Alternate Futures

1)

The lights are dimmed. A low hum of chatter comes from the few tables of diners in this small art-deco cafe, a laugh erupting now and then. No one pays attention to the change until a spotlight shines center-stage and a smooth baritone announces: "Ladies and gentlemen, the act for tonight. A mix of soul and jazz to soothe your tired mind, put a dance in your step. May I introduce to you...."

An average-looking brunette walks out from side stage, the checked shift-dress accentuated by a wide pleather belt and an attention-grabbing plumed hat. A few patrons giggle.

She grasps the microphone and keen observers note the slight trembling. A low A key thrums across the room and the audience is spellbound. Like an expert surgeon she slides between their ribs and slices out their hearts.

Just a human voice. She is not one of the Sirens bewitching sailors to her island; where they, helpless to resist are dashed to pieces on the rocks, their blood lapped up by hungry fish in an uncaring sea. But she holds the same key to a kingdom beyond words, where beggars are kings and mice are lions. She knows of no truths but one: the song must go on, to its very end. There is no pleasure or pain, joy or tragedy in music, though man give it such qualities. It just is, and the purest note speaks more than a million well-chosen words. Her vocal chords were merely a crude tool; the music she produced a fleeting glimpse of the ultimate Melody. But compared to the rest, what a tool it was!

The waiter. The bored bartender. The rouged women, the smirking men whose expressions seemed to say "I've seen it all". The person-shaped shadows in the corners. They die to the music with a smile on their faces.

To be continued...

Essay

This is an essay I sent to a competition a while ago. Warning: it's really long, might take you some time to read, it took me whooping HOURS to write. And because of that, for this one you must comment.

Thanks!;)

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Why Decorate?

Worn out by the long journey on a rickety bus with sweaty old women carrying children sucking their thumbs, I walked towards my room – my world, my refuge, the place where I would spend most of my resting hours in the next two years in – in the fifth hut, the second last one. I had come so far, halfway across the globe to experience this. Difference. Jumping into this melting pot of exotic Asian beliefs, food, festivals and people. As the sweat spouted from my head and neck and dripped into most uncomfortable places, I pondered on how the oppressive sun ferments and brings out the warmth and colour out of the people. How different from my Scandinavian country mates, frigid in their bearing and bland in their speech!

My thoughts came to a train-wreck stop when I unlocked the bamboo door and entered the room. It was completely bare except for a sheet-covered mattress on a single wooden bed, a study table and chair and a narrow standing wardrobe.

I had to sit on the bed to stop my head from spinning. This was all I was given? Granted, I could go out and buy furniture, comforting reminders of home – no, necessities- the wardrobe certainly would not hold all the clothes in my suitcase! But it took me 10 hours to get here from the nearest city. What with orientation, in-college weekend activities and getting accustomed to the college, I might not be able to go shopping for weeks.

Now, the four bare brick walls face me blankly. Absently, I notice several spots where the paint has peeled off in narrow strips, and where it has been painted over in a reddish-brown hue darker than the original one. I uttered a silent prayer that this would not be a portent of my life here: dull, functional and utterly devoid of personality.

It’s been two weeks since I arrived in India, and the weather has not improved, only perhaps my tolerance to it. My room has improved a little; there are a few Hibiscuses in a vase which is a plastic water bottle cut in half. I admit, it doesn’t sound that much better but to have a living thing besides myself in the room gives me some comfort. A few of my international classmates and I have been exchanging trinkets, and now I have in my room an Egyptian papyrus sheet with hieroglyphs, a poster of The Bahamas’ gorgeous beaches, a Chinese paper fan and an Indian cushion embroidered in bright colours and beads.

However, my greatest acquisition so far is the set of drawers that I haggled for and bought at a very decent price today at the flea market in Pune, about two hours away by bus. With 3 large drawers and lovely bronze handles, it will definitely make my room look less like a whirlwind had come and gone, sweeping clothes all over the place.

In its own meagre way, my room is beginning to feel like my own, and at least there are hints of beauty here and there. The uneven paint which used to irk my aesthetic senses is now a familiar and comforting sight. Perhaps beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder. Even that which is ugly can be appreciated in time, nostalgia dimming objective judgment.

Could the reverse be said, though? Could that which is lovely fade in beauty over time? Wasn’t it Keats who said “a thing of beauty is a joy for ever”? Could a beautiful room be appreciated forever, then? I suppose it could. The numerous castles and chateaux in Czech Republic preserved till this day are a testament to that.

Perhaps aesthetic beauty was measured by different standards then, but I can’t imagine living in such a lavish setting where even the bookshelves are a work of art and everything has been passed down for generations. However to a scion of one of those old privileged families, the décor of their family mansion may be a source of pride and identity. For me, a child of the post-modern era, I tend to lean towards expressions of personal beliefs and individuality more than traditional styles. Either way, the importance people place on furnishing tells a great deal about them.

As I rush out the door with five minutes to spare till College Meeting starts, I wonder if everything can be interpreted as beautiful, even things like graffiti, if we consider the motivations of the creator. Decoration is a form of art, after all, and “art is what you can get away with”¹. In a way, that’s true: art can be more about glamour and prestige than actual artistic quality. Perhaps if I became absurdly famous in 20 years, a picture of my room as it is now would be captioned as “obviously, the refuge of a brilliant mind too busy to bother with aesthetic decoration, spurning common furnishings for a simple lifestyle but incorporating eye-catching elements such as the cushion, poster and drawers.”

Pretension, that’s what it all is.

It’s three more days till school ends, and I leave the humid air of India behind to go home, with my International Baccalaureate programme completed. I look around at my room, furnished – if that’s the right word – in the most eclectic way, nothing matching but a riot of colours, styles and precious junk. However, I’m also proud of it in a certain way; proud of the fact that each part of it was selected and placed with care and no part of it comes from a mass-produced Ikea catalogue. My room reflects my uniqueness, my life – and whose life can be entirely orderly and fitting? Our oddities only add to our beauty, not detract from it. The most valuable thing I have in this room is not the expensive turquoise earrings I bought in Mumbai or the large storage chest, treasure-chest style that takes up one corner of the room; but the poster that my friends made for my birthday with lots of pictures, quotes and messages for me.

I remember how much I hated this room when I first came. Now I can’t imagine leaving it. It has become an organic personality; it’s an extension of me. Where else do I head to after a long day of school and activities but my plushy bed covered with soft blankets and cushions in bright clashing colours? What better place could my friends and I stay to chat for hours but on the hand woven carpet that I bought from the market, from the seller who kept grabbing my hand and insisting that the fabric was “of the highest quality, yes ma’am”? I take the time to say goodbye to my room, memorising every detail in my mind before I was to take it apart, strip it of any connection to me till the next owner would come and bring life to it again.

On one wall there are photographs pasted everywhere, black and white, colour, large and small – each one of them marking and immortalising an important moment in my life. My birthday, thousands of miles away from home but surrounded with love from my friends. Sasha, my confidante and every-weather best bud², is hugging me, smiling and laughing in one photograph. Some of the pictures are of home, with familiar figures that are a source of strength and inspiration for me in my most trying times. Taking them down will take hours, I know - not because of the physical task which is easy enough, just removing the Blu-tack from the walls- but the emotional step of packing all these memories away and storing them for another time, another wall, another place.

My friends’ rooms also show the gradual accumulation of “stuff” – trinkets, souvenirs, things that you have to buy just because it’s a steal – of the past two years. Interestingly, each one reflects the personality and character of the owner. Natalia’s is pristinely clean and tidy, not a speck of dirt to be found anywhere. The décor is tasteful, with framed photographs and watercolour paintings of the Mediterranean Sea and Greek countryside on her wall. It hints at her love affair with nature and her close ties to her homeland, Corfu in Greece. She loves blue and white, so entering her room is like entering an oasis of peace and tranquillity. On the other hand, Jenny, the queen of all things dark, weird and twisted; has a voodoo mask on her wall. Everything that she owns is black, even her chair, table and her notebooks. She would have painted her walls black too if only the school had allowed it. Contrary to what you’d expect, she’s not a mournful soul and laughs just as much as anyone else. All the same, the more time you spend in her room the more claustrophobic you get, like being in a rabbit burrow. Jenny chooses to see it differently, she says that black is the best colour because it doesn’t reflect it but absorb it, and there were so many possibilities within. She quoted from a book she had read, “The Woman Warrior” by Maxine Hong-Kingston³, which talked about the black “curtains swinging open, flying up, one after another, sunlight underneath, mighty operas”.

I didn’t consciously set out to decorate my room in such a way, and it feels vastly different from the candy-frosted, pink-and-white interior-designed room that I go back to when I’m home for the holidays in Norway. I could say that this change represents the process of growing up and making my own decisions. I used to think that decorations were only about prettiness, to make one’s life more pleasing by surrounding oneself with pleasing things. Now, I know that it goes deeper than that – that by decorating to fulfill our need to create something original and individual and to express our personality, we is marking out our own little space in this vast and incomprehensible universe we live in.

I pack my room up. I pack my world up.

1677 words

Footnotes:

¹ Quote attributed to Andy Warhol.

² Best bud, a shorter way of saying best buddy or best friend.

3 Kingston, Maxine Hong. “Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts” London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 1981

Inspiring female bloggers and A quasi-creation

When I feel like I'm losing my voice, my personal thoughts or my sanity (or all of the mentioned!) - I blog.

More often than not, I sign in to the user account window and then wonder what to write. Compared to the dazzling, witty, interesting, hilarious, profound, just-plain-kepo-fun of other blogs I visit, mine seems so dull in comparison. Hardly ever any photos. If so, none of the author. Goodness, the author doesn't even reveal herself. How neurotic can one person be?

However! Today, I have found not one, but TWO, great blogs. Ta-daa: Joyce Tagal and Hannah Yeoh. Blogs that inspire me that one day, I may not only be a better writer, but that I might be a better person. And also to have more interesting, worthy thoughts to blog about than what I have now. And both are women and committed Christians. And very much patriotic Malaysians, though educated abroad. (One is still studying in the US). It reminds me that no matter how far in the world I roam, God's calling will always bring me to where he wants me to be, for His purpose. For now, I believe it is Malaysia He is ultimately calling me to.

And because I am feeling extra-creative today, I have a little creation for you guys:

He looked at the aluminium (or was it stainless steel? Don't know, don't care) trays before him bearing heavy loads of fish curry, chicken, steamed egg, boiled vegetables in sauce and other typical Malaysian dishes. Deng was troubled. Today had not been a good day. The boss was upset because a contractor was giving him trouble, and the was lots of tension in the office. The air-conditioner breaking down after dripping water for a week, did not help to improve the general mood. Hot and sweaty, stressed and tense; Deng was relieved when it was finally 12 o' clock and he could shuffle out of the narrow doorway for his lunch break.

"Which one you want?" The middle-aged serving woman standing before him with a metal ladle and a plate of white rice barked. Deng realised he had lost his focus and held up his palm, pretending he had been perusing the choices the whole time. "I want this.....this....and that vegetable." "That's 3.50." He paid and took his plate to the smallest table; only fit for one, two if you were sharing a plate.

He paused to say grace, out of habit. "ThankyouLordforthisfoodblessittoourbody'suseinJesus'nameAmen." Still the plural pronoun, after two years, with Jing and the kids gone? In the back of his mind, he knew that altering it, or dropping the habit completely, would mean that he had given up on them ever coming back and for things to return to the times when they were happy. When he was happy.

Digging into his food took total concentration. Deng was the type who did not like to have conversation over food, which was good considering he had no one to converse with. It required undivided attention to ensure that there was a proportionate mixture of rice, meat and vegetables in each spoonful; so that no one taste was dominant to his taste buds. And of course, to carefully separate the fish bits so that there would be no stray fish bones in his mixture.

Despite this, Deng took no pleasure in eating. It was just a habit, and without it he would not have the energy to work, and gnawing pains or gastric would kick in around 4.30pm. The serving ladies noticed that he always picked the same dishes whenever he came, which was a few times a week. Strapped down in the monotony of their lives, they would speculate about him: that he was a loner who repaired computers and hardware for a living; that he used to be a rich man whose wife had divorced him and left him poor and destitute. The truth was less grand than that, but they were content believing their own concoctions about him, content to let him point out the same dishes again and again, pretending to wait for him to ask when they already knew what he would pick. It wasn't nice to pry, not with a decent guy like that who minds his own business and brings us steady income.

Deng finished his task, the bones and debris were neatly pushed to one side of the plate. He looked around and for a moment someone who was looking closely would have been surprised at the look of desperation in his eyes. It said, "Help! You see this man in a pressed shirt and clean brown pants, but this is not me. I pick the same food to eat everyday, but that's the only choice I make. I did not pick this life, I did not pick this loneliness. And I don't know how to get out. Help me." The expression was gone the next instant.

He got up, and walked back slowly to the office. 12.45 pm. He would be back early. Maybe the boss will be pleased. Then again, he probably wouldn't notice.

Soundtrack: Moby - Natural Blues

Little Altars

Random note: Blogger.com was in Chinese for me for a while till I changed it back to English. That's strange...

Little Altars

My children, beware of the little idols, the small allowances and compromises that you make each day for the sake of normality. Do not let your temple be a marketplace, do not let your heart be sold to the highest bidder. You are so much more worthy. You are so much more precious. You are much more beautiful than anyone can tell you or that you can even see yourself.

Child, why are you unhappy? You have replaced the love I give you freely and endlessly with love from your friends. You are so hungry, begging for their approval. Without them you'd lose the will to live. I cannot force you to return to me. But I will keep entreating you. I will not stop calling your name.

My love, the world is hungry and desperate for those who will love unconditionally. I know that you don't know yourself, but I know you. I know your struggles and the pain you cannot express and the sorrow that surprises you in its intensity and vagueness. I know you cry easily when no one's looking.

You have so much to do, so many roles to play: faithful friend, obedient daughter, hardworking student, responsible leader, inwardly-beautiful person...and sometimes you just can't juggle it all. But when you are overwhelmed with your inadequacy, look to me. Look below you, and see who holds your feet. Look above you, and see who's supporting the sky. Look around you and see how all things are made very, very good.

Though you battle with time, realise that time can be your friend if you use it well. It is hard, my love, but learn to say no to your impulses. Remember that you cannot give of what you do not have. And those who always need to be around others are afraid of what they'd see in themselves if they were left alone.

Lastly, my child, remember that I am always with you, forever. Think of me whenever you see a green leaf, breathe fresh air, open your eyes. I am in you, around you and my arms will hold you tightly. You are never left on your own.

Take that one step towards me, child. And I will scoop you into my arms, place you on my shoulders, and carry you on in this journey.

Mumblings + NS Nostalgia

There are days when you feel like you're swimming in soup, and that's still ok, because you know you're going to be dredged up sooner or later and you'll be thrown into a gumbo bowl with spicy enchiladas, and that's when life will get interesting.

I think one of the best pieces of advice that I've been given is that no matter what happens, I'll be ok. Sounds rather bland and not profound at all, but it definitely gives comfort at times when I think my life has made no difference. That people may like me in a vague, dorky way; but forget me if I'm not there. That I'm not truly living the way I should live. That I do only what is required of me and nothing else.

Sometimes, there are so many ideas one has but so few of them actually come to fruition. Right now I believe the answer to that is focus, focus, focus. Tend to the glowing embers of your passion and stoke them up to a fearsome fire, and then narrow it into single flame jet and then....

unleash it.

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And another part, written last Friday (4 April, 2008):

How strange, to have a flashback in the HK airport on a windy, slightly chilly day while waiting for the A22 bus back to Lam Tin MTR station after sending my mum off on a plane back home. One simple song, unheard for months, playing on my MP4 player - "Pencinta Wanita" by Irwansyah and I am transported in my mind's eye to where I was slightly over a year ago...

Hot sun pan-frying us a delicious dark brown. Special of the day:toasted homo sapiens (fine yougn specimens of only 18 years old), stewed in their own sweat and oil. Ewwwww.

Sunging 'Pencinta Wanita' in the bathroom with the cold showers running, laughing in our separate cubicles. Scrubbing clothes on the smooth stone surface next to the giant water tank/tub. The one you weren't allowed to bathe in. The same one that I stepped into and soaked in like a queen on the last day of camp. Reading out loud the notes some of us received from infatuated comrades, declaring everlasting love - and ridiculing them mercilessly, secure in the boy-free zone of our dorm room. Celebrating birthdays with cake and snacks brought from the only convenience shop a.k.a our lifeline operating there. Dressing up in Baju Melayu complete with sampin and performing Dikir Barat.

Food memories alone deserve their own paragraph. Eating mandarin oranges, Chinese New Year's biscuits, fried meehoon and other goodies spread out like a king's banquet on old newspaper in the common area. Baby's moms' irresistable chicken curry, mutton kurma, coconut candy and a host of Deepavali treats. My malay friend's whole family who came on a visiting day and treated me to home-cooked Perak laksa. In the canteen food where there was chilli on EVERYTHING. Even noodles at breakfast. Pimples sprouted on even the clearest faces. Stockpiling and sharing biscuits for a 6 am pre-exercise morning snack.

Beneath the glittering highlights that stand out in my mind, I remember the dull background of daily life. Missing friends, family. Resentful that I was wasting 3 months of my life in a programme I didn't sign up for. Looking forward to weekends when I had my hp back and could call home, my best friends and my sister. Feeling that I didn't belong anywhere. Not with the Cantonese-speaking Chinese, with their casual racism, anti-government sentiments and in-depth knowledge of Oriental celebrities and HK TV dramas (ironic, that the 1 Chinese girl who was unable to appreciate HK drama series' is the one who goes to study there for 2 years). Not with the Perak Malays, although they were really nice people on the whole; or with Kelantanese Malays with their completely different local dialect and for some of them, their kelantanese flirtiness (we speculated that it was because they were usually deprived of interactions with the opposite sex in the conservative PAS-led state). Certainly not with the Tamil-speaking Indian girls, just because they stuck to themselves and I couldn't understand what they were saying.

All these come to mind when I think back on NS. And though I thought I knew about life, NS humbled me. I lived, worked and played with prison's guards' children, doctors' children, teachers' children, farmers' children. People who scored 10As for their SPM result (which was announced the day after we left) and people who scored 3.

And I realised that all my book knowledge, my academic achievements, my English proficiency did not count for all that much. When I couldn't shine my boots even after spending tons of energy and time, it was my dormmates who helped me and realised that my brush was contaminated with too much shoe polish ("Kiwi"). The trick is to have only a little bit or else the boots will look matte. And when I had to dress formally at night, they helped iron the silk baju kurung. And my friends would always adjust my cap for me, because I jsut couldn't get the angle right. Another friend taught me a Kelantanese song. And I will never forget the night when my next-bed mate told me about how the prisoners escaped from the jail and set the building on fire, and her father the prison guard locked their family in the house, huddled together, armed with a parang. They were so along until police reinforcements came. How that was the scariest experience of her life.

I believe this experience, those 3 months, taught me to see people in a different light. To love them despite the differences and sometimes arguments, and to understand where they're coming from. That in the end, barring colour, race, sex, background - we are not so different after all.

I get onto the bus, knowing that without being in Gopeng baking for 3 months, I probably wouldn't be here at all.

Wistfulness

I remember a time when I thought flowers were the most beautiful things in all of God’s creation. I remember the rapture of being given a deep red rose, sniffing deeply into it and capturing the fragrance of happiness, romance and a youthful timelessness. I remembered its perfection, a microcosm of everything that was worth living for in the world.

How small my world was then! And yet how perfect, when it only consisted of the two of us.

I remember lazy walks to nowhere even in the deep of winter when everyone was hiding in their dorm cubbyholes. I remember chocolates that melted in my mouth. I remembered laughing for no reason, feeling more alive than ever before in my life. Colours burned brighter, every pop jingle called forth emotion like the Hallelujah Chorus.

I think often about that golden, slightly ephemeral time; wishing, wondering why it didn’t last. I found the fitting metaphor for this design in the tapestry of our lives…it was a song, sung by the finest choir. A clarion call to spring, to hope. Ancient civilizations used to dance and sing to welcome a new year, the turn of frost to warmth. When we created technology and replaced Bacchus and Persephone, we lost a crucial part of our natural knowledge of the world. We lost the living rhythm of the seasons. That every song has a rising, a climax, a falling, and an end that lingers long in our awed ears.

The duet we made sang of joys that could satisfy forever, but the notes had no place in a larger reality. I am still glad that there was no discordant tune in that song; that we finished it marvellously, a wistful note towards the end that hovered in the air – who could blame us if we shed a few tears as the music stopped?

I grew up, grew out, expanded myself, my world and experienced many deep joys and heartbreaks after. But once in a while – when my glories clang like brass, when my loved ones have more important things to attend to – I wish I could sing that song with you again. The tune, every pitch and pause, remains in my memory still.

The Ball

God, if You're allowing this pain to persist for a reason, that it may be turned into something good, then let it continue, every single moment of it. But if it's not, will You please stop it!!!!!!!

~~~

Let me tell you a story. It's not my story - not specifically - but a story you could hear from anyone, in tones of defeat and regret. It's not a nice story. But its all I have to give.

~~~

There was once a little girl who went to a park. She saw a ball that some little boys were playing with and instantly, she knew that the ball was meant to be hers. Sure, they were playing with it at that time and someone might protest if she took it away, but those were minor details. The main thing was that it was hers, and she was going to go forward and get -

A hand stopped her.

She looked up, and Daddy was shaking his head at her, sadly.

She wouldn't give up - she tried to stride forward but His hand was gentle but firm. Not one inch more. The ball so tantalisingly near yet so far. She started to weep in anger while His arms covered her and soothed her...

...but all she saw was the ball, slipping away as the boys, oblivious, moved to another corner to play. Her vision blurred with tears as she saw one boy picking up the ball and cradling it under his arm before walking away.

"Why, Daddy, why? You never gave me a ball! I want a ball to play with just like that boy! Everyone else has a ball, why not me?! Don't you love me???!!!"

"I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH TO LET YOU HAVE SECOND BEST."

"Daddy, I don't care about getting second best! THAT'S my best already! Just let me choose what I want!!"

"YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE, MY LOVE. BUT JUST THINK, HAS DADDY EVER FAILED YOU BEFORE? HAVE I EVER BROKEN MY PROMISES TO YOU?"

"No...."

"THEN TRUST ME WHEN I SAY, I HAVE SOMETHING BETTER IN MIND FOR YOU. AND WHEN I GIVE IT TO YOU, IT WILL BE PERFECT FOR YOU. MORE PERFECT THAN ANYTHING YOU CAN GET BY GRABBING OR SCHEMING."

So the girl's eyes dried and as she hugged her Father, she realised that the giver of all things good will never withhold any good thing for us. But He brings it in His own time and in His own ways. Even something as small as a ball.

~~~

OK, maybe I was lying, but I didn't mean that to become a saccharine story, one you've heard a million times before and which I've probably drawn from the mountain of cliches in my memory bank.

Sometimes, it's not just a ball that He asks you to give up, it's the attachment to it, the wanting and needing. And that can be the hardest part when you feel it would make all the difference in your life.

And that's where the problem lies, because He is the only One who can make all the difference in our lives.

The split blog post Part One

Let's do something different with this blog today! Since I am a bunch of contradictions and tangled thoughtwires today (as I am pretty much all the time, and everybody else in the world too) I will write one part frivolous post and one part a little more serious. Part One is my poem, Part 2 is my life and just...thoughts I have on everything I feel, hear and see. Well, of course not every single thing, but you know what I mean.

Thus, if you are in a lazy mood and just want something to cheer you up, just read part One! If you have nothing better to do, read Part Two as well!

Part One

My life is like a chocolate cake,
with very many flavours.
The base is solid, a foundation for all the richness piled on top-
and yet it is flaky, crumbles in your hand
slides down your throat with no complaint.

Above it, there is a thin layer of dark chocolate
which is sometimes called bitter chocolate (but I don't like that name).
It makes it sound like a necessarily bad thing,
while darkness holds the ambiguity of
horror - quietness
fear - peace
death - calm
and a creeping sense of beauty.
I have been acquainted with pure dark chocolate but a few times in my short life-
but each time it has changed me.

There is a large chunk of traditional cake in me as well...
or whatever you call a cake if it has no topping, no icing, no base,
only what is between the top and the bottom.
That airy fluffy part that keeps the taste of the rest from being too
intense, too dominant
-the filler.
I live in this region most of my waking hours,
going through repetitive motion like a cog on a wheel,
sometimes whizzing up to touch the top or the bottom.

And then there is the icing,
the sweetness that jumps and grabs you in delight
and the hope that the feeling never ends.
There are little sprinkles of icing in every day, for me-
but sometimes, they are so slight, or I am so immune
that I fail to notice it.

There are nuts, too, found randomly in this recipe of me-
the quirks, the oddities
that never go anywhere or mean anything much.
But
I am not a nut cake. Do not love me just for my nuttiness,
love all of me.
Don't take my nuts away.

Sometimes, I feel like the birthday cake laid out on the table
Hot wax candles stuck into me
Intense scrutiny, exaggerated care
admiration (but at who?)
A spray of saliva (disgusting habit)
and all is black.

And that's where I end my metaphor, for I am not then defeated.
I am an invincible cake!
You eat me today, I will resurface tomorrow!
And I am happy
to be who - and what
I am.

Inequalities

Love is a tanglewood tree in a bower of green

In a forest at dawn

Fair while the mockingbird sings,

but she soon lifts her wings

And the music is gone

Young lovers in the tall grass with their hearts open wide

When the red summer poppies bloom

But love is a trackless domain and the rumor of rain

In the late afternoon

-Tanglewood Tree, Dave Carter



He pulled on his cup of tea, he nursed it, he smothered it in leathery hands. And in his mind he played the same question over and over again like a child's wail: "Why did she go? Why did she leave me? So alone, so alone, so alone..."



The night would last forever, all nights did and by the time the weak sunlight pushed through his window-blinds he would be exhausted, not having moved an inch in his hard oak chair or slept even for a wink.



But tonight, tonight was the worst kind: the storm crashing outside, wind howling like a scene from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He destested the clichedness of the whole situation but was powerless to fight the rolling waves of emotions that engulfed him.

He would close his eyes, but sometimes that made it worse. She would be back; fire burning his dull pupils and turning them into ash. Her smile would cut him into a thousand pieces. And he would recall her smell: undescribable but reminiscent of fresh clothes and lilac blooms. It would never fail to calm him down when he was upset about the condition at the store or the unreasonable demands of his employer.

She was a shooting star blazing bright in the sky, as dazzling as it was distant. And he was no more than earth, the ground from which we rise and eventually fall back to, red dust returning to red dust.

P/S: Sorry for the infrequent posts lately...each time I start I never get to finish because there's always one commitment or another to run to. Hope you enjoyed this and remember to comment!

Sit on the Swing

The product of my homework procrastination. Enjoy and remember to comment!:)

She comes, every calm-weather day, without fail, brightening my window view at 5.15 pm precisely. She doesn’t do anything there besides sit and grip the ropes tightly, staring into blankness with an expression I cannot discern. Around 6 she rises abruptly and walks away without a glance. The swing-chair rocks back and forth as though wooing her back. No worry, she will be back tomorrow.

I was not the only one who noticed this oddity. “What, is that Punjabi girl sitting out there again?” my mother would ask exasperatedly. Why should it bother you if she does? “Young people shouldn’t moon about, doing nothing. Its not natural! She should occupy her time with better things. Besides, her mother would be worried about her.”

As for me, during the lazy hot evenings when I’m feeling drowsy and disinclined to do my homework, I watch and wonder about her. What’s her story? Why does she come here everyday? She doesn’t even look like she’s enjoying herself. It must be really boring to just sit on that swing every day. Not much view to look at, just a scrawny playground opposite originally-white-but-age-blackened terrace houses. I had a theory that her mind wasn’t really on her surroundings, though.

What would it be like to talk to her? I often wondered but never dared try. It would have been so easy; just down the stairs, out the door and walk over to the swing and say “Hi”. But I just had the feeling that it was not my place to disturb her solitude.

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That girl in the window is staring at me again. She thinks that I don’t know, that I can’t see her occasionally peeking down at me with curious eyes. I intrigue her. And I think I’ll let that stay.

I haven’t met anyone who can hold thoughts and feelings so tightly within themselves as I can; or if I have, they are able to contain it so well that I never noticed any wrongness ever at all. My face is emotionless; I do not cry easily nor get angry. And when I’m sad, my face turns to stone completely. Perhaps this abnormality of mine is what makes people keep their distance.

I don’t think much when I am at the swing. I’ve been going for 2 years now, just waiting, waiting, without hope and yet helpless to stop. He said he would come, he promised he would. My father, who left me to try his luck in the city. To make sure I don’t become like him, he said. And the only answer to my asking when he would return was a vague, “soon”.

I’m not even sure whether he’s alive anymore. Life is dangerous in the city. I don’t live with my aunt anymore, things aren’t that good between us and my father won’t be able to find me there. But he might remember this playground, this place. We once lived near here, when mother was around and life was happier, and the best memory I have of us is being pushed on the swing by my father; back, forth, back, forth. A soothing, rhythmic repetition that summed up our life: our safe, secure and wonderful life.

I come here because…actually, I cannot put it in words, but if I am truly his daughter, he should know he can find me here. He always said I put too much trust in the intangible, that I needed a better grip on the harsh realities of life.

I’ve seen them, and I’m sick of them.

I wonder if that girl, someday, might come down and talk to me. It’s not that interesting sitting here alone, immersed in the prison of your past and not being able to leave it behind. She might be able to make it better.

Like all other desires in life, sometimes we can only dream…

My Puzzle

Actually, I don't think this is a very good work. But sometimes, you cannot wait till everything's perfect before you step out and put yourself, your work on the line for others' opinion and criticism. Perhaps that's the best(only) way to improve, after all. So, here's my imperfect offering, be honest and kind, please.

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When I was young, the pieces of my jigsaw puzzle all fitted together. It made a beautiful picture, rectangular in shape, all neat corners and ends. Life was full, there were no dark shadows to plague my dreams; or even when there were, they could always be chased away by a comforting bedtime tale. In that story the jigsaw told, good guys always won at the end although they had to suffer through many trials first, and bad guys would always be punished; in a non-gory but final manner. Love and family would always triumph over all. It was a world of happily-ever-afters.

Somehow, as the years went by, the puzzle changed. Suddenly there seemed to be no corners anymore. Every piece was a stand-alone, a clue to the final picture yet unexplainable on its own. Every day and month brought pieces of this new picture into my life. At the same time, the beautiful puzzle of my childhood was disintegrating.

Some days, I get a piece of sky and I’m happy, because it reminds me of safe, warm things: family, friendship, loyalty, kindness. It doesn’t explain away all the negative things, but it reminds me that good things exist. Other times, I’m almost shattered when a fragment of dark comes my way –shreds of mashed-up hopes and dreams, torn pieces unconceivable tragedy, strips of mistakes and regrets. And it seems sometimes that there are nothing but grey and black pieces in this jigsaw and if that’s all I’m going to get, what’s the point of continuing to assemble it?

Once in a while, but more often now, I can figure out a patch of the puzzle but there’s a hole in the middle. Without the missing piece, the picture cannot be understood. So I look everywhere for it, asking others where I could find it: and to my surprise and despair, they say there are always missing pieces in the grown-up puzzle! You just have to live with unexplained mysteries, they say. I’ve refused to believe that, I think if only I can search hard enough, I’ll find those precious answers somewhere. I just need to try harder, that’s all. They sigh and tell me that I’ll see their point of view, in time.

Many people I meet are making their own puzzles, too. We show each other parts of our whole but never everything. Still, some people wear their puzzles on their sleeves. It’s very easy to see the picture they’re going to end up with. However, you never know. One piece more or less could change everything. One decision can change the course of our lives, too.

My puzzle is far from done, and I’m figuring more of it every day. I know this is going to be my life work, because each day is going to give me more pieces of the jigsaw; to sort out, to group, to put together in order to become something meaningful. I press on because I believe that one day when it’s all over, I’m going to stand back and look at the puzzle and look all the pieces I’ve put together: the light, the dark, the grey and the colourful and even the missing holes: and it will finally make sense, it will be whole, complete.

What an awesome sight that would be!

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