In Continuum.

Twenty Nine Days Later

When I was a young girl I used to seek pleasure
When I was a young girl I used to drink ale
Out of the ale house down into the jail house
My body's salvating and hell is my doom

Twenty nine days later, it is going to be a day I am supposed to be excited about. Twenty nine days later, it is going to be a day I cannot wait to come. Twenty nine days later, it is going to be my birthday, my twenty-first birthday. And seeing all the little parties being thrown every month throughout the island, by my friends and friends of friends, there is a little temptation inside me to do just the same. To have all my friends come over to my place and throw a great big party, to splurge disgusting amount of money on food and drinks, then have the time of my life until I am officially being labeled as an adult. It's going to be like a bachelor party of sorts, the way your friends would hire a hooker or two over to your house and have a crazy party the night before you get married off to the love of your life - hopefully.

And as for me, my marriage is going to be to life itself - adulthood. I think I have mentioned this before in the previous entries, but to stand now at the end of May, less than a month before the impending doom, there is a different sort of feeling towards the end of my idiocy, my teenage years. Friends of mine threw parties to celebrate this marriage, friends of mine invited me to their party to bid farewell to their own blissful, childish days. However, most of them just want to see old friends all together in one venue and have fun hanging out, dressed in strange costumes dictated by the specific themes, with loud music blasting in the background and drinks being drank and poured cup after cup. Being in the midst of it all, sometimes I wonder what it is all for, what is the purpose of it all. Because standing at a month to my own birthday, I no longer see the need of doing so anymore.

Come mama come papa and sit you down by me
Come sit you down by me and pity my case
My poor head is achin' my sad heart is breakin'
My body's salvating and hell is my doom

When it comes buying presents, I am better off searching for some lost treasure in the Amazonian rain forest, or some secret herb to cure cancer in the mountains of China. To tell you the truth, if the level of friendship is quantitative and can be calculated by the amount or type of gifts that you buy for a friend's birthday, I am probably the worst friend that you can get. This is probably something genetic, because my mother hates buying presents too. And to think that the both of us only like to receive them would be an inaccurate judgment, for we both hate to receive presents as well. Of course, they always say that it is not an obligation to buy anything for a friend during a party, or to spare a few hours of a day just to get a present. But once that friend gives you something on your birthday, you are then obliged - subconsciously - to do the same. And that pressure really amounts as the date of the party draws closer.

Birthdays never meant much to me throughout my twenty one years on earth. I don't remember much about my birthdays, save for a few cakes here and there with a few presents. I have been cultivated and have been taught not to take birthdays for granted, for my mother calls it the day which your mother suffered so many years ago by giving birth to you. So in a way, it'd be strange to celebrate such a day when so much blood and so much sweat was shed. It's not like I agree with her, but it's just that like the last day of every year, I have failed to be excited about it anymore. You imagine orchestra music playing at the stroke of midnight, confetti falling around you and people throwing surprise party just for you at that very second. But of course, as you sit alone in your air-conditioned room at the stroke of midnight, everything remains the same and unchanged. Then you tell yourself," Wow, birthdays are over-rated indeed."

Please send for the preacher to come and pray for me
And send for the doctor to heal all my wounds
My poor head is achin' my sad heart is breakin'
My body's salvating and I'm bound to die

I remember the afternoon when my Secondary School friends and I were sitting before the giant LCD television over at Lido cinema, talking about life in our white and blue school uniform too tight and short for our rapidly growing teenage bodies. It was an afternoon after school, and my same old gang were sitting at the wooden tables and benches, drawing random shapes in the pools of ketchup with our French fries and talking about life. Then it came to the subject of birthdays, and Krishna took out from his bag little gifts that he bought for us from a recent Bali trip. To me, he gave a little statue of...well, something. It looked like a woman I think, I could tell from the saggy wooden breasts that the artiste carved. But the shape was so distorted and twisted I'm still unsure about my conclusion.

Anyway, this is what usually happens when you get a gift from a certain somebody. The gift is revealed, you try to comprehend what it is, followed by you thanking him or her for the gift and then tugging them into your own bag or pocket. If the gift turns out to be something you like, great. Tell the friend about it. But if the gift turns out to be something you are unsure of - like the wooden lady with the saggy breasts - keep quiet about it. Because of the mishap in choosing the gifts, we all vowed to not buy each other presents anymore. Instead, give each other cash and have us buy the gifts ourselves. At least you can't blame anybody for getting you a weird present anymore. And if it turns out to be yet another wooden lady with saggy breasts, you'd only have yourself to blame.

So for this year's birthday, I am not expecting anything from anybody. I intend to sleep the day away - if possible - and do whatever that I do in a day. I am not going to throw a party, I am not going to invite friends over for a gathering, or whatever. It is going to save a lot of cost, and it is also going to save a lot of awkward moments from happening during a party. After all, it is impossible to entertain every single group of friends you have at a party. Some people are going to feel left out, while others will be bored by everything. It is just not humanly possible to satisfy everybody, and that's why the idea of a party to throw everybody together turns me off. I'd rather have smaller gatherings with just a few friends, and have my attention devoted to them over a nice dinner and a few drinks. That is my idea of a party anyway, and never one that involves loud music and big crowds.

One morning one morning one morning in May
I saw this young lady all wrapped in white linen
All wrapped in white linen and call out the plague

So what is going to happen twenty nine days later? I have no idea. Probably a few messages, a few drinks, laughter and talks - which is about it. At the end of the day, tuck myself into my bed and fall asleep for the first day of the rest of my life. It is going to be a forgettable day, with a forgettable beginning and end. But why does it matter? Unless I am given a s briefcase load of cash, then I might be a very happy man.

Still, I have twenty nine days left to be foolish, be idiotic, be anything but an adult. I am going to be allowed into R-rated movies, visit The Condom Shop without anybody stopping me at the entrance, or go to certain clubs without any restrictions - if I club at all. But with so much more things to do, why do I still feel so small, so minute? If only I still have twenty nine months left to twenty nine days later. If only.

Copyright Violation

...but exceptions can be made from time to time.



I miss you too Janice. The idiotic January just cannot come sooner.

The Blower's Daughter

And so it is
Just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
Most of the time

With soft brown hair that teased the curvature of her shoulders, she concealed her beautiful face behind those natural veils. In the fitting striped top and her denim skirt that reached just above her knees, there was an air of demure around her. But amidst that, a sense of vitality too, an explosion of emotions out of those placid expressions. The curves at the ends of your mouth, the only hint of your amusement. The gentle brown hair in the tributaries of black, interrupted by the white glow that the lights above made. I've seen you only through the corner of my eyes but never stared, felt the presence in the classrooms but never dared. Dared to converse, dared to interact. Dared to do anything that might make myself fall deeper inside. Into myself, the calamity of the heart.

Your sipped carefully at the cup of tea in your hands, cupping them with your small hands as if the air-conditioning made frost around your finger tips. It was cold, but not nearly as bad as you made it look like really. I wonder how long you took to drink that tea, because at the rate you were doing so, it could have taken a life time to do so. But that was the beauty of it all, the slow patient ways in you, that nonchalant innocence perhaps that stood out from all the rest. In the crowd, amongst your newfound friends, you were the only person that caught my attention, the way other flaunting classmates failed to do. But you aren't like them, the way they would as they walk down corridors or classroom aisles. You kept your distance, you marked your area. But still, with the way you attempted to keep out of sight, the beauty in your eyes shines through almost every single time. And you sit there, unknowingly betrayed.

And so it is
The shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

Over the voice of Mr. Basnat, the voice of the class drifted in layers, over one another and then crashed into each other. The back of the class was involved in a series of bimbotic conversations that revolved around anything from cellulite cream to Powerpuff Girls, while the front of the class - where I was - leaned as far as their body could take them, over the front edge of the tables just to catch the next slide of words, or the next graph on the white board. We didn't want to miss anything, didn't want to have our money flushed down the drain because of our laziness, our inattentiveness. But at the back, the sound of girls laughing and making pathetic attempts to cover their laughter could be heard from where I was, and my constant and frequent stares into the back of the lecture hall curbed not their utter inconsideration and stupidity. But at least - I told myself - I was at the front, and I was making every minute worth it. Every minute. And just as I was about to return my attention to the board, the people behind waged a battle with bubble tea pearls. Great, a new low.

There is something good about studying Economics all over again in University, despite the tragic and horrendous results that I obtained in the past. At least now, I understand every word that Mr. Basnat is saying, even if his accent might have prevented me from doing so. His pronunciation of 'Singapore' becomes 'Singapu' most of the time, and it becomes - at times - hard to figure out some economical terms amidst his thick Middle-Eastern accents and sudden uproars of emotions when it comes to economical principles. After all, this is the same man that obtained a Ph.D in Economics, you cannot expect lesser passion from such a person to be honest.

I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Despite my efforts to focus on the boards, the constant reminder that I wrote on every page of my notes, my mind strays once in a while to the rows and rows of students sitting about me. The multi-colored tiers going up from the bottom of the lecture hall, guys dressed in smart long-sleeved shirts while girls flaunted their bosoms, wearing nothing more than a tight singlet and strapless brassiere. They were distractions, and it's not like the noise they were making were of any help at all. Their voices came into my head, like heavy hammer strokes bearing down on a stubborn nail. But the nail remains unmoved, standing tall upon the piece of wood. With every stroke of the hammer, the sound only grew louder and heavier, pounding the side of my head with skull crushing force.

For the last time, I stared back into the crowd behind. The Battle of Bubble Tea Pearls was at its peak, and somewhere down the row was a row of students with their laptops opened. Ignorant, nonchalant and rude, they cared little of what the lecturer had to say, or if it was evident that they were wasting their own well-paid money on the lecture they were having. Though I couldn't see what they were doing, they were probably surfing the net through the school's network, or chatting up with a friend through MSN from another part of the island. Anything but the lesson most probably, anything but the crucial, the necessary.

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time

In the spur of the moment, I wanted to raise my hand and tell Mr. Basnat to chase those vile pigs out of the lecture hall. They were too distracting - at least for me - for us to concentrate. Their actions, their ignorant behaviors, were as good as not being there at all. But the urge within me was subsided, for such an act would only bring along a bad case of social suicide. I curbed myself, refocused my attention on the graph he just grew on the board and started jotting down notes with my black pen. Then of course, the subject of this post - the blower's daughter - took my attention away, all over again.

It was a split moment, a second that lasted no more than a heart beat. With my chin supported by my upright arm, I looked over to where she was. And she too, with a pen tucked underneath her index finger and supported by her middle and thumb, she looked over thoughtfully at my direction - as if to tell me that she too, was irritated and distracted by the noise behind. But amongst your peers, amongst the friends that you usually hang out with, you stand out but don't fit in. For some reason, they all looked a generation older than you, and your petite figured always looked to be swallowed whole by the others. But still, you stood strong and by yourself, even in the distraction of the pigs behind, you stood strong. The noise around us was suddenly lowered, as if somebody tuned down with an universal remote control. And with the volume turned down, the speed too was slowed down to a crawl. Words were seemingly dragged, motions become blurred. Laughter went out of sync with the movements of the mouth, and the piece of black pearl got stuck in mid air, paralyzed. Time stopped - I smiled - and everything started moving all over again, once more.

And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial

There is a time for everything. There is a time for love, as there is a time for the breaking down of love. There is a time also, for you to be in a gray area, to be lost, to be unsure of where to go to next, and also a time for new interests, new targets, a new life. But this isn't the right time, the right time for somebody new. It is the wrong time for such mindless infatuations, it is the wrong time for someone like you. This is the result of jealousy, of vengefulness, of hate perhaps. These little sparkle of feelings, these tiny explosions of emotions, they are merely the chemical reaction resulted from the hate and anger that I bore only weeks ago, that person who was bent on revenge, as childish as I sounded then.

It would be unfair, to treat her like a replacement. Like the coach of a basketball team, shouting at his reserved players to replace the injured rookie on the court. It would be unfair to lead a person on, to tell him or her your feelings, and then eventually let the person off the hook because you realized your mistake, you realized the truth: That people aren't as beautiful as your imaginations, that nobody can ever live up to those vivid images you conjure in the deep nights. In truth, perhaps a part of me, I do want her to be as elegant, as astounding, as everything that I mentioned in the first two paragraphs, in real life. Just so that when I do get to know her, I will not be disappointed, that I will not be dismayed. But the truth is always so ugly, isn't it? Who would have thought, a harmless looking girlfriend back then could have done such atrocities?

I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

So life goes on, with opportunities lost. And you, or you, or you, maybe even you, shall remain as part of my imaginations. Because there you shall remain evergreen, untouched by reality and the ugliness of it all. The moment I turned back, the moment I continued writing on my piece of note given out at by the lecturer at the beginning of the class, I already gave up hope, or faith, or anything that resembled those foolish emotions. It is all a part of self-defense, to protect myself from further damage. Because living a life in the shadow of the past has been hard, and to see a light at the end of the tunnel makes your eyes squint, and you no longer am able to see properly.

Which is why, just in case your heart shatters all over again, you keep your eyes closed even when the train emerges through the other end of the tunnel. Your eyelids remain shut to the sweet voices in your eyes, the smell of cheap shampoo in her hair, or the brief touch of her arm when your paths intersect at the stairwell. Your eyes remain closed, because you never know when the light might blind you permanently - like before - and you find yourself tumbling off the side of a cliff into the cold hard faces of jagged rocks.

It's not that I don't want to.

It's just that I haven't the courage to.

You had my heart, at least return my courage.

Did I say I that I loathe you?
Did I say I want to leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...

My mind.
My mind.

Till I find somebody new...

Square Sixteen



Tears you see on my face, you do have something to do with
Fear starts creeping up when you have so much to lose
Your love waits you while you're cheating
Lightning strikes you when you're moving

There was a time when sadness had a refuge, when there was a place for it to go. Like the secret clearing in the middle of the woods, or the pages of your diary. Always, there used to be place where we both went to when the words said could never untangle our frustrations, when the touches of our lips tasted more bitter than sweet. It was a place I remember only by heart, and the place which I shall never visit again. But it was a place - at least for me - when we were truly happy, and sad altogether.

The number sixteen, I remember it was a floor the elevators never reached. It was the place we went to when there wasn't anything left to do but go home. But there was always that reluctance, that hesitance to take the stairs down to your place. So we'd go up, up to the top of the block and stare out through the narrow windows. Outside the air always smelled so crisp, so brand new. Untouched by the poisonous fume pouring out into the streets from the exhaust pipes of cars, we were safe where we were, protected and far away. Despite the neighbors of yours living just a few steps above us, their doors were always locked and windows always shut. In the quiet hours of the night as the soft breeze tenderly blew, we'd tell our secrets and speak our woes. Upon the dirty steps while leaning against each other, that was how we spent the last moments of the night, counting down to the inevitable goodbye.

The light you see in my eyes, you do have something to do with
Play the game namely love, play it like you have nothing to lose
Horse loves you when you move with him
People hate you when you're changing

The lift jerked to a sudden stop, and the lights above flickered all of a sudden, and then black. The elevator got stuck somewhere in between the fifteenth and the sixteenth floor, and the fan above the ceiling boards stopped whirling, giving the silence around me a sudden amplified quality. To be in the midst of it all, I tried to reach for the penal of buttons, feeling them and counting under my breaths until I reached the emergency button, painted yellow and placed at the top of the buttons. There was a loud ring from somewhere above my head, and the lights came back on again. I was - in fact - stuck in between the fifteenth and the sixteenth floor, and with a final jerk the lift moved up to the latter and allowed me out. Despite the momentary confinement, I found myself out of breath and shaken. But the growling in my stomach was more pressing, and the headache from the shaky bus ride was in dire need of a comfortable bed to lie on.

So I dashed out of the lift doors and took the stairs up, since my house is only three stories above where I was. It has been a while since I used those stairs, and the air smelled of old wood and dust for some reason. The lights came through the holes dug through the concrete walls to my right, making orange circles on the side of the staircases with the railing. I climbed and climbed, feeling the dust gathering on the tips of my fingers as I held on to the railings tight. But at the top of the steps, I peered down at the distance that I have covered, and then the scenery outside through the carefully shaped holes on the walls. I saw my school down below, in front of it the red running tracks with soccer players running about on the fields like tiny white ants. Beyond the school, the condominium with the penthouse, a man stood at the balcony with a woman, pointing into the distance and leaning against the railing. I followed the man's fingers, and my eyes trailed down the road, and followed the silver car until the circle dug in the wall rid me of my vision. So I sat down at the top step where the sound of children screaming from the eighteenth floor could be heard, and then the smell of food being prepared in a neighbor's kitchen could be smelled. I sat there, and started imagining.

Don't let the dress trick you
I love you less now that I know you
I won't count the scars again
I love you less now that I know you

I was on a bus, bus 53. Traveling down the familiar roads and streets, the old familiar ones. The red lights came on timely, and the pedestrians took their own sweet time to cross the road - as usual. The same crowd gathered at the bus stop, the one right in front of the train station, and a school boy accidentally trips into the bus bay. Further down the road, the bus turns and it came under the shelter of the viaduct above. A short distance ahead after another traffic light, the bus turns right again and follows the flow of cars down the road until that sign, that white color sign that pointed towards a NKF branch. Turning there, the bus followed the straight road down, the playground with the spider webs passing on the left, then the clinic, followed by the park that your father does his evening jogs at. Oh, the new set of traffic lights at the front of your house, the one fifty meters from the next one, the one that amused us so very much when the machineries were brought in, only months ago.

I got off, for some reason still afraid to be seen, still afraid to be caught. But the purple anti-ultraviolet papers had no silhouettes waiting by the window, nobody waiting for you to come home, because you weren't coming home, or you probably were already. The light from the living room could be seen from the streets, and I made my way up the walkway with my hands stuck in my pocket and to the lift lobby. I looked around for your father, and the coast was clear. I breathed a sigh of relief, and took the lift all the way up to the sixth floor where the lift stopped. The old red paint still stained the ground outside the lift, and the old furnitures were piling up again. Your old neighbor watched the evening news with a bowl of porridge in her hands, and the red lights from the altar shone dully but constantly in the dimmed room. The clothes fluttered in the evening wind, swaying this way and that from the bamboo poles, the sound of the fabric brushing against one another almost echoing down the empty corridors. Was that the sound of a lingering kiss? I asked myself. Of course not, a voice said. And the voice, sounded just like mine. Of course not.

The glow you see on my face, you do have something to do with
Fear starts creeping up when you have so much to lose
Your love wait you while you're cheating
Lightning strikes you when you're moving

The Goodbye Stairs, the point of no return. I have never ventured further than the top of the stairs, but today I was able to. Because you weren't there to stop me, you weren't there to tell me that your mother might see us together, or your brother coming home from work. Your neighbor has yet to fix his doorknob, still relying on the metal bars on the gate to open the door. And the button to the doorbell is mounted on the wall, the plastic turning yellow and a thin layer of dust on top. My finger hovered above the button, picturing your face at the door, or perhaps your mother's. But this time, if it is the latter, at least I wouldn't have to lie. I'd say, "Your daughter's friend", and be proud that I spoke of the truth. She'd call for your name, and then eye me through the corner of her eyes like she did when we met for the first time.

The doorbell was pressed, the ring of the bell coming from behind the brown wooden door of yours. There was a scrambling of footsteps, somebody approaching the front door. My heart pounded, unsure of who it was going to be. But there I was, exposed to the coming person's scrutiny, but too late to run away all at the same time. The locks were undone, the presence of the person behind the door felt. And with a sudden gush of wind blasting into my face from inside, the person revealed herself to me. It was you, standing there, for the first time from within your house and I from outside. You smiled - somehow - and I did too. The sound of the traffic below disappeared, the voices from your neighbors were gone. You said your mother wasn't in, and your whole family too. So with your arm hooked around mine, I whispered once more - and for the last time - shall we?

Don't let me wonder away
I love you less now that I know you
Don't let the dress trick you
I love you less now that I know you

I opened my eyes, and faced the dimly lid stairwell on my own again. The shade of orange on the wall became darker, the sun was setting with every second that went by. I must have sat there for a while, because my hip bone was hurting and the air grew heavier for some reason. But then I realized, at that moment, where we were supposed to go in that vision of mine. Back up to the sixteenth floor, back up to the place where we never had any woes, but only tears of joy and the ones caught by each others' palms. Caught, and not fallen on the cold hard floors. At least we had each other, but not now with me standing alone on the top of my stairs. But still, I was on the sixteenth floor of my own block, and all I could do was to imagine, to picture how it'd be like to be on the sixteenth block of our personal refuge, our sanctuary - now shared with somebody else, somebody new.

Remembering the tall dark window without glass, and the view from there out. My house glittered in the distance, three dark towers with glistering lights from lighted living rooms. I pointed into the distance, smelling your hair in my face. But I smelled nothing of that familiar scent, but that of old wood and dust again. I coughed, the sound of it echoing down the stairwell and bounced off the hard concrete grounds. I miss the times on the sixteenth floor, and that place was so comfortable for you, for me, for us. But perhaps still the same for you, but never for me.

I packed myself together and climbed up the remaining steps. The remainder of the climb was hard, and my knees started aching from old injuries again. The stomach continued to growl, and my mother must have been waiting impatiently on the sofa with her pink apron on. I had to get home soon, I had to get home fast. And with that thought in mind, I squeezed out the melancholia that crept up the steps and into my mind of the sixteenth floor that I was own, that I once known, that I lost all over again.

Introducing: Blonde Redhead

I've always liked Blonde Redhead, ever since I heard their Misery is a Butterfly album. Their new album - 23 - blew my clothes off. Amazing stuff, do check them out.

You can't possibly go wrong with Kazu Makino. You just can't.

Spanish Castle Magic



It's very far away,
It takes about half a day,
To get there,
If we travel by my dragonfly

I grew up with the blue mechanical cat called Doraemon and possibly the laziest cartoon character that ever stepped foot in the world of comics, Nobita. I remember bugging my mother at bookstores to get the Doraemon comic books because I loved all the little gadgets that he'd pull out from his chest pocket. The way he solves all of Nobita's problems - willingly or unwillingly - with those futuristic and almost alien gadgets. Anything from the time machine hidden in Nobita's desk drawer, to the Dokodemo door which allows the user to get to anywhere just by opening a door, to the Take-copter that allows the users to fly.

Nobita reminded myself of myself, simply because I wasn't all that great in school either. I never scored a zero for my papers that's for sure, but I spent the bulk of the time studying, daydreaming about the life that could have been. My attention drifted from the pages of my books to the dusty windows in my bedroom, then to the cars traveling along the streets like matchboxes with wheels. In the skies, the clouds like cotton candies, like a dozen plaster of Paris, molded into strange shapes. A disfigured dog here, a bundle of bananas there. In the skies with the clouds, there were infinite possibilities for my seamless imaginations.

No, it's not in Spain,
But all the same,
You know, it's a groovy name
And the wind's just right.

At that moment, I wished for my desk drawer to slide open and to have Doraemon pop out from within, to give me his cloud hardening gas, just so that we could fly up into the clouds and build our own Kingdom of Clouds, like the time he did with Nobita and his friends. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? That'd be nice. But the bottom of the drawer always feels the same, the same hard wood with the same books and papers piled up on top of one another. The ball of dust in the corners of the drawers, no time machine waiting for me inside, no worm hole for me to crawl through into a different time. But in the pages of the comic books my mind wandered, dreaming of giant green fields and myself in the middle. Like the life of a shepherd, sitting under a great big tree watching over his herd of sheep, waiting for the sun to cross the sky on a lazy weekday afternoon.

I have often dreamed about doing that someday, to find a big green field and lie down in the middle as the clouds go by. I did that once when I was much younger, but I was at the beach and the sun was just about to set then. My family was at the East Coast restaurants, the ones that lined the coast, selling mainly seafood and other local dishes. Our relatives came for a visit back then when we were still new to Singapore, and my family decided to bring everybody there for a night out under the stars, with the salty smell of the sea in our noses. But the food interested me little and the crowd was suffocating. So I excused myself from the table and took a walk to the edge of the ocean and sat there until the stars started to appear and the clouds drifted towards the horizon where the wind was blowing to. The oil tankers and small fishing boats in the distance, against the towering clouds above made everything look so small, so tiny, so trivial.

Hang on, my darling,
Hang on, if you want to go
You know, it's a really groovy place
And it's just a little bit of Spanish Castle Magic.

I remained there for the most part of the night, feeling the cool breeze and observing the clouds. I wanted to dive into the cozy arms of the clouds, especially the one that looked like a friendly old man. Or maybe the ones that looked like scattered pieces of torn tissue. I thought a giant bird must have died somewhere in the arms of the clouds, for the clouds in the upper reaches of the skies looked like feathers, the ones you get when you tear open your pillow. There were the mountains, and then the mountains beyond those, lining the skies like a canyon of sorts, always changing with the strength of the wind blowing hard and blowing soft.

It was a couple of months after my grandfather's death - the first death in my life. My mother never truly explained the idea of death to me until moments after the yellow veils around my grandfather's coffin was lifted, and I was allowed inside to pay my last respect. I remember the scene well, the way the lights from the outside filtered through the yellow fabric, and casted a warm light on my grandfather's peaceful face. In life, my grandfather was the kind of man who never showed much compassion to people, and was incredibly strict to his children. My mother told me about the flood that struck hard when she was a child, and the way my grandfather commanded the whole family to lift up the car just so that he could put stools underneath the wheels to prevent the water from spoiling the upholstery inside. He was that sort of father to my mother, the kind who had very warped priorities in life. But still, he was a very capable man. And the death of my grandfather was like a hammer stroke upon the hearts of the family members.

The clouds are really low,
And they overflow,
With cotton candy
And battle grounds red and brown.

But in death, the frowns faded in between my grandfather's eyebrows. The fierce look on his faces was gone, replaced by that of a deep sleep. He looked as if he was asleep I remember, but his skin felt cold against the tip of my right index finger. I tried to open his eyelids, but my mother pulled my hand away before I managed to do it. But of course, at that time, I hardly knew much about death, or the reason why my mother was crying so hard as she folded paper flowers to be burnt in the furnace later. Death to me back then, was merely the massacre of say, an army of ants in the side walk or the body of a broken pigeon. It never occurred to me then, that death applied to humans too, and grandfather wasn't just sleeping, but dead.

A fortune-teller has been a long-time friend of my mother's family, and he supposedly had spiritual communion with the underworld - like I said, supposedly. He told my mother that my grandfather is in Heaven, that he has a high pose in the kingdom up there as some kind of personal secretary to God. I found that to be utterly ridiculous and far-fetched. But to see the comfort in my mother's eyes when she was being told of that, it was good to say that somewhere in the Kingdom of Clouds, grandfather has found a nice comfortable place to live in - even if the Kingdom of Clouds exists only in the imaginations of my mother.

But it's all in your mind,
Don't think your time,
On bad things,
Just float your little mind around.

So by the sea that day, I dreamed about visiting my grandfather, the man I never got to know. It's strange, to say that the mental image I have of him is the black and white picture of him at the funeral, and the one I mentioned above with him lying in the coffin. I don't remember his smiles, his angers, or even the feel of his palm on my head. I wanted to ask him what he thought of me then, and what it was like in the clouds, to fall asleep everyday to the brilliant display of sunlight in the West. As far-fetched as the idea of having Doraemon crawl out of my desk's drawers, at least this dream wasn't so far away. I only had to look into the towering clouds and imagine a ladder leading up to the edge of one, with my grandfather at the very end of it. It's a dream that I never told my mother, but I'd like to meet my grandfather and talk to him, to have him tell me stories of the past. It'd be nice, to know someone so familiar and yet, so distant, all over again.

But the light in the mornings are always too glaring, and the sun always too scorching. My feet are always planted to the ground, and my body always too heavy. It just seems like everything is against my will when it comes to reaching for the clouds.

So I take pictures of the clouds at my balcony, and then trace the edges of the fluffy pillows with the tip of my finger on the computer screen. That is the closest that I can get to those natural marvels in the skies. At least it takes me that much closer amidst the clouds, the white mountains. Even if the battery in my camera runs out, all I have to do is to sit on the wooden bench at my balcony and daydream for an hour or so. Because with a bit of imagination and a bit of foolishness, you never know where your mind can take you - even if it is a place further than the eyes could see.

An Inside Look Part II

Due to popular demand, the entry concerning quirky individuals in my school is back again, and this time with amped up sarcasm and cynicism - hopefully. In the last attempt, we examined the various interesting individuals such as the Clueless, the Judge, the Pink-Colored Horrors and the Idiot. Now, this time we will have a whole new different set of characters and hopefully, we add some fun and laughter to my ever withering blog in terms of cheer.

I have been in this school for almost a month now, probably a little shorter than that truth to be told. But it is enough time to observe and be irritated by the acts of certain individuals. I mean, there is a certain limit of just how idiotic you can get in front of a bunch of strangers, and sometimes these people have total disregard in that respect. Sure, what do I know? I am a stranger, I know little about these people. But let's just say that I am sure they are nice, responsible, tax-payers. But there are times, when their idiocy can really get on the nerves of people. Let's kick things off now with an old friend, revisited.

The Elephant Man Strikes Back

The Idiot in the last post also refers to the Elephant Man. At least that is the official name for him right now, ever since his pathetic attempt at being 'funny' in front of the class. Like I said before, there is a difference between being funny in a stupid way and being stupid in a funny way. This guy proved once again that he is neither of the above mentioned but rather the exact source of such stupidity. Words can never fully describe just how unfunny and ridiculous this man allows himself to be, and the initial condescending laughter are reduced now to ear-piercing silence. Which is the most fitting way to receive his jokes really, because to make any hints of appreciation to his humor would be injustice to the word 'humor' itself.

I am not sure if I am just out of touch with the world of humor, or am I the only one to find him incredible lame and unfunny. Somebody needs to slap him in the face and tell him that he should shut the hell up before he embarrass himself even more. His group of friends - the Overdressed Gang - should have somebody stick masking tapes around his mouth every time during lecture, to save the world from his idiocy and give some peace to us all. And before I go on with the so-called 'humor' he brought to the class after the last entry, this is the common reaction to his presence near our table.

You will first sea Felicia and Joyce bury their faces in their palms or arms, then they will start groaning under their breaths. Next, they will be repelled by a mystical force coming from him, which will cause the chairs under our butts to start spinning. This gravitational phenomena is only sustained inside the lecture hall only because of the presence of the pulling forces of the Vortex, but I guess we've already covered her before.

So, during the COM101 lesson a few days ago, we were asked if there were any foreign students in class. A girl raised her hand and told the lecturer that she is from China, and somebody else raised his hand and told her that he is from Indonesia. And of course, when it comes to questions like that, Elephant Man HAS to get his head into the heart of things. And it is not like he does it with class, with humor, or with anything worthy hearing in the first place. The moment he raised his hand, people started rolling their eyes already, while the others crumbled under their breaths behind me going," Not again"

He's always eager to share his words with the class though, you can see the sparkle in his eyes almost every time the lecturer directs her attention to him. Anyway, so she looked at him and was surprised to know that he was supposedly from another country, since he looks really local. So she went," You are from another country? Where are you from?" Lo and behold, the reason for the piercing silence that ensued.

"Hawaii."

There was a resonating silence, nobody groaned this time, or made any sound to discredit his joke. People were apparently too tired of his jokes, and everybody cared little about what he had to say. It was an utter waste of time, and certainly not contributing to the class in any way, any more. Sure, in the past he provided a kind of comic relief in the sense that, everybody wanted to hear just how stupid he can get, because he was constantly able to create a new low for himself. But as of late, nobody cared for what he has to say anymore. And with the word 'Hawaii' uttered, people lost all respects for that guy. I didn't know they have elephants in Hawaii, how interesting. Probably some forgotten species in a lost valley, you think? Oh yeah, remember the Sultan of a village? You must be the Sultan of that village in the lost valley, dominated by a bunch of little people. And they all worship you because you are bigger relatively. No, not because they find you funny. I'm sure uncivilized people appreciates good humor, in which you have none.

The Mother of Boredom

I have met many teachers in my life, there are the ones who are capable of captivating his or her students, and make them look forward to your classes, even if you are going to talk about something as dry as say, desert landforms. I remember Mr. Clarence Yeo coming into class one day with a giant storybook for children, and it was a book about shit - different kinds of shit - and the class had a good laugh out of it in the morning. Then there was Mr. Tan, who was such a good teacher to me that he managed to prove that adding 1 to 1, it doesn't always give you a 2. I am still very much impressed by that, but I have lost the piece of paper I wrote that equation on. Damn.

And with the balance of the universe, with that kind of interesting teachers, there will always be the kind of teacher nobody likes - even amongst the other teachers. There was a female chemistry teacher that taught us during my upper Secondary days, and she was just a temporary teacher because our original teacher was having a maternity leave or something. Anyway, the moment she stepped into class, she brought along an aura of death about her, and to say that it was an aura of death isn't exaggerating at all, since the class started failing the chemistry tests subsequently. The focus here is not about her, so we shall not go into details as to why we all disliked her with a raging passion. But let's just say that she stalked my English teacher due to her infatuation. Imagine that.

Anyway, let's give a minute to the Mother of Boredom. She is my COM101 teacher, and there is a difference between a good teacher who is boring, and a bad teacher who is boring. She is definitely the latter, because I find that her lessons are not only boring, they do not make me feel more appreciative of the subject of communication at all. I'd say that Mr. Ng - my JC Geography teacher - was boring in a good way. I mean, he didn't have a lot of jokes to share with the class, nor did he make attempts to liven up the spirit of the students admittedly. But at least he taught well, and made us feel genuinely interested in Limestone landforms, plateaus and other aspects of geography. But this teacher, she is probably the polar opposite of Mr. Ng when it comes to the field of boredom.

She just doesn't seem to have the 'want' to be a good teacher at all. She drags her bulky body around the school all the time, and she does the same scrambling down the stairs in the lecture hall with her plastic bags full of new notes. But to say those papers are notes would be an insult to the nature of notes themselves, because they provide a little more to nothing in terms of contents. If you are going to use her notes to study for her quizzes, then you are better off studying the Koran if you want to ace your Bible Studies lessons. Because really, the notes she provide are so skeletal in nature that they are not skeletal at all. Certain aspects of the textbooks were completely omitted from the notes, and if you do not read the textbooks yourself, you are going to miss a lot of critical points.

Also, she digests and regurgitates whatever that is in the textbooks. Which is interesting because, we are not paying good money for our education just to have somebody at the front of the class to tell us things that we can read in the books ourselves. In fact, the books give a better explanation about certain concepts than herself, placing emphasis through bold letters and underlined sentences. She has a monotonous voice, and any topic from the winner of American Idol to the properties of Communication and the definition of Perceptions can sound the same in terms of her tone.

So this is when the little pocket knife that I have kept with me since Secondary School come in handy. I am ready to poke my eyeballs out and then stab my eardrums with pencils soon, because that is how boring she can get in class. But that'd be stupid, since I paid good money for her lessons. So whenever the Mother of Boredom is at the front of the class teaching, I'd be at the back doing readings in the textbook and making notes myself, in total disregard of her lessons. In trusting her, I failed the first test actually. In trusting myself, I aced the second one. So you see, when she asked us why we failed the first one so miserable, I had the burning desire to pull a Spartan trick and jump out of the crowd and shout "YOU!"

I heard that she was petitioned off her previous two campuses. Seems like the rumors might be true, after all.

The Overdressed Gang

There is a certain tradition in my school - it seems - to overdress. Don't get me wrong, I see no problems in coming to school dressed up, to look presentable and probably attractive - that's fine. In fact, I have heard of rumors before I got to this school that this is where people really spend time before school starts, to put on make-up, to take a lifetime to pick out today's wardrobe, and to prepare themselves even more than what they should be doing with their school work. At this age I guess, there is a little vanity in everyone.

But there are people who go overboard with this aspect of the school tradition. The Overdressed Gang has that name not really because everybody does this, but just two of them really. The others are dressed fine in my humble opinion, but the other two guys can get a little bit overboard with their dressing, especially when you are in school for a 1.5 hours lesson and then the next thing on the timetable is to go home at 10 in the morning.

Imagine coming to school in the morning, seeing one of your course mates dressed in a bloody trench coat. Yeah, the kind of long coat Neo wore in The Matrix, the kind that reaches just below your knees. You start to wonder if you walked into the wrong dimension, or if you woke up in a parallel universe with Singapore's weather suddenly changed to one with four seasons. Because really, the moment I walked into the school compound and saw that guy in the hot sun wearing a trench coat, I wanted to laugh my head off. And funniest part was probably how he thought he looked anything but odd, standing in the middle of friends wearing t-shirt and shorts.

Then of course, one of his group members - coincidentally the Elephant Man - does the same over-the-top thing as well. He comes to school in one of those woolen vests they wear in British Boarding Schools, and then to top everything off, he goes around the school with a fedora on his head. For those unsure of what a fedora hat is, go to Youtube and look for Michael Jackson's You Rock My World video. He wore that to school, and I heard a girl behind me whispering to her friend "I have the urge to tear the hat off his head then jump on it till it disappears"

It makes you wonder if these people have any other plans after school at ten o'clock in the morning, and if everyday is an occasion worthy of some sort of celebration. It's not like our classes end at 10pm and you are going to the club right afterwards. It just seems like everyday is either National Day Parade, Chingay, or some kind of holidays worthy for a fancy dress up. It just gets over the top at times, and it is downright laughable too. A fedora and a trench coat, it doesn't get any more ridiculous than that.

Berlin Wall

It was one hundred degrees,
As we sat beneath a willow tree,
Whose tears didn't care, they just hung in the air,
And refused to fall, to fall.

There is a friend of mine, whose life took a wrong turn into herself only months ago. In the wetter months of last year, I remember the serious case of sinus that I experienced, as I braved the cold wet weather outside with a good-for-nothing umbrella and a pair of ears meant for a friend in distress. I took leave from camp that day, unable to go back because of the incredible pain in my joints and back. Besides, the fever was climbing the charts and going back to camp would've been a suicide. The doctor was kind enough to give me an extra day of excuse, but I'm sure he never expected me to wander out of the house on a rainy day to listen to my friend's woes in a cafe near my place, which might have potentially worsened my condition.

But there I was, standing in a puddle of water as high as the sole of my shoes, waiting for my friend to show up. And through the soft veil of the rain that morning, she emerged from the gloom in her petite figure, that for some reason created a stark contrast with everything else. We said little when we met, but embraced each other under the shelter of the cafe that afternoon. A moment longer, and she would have broke down in front of everybody, or revealed to everyone the wall that she built around her heart. She was being led on, she was being abandoned. And in the aftermath of her failed relationship, she started on the construction of a wall around her heart.

And I knew I'd made horrible call,
And now the state line felt like the Berlin wall,
And there was no doubt about which side I was on.

'Cause I built you a home in my heart,
With rotten wood, it decayed from the start.

I remember the messages in the late night and the phone calls. She told me about that wall she built, the way she blocked out her families and even her friends. She would leave the cyberspace for indefinite periods of time and turn her cellphone, just to be out of reach from the world she knew. So that was how thick the wall was, the way it surrounded her and closed her in from everything else. And every brick was laid on top of another by her own hands, leaving not even a window in the walls to peer through. I was worried, and she needed my help. I couldn't bear to see her like that, so distant and so different from the person that I knew.

So together, we promised each other that somehow, we will remove the bricks and tear the walls down all over again. We weren't sure if we'd be able to make it, or how we were going to do it. But still, there was a certain sense of optimism in the air, a sort of hope that everything was going to turn out fine. We started from square one, and saw the first brick being through to the ground, and slowly we revealed her dying heart in the center of it all. Still alive, but barely so. Suffocating.

'Cause you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.
No you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.

In a few months, the walls were torn down, and the bricks laid in a hill of rubble around her heart. The new air filled her lungs, and she managed to breathe - something she hasn't done in a very long time. She smiled, and I was glad to see how my old friend stood up from the ashes of the past and decided to move on, and how I was in some ways involved in it. We kicked the bricks around like soccer balls, then smashed a couple of them to vent our anger and frustrations. But life goes on, and soon enough we were away from the destruction that was caused by our bare hands. But we were happy, happy for each other. And now that she is in a new relationship herself, away from that pile of bricks that once confined her to herself, I'm sure everybody that has seen her pictures are going to agree that she moved on, and she moved on well. But what happened to those bricks? The child asks, for there must be an end to the bricks, too?

My father, before going to the airport yesterday afternoon, showered me with idiotic questions as to whether or not I'd like him to find me a new girl. He claims that I'd like anybody that he deems to be fitting. But of course, the women that he knows have an average age of about forty and above, and I am not really hot about dating women twice my age. He then proceeded to ask me if I need any phone numbers, e-mails, or any forms of contact from his vast social circle. I merely looked at him in disbelief, and was surprised at just how serious he looked at the dining table. But of course, as it was later revealed, it was all a bit of fun and he was just trying to have me 'open up'. 'You've been too quiet these days,' he said. 'Saying less than ten words at home. Are you having depression because of the break up or something?'

Touche.

I braved treacherous streets,
And kids strung out on home-made speed.
And we shared a bed in which I could not sleep at all,

There was an article that I read in last weekend's paper, and it talked about the signs of male depression. And a little disturbing observation I made was how I vaguely related too all of them. Of course, I seriously doubt if I am going to need any professional help in this issue, or if I - in any way - need any mental and emotional attention. But it was just interesting how my Dad managed to notice those things in me, something which I have neglected. I guess more or less, things have taken their toll on me for the past few months, the way they snowballed over one another and surmounted into this giant mountain of depression. It's nothing serious, in fact it has been proving its worthiness in terms of writing. But still, looking at the root of this depression - you - it sickens me a little bit.

To answer the question of what happened to the bricks, you have to imagine a big white room with no walls. Just a big empty space, well lid and infinite on all directions. In the middle is a heart, a human one, and that represents my own in this world. I am standing next to it, feeling the life pulsating through the vessels and the veins, glad that it is still alive. Then an arrow pierced the center of it all, an arrow from far off. An archer was in the distance, firing arrows at my heart, mind bent on blowing it into pieces. And when the archer's aim was done, she fled down the rise with another man, to a place where they might live happily ever after.

'Cause at night the sun in retreat,
Made the skyline look like crooked teeth,
In the mouth of a man who was devouring, us both.

The paramedics came, in a wailing ambulance and medical equipments. They hopped off the vehicles and started mending the wound in the heart. They all looked like me, the paramedics, and some of them shouted at me, pushing me away from the crime scene as they worked. The arrow was pulled from the center, and as the arrow-head emerged from the bloody flesh, more blood spurted out from the hole made and the paramedics were drenched in blood. But of course, they complained little and continued to work on it. They stitched up the wounds, taking care of the little fissures or holes on every angle of the heart, and one of them stretched a giant band-aid around the heart to plaster things up.

By now, the heart was already pumping slower than before, and almost looked as if it was dying from every beat that it was making. The paramedics wiped the blood off their foreheads and shirts, but it only made things worse. I thanked them, and they were off into the seamless horizon in their wailing ambulance once more. I looked upon my own heart, and contemplated ways to protect it from yet another attack. I designed a Berlin Wall of sorts in my head, but I needed materials. I needed bricks, and I needed cement to put the bricks together. But it was an empty room, an indefinite space. Where am I supposed to find the materials I need for the walls?

You're so cute when you're slurring your speech,
But they're closing the bar and they want us to leave.

And you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.
No you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.

I noticed a pile in the distance, and I recognized it to be the pile of bricks I tore down from around my friend's heart. Yes! I exclaimed to myself. This is it! So I dragged the bricks to where I was one by one, and with the materials left from her own construction, I started building a wall on my own, around my heart. I left some space for air around the heart, leaving a single window in one of the walls for the view on the outside, and all the while I smirked at the irony of it all. The irony being, that I tore down the wall of a friend's heart only to build one of my own. Ha, the irony. The irony.

I confined myself within, looking through the window once in a while. People came pasing by once in a while, and some of them would peer into the darkness of my heart with much curiosity. Some of them went away after seeing me inside, while others were kind enough to offer me a book, or food, or perhaps their mere company on the other side of my Berlin Wall. Some people caught my attention, certain beauty in the streets. But the walls were thick, and the reach of my arm was short. Everything outside the window became so far away, all of a sudden. There wasn't enough courage to break down the walls that I built and dash to that person, to show my infatuations and perhaps my affections. It was too hard, too thick, and within these walls my courage dwindled and died.

I'm a war, of head versus heart,
And it's always this way.
My head is weak, my heart always speaks,
Before I know what it will say.

So you see, the world I see now is through this little window that I have built out of the bricks left over by that friend of mine, built with much cynicism and much hate. I see my friend and her new partner strolling down the streets at times, random strangers holding hands in parks and gardens, or parents holding the hands of their child in the middle. I have yet to see the archer yet, but as time went by inside the cell that I made for myself, revenge mattered little. Logic tells me, that perhaps someday you should break out of this state, and that someday you will work around things. I know, I really know. Which is why I have prepared a bundle of dynamites in the corner of my cell, to blow the walls down if it becomes too suffocating, too confined and too morbid for my taste. But until that day comes, I am comforted by the life of my own, the life that I built for myself.

It isn't a fancy cell, but it has everything that I need. At least it acts as a form of protection from everything else on the outside. The day will come, when I shall tear down the Berlin Wall that I built for myself. But what is revealed from the ruins shall never be the same as before. Because a nightmare doesn't just fade, it doesn't just go away. Even with the courage to face the world, a new life, it remains quietly in a corner, breathing and living, like a living thing. It will always be there, lying somewhere in the debris, just waiting for that next day to come for me to rebuild my wall all over again. It's a vicious cycle, it just goes on and on, round and round.

And you can't find nothing at all,
If there was nothing there all along.
There were churches, theme parks and malls,
But there was nothing there all along.

Misery Is A Butterfly



Dearest Jane I should’ve known better
But I couldn’t say hello, I don't know why
But now I think, I think you were sad
Yes you were, you were, you were

What I say, I say only to you
'Cause I love and I love only you
Dearest Jane, I want to give you a dream
That no one has given you

Remember when we found misery
We watched her, watched her spread her wings
And slowly fly around our room
And she asked for your gentle mind

Misery is a butterfly
Her heavy wings will warp your mind
With her small ugly face
And her long antenna
And her black and pink heavy wings

Remember when we found misery
We watched her, watched her spread her wings
And slowly, slowly fly around our room
And she asked for your gentle mind

Torn Paper Hearts

Help, I have done it again
I have been here many times before
Hurt myself again today
And the worst part is there's no one else to blame

It was the day of the angry sun, if you remember. The cool air of the empty shopping mall on that weekday afternoon, that afternoon when you took half day leave and you wore maroon. The cold air welcomed us with its imaginary arms, as the automatic glass doors came apart before us and we were received and submerged. The light that filtered through the glass penal above were reflected off the tiles, and it made them glitter in the footsteps of the silent janitor, pushing the blue cart away with a mop sticking out from the top. We were there, hand in hand, wandering down the half empty corridors and whispering words of affections into each others' ears. The warm breath from between your lips, the ones that were caught in between from the summer breeze, they came in torrents that brushed against my ears like soft feathers from a pillow case. I smiled, and even under the eyes of random strangers, we made no attempts to disguise our happiness.

But the aimless wandering grew tiresome, and the empty halls of the shopping mall became uncomfortable. The shopkeepers in Toys R Us chased us out because we were carrying out bags, and partly because we were fencing with rubber swords in the middle of the aisles and taking videos of Barney the Dinosaur. We scrambled out of the place laughing, and because you felt thirsty all of a sudden, the alluring arms of coffee beans being crushed from the cafe downstairs became out afternoon's refuge, and also the place where the heartbreak of this entry was eventually born.

Be my friend
Hold me,
Wrap me up
Unfold me,
I am small
And needy,
Warm me up
And breathe me...

The day of the angry sun, I remember that day well. The color of your shirt matched the color of the giant umbrellas outside on the balcony. I pointed that out, and wrote that down on a random page of my notebook in blue ink. So started out conversation throughout the afternoon through written words instead of spoken ones. Everything was written, every gesture was done through the flowing of the ink. Yours in black, mine in blue. And together, the blank pages were filled one after another, flipping only when there isn't any space left for a single alphabet more. We wrote jokes only we understood, smiley faces that we created on the internet. Lips that looked more like peanuts were drawn, and in the corner of the page there was a star. But the images are blurry now, and the lines we wrote are blending together to become a giant abstract painting of sorts. I cannot make out the words anymore, or the little silly pictures that we drew, with our fingers interlocked and the angry sun casting an illuminating light on your face.

While you wrote, I peeped from the corner of my eyes, at the radiance emitted from the side of your face. You doubted my words then, when I used the word 'beauty' on your features. I guess you were right, I never should have used that word. Because in that moment, that very moment when you were unaware of my stares and I was of your radiance, I should have used a better word, a more fitting word perhaps. Because it was - beauty, and so much more than that alone. We wrote the three magic words in a dozen different languages. I am sure that I spelled it wrong in German, but it clearly didn't matter. The handwriting still vividly clear on the piece of paper, and they reflected that innocence in all that is in our relationship back then. The way a chuckle would mean a world to the other, or the way a random message would seem to last for infinity in your mind. That sort of happiness, that innocence, captured in those three words in many different languages. But there is sadness, and only sadness, as I looked upon those pages in the middle of the night last night, as they laid before my eyes in the dim glow of the corridor light.

Ouch, I have lost myself again
Lost myself and I am nowhere to be found yet
I think that I might break
Lost myself again and I feel unsafe

It was a pure accident, an innocent one, as I flipped through the old pages of my notebook and found those words. They were crawling everywhere on the pages, like hordes of ants upon a hill of sugar. Black and blue ones, in every possible direction, and almost climbing out of the edges of the paper. They crawling down the side of the table and up my bare legs, through my pants and up the spine in my back. The chill ran down my nerves and through my body, and in the chest area a sudden piercing sensation of extreme pain. I gave in, gave in to the call of pain in my chest and grabbed hold of the edge of the notebook. There was a moment of not knowing what to do, not knowing what to think, or say. Say? To whom? To you? How ironic, to have such a thing happen to you immediately after you've blogged about not caring at all, not giving a shit anymore.

It was like a corpse rising up from the dead, crawling out from the dirt with worms spurting out from the eye sockets. The smell of rotting flesh in the air, pungent and repugnant. Teeth falling out from the mouth, hair tearing out from the skull and falling onto the floor with every step that it took. I wanted to scream, to shout in terror but the breath went out of me. The monster before me, this creature, the manifestation of old memories stood before me with its arms widespread and welcoming. The arms of memories, the ones of nostalgia, welcoming me into its deadly embrace. I tried to run away, run away from the cemetery and into a place unknown. But the monster - the pages - were still there. Black and blue, black and blue, they were everywhere.

Be my friend
Hold me,
Wrap me up
Unfold me,
I am small
And needy
Warm me up
And breathe me...

In the moment of silence, I contemplated. I laid out my options, and considered them carefully. I thought about the possibility of regrets being involved in my actions. I thought about the self-accusations that might happen afterwards. But then there were the words, as I read through them all over again, for the first time since the day with the angry sun. Read through them with much care, trying to recall every emotion that was attached to every word, every laughter that was tagged to each sentence. Oh, how they dug holes in my heart last night, how they so efficiently elevated my pain to a whole new different level.

So I tore out the pages, one by one until there was nothing left. I tore them out, ripped them off the plastic bindings at the back, and removed the left over corners on them with the tips of my fingers. For the last time, I stared upon the pages with disgust and regret, remembering the innocence involved in the writing of these pages. But it was all part of the process, it was all part of the road that leads me on. Like the places that I brought my friends to, like the messages that I deleted in the deep night, with crumpled pieces of tissue beside. Like the pictures that were deleted with one swift pressing of the button, and the removal of your name from my contacts. It was all part of the plan, part of the breaking up process. But to have these torn out, these innocence, it was pain on my part but probably insignificant, almost trivial on yours.

They were on the table, throbbing like a dying heart. Or the gills of a fish just brought up to shore. They laid there, like the fishes I mentioned, gasping for air with the stomach rising up and down rapidly. They were dying, they were all dying like fishes on a shore. And I watched, as the eyes were slowly darkened and the death of the past took over. The stomach stopped heaving, the fins stopped flapping, and there was silence in the air by the beach, just the soft brushing of the sea against the coast. It was done, the final hurdle and task. I collected the pages in my hands, feeling the last remaining warmth between my fingers - within the spaces that your fingers once filled - and held them close to my heart.

Then, as brief as the contact was with my chest, I crushed the pages in my hands into a white ball. The black and the blue became hidden, lost under the folded edges of the paper and into the heart of the ball of dead memories. And now it lies, amongst the old newspaper and used tissue paper. Soon enough, they will be disposed of, thrown into the raging fire of a furnace on a far away island, away from Singapore. And there, the ashes of the past shall not come to me, not even by the wind of the sea.

And so it was, just like you said it would be. We'll both move on in our lives, the way it should most of the time. You made your choice by moving on, while I made mine by breaking down. They are the same parallel ways, just different paths that we are following. It's just that mine, it involves a certain level of self-destruction, one which you are blinded by your new found love and would never be able to witness. Why should you bother, like blogged about before. There isn't any reason to do so at all.

For a moment there, as I looked at the ball of paper in the blue dustbin, I forgot that I should have been breathing. And so I took a deep breath, and reminded myself of the subsequent one s that I should be taking. So life goes on, one breath at a time, one step at a time, one broken heart at a time. It takes a lot of those - time - but I will make it in the end. Alive. Broken, but alive.

Be my friend
Hold me,
Wrap me up
Unfold me,
I am small
And needy
Warm me up
And breathe me...

Dear Janice

Choices & Consequences

She cooks you sweet potato, you don't like aubergine
She knows to boil the kettle when you hum bars from Grease
She senses you are lonely but still she can't be sure
And so she stands and waits, stands anticipating your thoughts

I was kept awake last night, by the thought of you leaving pools of dried tears in your pillow case. It was a familiar thought of mine months ago, when I used to be the one you turned to for situations like that, for breakdowns like such. But of course, with the hurtful words said and the silent vows made, we went on our different roads and went our separate ways. We are no longer obliged to know, to be updated, to be informed about each others' emotional state. Because after all, the moment the phone was hung up and the dial tone resumed, that was the end of the responsibility that we had for one another. And if I remember it correctly, it was you who hung up first, leaving me to brace the endless note of the ceaseless dial tone.

So why is it that when I was told about your predicament, I was still very much moved? It might have been the curiosity rolling about inside me, as I pictured an empty bottle of beer, spinning and spinning and spinning. They say that curiosity killed a cat, but I guess my own curiosity kept me awake last night. I knew about the school, and kept that stuck to the back of my mind like a Post-It on the wall. But still, the imaginary yellow piece of paper failed to erase the thoughts from my head, and even the thoughts that are less right were free to roam about. There was a dilemma, between the "Should I?" and the "Shouldn't I?" And in the end, I guess you should already know, which side I elected.

How can she become the psychic
That she longs to be to understand you?
How can she become the psychic
That she longs to be to understand you?

Reading a common friend's blog, I thought it was me, if I wrote something - once again - that is hurtful to you, in any way. But I have been careful these days, trying to be as subtle as possible, trying to put down the anger and the agony for other thoughts to distract. It's been working well, and I have reduced the intended words to harmless euphemisms, so I guess in terms of efforts I do deserve a gold star. But anyway, it wasn't actually about me in the end, but rather about the past catching up with you in the form of hurtful words in blog entries.

I imagined you to be affected, one way or another, by the words said about your current relationship, your old ones and you as a person. I understand that you have yet to read them yourself, and you'd probably not waste time on them at all. They are merely members of your past - the one you messed up - who are catching up with you in the race of life. I had my fair share of that whole shebang, in fact our relationship was really born out of trying to get you out of it. I tried, and I tried my very best to do so. Though to no avail at all (Because you did whatever you did), I knew that in a way, I am involved still. However, as I pondered over my options last night, I came to a final conclusion that I am going to stick to for the rest of my life.

He brushes thoroughly, he know she likes fresh breath
He rushes to the station, he waits atop the steps
He's brought with him a Mars bar, she will not buy Nestle
And later he'll perform a love-lorn serenade, a trade

Juggling the thoughts, I weighed my options. There was - on one hand - the overwhelming urge to message you online, via the phone, or even call you to see if you are OK. After all, I was involved in you and this whole incident. On the other hand, I thought about the reasons why I shouldn't do so, and why nothing matters anymore. Because in truth, nothing that I say or do, is going to make a difference to your life, as much as I want them to. I often ponder over the importance of a character in your life, after you've sat down to rewrite them altogether. Or have I been totally erased from your final draft? Am I even going to appear in the final manuscript, or the book itself? Or am I going to be a passing character, like the sight of a long, complicated word in a paragraph?

I fingered the buttons in my phone and scrolled the contacts to your name. In the dark, the green button shone dimly, and it was tempting me to make the call, to tell you that I cared, to tell you that everything was OK. Because you know, I knew, that there is nothing worse than facing a predicament without your significant other around. Him being in camp I imagine, and your female friends always being on the surface of things. I just wanted to be there somehow - for whatever reasons - and I felt obliged as an 'Old Love' to do so. So a war waged as I tumbled around in bed, struggling and playing with the idea of calling you, and asking you how you are doing.

How can he become the psychic
That he longs to be to understand you?
How can he become the psychic
That he longs to be to understand you?

I didn't. In the end, I didn't. It was a difficult decision, but one that I made with much force and will. It's all about choices and consequences, and you should have thought about the latter when you decided on the former. When you made a decision - or didn't make a decision, which makes it one anyway - to intervene in their relationship, this is the kind of shit that you get. All the bitching, all the misunderstandings, all the invasive questions in the deep night and all that jazz. This is the kind of past that is going to catch up with you inevitably, when you made that kind of choice. I am not saying that their words and acts can be - in any way - justified. After all, they are merely childish bickering about an issue long dead and revised a million times over. However, though I am not sure how you are reacting to it, you shouldn't blame her, or in any way be accusing of her in any way. Because this is what happens, this is the consequence. You made that choice, so bear with it.

Anyway, back to me. I didn't call, because I knew how you are going to sound like on the other side of the phone. Surprised perhaps, then followed by that condescending way of saying that you are fine. It always happens this way, this is the script that you use all the time. But I guess in a way, I just didn't want to risk hearing that you are happily living your life - your love life - when I am not. How childish of me, how narrow-minded. But I can't help myself, can I? How lousy one can feel at times, and totally helpless at the same time.

So give her information to help her fill the holes
Give an ounce of power so he does not feel controlled
Help her to acknowledge the pain that you are in
Give to him a glimpse of that beneath your skin

I made the decision to close my eyes, to wait for the sound of my cellphone vibrating in the morning, the cue for me to wake up. Because in truth, for the most part, I simply did not care for you. Not a single ounce of me cares about you right now. From the moment I made up my mind about not calling you, not being concerned, there I was writing down a note to self, that there isn't a part left of me that wants to be the pillar that you have support from, or the cushion to fall on. There is a new boy, so there isn't a real need for me anyway. Besides, you made that choice in the past, you shouldn't expect me to care about you any more than a random stranger on the street. This, is the consequence that you have to bear, as well. But I am sure, in contrast to the one before, you are more than willing to oblige to this one. It's so easy to write me off, isn't it? Like boxes on a calendar, one day is gone within twenty four hours. One more box off the table, one day closer to throwing it into the bin.

This is not being cruel, or being heartless. Not giving a shit about your life is merely my way of self-defense. In fact, reading the common friend's blog entry made me more worried about her than any of the parties involved. On hindsight, I was foolish enough to harbor that thought in mind, the one that involved me dialing your number, and then catching up with you about our lives. The thought itself, to think about it now, is more than ridiculous. This is the cold hard truth from me to myself, the kind that's not going to be welcoming no matter how you see it. Nobody wants their past partners to harbor a hate, or anger, or to care little about ourselves. Everybody wants to be loved, even if it is from the love that you had to let go of in the past. But this is me, to you, telling you not to care about me - which I am sure you are doing very well - because I don't care about you. At all.

So here's the truth, you can start hating me now.

Now my inner dialogue is heaving with detest
I am a martyr and a victim and I need to be caressed
I hate that you negate me, I'm a ghost at beck and call
I'm failing and placating, I berate myself for staying

I'm a fool...
I'm a fool...

He greets the stranger meekly, a thing that she accepts
She sees him waiting often with chocolate on the steps
He senses she is lonely, she's glad they finally met
They take each other's hands, walk into the sunset

Do you like sweet potato?

How You See The World

Are you missing something, looking for something?
Tired of everything, searching and struggling?
Are you worried about it, do you want to talk about it?
Oh, you're gonna get it right some time

It was only too real for comfort, when the article flashed itself out before my eyes on the table. As I was running my attention through the Sunday Times for an article to cut out for Monday's quiz, there it was before me on the second last page of everything, the news of an Iraqi girl being killed just because she fell in love with a man from a different religion. To make things worse, she was killed by her relatives in the name of the family's honor, and the horrific description involved in the article itself, disturbed me the way the paragraph of the book The Kite Runner did, when I first read it almost a year ago.

In one of the scenes, the protagonist revisits his country - Afghanistan - where he fled from thirty odd years ago, to look for his childhood friend Hassan. In the course of doing so, he was somehow drawn to a horrific scene of public killing at a national stadium where a soccer match was held. In the half-time of the game, a man and a woman was paraded around the field in the back of a van, and as they did so the crowd cheered and jeered at the couple. When the van stopped, they were asked to get out of the back, and the man was asked to crawl into a hole dug previously before the game. The woman was then asked to stone the man to death, and because of the pressure from the overwhelming crowd, she did as told. She was - of course - stoned to death by members of the audience later on, and that was the kind of 'entertainment' other than the actual soccer game, the people of Afghanistan enjoyed under Taliban rule.

There's so much to be scared of, and not much to make sense of
Are you running in a circle, you can't be too careful
And she can't relate it, 'cause it's complicated
Oh, you're gonna get it right sometime

You're gonna get it right sometime

Of course, you can say that it was a storybook, that the accuracy of such things can be questionable. But I have read in other sources about such killings during soccer games in certain Middle-Eastern countries. Some of them even involved the dead body to be hung on top of the goal post during the game itself. I remember my high school teacher Mr. Ragu telling us about it, and at that time none of us truly believed that this kind of atrocity could happen in our supposedly civilized, advanced world. Perhaps a thousand years ago, but definitely not in our world, the one which we are taking granted for so easily. But we can't be blame for our ignorance, for it is not a commonplace for news channels to showcase such news or images on their programs in the evenings. Especially in Singapore, the news here have the tendency to show only smiling citizens, politicians kissing babies, and optimistic graphs of rising economical growth. But on the other side of the world, such things are happening, and maybe even every day of our comfortable lives.

The 17 year old Iraqi girl - Dua Khalil Aswad - was humiliated in front of a group of boys which included her own family members, and then stoned to death by the crowd. It was all too real for me to behold when I first read the article, and it was almost preposterous too justify killing in the name of honor. The girl's family belongs to the Yazidis, part of the ethnic Kurds who practise an ancient Middle-Eastern religion that forbids marriage outside the faith. The man that she fell in love with was a Muslim, and when the family members found out about her, she was forced to go into hiding with the town's cleric.

It's how you see the world
How many times can you see
You can't believe what you learn
It's how you see the world
Don't you worry yourself
You're not gonna get hurt

However, she was lured out of her hiding under the illusion that the family members have forgiven her. At least that was the case for her immediate family, but not her cousins who went to fetch her from the streets. She left her hiding place, convinced that she was going to be accepted and forgiven, only to meet a whole bunch of people brought along by her cousins. The torture lasted for half an hour, and it involved the group stripping the clothes off her lower body, and then kicking and punching her like they would to a stray dog. Then rocks were thrown at her bleeding body while she was still alive, until a large rock was passed around the hands of the boys at the scene, to have it later land on the poor girl's skull, crushing her head and soul. As if that wasn't enough, everything was caught on mobile phones, and later found their way to the internet. And all of those, in the name of honor.

I remember that day well, when the vehicle stopped all of a sudden and the heat from the sun was almost excruciating. The boys peeped our heads out from inside the vehicle through the hatch, and the view from the top of the vehicle was breath taking. I remember the desert spreading out from every direction, the way it would only in documentaries and television shows. But there it was before our eyes, with the horizon far from reach and between us and that, endless miles of sun-baked sand and rocks. To me, it seemed like the land of infinite possibilities, a place where dreams really do come true. At least that was what I thought before my friends started talking about the existence of Honorary Killing in India. Basically, a raped daughter can be killed because she tainted the family's name, and in some provinces of India, that kind of act can be tolerated or ignored altogether.

Is there something missing, there's nobody listening.
Are you scared of what you don't know, don't want to end up on your own
You need conversation, and information
Oh, you're gonna get it right sometimes

You just wanna get it right sometimes

It is not difficult to assume that the whole world works by the laws the government of your country has in place. After all, different cultures of our world are exposed to different traditions, different beliefs, and a lot of such beliefs clash with our own in more way than one. There are certain acts which cannot be explained by the society that we live in, or particular traditions that might seem questionable to people from the outside world. For example, the Hamar tribe in Africa says that in order for a boy to become a grown man, he has to go through the traditional act of cattle jumping. Basically, during the ritual, a bunch of cows would be lined up in the middle of a circle, and the whole village would be there to witness the transformation of the boy. The boy will then run from one end of the cattle to the other over their backs, and done several times before the ritual would be considered a success.

There isn't anything wrong about cattle jumping per se, but what happens before the ritual to the wives of these men can be seen as brutality to our eyes. I saw a documentary on it once, and the women would be stripped down, and then whipped on their backs with cans until their skin and flesh split open. The twisted irony was, those women were happy to get whipped, and to them the pain of the horrific wounds was nothing compared to the honor involved in jumping cattle.

So you see, at the end of the day, it all depends on how we see the world. We cannot force ideas or ideologies into the minds of people because we are very individualistic from one another. Humans have never been a species of animals that would conform to one single belief, and one single practice. There are bound to be distortions, or the differing in ideas all around the world, and some of them might not be as acceptable as we may think. To the family members who killed the poor girl, they thought the honor of the family and the family's name was more important than the life of the girl. But to us, we start to question if the name of a family is really that important, and also the hold religion has on people and how they can distort the true teachings of religion to their own perverse ways.

And to think that she died because she fell in love with a man of a different belief, saddened me even more. It wasn't even the case of adultery or theft, but a simple act of falling in love. That was the hardest part for me to stomach really, the way people can be so blinded by their own beliefs and rituals. But what can we say about it, really? Who are we to say that they are wrong to do this or that, and not anything else? This is how they see the world, this is how they have decided to rule it under their laws. I don't think outsiders like ourselves, have the right to be judgmental of their actions. The most we can do, is to read about them on the second last page of the weekend papers, and ask questions softly under our breaths at the atrocities of men against men, humans against humans.

I am sure that in the future, we are going to hear of such things more and more often. More questions will be raised with every person humiliated and killed in a foreign and distant country. With every body buried in a hole next to a dog, there are going to be questions raised in our world, as to if we should intervene and help to stop such acts. But how much can we do? Or rather, what can we do at all? There are endless questions to such acts of violence, and it takes more than the pressure of the world to stop them. The least we can ask for, is to hope that in the future, our society is not going to be numbed by such news, that people are not going to read about this in the papers and then throw the thought aside just because it has already happened a thousand times to a thousand different people.

It's how you see the world
How many times have you heard?
You can't believe a word
It's how you see the world
Don't you worry yourself
'Cause nobody can learn

That's how you see the world
That's how you see the world