by | | Her
There was a lighthouse in the distance.
I was drifting in the sea, floating, half submerged
There were no sensations in my arms or legs
But my eyes were wide open.
How did I get here? I don’t know. But it seems, I had been floating on top of the water for a long long time, for so long, that I no longer felt my arms or legs. I no longer have any thoughts, but only my sight remained. There is no hunger nor pain. There is just… a small tingle of hope.
I remembered now, he pushed me off the boat upon finding the treasure. I remembered it clearly, like it was yesterday. He loaded the treasure onto the small boat and tied an heavy chest onto my ankle before he pushed me off.
Yes, I remembered sinking and blanking out. I remembered something take over me that instant. The darkness. The shadow self, that blinded my vision. When I woke up, I was floating on top of the water.
I wondered what he wanted to do with those treasures without me, has he lost his mind?! We had searched for the lost treasure for years, and we finally found the island, that was not located on any map. But it was a series of riddles we had to solve. It was by pure luck and accident, we found the hidden treasure.
I remembered the many handwritten letters he wrote to me, to persuade me to go on this hard journey into the unknown, into the vast ocean, finding something so difficult. He wanted to work no more as a low life. He wanted to be… different.
Go on this journey with me. Please.
I guess he didn’t want to share those treasures with me, he had other plans. But during the journey, he fooled me into thinking we are going to live happily ever, with our own garden in the countryside, with a few adopted cats, and a chicken coop. And we will finally own a home.
He took the treasures, and pushed me off the boat. He fooled me into this imaginary future. I don’t know how did I end up floating on top of the sea, but the lighthouse now was in the distance and I had to swim towards it.
Fortunately the direction of the wind was pushing me towards shore. I could smell the forest now. It will be only a matter of hours before I will feel land below my feet.
This time, I am safe.
by | | Ugly Works
Another stupid night that my pillow is wet again. Why can’t I just snuff out my tears like a candle? It is pouring like the rain.
How I feel – sometimes I can’t answer that question. I feel so distant so dissociative so third party point of view that it is hard to relate with any empathy.
I feel so despondent. The hopelessness equates more than the sadness. Or maybe it’s the sum of the whole equation because sadness is not even felt when hope has been blanked out like how liquid paper erases ink.
Hopelessness.
Is a more accurate word for how I feel because it has come to a point there is no longer sadness that I feel when my tears pour it’s like just an mechanised fountain of tears without a stop button and nothing more.
There are no more emotions left in my voice except anger. Maybe a sprinkle of désappointement. My keyboard is going haywire with français. Trying to join a series of disconnected parts as a disjointed whole. Mending the shards of of a glass case with super glue. That’s what I am – broken.
Broken.
Maybe before I die I might see the clear blue sky at the cliffs again. And the laughing children at the playground by the beach. That renewed sense of wonder and amazement of what life could possibly be.
But of course it never happened.
That happy ending seems more and more
Elusive with each passing day as I drift
Further and further away from feeling
Anything but nothing at all.
Hope.
I really want to hope. Like how a child believes fairies exist – I want to believe in the smallest of sense that hope exist in a fairytale world we could have created together.
But of course it is all gone now.
All empty. Now, I do not believe in fairies
nor hope.
It has been too close
And forcefully removed
Too many times
That it is only after so much times
You begin to lose the faith.
And maybe being alone
With no hope of the future is a better outcome than
having any faith at all and being disappointed once again if it all doesn’t come true.
My diamond has been cracked.
Into shards that only reflected mirages.
I offer no hope
but only pain and pleasure.
That’s all it is.
That’s all it is.
by | | Her
3am
The roaring sound of thunder.
Dipping droplets of rain.
Another night awake again.
Is there no one I can trust? There is only looking forward now.
The caverns.
The oasis.
The sinkhole.
Again and again the scenes revisit me.
Tormenting me. Seducing me, to go under….
and never come out.
The real world is unreal
The only reality left
Is in my dreams
We are both on the dance floor
In the discotheque
Neon lights – heart pounding beats
Your whiskey breath – your wild smile
Your board shoulders – your big hands
We are dancing to bachata
A close contact dance – swaying slowly
Kiss. Fumez. C’est la vie.
Tears. Thunder. Rain.
Waves. Cascading. Down.
A swirling whirlpool
Takes me down again
Into that familiar place
It’s like dying all over again.
3am
The time we left the club, and kissed at the pier.
That night and many nights after
My memories became frozen
At that very same spot
Unable to move
Past the memory
Of where you left
You never said good bye
Or offered those closures
To the roads you opened
It is happening again and again
Like a loop that replays itself
Like a movie reel that is set on repeat
Like a song that only has a chorus
Suspended in time and space
We were lovers in that space
For the rest of eternity
I may never forget that
And before I do
I will immortalise that love
With a piece of art
Dedicated to you and only you
My Mr Mysterious.
Good bye.
I have to move on now to slay the demons.
by | | Her
I don’t want to fall sleep.
I don’t want to wake up either.
Those demons are pulling me into the abyss.
I don’t want to go back there..
I found myself back in the dark cavern, there were hissing sounds of demons lurking in the corners of the large stone cave. Not one, not two, a few, hissing sounds were coming from all directions. I got to run. Now.
I ran as fast as I could away from the hissing sounds, as the putrid smell of decomposed meat drifted through the cold damp air. The cave was dark, pitch black dark, but I continued running in the dark, not knowing where I was running to. I had to get away from the hissing, away from those monsters, I had to escape!
I hit a hard rock on my knees, and stumbled onto the cold grainy stone. I knew my knees were bleeding. I could smell iron. I licked my open wounds, the aftertaste of blood and dust filled my tongue.
The hissing sounds were coming near and near towards me. I could not see them, but I was starting to feel their breath behind my back. Their sticky tongues licking my legs, licking my neck, closer and closer, as I struggled against them, trying to crawl away. I felt my clothes being torn apart by their teeth, as they held me back with their long rope like tongues.
I can’t see those demons, but there were a few of them. And I was alone. I was panting, my lungs were failing me, my breathing was starting to become heavy, irregular. My heart beat became eccentric.
I caught the glimpse of their shiny beady eyes, staring right into my skin, I tried to punch their eyes. But their tongues curled onto my limbs, covering my mouth, covering my eyes. The slimy tongues, the long slithering tongues of ropes, consuming….
I let out a muffled scream.
by | | Her
It is like being alone in the middle of a deep deep ocean. The depths is too deep, and there is no reprieve. There is no solutions. And there is this heaviness in my chest all the way to my arms, and legs. There is concentrated pain in my right leg, and right temple, throbbing throughout the night.
There is a haunting emotion, that eats me, that tells me, it is not all over, it is still there, face it, face your demons. The demons are chasing me, this time they are chasing me into corner, and I have no choice but to turn around to slay them.
At this point, I could not slay the demons. They circle me, with their long forked tails, slithering, hissing, and growling — I am stuck in the middle, trembling in fear. That… I could not make out alive this time.
I start to crumble inside, breaking, apart, into pieces, into cracks of fragmented mirrors, into shards of diamonds, into a thin glass that became hollowfied. My mask falls onto the ground, the half black and white mask, only my bare skin remains. In all nakedness, as the demons circle me, nearer and nearer, waiting for an attack point.
I curl up into a foetal position, praying, whispering, pleading, for them to go away. but they come nearer anyway. I feel the bites. The growls. The tearing of my flesh. They chew on me, they eat me up, bit by bit.
Then all is blank.
And I wake up from the dream, drenched in cold sweat.
The heaviness of my head on my pillow… I am unable to lift my hands nor head. The heaviness is stinking my head down. The alarm rings. I try with all my might to turn the alarm off with the tips of my fingers, before my hand collapses into a heap onto the mattress again. I dart my eyes around the room. Sunlight is pouring in from the windows, but I can’t get up.
My eyes close again, and I fall into another nightmare.
by | | FlashFiction
I spent about twenty minutes walking around to find the plate of noodles that made me think of it day and night, for a few days in a row, after a local penang friend took me there.
The plate of noodles was prepared in a mobile stainless steel food truck and attached to a motorbike. Two middle aged men took turns to cook the noodles, while an old lady sat by the side, taking down orders. A younger woman, delivered the food, holding up to three plates stacked on each arm.
Upon receiving my noodles on a foldable plastic table, while I sat on a portable chair, along the roadside, I could not help but admire the dish for a few seconds for it looks like a piece of art – the green chilies are in the spoon, fried dumplings that sit on the top side of the plate – the noodles are swimming in a dark gravy and garnished with reddish slices of barbequed pork meat.
I stirred in the green chillies and they melted into the dish, the gravy blended in the meats and dumplings, before digging into the tantalising dish that – man – made me feel like YES this is the best time of my life after a long hard day of work.
The heat was unbearable, but the food was too tasty to bother. I drowned down a ice cold freshly squeezed orange juice after the meal. Life is beautiful.
I am back in the air conditioned room, back to technology, back to the inter-connectivity. But for a moment of time, I was transported into the nostalgia of the past – when my grand mother was still alive.
I miss her so much.
by | | Ugly Works
As much as the material world tells me otherwise… I believe I am a dancer with a poetic soul.
by | | FlashFiction
In a vast empty desert
My bare feet dug into the coarse sand
Dust blew into my eyes
I closed my eyes and walked on
In the day time, I traced the direction of the sun
In the night time, I followed the stars
Red bloody marks left my steps, as days past
The particles of sand was suffocating my lungs
There was no reprieve, no signs
Of anyone, I was alone
in the vast desert
For so long
that I lost track of days
The hot sun bored on my head, as I became light and faint
I landed onto the hard sand on my knees and hands,
In a quiet prayer
In the distance, there was an oasis
so clear and blue
the water was shimmering like gold
in the waves of the desert heat
I crawled on my hands and knees towards the oasis
with every single ouch of strength left in my body
as sand went into every pore of my skin
With a final reach, I stretched out my hand
trying to touch the crystal clear water
Water. I need water.
I cupped a handful of water and put it onto my dry lips
only to taste grains of sand
It was just a mirage.
by | | Editorial, World
A social-cultural in-depth comparison of Singapore and Penang, two former British ports that were governed differently, one governed for prosperity, and the other, governed for simplicity.
In a traditional shophouse in Penang, a middle age man in a singlet is preparing food at the counter, customers walked in to inspect the hanging chickens, pointing to the parts they wanted. The middle age man’s wife recorded the orders on a flimsy paper. The customers sat down, their sons delivered the hot and piping dishes – fresh chicken, fragrant rice and boiled soup. An elderly man was seated at the corner of a shop on a small desk, fanning himself with a straw fan.
Traditional Shop houses in Penang
This is a common sight in Penang, businesses are handed from one generation to the next within the family, a trend that has not changed despite the effects of globalisation. In Singapore, high rents and the social pressure to succeed has lead to the next generation in resenting in taking over their family’s traditional business, opting to work in an air-conditioned MNC with opportunities to advance their career in a nice white collared shirt.
Steven, a Singaporean, shared that his uncle, who operates a successful oyster omelette store, with the original recipe handed down from his grandfather, will be closing down his business this year. His uncle’s only daughter, who is afraid of cooking oil splattering onto her complexion, does not wish to continue the family business, which has been operational for over 80 years.
High cost of living had lead to lower birth rates in Singapore, with fewer people tying the knot, as women in Singapore have almost equal opportunities to men in when it comes to education, health, economic participation.
Singapore – Marina Bay Sands Casino
At the expense of economic advancement in Singapore, couples are delaying marriages, having to work for a longer period of time to put down a deposit and take out a thirty year loan, and staying with their parents after marriage to save cost, and only moving to their own homes after their 30s. The average age of women in Singapore having their first child is at age
29. and, usually they only have one child, with an average fertility rate at
1.25.
In contrast, the lower cost of living in Penang makes it easily for someone to own their home before the age of 30. Most women have two kids (based on
Malaysia fertility rate at 2.1).
93% of Malaysians own a car. The lower cost pressures had made it easier for people to live in a more relaxed pace of life – with home, car ownership before age 30, with two kids in the mix.
The cost of modernisation in Singapore is at the expense of livelihoods, resulting in the next generation in delaying home ownership and marriage. Singaporeans had traded their lives, for progress. But in the progress of what? What more is there to be proud of when the basics of the traditional social structures are breaking down in the name of progression?
Singapore can learn a lesson from Penang. To stop, sit back, prioritise, fan oneself with a straw paper fan, and continue the legacy.
by | | FlashFiction
Went into a truth and became a lie.
It eats me inside, growing with more pain.
My soul no longer dances or sings.
It’s just… a blank space.
A blank empty space.
