The Toads Had Been Calling. "Where were we? We were in Rlyeh, being masters."

Quiet night.

Or, well, as quiet as it gets.

Am listening to the repeating call of toads; the ‘ong-ongs’ of mating superiority and the burning need to breed. This is rather nostalgic; it has been years since the last Symphony of Horny Toads, and they used to sound every rainy season when I was a kid. I thought they had died off, or migrated when the new housing development took out all of the surrounding jungle. I guess they found good reason to get back in.

The toads used to invade the house as well. They’d hide under our shrubberies or tall grass, which riled the dogs up sometimes. The dad would rid of them using shovels. Too timid to kill them, I’d chase them out with brooms or large buckets of water. Yes, it occurred to me that using water against toads is like trying to blow bubbles at sharks underwater.

But I’m glad they’re back, even if they won’t be hopping into the house (we don’t have grass anymore, or shrubbery. Now everything is tiled-up and only the mango tree remained). They remind me of simpler times, and the years where we’d discover the world that is (or was) our neighbourhood.

I remember cycling down the street and stopping by the grassy roadside to hunt for grasshoppers, which were food for Minah the pet Mynah bird. These were the smaller types; tiny things that shape like the tip of a lalang no longer than a thumb. Occasionally, larger grasshoppers would find its way to our house, and they were palm-sized and far too scary-looking for me to catch bare-handed (the dad used to catch them deftly, then plop them into the aquarium to feed the pet kaloi).

Some nights, giant moths would nestle at the ceiling of the car porch, close to the light and away from the drizzle. They were beautiful things, as big as two palms put together. They’d stay still and leave in the morning, or they’d die and I’d watch them being swept away along with the fallen leaves on the porch.

Used to be times when the flying termites would leave their mounds, and turn the porch into a bug-filled apocalypse straight from hell. The best way against those was to shut off the lights and seal off the house. They’d leave to congregate around another source of light, and we only move out to sweep the casualties into the drain.  

We don’t get those anymore. No grasshoppers, no giant moths, and I don’t remember the last time we had a flying termite catastrophe. But the toads were back, at least, and on good days you might catch the resident squirrel having its way with our mango.

We’ve had more animal-related incidents here, but I guess that’s for another night.

For now, I hope the toads won’t carry on too far into the night. As nice as it is to have them back, I’d hate to dream of libido-heavy toads.

Goodnight, folks.  

And Before All That

Right.

The idea, initially, was to write a story every day. To make up small and big things and put them in words and leave them as they are – messy, pointless and meaningless – because what matters more here is that I get the cranial exercise that I need, so that I could keep writing the things I want to write.

That idea eventually downgraded into simply writing something every day. It doesn’t matter what; a story or a blog post or a sentence, it doesn’t matter. It just needed to be from the brain and heart.

Then real life came along and wrote itself, leaving most of everything that couldn’t catch up.

These days, it’s rare for me to be here, sitting in front of my computer with the night at my disposal. These days, I live more in the office and only return home to peruse the bed, and the toilet, and the dining table for the occasional breakfast.

These days, I wrote only for the desperate need to fill in the pages of a magazine that doesn’t want to admit that it’s understaffed, and perhaps a little overworked.

The scary bit here is that every month came and went without me being able to think about it. Life no longer presented itself like a piece of art, which subtleties and abstractness can be observed to reveal the kind of beauty you can smile to, or take to heart. Life now is a passing train that occasionally shows you a wonderful view of the world, only to return back to the caving darkness of the tunnels.

Life’s a lot less beautiful when you can’t see most of it. And it’s scary because I still wanted to see them all before I croak and drown myself in the bathroom.

I don’t want to start every month already in the thick of work, wrestling a growing pile of tasks that doesn’t know how to sort itself no matter what program I wrote into it. I want to be able to spend an hour every day to see Life, and being able to muse, observe and maybe write about it. I want to know I can still see the world and actually care for it, instead of simply shrugging because it doesn’t buy me another hour of sleep.

God dammit, I want to live. Shit.

Anyway, I’m writing this because I refuse to go into next week knowing that I have, once again, failed to write something that I can constitute as ‘Writing’. My job lets me write, yes, but when you have writing to get out of the way for many, many other things, it simply becomes a chore; it serves its purpose, but doesn’t mean anything more than taking the trash out.

Before all that, I want to feel a slight chance of accomplishment.

Then there’s nothing in the month than can get me lower.

****

I’m having trouble writing things now. In fact, I’m having trouble discerning between writing and Writing, or whether they’re the same thing and that I’ve just intentionally capitalised one letter to make it sound more prominent.

It’s frustrating. On one hand, I’m churning out soulless articles that reek of the boring and mundane. On the other, I’m Writing about nothing at all.

Clap them together rapidly and it becomes applause for the unremarkable. It’s like clapping at a rock for being hard. Even that was better cause for celebration.

I make as much sense as a broken calculator. All numbers but no equation.

I’m only writing whatever’s coming to my head now because I can’t think of anything else to write about, but I don’t want to stop just yet.

For once, I think I’m having fun.

****

How was the past six months?

Hectic. Crazy. A roller-coaster running in a whirlwind to the latest dubstep track. A lot of travelling, which was good until it became too much of a good thing. I travelled almost every start of the month and returned home to weeks of unending work. After Taipei, which happened in June, I told myself that I won’t be up in a plane again unless I’m headed out for an adventure, and not to the next foreign convention centre.

For the past six months, I had travelled to Krabi (adventure), Hainan Island (family adventure, plus obligatory Birthplace of the Forefathers visit), Orlando (work), Shanghai (work), Singapore (shorter work) and Taipei (crazy loads of work). I won’t be flying again until November, and that’s for Siam Reap and Angkor Wat (adventure).

But I did get to see the other bits of the world, and that’s always fantastic. And every of these places were beautiful, strange and filled with fascinating people. There was always something new to see. I just wished I could’ve seen it without having to rush back to the hotel in a bid to finish work on time.

Other than that, life’s pretty much on a chaotic routine. The gentler nights, I spent it with the people that matters. And I guess I can always be glad of that.

I can’t complain, and I know I just did. But it’s truly a complaint to myself. If I don’t cross out the Customer Satisfaction slips for myself, I can’t expect the service to improve.

Here’s hoping that I can still find nights like this for a hearty spot of word diarrhoea.

Man, it feels good to finally let it all out.

(Do pardon the stink).

Goodnight, people. And goodnight World.

Hello.

You will have to forgive me.

At this moment,

I’m having a little trouble with Perspective.

You see,

The problem in believing that you can write almost everything, and then

finding yourself not having written for the past good several months

can do many things to the Writing.

I think it’s the way the brain works, sometimes. If it’s a muscle, constant use of it is constant exercise. Though, I believe,

that if writing is one way to set the mind free,

then what I’ve really been doing is keeping the brain locked up, while it defecates stagnant ideas and wallows in it, always looking outwards believing that

Words and Stories and Ideas and Songs

are out there, and that one day it’ll reach it and be amongst it, where it belongs.

So.

My long-unused brain right now has no Perspective.

It’s not to say like it is not functioning. It just doesn’t – couldn’t – see things in that angle that makes it feel like it’s seeing something wonderful. Or different. Or fascinating. Or in the way that makes it wonder if there’s more to it, and seeing that Something More, and asking the What Else’s and What If’s and What Would Happen’s and Why Not’s.

It would only see things rigidly. Like right now, it could only

See things like it’s on the Right.

Or things like it’s on the Wrong Left.

Most times it sees things Straight; boringly Centred and stiff and predictable.

Sometimes it wouldn’t see things properly at all, preferring, instead, to be

S

        C

                A

                        T

                                T

              E

  R

B

                                                                 R

                                                            A

                                                                       I

N

        E

D,

and not at all comprehensible or helpful.

So I’m writing now, or at least, I think I am. What with the brain being like this,

the most that I could manage is total gibber`#%&@*@ish, or at least

something of a poor attempt

at trying to make a visual representation of how my

isn’t being very writerly.

It’s not going to be easy, because it’ll take much more than writing once to

set things better. It’ll take more words, and more sentences, and more posts and

ideas, even if I have to force it out, to keep the brain at work and writing.

And it doesn’t matter if I’m not writing right or writing well.

I just need to keep writing.

And if it’s about letting my brain get exercised and used, then it’s the sort of mental gym routine it needs.

If it’s about letting the mind go free, well;

It needs to relearn everything about Words and Stories and Ideas and Songs.

And because all I have, and perhaps ever will, are Words and Stories and Ideas and Songs (and Love), then

I better start letting it Believe again.

Dreaming may be one thing, but

In the end.

You’ll need the words to make it Real.

****

Let’s try this again:

Hello.

(Alright, much better).

I owe you an apology. One is for the above, which is pointless and unnecessary, though it might just be that walk through Stupidtown that I needed. To remind me that you can be so low to find more reasons to get back up.

Two is for not writing the things I was supposed to write, which are far too many and way too old. I think I had talked about things like the United States, and that was only one out of the 6 million things that I had wanted to write about but never had the time, nor the patience, nor the discipline and the drive.

I had worried that I had lost it all, the writing, and right now it may as well been gone. Only that I’m rather stubborn at having it around, tattered or broken as it is (not like it was wholesome or worthwhile at the first place, anyway), because – like it or not – it’s still that part of me that meant something. So here’s another shot, out of a hundred other shots, that I’d probably making until I hit something.

Anyway, life’s so far been like this:

It’s great. It’s wonderful. It’s filled with joy and a little sadness. It can be boring and it can be exciting. I did things as much as I did nothing. Had some of the new, kept a lot of the old, and had generally been moving along with life at the slowest pace as I could manage, to enjoy the little things, because things had rather picked up in pace.

I’m happy now, as happy as I could be. I’m contented, and not scarily so, because there are new challenges and new prospects that make me feel lazy and afraid and excited. All in all, life’s good, and I’m glad of it.

My name card now reads Deputy Editor, though I tell people that it only meant that I’m doing a little extra outside of writing the usual stuff. I’m busier now, which is a good thing sometimes; other times, it made me feel like putting on a helmet and riding down a highway ramp on a shopping mall trolley.

I’ve also been on a few adventures. Like going up to Cameron Highlands for the first time, and seeing this:

Which made me feel like I could move to Newcastle, or New Zealand

Or going to Thaipusam for the first time, in the midst of this.

Not depicted: someone's foot on mine, and another photographer's elbow trying squash my pancreas

And seeing this and this.

Yeap; those are fruits hooked to his back

And that's a guy hooked to his back

Or even small adventures to places like Tanjung Sepat.

Which has a Lover's Bridge that isn't very loverly 

And a crummy amusement park in i-City Shah Alam, for a walk in a giant refrigerator.

Which has been storing things with a tackiness level of 1991, like this Santa Claus (the Girl, however, is a visitor frozen in shock)

 Things that deserve its own post, because it’s 1.30 a.m. now and I ought to be asleep for tomorrow’s event.

What I can truly say is that, if you’re wondering how I’m doing and what I’ve been doing, I can tell you that I’m doing great, and I’ve been doing nice, wonderful little things.

To bed now, and telling myself that I’ll be writing about these things in the days to come. Or else, um, no video games for the month. Yeah.

Goodnight, people.   

I’m a guy standing at the edge of a puddle.

I’m afraid to step in.

The puddle is, by puddle standards, relatively shallow. Large, wide, maybe a little murky, with strands of oily colours coiling by the sides. But shallow.

There is an urge to leap right in, for that satisfying splash. To kick the water and show ‘em who’s boss. To say, “Who’s in deep water now, huh?”

But I don’t want to dirty the shoes. I don’t like the idea of jumping into untested waters. I’m afraid of wetting the hem of my trousers, knowing that the soaked fabric would cling to my leg, reminding me of the dirtiness of the water, constantly stinging me with cold, haunting me with discomfort…

I take a step back, where I know it’s dry. Boringly so. Safely so.

I need to walk ahead.

I can easily sidestep the puddle. Make one great leap and pray I clear the water. Find a piece of something somewhere, and use it as a makeshift bridge. Or I can wait for the puddle to dry. I’m in no hurry, and the day is warm.

But you know what they say about puddles. Actually, you don’t. Because there’s nothing about puddles there is to be said. They’re just that; shallow waters to step into, or step over. They can be fun, they can be uncomfortable. They’re both things.

They are many things. But, in the end, they’re puddles, and you decide if you’ll walk in or not.

I need to walk ahead.

I think I’ll just walk. Puddle or not. Wet, dry, fun or discomfort… well, they’re just one of those things.

And well, there’re many more puddles ahead.

****

Make sense of what you might. I couldn’t. I was simply writing up an excuse from drafting this bit of website copywriting, which isn’t happening. It could be the heat. Or simply a brain on atrophy.

Whatever it is, I think I’m glad I wrote this. Because, well, it meant that I’m writing. Sorta.

Heh.

****

The truth is, I’m walking ahead because I remember;

Some time ago someone went off to fulfil her dream.

She walked on a foreign land, learned new things and saw great wonders.

She faced the world, braced the winds, and smiled and cried and stayed walking.

One flower against the world.

One flower who held my hand. Taught me to walk onwards, and giving me the strength to.

And now it's Two. 

Cold tables do not invite neighbours.

You don’t want them to come.

Dug up some old written works, in a folder marked Written Works in the external HDD.  One of the stories I’ve written, which belongs to the group of stories I’ve written without meaning, without plot, without much semblance of anything else – usually started from a random phrase or word from the dictionary, and left to flow and form and become – as they all become – total crackpot of stories, started out with this.

Think I miss writing stories like those. I’d be tempted to try sometimes, but the words don’t flow and form anymore. It’s like the river has met the lake, and everything about rapids and torrents and salmons are forgotten.

Anyway, I want it back. I want it back very much. So much that I think I’ll just start blogging on a whim because the feeling is here. Maybe I could listen to these whims more often.

The problem with whims are, however, is that they can end rapidly. As it’s doing now.

I suppose I’ll head to bed now. And figure out this interview for tomorrow morning.

Before that:

Goodnight, people.

As it turns out, it can be a Thursday night when someone can wake up and find himself on a piece of paper the size of the World.

It was - as papers tend to be sometimes - completely empty.

There are many common, clichéd things a person can do when they find themselves on paper; walking and jumping around would be one, and yelling and hollering for answers would be another. The common, clichéd thing to happen next is the introduction of a Wise Old Man as a convention to further the plot and answer pivotal questions. Which is, incidentally, exactly what we’re going to do.

Naturally, the person would yell and holler at the Wise Old Man for answers. Unnaturally, the Wise Old Man would start doodling on the paper and drool after a few lines of “Pop Goes the Weasel”. This may seem like the Wise Old Man is, indeed, not Wise at all, but Old and Man all the same.

“You’re not going to further things by answering the question, won’t you?” the person would ask.

“There is no need to. You see, you’re merely a metaphorical representation of a writer meaning to metaphorically represent you in what that could easily be the metaphorical representation of what he may term as ‘A New Chapter’ in life. Ergo, you’re sitting on paper, which is the World – his World,” said the Wise Old Man. “A penny for a spool of thread…”

“So why is it all empty? Why is it blank?”

“Why, it’s so you can fill it out yourself. Write out the chapter. Make your own World.” The Maybe-Not-Quite-Wise-but-definitely-Old-and-Man Wise Old Man would then walk away, and as common and clichéd as it goes, simply vanished.

And so, our person stands still on a vast, empty piece of paper the size of the world, knowing very well that he would have to fill it out, and feeling very silly that he has to be written this way by someone not really sure on how to start a long neglected blogpost.

And so, I suppose, we move on to the rest of things.

***

This is what really happened after my previous post (unfortunately, it does not involve me on a plane crash stranding me on open seas where I inexplicably discover the mythical entrance to Rapture, which is some sort of adult theme park minus the fun):

1)    1)   I got on a plane. And then another.

2)     2)  I reached the United States of America (America! Eff Yeah!)

3)     3)  I had the best 2 weeks of my life (of Dreams, and Warmth, and Fireworks, and Hands-Held, and Burgers and Books and Kites and Green Grass and Childhood Memories)

4)    4)   I came back to the midst of hectic magazine-wrapping, which took 2 weeks.

5)      5) I’m living the sort of life I could only dream of. The sort of life I don’t intend to keep on living, because I want it to be better.  I want it to be more than a dream.

And that’s about it.

There may be too much of the States to write out in a single entry, so I intend to start off further posts with a little of the States and the rest of everything else. If I do.  

I hope I do.

It would be better if you make me.

I’m leaving the last bit of this post with two things. One of them is this:

And in case you’d be interested in joining or passing it along with more information, you can find out more here.

The other thing is this:

And well, also this:

Because they’re going nowhere and I ought to get back to taking pictures a little more seriously.

(I also notice the futility of trying to share things here, because, frankly, no one reads this, except maybe my blog spider, which I’m not sure if it’s still around.)

Goodnight, people.

In 9 hours or so, give or take, I’ll be flying off to the most important trip of my life.

It is, perhaps, nowhere as important as most other Important Trips can be. But I’d look at it at in different ways, try out different angles, and it would still be the most important. There’s probably no other way to it.

 People make important trips to find themselves, discover parts of them in other parts of the world. Some go on important trips because they were forced to; they’d be there, not knowing how significant things are until it Becomes. Some, they make important trips all the time, because the destination is always a goal.

Me, I make this trip for a Dream. And this is the sort of Dream you drift into, because you happen to have had the fortune of it finding you.

I’ll be meeting my Dream there, with the sense that I’m finding it again, in a different way. And I will live the Dream until I return with it.  And go on living it until the next path reveals itself, and it doesn’t matter what, because this is that Dream worth living.

I will return to home in 2 weeks, and life would be normal, and the Important Trip might’ve just been a simple holiday, of sights and sounds and experience. But in the way that I can’t explain, or perhaps in the way that only I know; the moment I set my foot past immigration tomorrow is the moment the page flips, and I’m in the next chapter. And I wouldn’t know what the chapter would be about; I only know what I wanted it to be (only that, being pages, it will never turn out the way you want it). It’s a huge thing, important thing, because – since a long, long time – this would be the first page flip. And for the past 7 months, what I’ve done was to be ready for it.

I will return home in a new life, living a Dream, and heading towards both old and new ones. It’s not a promise.

It just is.

I’ll sleep now, to dream of Dreams. And tomorrow, to America.

To my Love. 

I’m trying to make sense of the heat right now. I don’t want to stand out from the crowd and yell “Global Warming! Curse you and your kin, heathen!” without having a sense of something, like an answer. Basically, I know too little about Global Warming to start blaming it, but since I’m running out of answers (especially the more logical ones, like God forgetting to turn off the heater), I’m starting to give it the stink eye.

Whatever it is to blame, though; the weather now is baking. I say baking because if you place cake mixture in my living room right now and return next morning, you get a very lopsided cake baked close to edible. And pixies or gnomes have nothing to do with it.

It’s hot enough for me to wish for a genie so that I can wish for snow.

(Hot as it is, however, I sometimes get very blue skies. You can’t find it everywhere in KL now, because the haze has settled on most parts of the city, but Plaza Damas is lucky enough to have azure skies and cotton-white clouds. I suspect the residents there actually paid for it).

Baking hot weather is not all bad. For one, traffic seems to be smoother. Without rain to addle our minds and sending us into frantic confusion as to why water is falling from the sky, I haven’t been hitting heavy traffic for some time now. It’s good in that I get home with half the time and frustration. It’s not so good when I find myself having less time to think. Or daydream.

For two, the dogs dry up nice and quickly, after I bathe them.

For three, it feels like summer. And summer is what I really want happening right now.

I want summer.

You don’t ask for summer in Malaysia because you don’t get them (we’re tropical, which is like a mutated climate), but I want summer to happen, because it’ll be summer Somewhere.

Summer is nice, yes? 

Yesterday, I went up to the rooftop balcony, pulled the bench to the middle, and laid down on it. I let my hands become the pillow, and looked up at the sky.

It was a sky that was – as poets may put it – cerulean like the depths of sapphire. And as poets might’ve done, I stared at the passing clouds, to think and limn and ramify, as much as passing clouds would allow for thoughts and limning and ramifications. Like the clouds, they stayed only as solid as the winds would allow.

You fall into skies like that. You let it take you places, riding on the clouds and the winds. You trust it tell you something.

So I let go, and fell.

I was cheated 5 minutes later.

Because, in the end, the hard bench still hurt my back and the hands can only last as long as makeshift pillows over splintery wood. Discomfort can be a real anchor to reality, and sore arms are a reminder of that.

I was still thinking, though. The skies and the clouds made sure of that. And the winds that day, they were beautiful. They sang and they caressed.

You can try and think back, then. Reminisce bygone times, reconsider decisions, ask the What Ifs or the How It Would’ve Beens. You can try to recount the years and the months and the days and the seconds or retrace every footstep left on the Sands of Time. You can try all that, and you would’ve ended up back staring up at the azure sky and wonder how things had gotten there. And you may know, or tell yourself that you do, but once the clouds shift and the thoughts went with it, you’ll be back wondering.

Sometimes, we wonder enough to decide that the wondering itself is really the answer.

“Why are we here, mate?” “I wonder, buddy. I Wonder.”

I wonder.

But I’m really here, under the bluest skies this side of the world. I’m here and it’s a beautiful sky.

And all is good, even if the bench hurts. But it let me look up to the skies, like I was part of it.

It’s not perfect. But it’s good. Yeah.

And then the stairs-climbing dogs found me, and they do the only thing they’d do if they find a master lazing out on a garden bench placed on top of a rooftop balcony under the cerulean sky; they lick him until he had drool gelling up his hair. I had to feed them to appease them.

And that was that.

It’s not perfect, but the sky is. Always will be.

Ten, Eleven 

Colours, and Tools

Three things, to realise worlds in different ways. 

Or make new ones. 

An Invitation 

To the clouds? I'll take it 

Ninth 

Signs & Silver Linings 

I'm starting to think, these days; 


That if you look up, you find Answers. 


Or maybe it just really takes Looking. 

The Thoughts You End Up Driving Into

 I think a lot in cars lately.

It helps that most of the time I’m in the car, it’ll be moving at a pace of 5 meters per quarter hour. That would be the time my car will join other cars and we turn into a single, collective mass. We would be known as The Gorram Jam, or other variations like Effing Jam or WTF Jam(!). As a collective mass, we are also collectively noisy.

The thought parts, I think, are individual.

And while I think most when I was part of The Gorram Jam, I inevitably also end up thinking a lot when driving normally. It’s quite unhealthy, because I run the risk of careening off flyovers before I can say “Oh Hell No”, but it’s as easy to fall into as daydreams in the day.

I’d think of many things – things I forget, things that aren’t important, and the same things all over again.

There was that day when I had to drive to Sepang for an event. The way there was aided efficiently by well-placed signboards, but the roads to it went on and on and on, all the while changing gracefully from highways to streets to winding roads that only grow narrower. It was like driving into different realms, and I found that I couldn’t spare the time to think when I had to constantly wonder (aloud, and sometimes rather panicky) if I’m still on the right track.

Driving back from it, though, and already knowing the way, it felt like driving into roads of Thought that went all the way to my front porch.  

The skies that day were a brilliant blue, decked with serene clouds that were either magnificently huge, or humbly scattered and introverted. They had shapes that represented nothing; for all I know, they were Shapes.

Like my thoughts, they were clear, certain and blue, and filled with shaped things that remain mysteries.

It doesn’t make sense, as usual.

But I thought a lot. And I thought until the roads ran out.

I thought more than I ever did.

****

Tonight, Thinking as I drive, I came to a Decision.

It was as simple as just Thinking it. And deciding as it materialised. And while I gave it more Thought to make sure I was certain, it seemed set and unmoving. It seemed determined.

When decisions happen like this, I guess I’ll have to go through with it.

And I think I will.

The Eighth

Trajectory

“Would you believe that I can swing my way up to Heaven?”

“It takes a lot of swinging.”

“Only until it’s high enough.”

(It also takes an act called "Letting Go". That's when you reach the zenith of the swing, free yourself from the shackles of holding something, believe you're Superman and watch as the trajectory carries you into a graceful somersault before landing you on your neck. I hope you've got the Divine Insurance covered). 

****

There was that other story, which went like this:

The girl was an unhappy girl. Her parents had little time to love her, and even if they made sure she was fed and bathed and occupied with things like Piano and Art and Stories, they paid no more attention to her other than her grades, or sometimes to cane her for disobedience, even when she wasn’t, but had seemed so.

In school she had little friends, who only cared for as long as she would play with them or share her things, and after school it was either Piano or Art or Stories or home alone, with the emptiness of the house. When so, she would finish her homework and sat by her window to wait for something to happen. Sometimes she would sneak outside and walk to the playground near her house. There, she would content herself by sitting on the swing, and singing made-up songs to nobody (for the playground, old and rusty and uncared, was always deserted).

When she decided that she would run away from home, like the brave boys and girls in the Stories, she was sure that the world has much more to offer than an empty life. And knowing about the dangers of strangers, and stray dogs, and traffic, and the monsters that live in the street cracks and the shadowy alleys; and also knowing that she could, perhaps, be found by the police eventually, and be taken home to her parents that would cane her, yell at her, take things away from her – she believed that nothing could be had when her heart is a constant void. Believing in that, and the world, she packed her schoolbags with clothes and food and a little book for her Art and Stories, and walked out of the house with her little yellow hat. She remembered to lock the door and hide the key in the post box.

But before she would run away and into the world, she had decided that she would visit the playground. She would sit in that swing, for one last time.

As usual, the playground was empty. She put her bag on the ground and sat herself on the swing. The rusty chains creaked against the rusty frame. She kicked and they creaked even more, but after awhile, as though it remembered how it was like before time made it old and decrepit and forgotten,  when it was played with by children who came by in every time of day -  it stopped creaking.

She kicked, and swung, and urged the swing to go higher. And each time the wind swept past her ear in a whoosh, her heart whooshed along with a laugh. She smiled and swung and sang her made-up songs, which would always end as Tra-la-la-la and start with Fa-la-la-la. She swung and the world blurred. She swung until everything became the whiteness of the skies above, pure and wholesome in its emptiness.

She realised she wasn’t swinging anymore, but sitting in the whiteness of the sky. Her heart is still whooshing, and she was still smiling. Her songs rang in her head.

“Hello,” said someone, who is a boy a little older than her.

“Hullo. Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re in Heaven. You swung your way up here.”

“You can do that?”

“Not everyone,” said the boy, and he looked a little embarrassed. “You have to be swinging so high and fast and happily to end up here.”

“Did you swing your way up here?”

“No. But I’ve seen people do that.”

“So what happens now? What do I do?” asked the girl. She tried to remember the things in her Art and Stories that were about Heaven.

“Whatever you want to do,” said the boy. He smiled. “It is Heaven. I can show you.”

“Okay,” said the girl. And she smiled, too.

She took his hand and they ran into the whiteness, past the sky and into Heaven.

The news reports would say that the girl was first discovered missing when her parents came home to find a locked and empty house. The police found her bag in an old abandoned playground, but they found no other trace of her. Her face soon appeared in the newspapers, and eventually on the streets and on every wall along with phone numbers and honest pleading to bring her home. They blamed a lot of things. They blamed the parents, blamed kidnappers, blamed mentally dangerous people, blamed the education system and Television and the state of the world. But they never would know, and believe, that the little girl would have swung her way up to Heaven.

When the playground was demolished to make way for shop houses, the swing went along with it. And, along with the news and the posters, everything was forgotten.

****

You can tell that I’m incredibly bored right now.

I’m also feeling melancholic. Perhaps not so immensely; more like the feeling of sitting under grey, shapeless skies. More like emptiness.

I don’t know why it’s so. I just know that I’ll be filled and fulfilled in time, though there’s a part of me wishing that it wouldn’t happen so quickly.

Angels need their sleep, too.

And I wish and pray for that. I also made sure to bribe the Sandman to sprinkle a little more than usual, and maybe sabotage the alarm clock.

Because I own the night these days, through making the right friends and investing in the right areas, I have the most of it.

My dreams can happen later. For now, I wish the angel her sleep.

I have my Words, after all. In all of its ugly shapes and deficiencies.

****

For the first time in two years, I found myself at the playground right down the road.

I was there to take pictures, but pictures can be hard to take when everyone is wary of you doing that, and they looked like they were ready to rally with pitchforks and rakes. I took very little and very cautiously. I’ve also lost my lens cap there. It’s just the kind of thing I’d do.

They’re here, the ones that looked like they mean something. They’ll be on Flickr, too, but Flickr hates it when I try to upload too many at one go. Or maybe it’s just my feisty Internet connection.

Anyway: 

Because being barefooted is just more fun

You have to make a name somewhere, even an abbreviated one.

Seeing Joy

Giving Joy

Having Joy

No Joy

A piece of trash, literally. The Recyclists are probably hounding down on me now.  

This is an accident, but it turned out to be one of those that I feel happy about. In a sense; Accidental Happiness.

Moving Forward. The best direction, imho.

And that's that.

Goodnight, people.

I’ve been 24 years old for the better part of 23 hours now. It is a pleasant feeling. In other times, and perhaps much more amazingly frequently than possible, it is a wonderful feeling

When I was 12 years old, I couldn’t imagine myself being 24. It mostly had to do with a stunted imagination, at that time more solely occupied to imagining snakes eating classmates or talking to girls from other classrooms. Maybe I had imagined, sometimes, when I’ve accidentally ingested Brand’s Chicken Stock; because I remember imagining being a comic-book artist, even if the imagination had been short and deformed and unrealised.  

When I was 18, I imagined being 24 and working as a journalist – the type who finds stories and tells them nicely, if not persistently – and then finding a Girl. When I was 23, I imagined being 24 as like being 23 – unchanged, unmoving, uninspired.

Being 24 now and not imagining it, I’m mostly surprised that I’m not dead.

I’m also surprised that I’ve managed to keep a job.

I’m also also surprised that I’m still having friends, my family has not denounced my existence, I’ve not turned into a psychopathic, schizophrenic killer (haven’t quite reached the killer bit) and I’ve not consigned myself into a church of the Great Old Ones, feeding fishes to baby octopi in a bit to raise the True Cthulhu.

I’m also surprised that I’m happy. Yeah. These days, I’m happy. And glad. And content. And fulfilled. And satiated. And filled. And Loved.

And, perhaps the biggest surprise that I would find myself in; I’m surprised that I now have Dreams.

And I’ve had dreams. Just not Dreams. Dreams, of the ones that I want to fulfil. The ones that I know I’ll get to once I start moving. Once I start walking. Once I learned how to run and leap hurdles and swim and jump and fly. And, as having Dreams would entail, you know you can do all that. You’ll also know you won’t fail, because there’s a hand catching you, and that hand is warm and gentle and firm. It is a reason. A great, wonderful reason.

I guess I’m really surprised that I would Want. And Hope. And Take.

Being here, 24 years old and not imagining it, I started imagining the future. There’s a Dream there that I want to reach, and I’m heading there. I’m walking now, occasionally stumbling and slipping, but I know there’s a hand there for me to hold and feel comforted. And I know I’ll get there, because Someone believes in me. That’s all I need.

I’ll just Keep Going.     

****

Birthdays will get better than this; that’s indubitable, and it’s because I know I can hope for a beautiful kind of future. But as of now, this Birthday is simply awesome.

It started with a phone call. I became the Happiest Bloke Alive.

Then the early wishes came, and they had kept coming, and I like that I’m able to thank all of them personally, even if I can’t thank them enough. Here’s an additional Thank You, All!, if any of you happen to be here, reading.

And then I dreamed. Of nice things.

I woke up to a memory of a brother coming into my room to retrieve his mouse, and saying Happy Birthday on the way out. I slept again, because I was given permission to. I woke up to see that my father had SMSed a wish. It was very unlike him. I had thought I was dreaming.

I went to work to find a present on my keyboard, and it was a copy of Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiments, given to me by the Best Editor in the World, who had wrapped it with calendar paper and printed a self-made card to go along. And the Best Magazine Sales-Guy gave me a Nerf Gun: Stealth Edition. They both treated me lunch. They are the Best Colleagues Ever.

My mom then finally worked out the complexity of handphone texting, and SMSed me a wish. I’m impressed and very grateful.

Work was really just me, the Best Editor and the Best Sales Guy playing the XBOX 360 on the review monitor.

I came home and went for dinner with the family. The food was good, the company better and I’m glad that I could sit at a table with family who can laugh and joke and talk to one another. They made me belong.

And I’m here now, Jiaogulan Tea on the table, the gentle quietness of the night outside, and I’m writing this at the computer with the speakers silent. Sometimes the best music is in your head.

But the best thing of all was the thing that came through the hands of many a people, placed into mine by my father, and it came with Pictures, and Balloons, and Dreams, and the Words. The Words that said more and fulfilled me more than anything. The Words that told me to Keep Going. The Words that signed it. And Something that would linger in my heart, forever and ever.

It is, truly is, the best birthday present one could ever receive.

I end this now, with a thank you. To all of you, who stuck by this hopeless guy and gave him everything he could ask for, or could even imagine asking.

So thank you, everyone.

And, lastly, Thank You. =)

Goodnight, People.