The Coin Standing Upright

The week was like the rain. Under it I left myself doing nothing, and the undying rhythm of falling water over the roaring and howling winds did its job of drowning me away from over-thinking, and washing away the flecks of trouble that would’ve probably mutated into something mossy and infectious.

And now that I’ve left it, the sun was bright and the warmth gratifying. Somewhere there might’ve been a rainbow.

I’m about to write something that I put off writing for the whole week. I did it because I didn’t know if I could write it. Something told me that I should leave it be, and I left it. And then the week picked up and things went so hectic it felt like the week was one whole, long day.

Now things had settled down, and in a way I’m glad of how busy things went. It felt refreshing, kinda. And now I sit in front of this and the words come.

I guess I did the right thing.

On the Sunday which was the first day of Hari Raya, the Dog Marley passed away.

He was poisoned. That’s all we know. He was poisoned by someone, or some people, with a heart made entirely of dark, stinking shit. I curse that person. I curse them. For whatever malicious intent they did it for, they deserve a similar death. I wish they die alone. I wish their deaths a painful one. They deserved this.

If there’s only one consolation, it was that we were all there beside him when he passed. The whole family. We stayed and waited with our hands on him. I hope that had helped somewhere.

Numbness. No disbelieve. I think I’ve accepted it earlier on. But it pained a lot to come home and see the cage empty, and knowing I can’t call him to come and ask for a kiss, and get that wet lick on the face. Or wrestle that toy away. Or get him to go “Up!” and clamber all over me.

It’s a memory now. Another picture in the hall. One that I’ll see when I walk backwards. I’ll most likely do.

Bob Marley once said that “Love will never leave us alone.” I just need him to know that he never left us, and we will never leave him, and home is always where he belong.

I said it once that day, in a whisper. I write it down now.

Home is always where you belong.





*********

Life’s a coin toss.

Flip it. Call it. Heads, you win. Lady luck and all that jazz. Tails and the world shows you the barren wasteland, and treats you with a glass of radioactive water. It’s all luck. It’s all either good or bad.

But sometimes you get that toss that landed wrongly on the floor. Wrongly because it stood upright. You get one face of the grim reaper with a beckoning finger and a chainsaw and you get the other face of Mona Lisa over the plains of Ida.

Both the good and the bad. And then, that side of the coin that made it stand. The one that neutralised things out. Call it a draw. Everybody loses. Everybody wins.

The bad face of the coin was Marley. The good face of the coin is Lanna giving birth to twins.

Children of the Rastafarian Pup.

I’m one of the happiest man right now. It’s something out of a movie. It’s that feeling of knowing that at the end of the road, there’re new ones. You know that saying. With Death comes Birth.

He left, but he left something behind.

It’s still early; Lanna gave birth this morning and puppies have a shaky first week where things can go wrong. I can only pray, and hope truthfully that they’ll do good. I have my trust in Lanna, but I would like the trust of Fate. And Fate never gives. He only shows.

But golly.

TWINS!

There, I got it out. I’m about to internally combust with the elation.

You hear that, Marley? You see this? You got twins, big boy. You got TWINS.

Watch over them, aights?

*******

There’re a bunch of other things going on, both like the upright coin; a two-sided culmination of good and bad. I’ll write about it some other time.

I’m leaving this last section of the post here to thank a few people. These people were the same people that got some sort of circuitry break in their brains, which ended up turning them into brilliantly insane people (but greatly lovable all the same).

These people are the gang I call friends. And they’ve helped even if some of them didn’t know that they did.

The Monday after Marley passed I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get out like we planned, but I knew I would’ve ended up moody in the room and playing games to drown the thoughts, so I trusted them to cheer me up, give me a good time, and they did it without fail, like they always do.

So here’s to friends; my utmost, greatest, most sincere thanks, for being there and helping me even if you guys didn’t know it. And for those who noticed, somehow, even if I thought I hid it well, thanks for understanding and caring.

Thank you. You guys don’t know how much you’ve helped.

Thank you.

Slurpee in the Rain.

I did the stupidest thing, and bought a Slurpee even though I knew well enough that I’ve been basked in air-conditioner for an entire day at the office, and would be basking in the two hour jam home, and that it was raining and my throat was just about parched, and I Slurped my way to the car (5 minutes under the rain), and Slurped my way home.

And now I have phlegm which might develop into a choky cough tomorrow. Cheers to stupidity.

By the way, a Slurpee in the rain is equivalent to an ice-cream in Genting Highlands after having a go at the water-rush ride thingy that drenches you wet. It’s like a purposely hugging a cactus even though you’re covered in wounds. It’s fun.

****

I’ve been thinking a lot lately.

(This process is known otherwise as Daydreaming, which is healthy in moderation and unhealthy in excess, especially to other people, as collateral damage is inevitable).

I’m starting to think if I’m just being fickle. Lured by a dream that’s hung at a tree like a piñata, vivid and colourful and beckoning with promises in the inside, once beaten open. I guess I’m just being stupid. But it’s there, in my head, and no amount of head-banging-at-the-table is getting it out.

It makes me wonder if I should just sit and let it pass, like it does sometimes, or if I should walk up to it and say hi, let’s do it.

Chances are, when I say hi, there’s no reply.

Shit.

This is really SNAFU.

**********

I didn’t find any old stories over the past few days, but I have a feeling that if I take some time tomorrow, or Sunday, to take a look at the storeroom cabinet, I might find some older notebooks.

Though I’m pretty sure the Terrible Short Stories Book is already gone, perhaps recycled along with the hundreds of used paper over the past decade.

Which reminded me, that two years ago I graduated college with a short-story compilation titled Magnum Opus, all of them written by my college classmates for our Creative Writing course. I found it squeezed between the Webster encyclopaedia and the thesaurus. I’ll probably read it later.

Which also reminded me that I have another Madea to write about, and this time she gets to slay the dragon along with a flower, a cat and an old teacup.

I’ll leave tonight with a video here (that’s awesome, really), before I head to bed.



Right-o. Bonne nuit.

Finding Old Stories

I was clearing out one of the bookshelf cabinets in search of my old certs when I dug out an old folder. I forgot to replace it, and it ended up under my bed until I excavated it from the pile of old bags today. In the folder were a couple of old report cards, and a short story.

I must’ve written it when I was 12 or 13. It was for a friend who asked if I could relate his story in writing, and I did, without any (direct) mention of the people involved.

Gee, it must’ve been my first commission. The first of very few, ahaha.

It’s called By a Piece of Paper. And it happens to be based on something true. It does, however, have no plot or significant meaning.

Let’s see…

Page 1:




My J-E signature is there already, so I’m probably 12 - 14. Denny is the friend who commissioned it. Other names were nicknames of the actual people involved.







Lol, gee, I’m getting Goosebumps, haha.







Yamateh. Brings back memories.








Action!




I spelled sandwich wrong -_-




Oh crud, I used to be called Gary then. The “Terrible Short Stories Book” was never a book; only a few pages of unfinished nonsense.

You can also see that I have already developed necessary skill in escaping possible legal action >.>.

Haha, I really sucked back then, and I still do now. But I remember it as one of the first stories I really, really enjoyed writing. And Denny, well, he couldn’t understand much of the story. I guess that’s why I still have it.

PS: I've unintentionally made the scans kinda small, but I'm too lazy to change anything. Sorry about that.

******

I’ve forgotten.

I used to write a lot. I wrote terribly, but I wrote. A lot. X-files parodies featuring my class monitors (very crude, rude and itself a copy of other parodies). Attempts at making a contributory-type short story compilation book, which didn’t work after a few weeks. And beginning of chapters to novels I always dreamt I could write, but never could.

Some of the unwritten stories are still in my head. I just never brought them back.

I missed those days. When I wasn’t afraid of being judged and weighed. When I was a writer who pride myself in whatever I did, thanks to the naivety of things.

I wonder if the Terrible Short Stories Book is still around.

And the first chapter of Tusanc.

I need to look for them.

And maybe my old, self-drawn comics as well, haha (damn, I never studied).

I wasn’t a student back in school. I was a daydreamer. Who never fulfilled anything.

80 Degrees, and Up

I’ve been trying to tell myself, for the previous two hours, that it’s pointless to write properly when I’m tired and/or sleepy (the equivalent act of trying to fly over a canyon with a cloth and an undaunted trust at the gods of winds), so I don’t know why I’m here, at the advent of imminent exhaustion, trying to write when the words keep forgetting itself every three seconds.

I think someone is having an exam tomorrow, and while she won’t probably read this (she never does, I think, exams or otherwise), it’s still high-time to wish her all the best and go crazy with the broadsword.

I also think that I’ve forgotten something rather important, and I’d really, really hate to wake up in the morning cursing myself.

I’ve been trying to revisit Resident Evil 4 today, considering RE5 comes out on the 15th, forgetting that I absolutely suck in the game and have little tolerance of the constant flow of fear and tension. What transpired was a lot of shouting as I try to run haplessly away from crazed villagers while my mother bustled around telling me to clean my room.

(In the end, I got decapitated by Dr. Salvatore, or so I believe he’s called, with a chainsaw while getting stuck behind the staircase without the shotgun).

******

Sometimes I tell myself that Broga Hill is softcore while maintaining a certain allusion that it’s just as hardcore as things can be if you take away the extremities of what people always put themselves through. Hence, the allusion becomes an illusion and I pride myself rather pathetically for being able to scale a very easy hill weekly.

But extremities, as it tends to be, is what that makes up the greater portion of Life as we know and love, and while mostly avoidable, tends to present itself in the bare-faced grin only the Grim Reaper can give, hoods down.

Today was one of the extremities. It wasn’t the foliage of new, freshly trekked jungles unfamiliar to anyone. It wasn’t entirely the feeling of growing disappointment that middle-aged aunties (with leotard-tight, um, tights, and walking sticks) besting me in terms of stamina and endurance. It wasn’t the mosquitoes nor the several bugs that managed to find its way into my clothes every now and then. Truth is, I’ve been through most of them and I love them. I have a sense of naïve adventurism that’s just as it is, naïve.

Today’s extremity was the 80 degrees, almost perpendicular, almost Vertical Limit vertical slope we faced. Three times I said, “Hot Diggity Demon.”

And yet I surprised myself. I expected to die halfway up, my lungs collapsing inwards as my brain fall into pitch darkness, my legs failing as I tumble downwards and rolling on top of unseen rocks and burnt grass until my body lodge itself between two trees, which at that time meant that I’m as dead as the cadavers in India.

Somehow I get to keep going, and going, and going, and somewhere I wondered if it’s really out of the hands of muscles or cardiovascular endurance. It’s probably adrenaline or some sort of elixir-type rejuvenation caused by some obscured insect bite, giving me a temporary burst of strength.

No place to step. Find it. Climb. Step. Look up. Say Hot Diggity Demon. Climb. Step. Climb. Step. Slip. Climb. Oh FUCKING HELL IT ENDED.

It’s gonna hurt in the morning.

But strangely, as I say it, and believing it, it was wonderful. Great. Worth everything. No beautiful view at the top, no nothing. Just some minute sense of self-satisfaction that I didn’t die halfway up. It feels great. It feels like I can do it next week.

It’s just as extremities are. Going to and sometimes over your limits.

Yeah. I might just be able to do a bit more next time.

(And yet, for tomorrow and the days after, I will hate climbing the stairs to the office and ending up trying not to pant in front of colleagues).

One-month Mark

Crossed it. It’s like a concrete bridge over The Endless Void; still steady, still safe, but one slip and it’s aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh…………… (hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……)

I’ve been spending the week trying to pass myself off as somehow who understood whatever the presenters said, which I probably can try if I’d exert a bit of concentration, but most of the time they lost me whenever the introductions end.

I’d nod occasionally and smile at the jokes, but inside I’m imagining scenarios where 12-footed monsters start barging in and tossing everyone around, impaling the presenter with the chair and kicking a hapless PR rep out the hotel window, while I ran the heck away.

I don’t hate anyone. It’s just so incredibly boring and, well, jargonistic (not a word).

(And I’m not exactly part of the industry. At least, the non-writing parts >.>).

Secondyly.

The month’s issue came out, and I have it at home with me. I’ve made a couple of mistakes and by golly, there’s so much room for improvement, I better start buying a new mop and brush, plus robotic limbs to help me through.

For the most part, all I see are mistakes, mistakes, mistakes (by me).

Secondyly was one of them.

Time to buck up, baby.

********

I wish I’m better looking. That way, that mug of me over the Ominous Grey Column would be of a handsome, well proportioned face. Instead, you’ll be looking at an eggplant with acne.

Now, I hope I get feedback. Someone to tell me that I’m sucking very badly so that I can get better and start making sense. Or to tell me that I’m better off quitting the industry. Either way, it’s so I can stop assuming things. Worse things. Better to get the slap firsthand than to realise an obscured knife between the shoulder blades several years earlier.

At any rate, I’m still kind of irrepressibly happy.

Like Fred Astaire in a certain gym, the weighs don’t matter once you hear the rhythm and the music.

And then there was none.

At first, Happy died in the gutter. We wrapped him up in a plastic bag and dad returned him to the ‘green, green grass of home.’

Then dad went on his Euro trip and came home with a grand proposal; after observing how the Europeans keep their rabbits, he announced that he would be letting the rabbits roam free in the garden, where food is in abundance and the cage would never require cleaning again. Part of me rejoiced. Another wondered if this hare-brained idea would work when all that’s left to protect the rabbits are the fact that they should be able to outrun any potential danger.

Then the dad announced that both dogs will be freely roaming the garden as well.

Sometime later, Miss Grey was found dead with her eyes close to popping out of her sockets.

I wasn’t there; I was at work, which is a thankful thing, because I would’ve had to wrap it up as well. Instead, the brother had to do it. That night, we mused to ourselves the possible assailants of Miss Grey, concluding with a consensus that it was one of the dogs.

A few days after, Lucky was killed and her head was missing. The crime happened in plain sight of the dad. It was Lanna ‘the bear cub’ Wolfenstein.

We never found the head. It was either devoured or buried as winter food.

Now we have no rabbits and the cage is an empty reflection of a home abandoned, and slowly claimed by time.

We’ve had two. Then it became three. And then there was none.

A thread of deafening silence hung in the air (now forgotten, for the rabbits were, well, rabbits…).

*********

I never blamed Lanna. It was instinct. The awakening of a dormant impulse, surged outwards in a single instant and wham; we have a wolf. A hunter. An urge formed by the German Sheppard within her, escalated by the blood of a hound-mongrel that was her father. No more rabbits.

We did punish her, though.

She’s still back to her playful, oblivious self. Maybe she will dream about it as the finest achievement of her life; the successful hunt. The bear cub, now closer to a bear.

*****************

I forgot to mention, what with the advent of work and the stuff that comes with it, that the brother is now back from the English shores and has comfortable reintegrated himself into Malaysian lifestyle and culture.

He hasn’t developed an accent, but has learned how to break an arm in various ways, and I am already the unwilling dummy.

He is, rather unfortunately (for me), still the same.

**************************************

While watching the blade of grass dance to the soft wind on a hill overlooking the world’s horizon, I suddenly came to a revelation.

It was the type of revelation in a form of a resolution. And I’m going to do it. But it being a resolution would mean I would eventually either forget about it, or give it up halfway.

Between the chirps of the passing sparrow and the early chorus of crickets, it felt as though the wind has bound a Japanese “YOSH!” headband over my forehead, not really ebbing even after dinner.

I cracked my knuckles.