And even toads will cross my path.

This evening alone I’ve had heavy rain, a flash flood of sorts and dinner at KFC, which is preferably left to your discretion, dear reader, lest you find particular pleasure in getting me grounded for spending unnecessarily.


I arrived home at nine to a puppy that eagerly awaited my return so that he could pounce on my feet, to nibble and to bite and to slobber over, and it is high time I remind myself that in the future, my Rastafarian dog will eventually fall into a huge build-up of libido, and it’s best that I start training him to leave my legs alone.


I sat down at my laptop and I found these words written on a document I almost deleted;


When we talk about the world, what do we really talk about?


It took me awhile to remember what I wrote it for, so I looked up at some old hand-written essays and found a forgotten beginning to a short story. I typed it down on the laptop and remembered that I did it before, once upon a time, and ran a search. Voila, the document was there, strangely at the tucked at the corner of my documents folder in the way I wouldn’t notice. Now I read what I wrote and I forgot how to actually end it.


But have we really ever talked about the World?


Afraid not. And I think he deserves some sort of respect and commemoration.


* * * * *


It hadn’t really stopped raining, but it had dwindled into a drizzle nonetheless, and it was safe enough for me to make for the LRT station without being completely drenched. In a night where it is dark and shunned by the grace of moonlight and lampposts, a drizzle somewhat doesn’t seem to exist, not in sight, not even in touch, because as the wind took over it was a completely deluge of chill and dampness.


But not every part of the street is deprived of light, and eventually there was a streetlight bright enough for me to make out most of the way, and it was then when the toad hopped out of the shadows and through the gap between my feet, either completely unawares or completely unafraid, which is not quite the way toads are supposed to behave.


And I was there bemused and perplexed somewhat, wondering there if there is a superstition that states that if a toad hops between your feet, you might get something out of it. And if there IS something like this, then I got myself a story, only that I wished I got some money instead. Aren’t toads supposed to be lucky?

Pointlessness is all about making things without having to.

It was bleary, I was groggy and both of them combined to be some sort of hangover that seem to occur the mornings after Monday, so it was quite a heavy awakening, and it took me some self-assurance (and nagging) to get me up and brush my teeth.


It sort of drizzled in the morning, and the skies today has a sort of cataclysmic imminence spelled all over it. It was the sort of weather the TV newscaster would say, “Ladies and gentlemen… I think we’re about to get motherf***ed”. Therefore it was cold and bleak, and so much to start the day.


But there isn’t much to talk about today. Dad was on the train and LRT with me; his car was in the workshop for the umpteen time this few months, and as per usual occasions in which we both found ourselves in a train wedged between people, we were more or less quiet.


I am always under the impression that my dad would look completely put of place in public transportation; there is always the image of a grizzly bear cantering in a shopping mall unawares of the screams and shouts. And there he was, sitting in the middle seat of three, arms folded with his sunglasses on so that I wouldn’t know if he had his eyes closed or he was scowling at the destitute impression of the commuting world. Just like a grizzly bear, only that people are used to it, just as much as they’re used to the elephant seal standing at the sliding doors, the ostrich reading Amy Tan and the iguana leisurely propping himself at the glass divider looking like a jade mannequin.


Somewhere near my stop he drew 10 bucks from his wallet and ordered that I take the cab to class, his reason that it was raining and that I’m a profound git for thinking of walking to class. So I did like a good boy and grabbed a cab with a driver that seems to detest the world in the way it was chock full of distrust and trickery. His motto (which I have gotten to know in the short minutes of sitting beside him) was ‘screw thinking big because you’re going to fail’ and ‘becoming a boss? You’ll lose it all!’ (he said in Cantonese and made it rhyme, so my translations won’t do justice).


Before dropping me off he commented that journalism would probably render me perpetually poor and miserable. I told him that it’s all about fighting to the top, and success is how you make for it, and he laughed in a content sort of way, said “good for you”, and stopped at where I pointed. He happily bid me farewell, “may we meet again if fate has it,” and I bade him good luck and good day.


One of the rare, good taxi rides you get.


And then it was boredom in class, and once more I drew and slept and listened to things not related to my studies. For tutorials Mr. Money let us out an hour earlier, so I made home in the damp afternoon, bought me a packet of rice and spent my lunch fending Marley off my feet (Marley is the surprise from the previous post. He is feisty, he is always hungry and he pounces at my feet. Other than that, he’s cute the way puppies are).


The rest of the day was just as unremarkable… I don’t even know why I’m writing this. Perhaps it is a subliminal means of escaping my impending start of my final assignment. Procrastinate!


Yeah… well, time I try to start. Good night people.


Music: The Firebird Suite - Igor Stravinsky


Classical at its utmost best.

It seems like I’ve been through emptiness. Idleness, perhaps, but that’s subjective to what I do, not quite what I feel, no? Though, considering that I haven’t been updating for a whole entire week of free nights, I guess Idleness is the sum of it.

Being brain dead is one thing. Being brain empty; now, that’s a different picture to paint.

Now, I sit here wishing that the next words will come but it wouldn’t. It’s not quite like forgetting or being drained out. It’s like I’m constipated to the point even coconuts won’t save my sorry posterior. Aggrieving.

At any rate, I agree that writing a ‘use it or lose it’ sort of thing; I remember going a month without writing and coming out more blank pages than I ever had. It’s better to write even you have to force yourself to it. Eventually the words will come, hopefully, but if we don’t start baiting ourselves I think we might not be drawn into it when a long time have passed.

I sometimes bait myself by starting a sort of noir movie monologue. It can start with something like; Whiskey. The sort of cheap man’s morphine to the wounds the sights and sounds sometimes cut. Knives in the smog; thorns in the smoke and under the lights.

(Granted, it’s cheesy crap, but it gets me started.)

It’s been a peaceful week.

I say it with the conviction of a man who know how crappy it was the past weeks can sometimes get and now found himself in something so relatively placid it was almost saintly.

A serene, quiet sort of saintly. Like having a cabin in an island somewhere and playing solitaire at the porch with the winds and sea waves to lull the madness of the world.

Watched Beowulf on Monday with Pauline, Uncle Sean and Mekz, which was a crazy crowd. Psycho crazy, I mean. subtle and subliminal. Scary =P

And Beowulf turned out to be an enjoyable watch, regardless of what a lot of people said. Gaiman and the band of writers did a job of making a simple story into something more complex, which worked in some ways, though the one thing that nagged at me was; if they had just let it be and make the story just as it is (kill all the monsters, no sudden drop in pacing and lapse of time), maybe more people would’ve liked it.

But I stand by my verdict of it being an achievement in movie making. Now, if the God of War movie could be made like this…


So, if you have two parents who left on a very rare vacation for two nights, what would you do?

I made a list I what I would’ve done had I been more of a person than a slob eating idiot;

1) Call for a party. With lots of Nachos
2) Call for a LAN party. Or gaming party. With lots of Nachos.
3) Call for a movie marathon. 10 movies at least. With lots of Nachos and Gatorade.
4) Order a very own Hawaiian Delight, cheese crusted.
5) Watch things I don’t normally watch at the LCD TV.
6) Game for 14 hours straight, breaking my previous record of 12.

None of these happened, mostly because the two nights my parents spend canoodling (I think) at some communist settlement I came home at 9 p.m. bent and tired and having to take care of the plethora of chores since my bro wouldn’t be home until 11 and he doesn’t do nuts.

So what could’ve been the time that would never come for (probably) the rest of all eternity came and I wasted it on chores and a crazy dog who bites slippers but don’t gnaw them and hides them in places you may think quite impossible at first.

Yeah… now that I think of it, I should’ve ordered my very own Hawaiian Delight.

Well, the parents are back now and they brought home a surprise.

My brother opened the car door and muttered “Oh my God.”
I looked and said “Oh Shit.”

And we looked at each other an understanding that weighed like atlas’s baggage on our shoulders.

The surprise now sleeps in the kitchen, and he bites. Other than that he sleeps.

Like a puppy.

Nutmeg.

The day I vomited blood and died.

Yes.

I am dead.

The doctors diagnosed it as a severe case of organ constriction; parts from the thorax regions -- particularly the thoracic diaphragm -- and the larger sections of the gut, have what they called in the small layman talk over the coffee machine, been “twisted like your old mama’s spaghetti”.

It is one of the 56 results of chronic assignmenttia, and as they told my parents, something that has been happening since 1986.

“Stomachs now can’t take this sort of things,” they said, and my father listened (my mom didn’t understand a thing). “Bloody educational system.”

But it wasn’t as painful as it sounded. A small consolation I would’ve told my parents; perhaps tomorrow, and it’s that I didn’t die an excruciating death.

It was quick.

I was eating dinner with the family when my mother asked if my gums were bleeding, because there was blood trickling down unto my chin. I wiped it off laughingly, bemused, wondering…

And then the whole table was covered in blood. The food, the faces, the cutleries.

It was like a garden sprinkler set to work at 3 a.m. in the morning where the water pressure is exceptionately good.

And then… well, and then I was dead.

But it didn’t just happen. Nothing did. In every effect there is a cause that run as deep as knowledge would allow, and probably deeper into time, or perhaps there never was any depth. Just an infinite chasm. A chain, without an end and without a start.

But as far as I know, the part involving me started on Wednesday.

It had also started with procrastination.

It had led to a frantic, almost impossible rush to finish three deadlines. All of them on Friday.

There was also a matter of presentations.

And now, it has ended with death. Assignmenttia is caused by an immense pile-up of pressure, tension and bowel inconsistencies, which was in turn caused by a huge sum of busyness.

I had slept for only 7 hours in 42.

I had to finish my feature after my moral presentation, in the class and half an hour before submission. I hadn’t even printed it out.

It so crazy it was laughable. And laughed at it I did.

Laughed about it over dinner.

And then I dropped dead. Literally. “He who laughs last laughs best.” Whatever.

There wasn’t a white light or a sudden lapse in reality in which I find myself consulting a man in a business suit giving me tourism packages and destinations (“The river Styx or the Downtown purgatory? Either way we have good boatmen services, and a complimentary breakfast if you check in before 12.”). There wasn’t even Death per se. I was just there looking down and saying Shit. Then I called my insurance policy.

Now the black candles are in place, and it’s been 2 nights now. We’ve got the ingredients ready (Master Chef thinks Asian brews are exotic but highly unorthodox, and orthodox means the job is always right if not correct, hence the delay in preparations), the Scroll is read and my policy had paid the agreed bribe to Mr Horse Face (Guard Master of the Gates).

What I do is wait.

Tomorrow I should be revived. I should be in the right way, which the policy guarantees.

My parents might be shocked but heck, if I’m home they ought to forgive and forget.

Now I will go to sleep.

Dismiss this as fiction if you may, but that’s what most people say about insurance policies. “Bunch of cons,” they say.

You won’t know when you’re dead.

Saturdays will now henceforth be known as Suffer-day (or, if you would like a catchier call, Suffering Saturday). For the reason I give two words and possibly more, only that both will speak enough as much as an entire concerto chorus would sing it in tenor, and they’re Dad and Fishes.


Nuff said.


To quote my brother; slavery is not abolished in Malaysia. Not yet. Not this small part of the land where there’s the case of having too many hell-forsaken pets that need the constant tending of reluctant carers. Democracy and freedom is lost in the insensible mess of cleaning crap out of fish tanks and literally feeding yourselves to mosquitoes.


And it’s November, where it rains more, which means more mosquitoes, which means I will fear the garden as much as I would fear a pack of vampires vying for some rather fat-clogged blood veins.


November also means NaNoWriMo.


NaNoWriMo means National Novel Writing Month.


National Novel Writing Month means I will get fired up and attempt 1500 words a day in typing.


1500 words in typing a day means I will fail in 10-15 days if I actually tried.

10-15 days means I’ve pretty much convinced myself that I’ve done something but in fact done nothing.


Done nothing means nothing was done.


Which means I did nothing.


Which means I didn’t do much writing.


And I cheated.



Sorta.







By continuing my old manuscript.


Which is not going the way I wanted to go, but I kepy going anyhow because it’s the only thing I can do and starting over is impossible at day 10.


Someone I know named Kelvin (a certain KelvinW, not the KelvinG) told me he managed 23000 words at day 8. That means around 3000 words a day.


Holy f&^%


I’ve done 100 words today, which means my count officially passed the 5000 word line (by little), but there’s no feel to it if you’re not quite enthusiastic over a draft that didn’t go the way you wanted it to now.


Now the recurring question that rhymes and echoes itself around whatever place I am like a persistent and reminding ghost is; “who am I bloody kidding?”


Myself, of course, and I think I’m still falling for it.

It has been a while. Perhaps that’s the truth of it. Perhaps that’s the justification, as far as reasons can be excuses. The longer it seems that I choose not to write, the further my need for it deserts me. Like watching a hat snatched by the wind, and not giving chase.


And there is so many to type. There is even more to write, and to tell, and to put into words and in limn, but I would think… yes, I would think that I shall write this first.


Two weeks, I counted. More or less. I haven’t written anything here for two weeks. There has been many to tell, but being so long already, being almost part of a more distant, easily forsaken memory, perhaps there isn’t much about them to talk about anymore.


There was my brother’s convocation, held at a beach with long waves and gloomy skies. The whole family was there and it was something that I took a lot of pictures of. There had been lonely walks on the beach and interesting people to tell, but it is almost forgotten now, at least to this moment.


There was a normal week, which ended with a trip to the arcades and a lot of money spent on coins. But that, too, is almost forgotten.


There was dad leaving to Laos for work. Bro and I were there to fetch him to his plane.


And there was, of course, the death of my dog, Max. I have not forgotten that. I don’t believe I ever will.


He died on Monday evening at the car porch. The vet didn’t know why he was sick and what sickness he caught. I was with him in the waiting. It was somewhat peaceful.


A week later, now, people asked and I would tell them that he was old. Max was, at least, on his tenth or eleventh year, and in the course of the week I have convinced myself that there was nothing more that I could’ve done. And there wasn’t.


A few days before he was merely having diarrhoea and a mild lack of appetite. Later on he refused to eat and we took him to the vet who gave him jabs and pills to take home and instructions to force feed him with canned food. So I spent the weekend and Monday taking care of him, feeding him with syringes. In the process I got under the weather; had fever and a badly swollen throat.


On Monday I actually thought he was better, because he had been wandering around the garden after long intervals. I continued to feed and gave him his pills. In the afternoon the fever got the better of me, so I swallowed some panadol and slept for a bit. When I woke it was beginning to rain, so I got out to move Max into someplace warmer. I found him lying in the garden. He didn’t want to move.


I urged him back to the porch, and it was the last walk he ever made. I dried him with a towel and draped it around him like a blanket, and after awhile he slumped down and I thought I should feed him a bit. He wouldn’t swallow. He wouldn’t drink. And that was when I thought, in the way you always seem to know, somehow, the way some things are and it is the undeniable and inevitable truth, that this was it, and he was going to die.


So I made him as comfortable as I could do with towels and old cloths. And I waited.
I talked to him. I told him he was a good boy, and that he really was one. After a long while I simply stopped talking, and I stroked his head and waited, watching him breathing, breathing, and I waited. We waited.


Sometime later some of the neighbour’s relatives dropped by and chattered away, uncaring and ignorant and noisy. I remembered wishing that they would go. They did, after sometime, and it was rather quiet after. Only the drizzle sound over the dad’s fountains and the occasional passing car. And soon there was only breathing, breathing, and there was wait.


I don’t remember a long time passing. It was cold and it was real, and it was the way anticipation seem to haunt your every second, letting me wonder if any breath would’ve been the last, or I would just look down and see that the chest have stopped heaving, and that he was gone without my noticing. Soon I could tell that he could no longer see, and that was when his body succumbed to numerous spasms. Violent shudders and jerks that seemed painful, but he made no sound of pain.


Just then, just happening like it would have, like I would’ve known and expected, his body curved into a gentle, graceful arc, and what left his mouth was a soft and final howl, and he relaxed and was gone.


I couldn’t describe how very much real it was at that time. It wasn’t like a dream, it wasn’t like a blurred residue of forgotten and forsaken memories. There wasn’t a single drop of question, of wondering, of telling myself that I couldn’t believe it, and that Max was dead. Really dead. It didn’t happen. It was the quick realisation and ultimatum, the drop of reality and truth.


I couldn’t describe how cold I seemed to have acted. How cold I was, to move his body away from the porch, to try and arrange the legs so it won’t stuck at weird angles. How cold I was, to soap the porch and scrub with a brush to remove the blood and dirt. How cold I was, to cover the body with a towel, to call my mother and brother and father without a tear or, so I seemed and felt, without a tinge of sadness.


So cold I was, and now that I think of it, I wonder where my heart went.


Daily I walked passed the empty kennel, and days before I used to look at it longer and sometimes sigh. Now the sighs grew less and I spent more time smiling at my other dog, Lanna, who seemed to me is completely ignorant of the whereabouts of her companion, and I believe that that’s the best for her.


That week I had a terrible throat infection, and it gave me fever that often left me freezing one moment, and the other baking as though stuck in an oven, so I took the week off classes and was stricken to the couch for most days.


I’m glad to say that I’m back in classes, albeit very much behind of work. Work which I have to quickly tend to…


A bad week? Quite, really, but it is all, perhaps, just as we often do, just say. Just words and agreements. But maybe if it had - if it was - better, maybe if things were different, like, say, dad was around in his own reliable way, then perhaps maybe things would’ve been different. I didn’t ask myself that, not until now, and now that it is asked and left unanswered, perhaps it’s not something that I will ever ask again.


Because we were never meant to ask it. We’re only meant to move on, to another week.