As I was pounding away on the treadmill the other night, the three ghosts of Christmas came avisiting.
The ghost of the past hung stolidly on the glass walls in front of me, standing out starkly against the dewy panes. He beckoned me to look back into my past but I closed my mind's eye and upped my running speed and pounded and pounded, harder and harder. Insistent and unwavering, he hung still in front of me, flashing images that have yet to fade from my memory. I remember, and slowly, I let the sadness fill me.
Satisfied, the ghost of the past left.
The ghost of the present shone in front of me then. I saw all the marvellous things in my life that I am happy with and grateful towards. My friends, my family, my health and the little things that bring a smile to my face everyday... I remember, and I let the sunshine glow in me...
Content, the ghost of the present left.
I pounded and pounded and pounded, waiting for the ghost of the future. I knew that he would come and with growing trepidation, I pounded and pounded. What would my future be with all of that in the past and what I have in the present. Then I remembered what dajie told me, if you just sit down and look at yourself right now, it's not hard to see what you'll be in the future. Then I looked into myself and I feared and I hoped. There, sitting restlessly within me, was the ghost of the future. Staring down at his feet and rocking from side to side, he stayed there for a long while.
I stared and stared at the ghost of the future. Until he stilled himself, got up and strolled away.
With a wipe of my towel, I continued pounding and pounding and pounding, soaring in the feel of sweat running down my face...
~
"Here are my favourite lines, written by my old friend heddwig: The sun is always shining. Even though clouds may come along and obscure the sun for a while, the sun is always shining. The sun never stops shining. And even though the earth turns, and the sun appears to go down, it really never stops shining."
Monday, December 15, 2008
Being Dumped or Is it? by Don Leow
She dragged her tired and tiresome body out of bed. Looking at the clock on the wall, she wished she could turned back time. To last night to be precise. That was when her then boyfriend had broken up with her. She couldn't remember what reasons he had offered for the termination of their relationship, but there was something about her becoming increasingly frigid. She wanted so much to say her piece, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Something was holding her back and the fact that her boyfriend was dumping her had caused her to lapse into a momentary daze. It wasn't despair or even sadness, but she couldn't placed it then.
Thinking back, she realised it was a strange and stupefying sense of nonchalance. She should've lashed at him for putting all the blame on her. How could he cast her as a defendant in a court of love and without a jury to pass an objective verdict! Couldn't he see that her frigidness was a symptom of their fading and farcical love. But it was for the better, she thought, and started dialling the number that she had called every night for the last 2 months. A comforting and caring voice came over the line: "How are you, darling? How was your day? I missed you so much" A slow but sure smile came over her face and she responded in kind. You wouldn't believe what that son-of-a-bitch said to me last night. But its over now and I can be truly yours in spirit as well as body.~
Don is... Someone who muses at all and sundry, but who wishes sometimes to be in the thick of action rather than looking in.
Monday, December 1, 2008
"How big is yours?" by utioa.
I have struggled to explain my answer to that particular question that was asked one peculiar occasion many years ago. The fact that I even offered an answer was amazing, but not as amazing as my answer though. My ex-girlfriend insisted that it was a Freudian slip; an unintentional but illuminating peek into my unconscious; a gift from God for her; God’s punishment for me. I just thought it was nonsense.
You know how these grass-cutters would cut the grass around your neighborhood? Slowly but surely noisily they would walk around, nonchalantly sweeping their mechanised cutters. They give the landscaped grass a trim to make it look as good as before, and then lie down on it, allowing the sweet green aromas of their work put them to sleep. They were cutting the grass when I blabbed my answer to her question. I think the sweet green aroma made me do it.
Behind her on that fateful evening, was a stream of handsome birds flying in an uncanny straight line right across the orange sky. Like a razor over the waters, it seemed to cut a temporary opening in the sky. A slit that we could pull open for that every instant and peek into the other side, the other world, or into the nothingness. What would you like to see on the other side? What can you imagine? Will things fall in? Or will you fall out? Will we enter into a minute universe will infantile and infinitely miniature worlds? Or will there be giants outside looking inquisitively at us peek out? So many possibilities, so many questions running through my mind that sometimes I wonder whether I really heard her question.
“Oh Yoshimi,
They don’t believe me,
But you won’t let those
Robots defeat me…”
That song by The Flaming Lips kept ringing, playing, intruding, caressing my mind when she was going on and on about her shock, exasperation, pissed-offness, WHAT THE!!!…nesses, at my unfortunate answer to her question. Such a nice and yearning song though. For a moment I wished I had a girlfriend called Yoshimi. Someone that I can shower on my love and attention on without fear, without doubt, without anxiety...with hope. Oh Yoshimi…She don’t believe me…My ex was quite a Yoshimi to me actually until my stupid answer to her ridiculous question.
“It’s bigger than yours.”
~
You know how these grass-cutters would cut the grass around your neighborhood? Slowly but surely noisily they would walk around, nonchalantly sweeping their mechanised cutters. They give the landscaped grass a trim to make it look as good as before, and then lie down on it, allowing the sweet green aromas of their work put them to sleep. They were cutting the grass when I blabbed my answer to her question. I think the sweet green aroma made me do it.
Behind her on that fateful evening, was a stream of handsome birds flying in an uncanny straight line right across the orange sky. Like a razor over the waters, it seemed to cut a temporary opening in the sky. A slit that we could pull open for that every instant and peek into the other side, the other world, or into the nothingness. What would you like to see on the other side? What can you imagine? Will things fall in? Or will you fall out? Will we enter into a minute universe will infantile and infinitely miniature worlds? Or will there be giants outside looking inquisitively at us peek out? So many possibilities, so many questions running through my mind that sometimes I wonder whether I really heard her question.
“Oh Yoshimi,
They don’t believe me,
But you won’t let those
Robots defeat me…”
That song by The Flaming Lips kept ringing, playing, intruding, caressing my mind when she was going on and on about her shock, exasperation, pissed-offness, WHAT THE!!!…nesses, at my unfortunate answer to her question. Such a nice and yearning song though. For a moment I wished I had a girlfriend called Yoshimi. Someone that I can shower on my love and attention on without fear, without doubt, without anxiety...with hope. Oh Yoshimi…She don’t believe me…My ex was quite a Yoshimi to me actually until my stupid answer to her ridiculous question.
“It’s bigger than yours.”
~
"Hey dun need to write self-intro lah..nothing to write. jus use my email add? (thirteenheads@yahoo.com) it leads to facebook too."
(untitled) by Lixuan
For as long as he* was self-conscient, he lived in darkness. He had nothing to his own, nor a consciousness of having needed something belonging exclusively to himself. He had no feelings of his own, nada, but he did not bemoan the lack, as not having it in the first place doubtless inured him to self-pity of dispossession.
What he did have, was a sense of shared awareness. It began one day with a vague feeling. Odd electric currents traveled through his ‘form’. He felt exhilarated, buzzed up.
Then as suddenly as it began, the buzz stopped. Something had changed. While he still lived in darkness, he now found himself sharing a common “awareness” – of tall looking columns, blue masses that looked sometimes shiny/ sometimes dark, and many others he had no way of describing – with someone, something.
Gradually he realized that there were others in this shared awareness. He felt a wave of exhilaration – though he was unable to speak of this nebulous feeling as such because he was never taught – a shared community, fwah!
As time passed, the awareness of some things faded and was replaced by others. Sometimes the shared awareness did not manifest itself in images; it came in full dolby sound surround, and other indecipherable formats.
One day, many years later, he felt the community of shared awareness fading. Had he the words to describe it, it would have been that he just had his first taste of loneliness. The “fades” just kept coming. Until one day, he lost the struggle to tap into the shared awareness and caved in to the desire to fade out like the others.
Away in another parallel universe, Tate plugged in his USB flash drive and was dismayed to see that the flash drive had finally died on him.
“Never works when you need them! Fortunately I had the presence of mind to do a backup recently”, he mutters as he walks to the dustbin and disposes of it.
*Real name: Byte-10115946789 of Toliba Flash drive 2GB S/N 123456789, suppressed for expediency purposes to “he” in the story.
~
"This story came to me at SITEX today, while I was trying to make my way out of the crowd after my sis had purchased her Toshiba laptop."
What he did have, was a sense of shared awareness. It began one day with a vague feeling. Odd electric currents traveled through his ‘form’. He felt exhilarated, buzzed up.
Then as suddenly as it began, the buzz stopped. Something had changed. While he still lived in darkness, he now found himself sharing a common “awareness” – of tall looking columns, blue masses that looked sometimes shiny/ sometimes dark, and many others he had no way of describing – with someone, something.
Gradually he realized that there were others in this shared awareness. He felt a wave of exhilaration – though he was unable to speak of this nebulous feeling as such because he was never taught – a shared community, fwah!
As time passed, the awareness of some things faded and was replaced by others. Sometimes the shared awareness did not manifest itself in images; it came in full dolby sound surround, and other indecipherable formats.
One day, many years later, he felt the community of shared awareness fading. Had he the words to describe it, it would have been that he just had his first taste of loneliness. The “fades” just kept coming. Until one day, he lost the struggle to tap into the shared awareness and caved in to the desire to fade out like the others.
Away in another parallel universe, Tate plugged in his USB flash drive and was dismayed to see that the flash drive had finally died on him.
“Never works when you need them! Fortunately I had the presence of mind to do a backup recently”, he mutters as he walks to the dustbin and disposes of it.
*Real name: Byte-10115946789 of Toliba Flash drive 2GB S/N 123456789, suppressed for expediency purposes to “he” in the story.
~
"This story came to me at SITEX today, while I was trying to make my way out of the crowd after my sis had purchased her Toshiba laptop."
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