandy playgrounds. She allowed me into the strange complicated mind of a girl, probably one of the first few people to have done that, and I remember being fascinated about it afterwards. The sandy playground that still exists beside my house reminds me of her all the time, not because we've been there together before or whatever, but because of what she made aware of in my mind, the gradual disappearance of sandy playgrounds, the ones that truly mean something to the hearts of every kid. Because truly, no kids want to play at the playground anymore, with the existence of computer and television. But when they had sand all around, it was just so much better, so much more fun. Despite the mess you cause yourself to be in, at least at the end of the day you return home smiling like an idiot.

*

The horrid singing of the lady died into the wind. Our ears were finally spared from the deadly notes that rang still in our eardrums. Our faces were close to each other, speaking of the days that we first met and the times that led up to it. It has been less than twenty-four hours since then, but I recall very little of our conversation now. But that is what I always tell her, and to everybody who fear the fleeting effect that time brings. People fear the power of time too much, the way it washes away memories and the little details that we desperately try to hold. Like the rain that destroyed my castle, no good things ever last long enough.

But it is the memory of the feelings that is more important, isn't it? Forget about remember the details, forget about remembering where you were, what you said. I say, remember the emotions, remember the feelings, because all those are much easier and better to recall five, ten years down the road. I don't recall the conversations that we've had over our magical three months, but at least I remember every single feeling that I had, every single time I am with you. And yesterday night at the playground, with no threatening rain clouds at hand to wash away what we had between us both.

I was sitting up against the back of the platform, and you were lying down next to me. Your back rested against my stomach, your head against my risen thighs, and the rest of your curled up into a small ball. Your chest heaved slightly upwards and down, your breathing was slow and peaceful. Your face buried into my chest, the pressure of it was comforting, as you adjusted yourself in my arms, falling slowly aside. I could feel your breath against my shirt, your hair blowing in the wind. "It is so comfortable," you whispered, and I kissed you in the cheek. I couldn't help it, but the moment was just there, perfection.

How do you perfect on perfection? How do you improve on what is already at it's grandest? There, right there. The moment that i shall never forget, the moment when you successfully made me fall in love with you, all over again. Remember me that way my love, remember me that way. Because in this playground, there is only you and me, us and nothing else. Our castle will not be washed away by the rain, nor will it have rubbery floorings. Just us, only us, and the castle that we built in between. I love you, even if you can't blog about the same thing, i really do.

Like Blood and Dirt

Air, I thought. I needed air. I opened my eyes, gasping for breath with my eyes wide opened. The tears streamed from the corners of my eyes, a little different from all the other times. They were real tears, tainted with the touch of sorrow and fear, unlike the morning tears I usually have at that hour of the morning. The youthful sunlight filtered through the new set of curtains I hung over the old ones in my room, and my room - like what my mother said - was indeed darker than before. But I needed air, I told myself. I needed air. I pushed the window open, a gush of salty air rushed into the room. A door slammed, the rain was falling down. Still, my eyes were wide opened, and better and better and better I felt...

I had a dream, a terrible dream.

*

It was a forest, tall trees towering above our heads. Rain splattered through the canopy above, a constant hissing sound of the raindrops hitting the ground resonating between the tree trucks, and deep into the hearts of the men. We were squatting behind the bushes with our guns, knees deep into the mud beneath our feet. The raincoat we were wearing provided no comfort or protection from the bone-piercing rain that was falling down. It has been raining for so long, what is this war we are fighting? I recall not the purpose of the war, the reason to fight, to fight for anything. Commands and more of those, somebody shouting for cover while others waited dreadfully. The rain kept falling, the hissing never seized.

Then, it broke out. The battle upon the knoll exploded. A veil of rain shrouded our enemies, and we squinted our eyes to see, as we took aim into nothingness. But as I advanced ever forward towards the source of the bullets, the screaming of my friends from all around dominated the sound in the air. Everybody was crying, everybody was screaming for something, mourning the loss of hope and the coming of death. Some of us kept of fighting, while others buried their faces in the thick mud, crying into their chests and palms, grabbing at their stomach or what was left of it, as others tripped over their spilled intestines and other insides.

There was an understanding without the need of a command this time. We retreated back from where we came from as the enemy continued their firing. More casualties, more friends of mine fallen behind. Legs blew, heads exploded. Blood spilled, blood shed. I ran and ran, down the muddy slope through the woods and then up again. Up, up towards the headquarters, back towards safety. The enemy's merciless firing died away in the background, but the pair of legs that were carrying me through the muddy forest wasn't running because of the bullets or the explosives, but rather for the blood drenched pants of mine with the taste of blood still lingering in my mouth. I was trying to outrun those, outrun all of those. What are we fighting for? I asked myself, what are we fighting for?

The base was located at the top of a muddy slope. Seems like it's been days since the battle upon the knoll, and this time the mission plan changed. Rescue mission, to seek out the wounded and the dead and bring them back to base. Army ambulances rumbled through the muddy roads, making deep tracks that wounded the red land. They coated the wheels of the vehicles, and the black body backs were brown as well, all of a sudden.

We made our way to the battle ground, the enemy's firing gone, and the whole places shrouded in a mysterious cloud of mist and death. Silence, with no more hissing sound of the rain or the terrible screaming from the soldiers. There was a dead calm from the dead bodies, corpses strewn all around the woods. Up and down the slope, bodies laid with their life torches connected to their chests. The wounded had dimming lights shining from the torches, while the dead ones had their lights extinguishes. I stood in the hill of dead bodies, my leg sinking slowly into the thick mud once again. Water swirled around my knees this time, and with it the dirty water from uphill and the blood of my friends...blood of my friends flowing into my boots. The taste was in my mouth again, blood and dirt coated my own pair of hands as i tried to pull a person out of the mud. His hand stuck out from the ground like a dead tree branch, and with much ease he came out with his body covered in soil, but not his legs. For his legs were nowhere to be found, still buried underground and his insides spilling out from everywhere. His face spelled pain and agony, the remnants of the battle upon the knoll still written upon his face. But it was disfigured, blood and dirt covered his features, reckoned him nameless. I ran my palm over his eyes, and yet they refused to close. They refused to close...as i dragged the body and piled them onto the trunk.

I found a lighted one, a lighted torch. He gasped for air as i came to him, and smiled to me as i yelled for help. I was so tired, i was too exhausted to carry this man back alone. I already carried so many, my hands were numb. The colour of the skin faded and disappeared under the layer of blood, not mine but my friends'. The rain started falling again, and this time they weren't the usual raindrops but blood rain ones that came down from a darkening sky, dyed red by the broken veins of the dead people. The hissing sound of the rain, slowly faded to become the endless chanting of the lost souls. "Death, death, death..." they chanted, and the truck rumbled away with the bodies inside, the rotten smell of dead flesh creating a poisonous fume all around. I choked, at the air around me and my own tears that i swallowed back.

There were so many dead, and still i could smell them. I washed and I washed, I washed until my skin came off at the white sink. But the blood remain, and so did the smell. The window to the right of the mirror had a view of the muddy round outside. The dead bodies were placed into black body bags and then piled up at one side, labeled and then forgotten. Another pile of trash was piled on the other side of the road, and they looked all too similar. The bodies and the trash, two black hills of rotting things. I stripped off my clothes and sat at the bench facing the black hills, a friend of mine comforted me. "They look like trash..." i sobbed and choked on my tears. "They look like trash..." My friend said nothing, the lights darkened and he still said nothing. I kept crying and crying, burying my face in my palms, the smell of my dead friends filling my nostrils, what's left of their life remain in between the cracks in my palms as red smudges of death.

*

Sleep, it is still early. It wasn't even eight in the morning yet, I told myself. I climbed back into bed from the window, the sheets were pulled up to my chin. The fan quietly spun behind the metal grill, and the dried tears upon the pillow somehow still felt warm against my chilly face. The eyes were closed, but yet in the dark i still saw those bodies, piled up high against the backdrop of a setting sun. The look of anguish in my friends' faces as I pull them out one by one from the dirt. Arms broke off, faces were twisted, blood drenched and exhausted. I could almost smell the blood still, but it was a dream, merely a dream. A dream...of blood and dirt.

Yupik

26/1/07 (FRI)
Fish & Co.

Spiral of knowledge, true colours revealed.
But what if there is no grey area,
and not just black and white?
The other colours, forgotten and smudged,
mixed in an array of clouds, emerged.
There ought to be something more to this, she said.
But what?

Nothingness has consumed us all.

7.12pm

*

Interwoven fears lead us to the brightest place.
So bright, we can't see anything at all.
Without darkness, the stars are meaningless.
Without you, I'm thrown into darkness.
Without my heart, there won't be a place for you.
Without the broken pieces, it won't be my heart.
Without anything at all, nothing will be broken.

But without a broken heart, without lights, without stars,
and most of all without you,

There won't be anything at all.

7.23pm

Me & The World



Perspectives differs with our age, and it changes with other aspects of our physical and mental growth. Like so many other aspects of the process, perspectives of the world differs between the age of five and say, the age of twenty one. That process is very much the same as your perspective on love, relationship, toys and other tangible or intangible objects. When you were in kindergarten or primary school, you probably preferred to hang around boys, play with boys during recesses and stuff like that. As you grow up, you tend to get closer to a girl, want to know them a little better and treat them a little better. Of course, the mentality of the little boys that used to hang around other little boys in the playground don't change very much even after a decade or two(If you know what i am talking about), but for most the process is like that. Girls turn from this zero-point playing bunch of creatures to subject of infatuation. Though we might not know why most of the time, that's how our perspectives change with our age.

Well, i remember a picture of me as a baby, standing on the edge of the cradle and smiling at the camera. The cameraman was probably my father, and i remember that picture very well. Myself in that blue bathing suit again, grabbing onto the metal railings on the side and looking as happy as ever. Of course, that must have been why my father wanted to document that moment, because they don't come very often. But anyway, that picture of me was reminded of when i was talking to my beau in the middle of the Serangoon Park tonight. The rain kept falling in strange waves tonight, coming and going without warning, a practical joke from high above.

Anyway, i was telling her this. When you are a kid - say, when you are three years old - the rest of the world to you is limited to the edges of the cradle. You remain in that space for the most part of the day, and the spinning planes and planets above your head represents the stars and the moon. Your area of activity revolves around whatever that you do within the confines of the cradle, and anything other than yourself is the rest of the world. The rest of the world at that age, ends after the metal railings, for me back then.

And as you grow a little older, when you are five or six years old, you venture out a little more into the world as adults know because you are feeling a little more curious and adventurous. You are then exposed to a whole bunch of different things around your house. The moving picture aka. television, the stove, the sofa, the view outside the window, the toilet, so many more. Of course, if you were like me when i was five years old, i was exposed also to the front lawn where my mother used to run that giant yellow-coloured lawn mower back and forth. My German Shepard would come over and sniff my butt all the time, and i remember back then i had a little battery powered jeep that i used to drive around the house. It was a big house really, and there was a tarmac road that surrounded it, but remained within the fences of the estate itself. It was a red jeep i remember, with stickers pasted all over the hood of the car. And that was the rest of the world to me - everything inside and outside of the house within the red-bricked fences of my home in Taiwan. The mountains, the expressway, the cars and the neighbours were the outer space, and not to mention the neighbours' kids being human-like aliens.

A little sidenote concerning my perspective of the world vs. outer space back then. I recall my very first plane ride, and it was to Singapore when i was five years old. My mother used that holiday trick on me back then, telling me that we were about to have a holiday in Singapore. Of course i was excited, because i have never been to a foreign country before, not to mention taking the plane was something that i have been dreaming of. I was on the verge of exploding at the airport, and i didn't take the tears in my auntie's eyes all too seriously because i thought they were merely being emotional about our departure. I remember comforting her by telling her that we won't be long, that we will be back in Taiwan soon. She played along of course, being too nice to break the heart of a lovely five year old.

On the plane i took the window seat of course, and stared out in the white fluffy clouds in confusion. Of course, i had not a doubt that the clouds were beautiful and fascinating. But this was my perspective back then: Every country is a planet, and that traveling from one country to another would be like traveling from one planet to another, through space. So it was strange of me to stare out of the window and see white and blue everywhere, instead of what the science fiction movies showed - black and infinite, with stars everywhere. That so-called 'holiday' turned out to be a full year, and i remember asking my mother why the holiday lasted so long, and she replied to me in that matter-of-fact way," We like it here". I cried.

As i grew up in Singapore, it was time for my school days. Being an alien to this country and hating the weather to the bones, i seldom ventured anywhere without my mother. The only places that i visited were the schools that i went to. I remained at home most of the time, and my mother had my hands in shopping malls and their toy sections most of the time. The one time i got lost in Hougang Mall, i screamed for help until the security almost called the police. But anyway, so two places that i go to at that age: School and Home. That was it. Everything else, was the rest of the world to me, the unknown and the frightful. And i had absolutely no intentions of going there anytime soon. No sir.

In Secondary School and JC, your vision expanded to the cyberspace, the contents of your newspaper and what the news provided you. That's the view of the world from your livingroom, though you venture now further from anywhere you've ever been. You spend most of your time in front of the television or the computer, and whatever that comes up ons-screen from the other side of the globe becomes a piece of the puzzle that forms the giant picture of "The World". Of course, for me i studied a lot on the world map my father gave to me when i was younger, but the map is after all a map, formed by lines and colours to differentiate countries and the different shadings to define contours. That was the rest of the world in two dimensions when i was younger, and other information gathered from different sources. The World merely existed as an idea to me when i was still in school, a vast idea i wasn't able to fully grasp, to be honest.

Now, the India trip opened up my eyes. I know i mentioned India in my posts numerous times, but like i said before, that trip changed my life. The seamless desert, the hills of sand that stretched endlessly into the horizon, the sky full of beautiful stars, the grandness of the Taj Mahal...Every one of those aspects and so many more, show me just how vast our world is, how beautiful it can be as well. The world does not revolve around my bed, my room, my home, my estate or my town, or even the country. The World is...THE WORLD. The World is everything that is other than yourself, and so much more. So much, so much greater as well.

So as you can see, as you grow older your perspective of the world becomes a little different. It becomes bigger, wider and much harder to comprehend at times. Your vision is expanded beyond your own imaginations, and you find yourself staring at the Earth from space, with your jaw hanging opened wondering just how VAST the so-called "Rest of the World" is. It is big, trust me on that. And every time the phase of your life leaps to another, you will find a change in your perspective of the world - finding the previous perspective to be a false one.

You might think that after telling you guys about the ever-expanding idea of the perspective of the world is definitive. That as we grow older and wiser, the world as we know will grow bigger and bigger, larger and larger until perhaps one day, our minds might not be able to comprehend the size of it all. I mean, there is only so much information our minds can process about a certain subject, right? But anyway, that's not the point though. Not the point at all.

With one phase gone and the other at hand, you tend to have different perspectives of the world, like i said. But it doesn't necessarily have to grow bigger and bigger too. The moment my life changed into the one i am living now - the moment i fell in love with my eskimo friend - the perspective of the world changed drastically. It no longer was about the stars of India, the deserts of the country, the world map, the internet, the country, the home, the room or the bed.

When i am in love my dearest,

my world,

is you, my love.

Because the old world,

doesn't matter anymore.

I love you,

my love;

my world;

my everything.

The Choice Of Loneliness



Eady," You travel a lot?"
Neil McCauley," Yeah."
Eady," Traveling makes you lonely?"
Neil McCauley," I'm alone, I am not lonely."

--- "Heat" (1995)

*

First day of my Junior Collage life and already I was flustered with anxiety. Being a person who was never good with crowds - not to mention a crowd full of strangers - I was avoiding every single opportunity to approach somebody or being approached. I guess that was where my sense of independence for started, the way I still feel like accomplishing something in my own time and on my own accord. Not because I am more matured, or that I have grown up like what my parents would like to think, but because I never really liked to ask for help, especially being brought up in an educational environment full of people I had no urge to get to know.

The first day I remember, and already I felt awkward in the crowd. Something was out of place, the way my uniform was tucked into my pants or the way the wind was blowing my hair all over the place. Maybe it was the sweat-drenched back of mine, or even the dorky looking school bag I was carrying. Nothing felt right that first day as a NYJC-ian, and I remember dreading the school already (Especially so when the Orientation turned out horrendous and far from satisfactory). In a classroom which looked like it should have belonged to a section of the Singapore Historical Museum, with the black board mounted at the front and the existence of chalks and those old-school wipers, I pinched myself under the desk as I sat right at the back, wondering if I was asleep or merely dead. I would've been happier in the latter case, because I soon realized that I wasn't dead, and the strange class of people around me all stared at each others' faces, confused and awkward.

From that day on, my JC life has been marked with my journey of solitude. Looking back at the old entries that I produced throughout the two years that i dwelt in that school, most of them have been observations or incidents that happened either with myself, or with my own thoughts. Most of them uneventful to most only because it happened with myself involved and only that, no one else. I was the guy you would see at the back of a lecture theater twenty minutes before the lecture starts, or the guy wandering to the next classroom immediately after the last one ended, skipping the lunch break.

When asked why i was so enthusiastic about the classes, I merely smiled at my classmates and told them that I was tired, and wanted to take a little nap before anything happens. But I never slept during those sessions of solitude to be honest. I'd pluck music into my ears, or read the book that I have brought along from home. Sometimes, the view from the classroom window would excite me, and then for the next half an hour I would be completely indulged in that, forgetting the existence of the next class until the teacher bursts in five minutes before time.

Lots of time were spent in my schooling days alone, and I never truly mixed with the JC people. Sure they were very nice people, and we weren't breathing in chalk after the first year. But there was just something missing in all of them, that incompleteness in people that repelled me away from everyone. You might have called me a class of loner, the ones that are usually condemned and ostracized in a society. But for me, I wasn't the one being left aside or ignored. In fact, it was really the other way round for me. Viewing from different perspectives, I viewed everybody other than myself as an individual, and I completely ignored their existence altogether. It must have been that urge to be anonymous in a school that drove me to that conclusion, but that was it. Voluntary Solitude, i called it. Still, i remained a sociable loner, unlike most stereotyped loners, who gather together in a group to feel lonely together. I was on a group with just one person - with myself - and at least with that person, nothing felt amiss in contrary to being with everybody else.

A friend of mine recently came up to me and asked if there was anything different about him, from the time when I got to know him in the schooling days and through the army life. He asked me to be honest with it, and I very well was. He wasn't exactly the type of person you would expect to mingle in a crowd full of girls. To make things worse, there were fifteen girls and five guys in my class, and the fact that he didn't socialize well enough with the guys either made him rather ostracized. The truth is, it was not that he was really a pain in the ass or anything, the typical jerk you would expect in schools. He wasn't like that at all, but merely because he was brought up in an environment full of guys. From Primary School until Secondary School, all guys. And he is the only son, and the only child at home as well, so that sort of made things worse.

I always say that despite all the criticisms that I have for my sister once in a while, I always make it a point to tell my friends that I give thanks to my sister for who I am today in my friends' eyes today. I mean, my sister - being a Leo - is not exactly the best person to hang around with, especially if you are a Cancer like myself. I'm not a horoscope enthusiast, but my sister really is the perfect example - in fact too perfect - of how difficult it is to deal with a woman. She sort of ' taught' me how to deal with a girl throughout my life, and therefore when I am with another, I am relatively more comfortable with her presence and my own. It's like learning manual or auto when you are trying to get a license. By learning manual you'd know how to drive auto as well, and that was my sister to me. Manual drive.

To be honest my dear friend, I wasn't all that close to you even in the army. Sure, we were in the same company and all, but we were in different platoons, and most of the time i hung out with the boys from my own and you with yours. I am not sure if you have - in any way - changed in relative to the person that you were two years ago. But one thing is for sure, that if you at least have the effort to want to change yourself, then it is a very great start to things already. The urge to change is the beginning of the end, and soon you'd find the problem of you being left out soon forgotten. I know it doesn't feel good to be an Involuntary Loner, but I guess that's how our society works, no matter how idealistic or optimistic you might be. If you cannot blend in then you stay out, which is basically how it is really. I for one, didn't care too much about blending in, I volunteered to stay out myself, and that is a totally different story altogether. So instead of me going to people, trying to be friendly and acting as if i cared, people came to me instead. I think a friendship built on absolute trust in that way, without me pretending to be a person I am not, is stronger and more real in every way.

So, from one loner to another, I wish you all the best. It sucks to be a loner but, you just have to remember that a good socializing skill wouldn't require you to TRY at all. It should come naturally and comfortably, remember that. The choice of loneliness is with you, and it is up to you if you want to make yourself feel lonely, or merely alone. There is beauty and serenity in solitude, one which you cannot obtain from a bunch of friends surrounding the pretentious you. Keep that in mind my dear friend.

Go Anywhere

Fold me up
Take me out
I'm portable
Fold me up
Take me out
I'm portable

Out here
We have anything we want
We have everything we want at all
Out here
We just bolt it to the floor
Or tape it to the wall

When you speak of holidays, most Singaporeans would expect you to be visiting the common destinations. Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, China. Of course, if you are a little bit richer and more adventurous: America, Australia, New Zealand, and the likes. If you like to have that romantic holiday setting with a touch of history and art: France, Italy, Germany. More often then not, if you are about to go on a holiday people are going to guess where you are going within five attempts. I am the victim of such ideals as well, because they are like THE destinations you have to visit before you venture out to other more exotic places. At least that is my thinking, anyway.

But as of late, save for the fact that i really want to visit Europe this year, i have sudden wild thoughts about going to countries or places that i never really thought about going. Well, some people out there might be rolling your eyes and thinking "That's a rather common destination too!" But not to me anyway, and after watching Discovery Channel and National Geographic, i have the sudden urge to go to the following countries that i am going to elaborate on.

Rollin' with a satellite
Watching the Cosby Show or Nick at Nite
I'm weary but I'm feeling right
I am a soldier now

Hokkaido, Japan

I am not exactly the kind of person who can stand cold countries. As much as i love and prefer colder countries to warmer ones, i just cannot take the bone piercing chills that surges through every bone in your body. I remember when i visited Vancouver, Canada a dozen years ago, i actually had to have those warm pads placed within my shoes to make my toes feel better. I was wearing about twenty layers of clothes and i looked like a human Piñata. I swear, somewhere in the photo albums there is actually a picture of me shaking my ass off, with my lips turning purple and forcing a smile at the camera on the cable car. All and all, i am just not the kind of person that is very good at taking cold weather.

But, like i always say, you can put on more clothes to keep you warm in a cold place, but you can strip off all your clothes and still feel hot in a hot country. So there you go, my argument on why i prefer colder countries to warmer ones, no matter if i am man enough to take the weather or not.

Anyway, i was watching some random channel on the television when they were talking about Hokkaido, Japan. I have no idea why, but the scenery that i saw on the television, with the towns and the streets completely covered in snow just attracted my attention. The interesting aspect of Hokkaido is perhaps the fact that despite the usually conservative and traditional Japanese, that place actually has a lot of Western influences in terms of their diet and their building designs. I've been to Tokyo Japan before, and the house there are what you would expect from a highly urbanized area really. But in Hokkaido everything is a little different, with a touch of the old Western world and still maintaining the traditional taste of Japan. Of course, not to mention the endless supply of raw fishes and more of those! And you can leave your dinner out of the restaurant for two hours and it won't even turn bad, because it might even be colder outside than inside the restaurant itself. How convenient, i say.

Fold me up
Fold me up
Take me out
Take me out
I'm portable

Fold me up
Fold me up
Take me out
Take me out
I'm portable

Mongolia

When i visited my aunt's house in Taiwan when i went back last year, she showed us a couple of pictures she took while she was in Mongolia. I'm not sure when she actually went there, but she showed us the photographs she took and they were gorgeous. Mongolia has got to be one of the most untamed places in the world, and i have never seen a sky as blue as that ever before. Of course, you might say that it was her photography skills that produced such beautiful pictures. But keep in mind, that later when we were taking group photos with my relatives, she took an awful five minutes to figure out how to zoom. So you see, it has nothing to do with photography skills. There in Mongolia, you need not of any skills to take beautiful pictures. Like i said about India, all you need to do is to wave your camera out of the bus window and take something random, and the result is going to be breathtaking anyway. Save the thousand dollar cameras people, just visit Mongolia for the same artistic result. Hell, the plane ticket there might even be cheaper too.

Out here
we just sing and play whatever we feel
And the feather falling out of bed at night is real
When you're travelling on a box with eighteen wheels

If I can go anywhere at all
If I can go anywhere at all
If I can go anywhere at all
If I can go anywhere, anywhere

Warsaw, Poland

I have two reason why i would like to visit this place. The Pianist and Schindler's List, two movies about the World War II that moved me to tears. Of course, you can group these two movies under the same banner as any other War Movies, because they happened during the time of war. But really, i think these two movies belong to a genre of their own: Holocaust. Both movies tell about the survival stories of Jewish people, and reasons behind their ultimate survival of course the fate of some other unluckier ones. I remember watching Schindler's List with my mother for the first time, and i remember being moved to tears literally because i was just deeply saddened by the film. Not just because of the amount of death, not because of the fact that the film was in black and white, or because of the way the little girl in red was carted off somewhere in the middle of the film. It was because of the atrocities of mankind against our own merely sixty years ago that moved me.

So, I'd like to take that emotion a step further by visiting the places where the Jews were actually executed. Warsaw Poland was where the largest ghetto ever created during World War II, and of course the most famous Concentration Camp in Europe is also located in Poland, called Aushwitz. I remember seeing pictures of the Aushwitz concentration camp, with the shaved hair gathered into bags after bags in storerooms, some of them still braided and neatly tied up in a bunch. Not to mention the shoes, the clothes, and other personaly belongings that belonged to the people that died there. That place is now a museum, commemorating the loss of those Jews during the war. I wonder how it is like to be there myself, to be immersed in that place and to feel the pain and sufferings. Of course, i can only imagine how it is like back in those days. But still, to be THERE...that's something, really.

And if I can go anywhere at all
And if I can go anywhere at all
I mean if I really really really can go anywhere at all
Won't you tell me why..
Won't you tell me why..
Why..
Why Georgia, why?


Cairo, Egypt

Okay, this is a little more common than all the other ones i mentioned. I know i mentioned that i am not really the kind of person who can tolerate heat, but to view the pyramids with my own eyes! Anything is worth it. Even if it means that i have to eat the sand of Sahara, tolerate the stench of a camel hump, change my t-shirt every half an hour due to the amount of sweat, i don't care. I just want to see the ancient structures with my own eyes, and nothing is ever going to stop be from that.

I have to say, however unwillingly, that i was inspired by the Mummy movies. I remember watching it and being fascinated with Egyptian Mythologies. For a period of time i did a little research on my own on their culture, their language and their religion. It was interesting to study those, and to know that relics of the past are still present intrigues me. I guess i just want to feel young standing beside those old rocks and stones piled up so high, smelling the ancient sand and feeling the imaginary time capsule that captures me.

Oh, if i can go anywhere...If i can go anywhere...

Hey, Balcony



I stayed on the phone for a while, the constant humming ringing through my ears. It was nearly 1am at that time, and the whole house was a little too quiet for comfort, save for the trickling of the water down the back of the fish tank. Other than that, it was just me and my thoughts, bouncing around the four walls and down the corridor, submerged into the quiet darkness. Nobody was online at that time, nobody whom i had a mind to talk to anyway. Besides, the idea of telling somebody about how i felt didn't exactly appeal to me at all, since nobody was capable of understanding, i reckoned. So i took a stroll out of my room into the living room, feeling the cold white tiles under my bare feet. I like this feeling, i thought to myself. A little consolation on this cold January night. I don't remember January being so chilly at home, but then again it's not like I've experienced the January nights here for the past two years.

With the lights turned off and the night creeping into the house, the furnitures and the plants stared back at me like confused strangers. The colours were different, almost made me wonder if my mother purchased new ones again. All of a sudden, little details like that caught my attention, and this familiar feeling came back to me from the older days. I remember it was a little more than two years ago, when i used to take the same stroll through the house alone like that, wondering where to go and what to do, immersed in my own thoughts. I never told anybody about them, and it's not like i had a proper avenue to do so. As much as i treat my blog as the best friend around, there are just some things I'd rather leave out of the cyberspace, but to the air around myself alone in the night.

The only light came from the balcony, the yellow light from above always turned on. My mother likes to keep a couple of lights turned on at night, since she is not a big fan of a dark house. So the lamp is always turned on, and i remember back in the school days, i used to take refuge right there on the straw benches, just sitting there and watching the world grow quiet as the clock ticked by. The view from the 19th floor is drastically different from anywhere else's, and i liked it very much. As i stepped through the glass doors, i murmured under my breath to this old concrete friend of mine. "Hey, Balcony" i said, as i placed the cushion on the bench and sat down alone, with the notebook in my hands and jotting down random thoughts once again.

I used to study here, i remember. Lots of times, just trying desperately to cram text and information into my head. But of course, from the endless lines of a textbooks, my eyes usually drift off the edges of the paper to the scenery beyond the brown railings. The street lights lining the empty streets, the lonely lights along HDB corridors, the drunkard stumbling out of his posh B&W, the middle age man catching a late night soccer match alone in his living room, a couple in the opposite block minding their own businesses, the wind blowing against my cheeks and penetrating my thin t-shirt. It was a night too cold to be alone, i thought to myself. And i rubbed my palms on my arms to keep warm. January nights, i thought to myself. January nights...

Walt Whitman was a famous poet in the late 1800s if i am not wrong. One of his most famous body of work revolves around ideas that dealt with humans' relation to their environment, and how everything - including the non-living things - had a life and soul of their own. The pots of plants in the balcony, the chair that i was sitting on, the notebook that i held in my hands, everything. Michael Cunningham elaborated on that idea in his book Specimen Days, and pushed that idea to a further realm by actually suggesting a working mind of their own. It was a far fetched idea when i first read it of course, but yesterday night on the balcony i sort of understood the need of being open-minded about it.

There are things that I don't or can't say to people, things that people will not understand. Even if they do, it wouldn't help at all by voicing my thoughts. There are some people, or a person, whom i desperately want to tell my thoughts to, but can't. Not even my blog, not anywhere. But with the company of those plants at the balcony, for some reason, i didn't feel all that alone anymore. You might think that i am a little loony for doing whatever that i did, but i actually spoke my thoughts there to the things around the balcony, as if they were old friends of mine.

But true enough, i remember when i was a kid, i used to bury my toys in the soil, or make them climb the stems of the plants and the pretending that i was the king of the jungle. I buried a dozen dead fishes from the fish tank there, and i remember one rainy afternoon when i wept over the death of a pink fish we bought for merely three days. I sort of grew up with all the familiar objects at the balcony, and with age i left them there in the cold nights while i retreated into the room of mine, locked up with my own thoughts and suffocating under their weight. I forgot the liberating feeling of telling my thoughts to the rest of the world, through the balcony on the 19th floor, and it was a great feeling to do that all over again.

Well, you might think i am a little psychotic to do such a crazy thing alone in the middle of the night, but to tell you the truth i don't even care what you guys think about me anymore. It made me feel better after an emotional outburst, and who cares if my audience is a bunch of cancer patients or pots of plants? Because really, there are some thoughts of mine, that i can never tell to anybody.

So i sat there for a full two hours last night, until the roads were emptied and the night grew colder. I couldn't take the temperature anymore, taking refuge back in the house. But the leaves continued to nod to the beating of the wind, the yellow light continued to shine without dwindling, and the cushion was left there even till the early morning. I said everything that i wanted to say to somebody, and to nobody at the same time. Isn't that some kind of experience by itself?

I cannot elaborate on what i said, because that would defeat the purpose. But to me, my balcony is just one of the many friends that i have neglected as of late. At least there at the balcony, i feel brave and sane enough to voice my thoughts, knowing that nobody is going to be judgmental or hurt by my comments or thoughts. Because there, on the 19th floor, everybody speaks the language of silence, and silence to me at times like then, is more precious than any voices that could possibly cheer my soul.

Crooked Smile



Don't let your mind get weary and confused
Your will be still, don't try
Don't let your heart get heavy child
Inside you there's a strength that lies

You never looked back, you never did. The back of you disappeared around the corner, with your head never turning and inch back towards where i was standing. Your hand stayed in mine for a while then, as you turned to leave. It was as if your mind and body acted upon themselves while your hand belonged to a body of someone else's. It stayed with me for a split second, and the rest of yourself took hold and pulled it away from me. I had a great day, and an especially great night. It shouldn't have ended like this, it shouldn't have ended it in that way. The worst of all, i didn't even have anything to do with the back of you leaving me like that, and that made me feel worse than ever.

70% of what a person is trying to say is through his or her gestures, and being with you made me learn about yours. I know the difference between the you i know who doesn't have anything to say, and the you who doesn't know how to get around saying what you have in your mind. On the bus trip back, there was a body of chill that blasted me from the left. No, it is not your fault but your troubled mind, that i understood. You came closer to me as the bus kept on rumbling, and the softness of your hair against my cheek made me want to reach into that head and pluck out whatever that was making you upset. Your eyes rolled, and tears welled on the brink of your eyelids. I saw them but uttered not a word, because people were all around us and i didn't want those tears to fall, or even mine to do the same in that crowded bus. But there was this pain inside me as well, the way i always feel when you look that way.

Don't let your soul get lonely child
It's only time, it will go by
Don't look for love in faces, places
It's in you, that's where you'll find kindness

I know there are certain things in your life right now, that you are trying to grasp. I am trying to grasp them myself too. But you are not alone in this because like we said at the very beginning, i hope that we can do everything together in life. I want to sit next to you on the sofa after a hard day's work and watch television. I want to shop for furnitures with you and i still do. I want to buy that salt and pepper set with you and place them on our dining table. I want to sleep with your on that pillow we saw at Takashimaya. I want to wake up in the morning with you by my side every day, and i want you to fill up that empty face I've always dreamed of as a child, that angelic figure looking down at me with jet black hair and in white flowy dress. She never had a face, faceless for twenty years until you came along. I want you to fill that permanently, i want you to be mine. I want you to stay here with me, and i want you to be in my dreams and out of it.

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

But all of that, all of what i said, doesn't matter if i do not know what is inside of you, what is it that you are facing now. I cannot stand myself, or rather I'd hate myself knowing that I have all but the true beauty that you hold inside. I don't want an empty vessel, just a person to hold but not know. That is why, I want to hear your problems, i want to hear your stories. I want to hear why you are upset, even when you have no idea how to put them across to me.

Don't lose your faith in me
And I will try not to lose faith in you
Don't put your trust in walls
'Cause walls will only crush you when they fall

Because we are in this together, you and me. You might be upset along the way of finding yourself, you might even try to put on a smile that might seem crooked from where i look. But don't worry, i wouldn't mind that, nothing of those. I want to be here for you, even if it means that i have to - in the future - forsake the chance of buying furniture with you, sit on the sofa and watch television with you. I don't CARE any of those if i cannot at least make you believe in yourself once again.

Here, i offer my hands and heart to you. Put my hands to good use when you need somebody to hold, and my heart to good use when you need someone to know. This is how it is going to be between us, no matter how hard the road might be, no matter how crooked your smile is. This is you, and this is me. This is us, and in between that, nothing but a whole lot of love. Believe me, believe us, even if it is you that you do not. Us, that is the strongest bond in the world, those two letters. It is hard to believe, but trust me on this. I know, i really do. I've never been this sure about a relationship between two people before. This is real, this is true. This is solid, and believe me, we can get through this...and we will.

Be here now, here now
Be here now, here now

Gattaca



There are some movies that i am just not fated to watch. You know, once you miss it in the theaters due to one reason or another, you tell yourself that cable television is the greatest invention in the world, and that as long as you get to watch it on cable a couple of months later, then it is okay. Another reason why one might not be fated to watch a certain film might be because of immaturity. Well, at least that was the case for me when Gattaca was in the theaters. I was in Primary Five and probably didn't have enough brain capacity to absorb anything more sophisticated than say, Toy Story. Even if i actually understood the basic plot of the movie, i wouldn't have understood the beautifully crafted storyline and screenplay, the cinematography and most of all, the issues involved in the movie and so much more. I might not even have liked the movie if i watched it there and then. So in a way, i am glad that i wasn't fated to watch it back then, or anytime close to the release date.

Ten years later, Star Movies actually showed that movie again, but for some reason i didn't get pass the opening credits. So i vowed to get it on DVD after raving reviews from the internet as well as my beau (Who watched it three times). And finally, after sitting through it in the comfort of my own home, at my own free time and absolute concentration, there is only one thing i can say about this movie: Fucking brilliant.

Gattaca tells of the story of Vincent, an In-valid or a genetic outcaste, craving for an opportunity to fly into space simply because of a passion he dared to dream. But because at birth, this fictional society that exists in the not-so-distant future, like all the other God-child, or naturally conceived child, he was examined immediately and told of his heart defects. The fact that he had flaws made him invalid for any space missions, no matter how brilliant his examination results might be, or how well his physical built is. Because of his heart problem known at birth and his precise date of death, the dream of flying into outer space was strictly out of his league.

However, there was a way to get around the system. And that is, to fake an identity right down to the blood on your fingertips, the urine samples and the eye colour. Jude Law's character Jerome Morrow was a great swimmer before his car accident, and throughout his life he never attained anything more than a silver award at competitions. Now that he was paralyzed, he lent Vincent his identity by giving him his blood, his urine samples and even contact lenses to mimic the colour of his own eyes, to allow him to have a chance to get into the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. So initially, the janitor who Vincent was, became an elite in Gattaca and slowly climbed up the ladder to become an official navigator under a false identity.

But his dreams to fly to Titan was utterly shattered when a murder of the mission commander happened in the vicinity of the facility, and Vincent became the prime suspect of it all. Throughout the movie, it has a lot of cat and mouse chase to track down Vincent, this so-called In-valid who really is Jerome at that time. A brilliant all-round performance from the cast and the crew.

At first look, Gattaca would already seem like a carefully crafted film. Every single shot was carefully calibrated and designed. The camera-work in this movie too, took on a soft touch to the settings and the characters. There are other very subtle ideas pouring out at the audience that raised an eyebrow for me when i read the trivia over at IMDB.com. For example, the spiral staircase in Vincent's home was made to mimic the DNA structure. The name "Gattaca" is composed entirely of the letters used to label the nucleotide bases of DNA. The four nucleotode bases of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are adenine, thymine, cytosine, and guanine, stuff like that.

It is a little unfair to call this movie a sci-fi movie because of the lack of sci-fi elements in this movie. It was mentioned somewhere that this movie probably is one of the lowest budget science fiction movie ever produced. And that is true, as you look at the movie with its simplicity involved as well as the set designs. All of those were made to give us a very organised feel of the future, a very orderly sensation, which the crew successfully pulled off.

With such a movie, we start to examine the nature of genetic discrimination. Of course, such a technology doesn't exist just yet, but writer Andrew Niccol truly exploited the possibilities of this technology in the future and then examined the problems that might be related to it. Of course, Niccol skillfully left out the political effects of it, but i guess that would only complicated the story in the most unnecessary way. Like a lot of other movie themed with discrimination - be it racial or sexual - there is always an underlying theme of a person wanting to fulfill a dream of his or her own, despite conventional ideas or traditions about his or her own race, gender, or even - like this movie - genes. Sure, you can always use this movie to examine the consequences of humans trying to meddle with the human genes. But to me, what struck me the most about this movie wasn't that issue, which to me was rather secondary, but really the journey and hardship of a man with his life truly bent on realising his dream. That to me was the most inspirational aspect of this movie, really.

You can argue that Jerome's character is a sinister one. With his own desire to become number one, or a champion, his greed to do so overwhelmed him throughout the film. You can use that to argue that his friendship with Vincent never was a true one, merely one built on self-benefit from both ends. But i say, although that is the case at the very beginning of the film (Jerome was portrayed as a proud, arrogant character at the start, evidently shown when he commented that Vincent's eyes aren't as beautiful as his own), but i seriously doubt if that continued till the end of the movie. I thought by the end of the movie - which must be one of the most moving sequence i have ever seen in cinematic history - there wasn't a hint of what we saw between that friendship at the very beginning.

Writer Andrew Niccol never compromised on the action, with his smart screenplay and character development. He keeps the audience on the edge without actually having the need of creepy music, or his characters pretending to be scared. He merely switches in between shots, creating a sense of tension in the audience. The scene with Jerome desperately climbing up the spiral staircase with own his arms as the detective arrives must have been the most tensed up i have ever been. All and all, a truly well crafted movie and one that i strongly recommend.

Gattaca Preview:

Secret Igloo



Tiredness fuels
Empty thoughts
I find myself
Disposed
Brightness fills
Empty space
In search of
Inspiration

*

There is a place forgotten by a lot of people, a place that we found today in the South. The waters were calm, disturbed only by the ripples caused by the wind, and the soft whispers that we exchanged, as the sky slowly darkened, welcoming the coming of the night with a brilliant display of red and orange, streaked across the sky like a multi-coloured rainbow. I don't remember it being there, the last time i went there more than a year ago. It was the first or December in 2005 i remember, and the lot of us were there with the rest of the company. It was company cohesion day, and that area was off limits. Besides, there was no need to venture out that far anyway. So we stayed on the soccer field, and never knew the hidden paradise beyond the trees, the place where i call our "Secret Igloo".

*

In Primary School it was cool to have a secret hide out, or a secret place where people talks about. I've always dreamed of a tree house, a place where i can climb up and then feel safe from the rest of the world. I dreamed of that when i was a kid, but the lawn in front of my house never had a tree taller than myself back then. Despite the forest that stretched on up above the peak of the hill and then over to the other side, i never had a real tree to myself ever. Of course, moving to Singapore sure didn't help because who the hell has a tree higher than your knee when you are living in a condominium?

To tell you the truth, to have a little tree house to myself has always been a fantasy of mine. In fact, it doesn't even need to be a tree house, but a house within a house where i can take refuge in when i am upset, when i breakdown, or when i simply want to be alone with myself. I needed and wanted a place like that even in Singapore, and the closest i got to having that dream fulfilled was a foam-board built house that i did for myself in the balcony. You know those soft foam floorboards they put on the floors of kindergartens so that kids won't hurt themselves if they fall? I had a lot of those back then, and i actually pieced together two house at the balcony, one for myself and one for my sister. In between the two houses the 'phone' lazily hung on a string. Well, it wasn't really a real phone but a thread with two cups on each end, and we would speak through the cups as if we were neighbours. That was my secret hideout at home, when i felt nobody understood me, or if i felt ignored. I fled to my foam house and stayed there for hours on end, never to return to the harsh reality outside of the door.

The idea of a secret hideout was intriguing, and i remember looking for one even in school. After all, facing the dreaded faces of the teachers in school was one thing, and facing their raining saliva was another as they peered down at you with those menacing eyes and threatened to eat you up if you score anything lower than a 80 for any tests, that was something that i couldn't take at all. What made it worse was the fact that i couldn't run back home like i did when i was in a kindergarten in Taiwan. But anyway, i needed a hideout in school, away from the menacing teachers and the crazy principal.

*

Harder now
With higher speed
Washing in
On top of me

*

The bus came to a rumbling stop, and the both of us stepped out through the folding doors, with myself biting on my nails, unsure of the place we were at. Sure enough, the field was there with the steamboat restaurants on our left. But it has been quite a considerable number of days since i was last there, and i was there in the middle of the afternoon, not when the sun is setting behind the trees and the smell of the steamboat stores drifting across the street.

But nonetheless, we made our way across the road and stepped onto the grassy field. I never knew that the rain from yesterday left puddles of mud all around, and she actually had to take off her shoes and walk through those puddles barefooted. By the time we found a concrete footpath that led down towards the beach, her feet were already covered in mud, which had me apologizing all the way from the beginning to the end. But her smile hung ever so naturally on her face that night, with the soft glow of the lamps that lined the walkway reflecting off her skin and casting a shadow around her dimple. She looked so beautiful, even with the mud covering her feet, as she made little footprints that led all the way from where she was back to where the grass started. I smiled back at her, and the grip around our hands grew tighter.

*


So I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
When I’m down down down

*


The red line marks the route that we took to the garden.

The science garden at the back of the school was seldom visited. I vaguely remember this one time when that male Malay teacher brought his own class down there and checked out the plants, since we were learning about the different types of leaves and their shapes. It was that mere once and that's it, and the rest of the times, students ran to and fro on the green field never noticing the existence of the house that was in the science garden. Weeds grew and hung down the metal roof, and the garden was badly tended to. Grass grew all over the place and went out of control, and the door to the little house in the corner of the garden collapsed at one point. The gates to the garden rusted, and the lock to the gate remained that way for a very long time. And because of the general untidy look of the garden, stories about that place brewed as the students peered from a safe distance over the fences. The nearest anybody dared to venture was perhaps the hedges along the fences to catch spiders or other insects. But anything further than that was off limits to anybody, not even when the secret hole was discovered by my group of adventurous friends one day, while rummaging through the bushes looking for giant spiders.

With the discovery of the hole, it caused an uproar in the boys' community. Because that meant a direct way out of school and into the school without detection. Of course, skipping school was strictly out of the books of our parents, and even the students weren't too keen on breaking that rule. But the secret garden laid beyond that hole, and over the monsoon drain on the edge of the garden was yet another hole in the fence. We don't know how the holes were made in the first place, or who was daring enough to make those holes. But what the hell, we thought. It called for an adventure, and an adventure was what we got.

*

The placid waters greeted us, as we stepped through the dim lights of the lamps and onto a wooden platform that stuck out into the bay. Nobody was around at that time, and the whole place was quiet. Before us was Marina Bay, with the ocean stretching out into our right while on the left, the skyline of the central business district. The lights from the city bounced off the surface of the water, the cars zipping along the ECP quietly without making a sound, the world rushing away in their busy madness, forgetting about the little paradise that we were in. It was like finding out about a secret oasis that no other people in the world knew about, especially with the number of visitors there, it felt as if we found a lost corner of Singapore, looking at the world we came from from the inside of a bubble. That place belonged to us, and us only. We claimed the stretch of the coast, and nobody was around then to take it from us.

*

Rain it wets
Muddy roads
I find myself
Exposed
Tapping does
But irritate
In search of
Destination

*

The team was made up of four of us. I forgot my team member, but i was sure the first person through that hole. I remember that day very well, when the boys decided to venture into the unknown. The four of us scrambled to the back of the school as the other students watched. We took careful steps down the grassy slope and then followed the line of bushes to the edge where the fences ended and the concrete fence of the private housing started. There was indeed a hole as Alex said, and we dug our way through the thick vegetation and crawled on our four over dead leaves and broken twigs.

We were through! We were through! The four of us were out of school through the first secret hole, and the crowd that gathered at the top of the slope cheered as we waved back at them with fists of triumph. The school looked a little different from that angle, and everything was so new to us as we've never ventured out of school from that way, and not to mention the haunted house that laid before our feet.

Tales crept into our minds as we made our way along the monsoon drain. The murky waters below reflected our shadows, and we curled and twisted as the waters continued running. It must've been a bad omen, but we took no heed to that, but only to the beating of our hearts. Faster and faster as we took careful steps down the pavement and towards the bridge. The old takes of the man that lived in the abandoned house in the science garden, and how he ate chickens alive and threw their bones out of the front door. That was why the house was never torn down despite the construction of the school, and that was why the chickens continued to disappear every time we tried to replenish the stalk. The boys were afraid, and our palms were sweaty. But we soldiered on into the unknown, and soon enough we stood before the locked gates of the secret garden.

The green paint were wearing off the metal railings, and the thick lock stared back into our eyes, as we looked on hopeless and disheartened. We were hoping that the gate would be unlocked, but it was tightly shut from the side of the world. The pavement below our feet led down the monsoon drain some more, and i vaguely remembered another hole behind a hanging bush of periwinkle that led into the garden. So i led the boys down the pavement along the drain and sure enough, my memory proved its worthiness. There was indeed another secret hole hiding behind a tall bush, and like before we crawled through on all fours and finally into the secret garden itself.

The grass reached over our ankles, and we picked our way carefully through the maze of mimosa grass and other wild plants. The classmates and schoolmates watched on from the field behind the school, some of them taking turns to watch if any teachers were coming to get us. They looked on as the four brave souls - including myself - stepped into the forbidden land behind the school because of one desire and that desire only: To find a place to call our own, even if it means that we have to venture into the lair of the chicken eating maniac.

The dark metal house loomed in sight, and our steps slowed down to a crawl. The weeds hung lazily down from all sides of the house, and the inside of it was as dark as an abyss. We crept forward through the thick layer of grass, and our shoes were once in a while, tangled amongst the weeds. But we pulled them out, and as we got within ten meters of the house, the team stopped short and turned to one another. Who was going to take the initiative and look into the darkness, to face the chicken eating maniac? Nobody knew for sure, but our eyes stared into one another's with doubt and most of all, fear.

I volunteered in the end, and the other boys agreed to pray for my soul. I crept forward slowly while the rest of the crowd held their breaths. The sun scorched my skin at the back of my neck, but i pushed on as sweat continued to drip into my eyes. My heart was beating so fast i was afraid that the maniac inside the house might hear it. I placed my hand over my chest to prevent the sound from being heard, and at the same time i backed myself slowly to the edge of the door and peered into the deep dark.

There was a broken straw chair in the corner, with the yellow paint fading off with time. The seat where the buttocks usually rested was broken, and the straws were everywhere around the floor. I took a step, and then another, and then another into the house as i heard the sudden gasps of disbelief from the outside. The dead leaves crunched under my feet as i took more steps into the house, turned around and around to check for the existence of that maniac. My heart was beating faster now, and sweat came pouring down my forehead and my back because of the lack of ventilation inside the house. That was when i stepped on something, and took a peek down under my Bata shoes.

It was a chicken bone, a lot of them scattered around the floor beside the broken straw chair. And next to the pile of chicken bones was a larger bone that most obviously belonged to an animal bigger than a chicken. It was about the length of my palm then, and i picked it up and examined it in the sunlight that was streaming in through a small hole in the metal wall. I stepped back out into the garden and the rest of the team gasped at the thing in my hand. Even before i was able to tell what that thing was, one of them rushed back towards the second hole and the others followed, shouting on top of their lungs "HUMAN BONE! HUMAN BONE!"

The crowd freaked out, and they all scattered as i emerged from the hole myself and back up the slop. They ran in all different directions, wanting to see the bone in my hand but at the same time, dared not. I was sure that it wasn't a human bone, and that it was probably too heavy to be a bone in the first place. But nobody believed me, and they just kept screaming all around as i tried to convince them their mistake.

So ended our little adventure to the back of the school, and the holes were sealed up soon after some idiot told the teachers about them. Our secret garden and hideout were taken away from us, but it's not like the rest of the boys had any intentions on going back to that house. In the end, i found out by my own logic that the chickens that they had were probably eaten by the cats that ventured through the hole like we did. The bones that i found were merely the leftovers by the cat, and the man that supposedly lived in that old house never existed at all. I still cannot explain the straw chair, but the bone i found definitely wasn't human. It probably was just a long piece of stone that was bleached white by the sun, that's all. So much for a haunted house and a great adventure...

*

Harder now
With higher speed
Washing in
On top of me so

So I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
When I’m down down down

*

So as the wind softly blew against our cheeks and her hair flying into her face, we laid down on the wooden platform with my back underneath our heads, as we stared up into the sky untouched by the lights from the city, observing as planes soared across the sky and the constellations hiding behind the moving clouds. The goat rushed by as Santa Claus chased swiftly after. And thousands of jellyfishes swarmed the night sky as we warmed each others' bodies and smiled into each others' lips. We found our last secret hideout, our secret igloo.

The skies finally darkened, and we were all alone. Visitors from that side of the world came into ours, passing by in chattering shadows and soft footsteps. We minded our own businesses in the cover of the trees above, and the salty air of the sea attacked our nostrils, as we breathed into the necks of one another and held on to them as the scent our hair remained stubborn and lingered. Orion shone proudly above, and our bare feet scratched the tarmac road, as we took a lazy stroll down the beach and then came to the bench in the middle of nowhere.

That was our "Middle-Of-Nowhere", our secret hideout. Finally, no school authority to shut out the secret entrance, or nobody to scare the living daylights out of us. It was just myself and my eskimo friend, with her beautiful hair flying in the air as the wind blew from the bushes behind. The way the citylights reflected off the surface of her eyes, as she stared into mine and whispered those beautiful words. I shall never forget the way, as we strolled hand in hand back to the bus stop, the way she leaned on me and told me that she was happy that night. That very night as we went there and back again, into a seemingly different realm and back to earth again. It is a night that i shall never forget, my love. Never to forget.

Is this love? i asked myself. This is love, isn't it? Yes, your voice whispered in my head. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes... ...

*

Kosketa minua (touch me)
Älä käsilläsi (not with your hands)
Vaan niin että tunnen sinut (but the way I can feel you)

Kosketa minua (touch me)
Älä käsilläsi (not with your hands)
Mutta sielussasi (but within your soul)

Minä kaipaan eskimo-ystävääni (I look to my eskimo friend)