a little word play
just realised that i’m still cybersquatting here.
(1/8/24)
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smitten by lunch
left clueless
how it all happened
(31/10/21)
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Our eyes met on the road, twice, in dim light. Me, in the car. She, on the bike. A story perhaps could have unfolded in mere seconds.
(17/3/21)
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felt, yet not expressed
subtle, sweet, invisible
the best status quo?
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Holly’s Wood
The seed came into her hands and went straight into the mud. Mum said it would grow into a fine tree, and Holly believed her.
So day after day, she would religiously shower a great abundance of water and everlasting love, knowing the seed would grow into the fine tree Mum told her. Water from the canister and love from her lips.
Days turned to weeks; weeks turned to months; and months turned to years. And the seed never grew. Even before Mum passed on in bed that day, she told Holly not to give it up, and that the seed would grow into a fine tree. So she never once relented and kept on in faith what she had been doing over the years. Water from the canister and love from her lips. Years turned to decades; and decades turned to…well…not quite centuries yet. And the seed never grew.
One fine day, Holly came up to me and asked, “Do you believe what Mum had said?” In all honesty, I never once believed, not just because Mum was a great liar, but also, she was a greater mother who would give anything to ensure that my down syndrome sister feel important and useful in this world. “Your purpose in life is to keep that seed growing,” she told Holly.
I looked at her and saw Mum’s image on her wrinkled skin. Seventy years. She had showered the seed with water from the canister and love from her lips for seventy years. Could I just squash her hope with the cold hard truth?
“Yes,” I struggled in uttering that word. She smiled and held my hand, saying, “Me too.”
It was morning when I said, “Take me there.” Holly pushed me to the very spot where she had spent seven decades kneeling and watering. I told her I had a surprise for her and that she had to close her eyes. She giggled and closed her eyes behind those thick glasses. I prayed silently, “God, help me.” I told her to open her eyes which she did almost immediately.
“Look at the tree in front of us. Mum’s right. The seed has grown into a fine tree,” I said, as we both stared at God’s wonderful creation in awe, admiring the beauty in all its glory. I held my sister’s hand tight and breathed my last breath……and Holly lived with her wood happily ever after.
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Your Mother
Your mother grew up in a family of traditions. She learnt things the hard way, the way only a stern old man knew and executed. Regulations ruled with no room for tenderness and mistakes.
But she always knew her shell couldn’t contain the free spirit within. Not when the influence of the modern city surrounding her family had an upper hand over her father. Before long, she was out away from home.
She got into sales and learnt the trades from an oldhand. She did pretty well before knowing that she had been conned. There began a series of disillusioned career paths, one after another.
She had no luck with love too. A young dude beat her up; a married man took her money; and a failed businessman killed himself.
By chance, we met at the pub. I was singing with my guitar. She came up to me, drunk in her sorrows. That night, she poured out her life.
She came back to the pub the following night, and the night after……
We got married in my hometown. I told her I couldn’t give her much. She said it’s ok ‘cos I told her I’d be the first person she could always run to.
We talked, we listened; we laughed, we cried; we worked, we played. We were each other’s elemental need.
And then we had you.
My fingers run on your face. You look like your mother. I wish you could meet her, little baby.
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The Father
The contraction came again. Elise tried pushing the baby out. George looked worried sick. All he could do was to hold her hand and his nerves, and whisper, “I love you!” The doctor encouraged Elise to keep trying.
Seconds later, the baby saw light at the end of the tunnel. With the last ounce of energy, Elise released the baby completely. George was relieved and overjoyed.
“Congratulations! Would you like to do the honours?” the doctor said, handing George a pair of scissors. With a shaken hand, the father cut the umbilical cord. He was then ushered out of the room with the baby on the trolley. He spent time observing his cute little offspring.
“Mine, mine…this is what I’ve always wanted,” he thought as he began to embrace fatherhood.
As soon as he sat, Xabi walked in and whispered into his ear, “We’ve got the mole.” George left his son with the nurse, and led the way to his limo. There, sitting in the middle of the car was a nervous Antonio who was tied up and gagged. He sat next to him and closed the door.
“Can I trust you, Antonio? You’ve got me busted at Bogota, you bastard!” George whispered. He took out a dagger and slit Antonio’s throat swiftly.
He stepped out of the car and drew a deep breath. He noticed a lone tree across the field next to the hospital.
“I want a house for my boy over there. Remove the tree, Xabi!”
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Secret
He swigged the liquor. It was his last. It was the first time he became sober.
As he hit the notes on the piano, his fingers danced. Like the many sessions before, his wife and daughter were captivated. They could name Mozart and Chopin as the greats. But in this musician family, he was THE GOD.
His tears began to synchronise with his music. His mind searched his recent past…
From the day he laid his eyes on her, he felt the need to be human. He struggled with it. He did it. It was not easy. The sophistication tagged with human relationships was beyond his imagination. They faced objections from her family and friends. They were pushed to poverty. They almost gave up their lives for what humans called love. They overcame the odds and kept together. He realised it was worth it…
That instance he carried his baby, he felt the need to remain rooted. Those little eyes, fingers and toes created that admission that maybe the master was right; that he had been so wrong. The kisses, hugs and words made him savour every stage of his child’s growth…
Thirty years was puny against his existence. He knew his humanity had broken down every ounce of hatred within his nature.
Yet, he must leave and the truth must be told.
He finished the last sustained note and looked at them.
He whispered, “I love you!”
The music consumed Lucifer in flames.
He was gone, forever.
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Mahjong
You know how it feels when people all round you doubt your words, especially your loved ones. Gutted. That’s what I’m feeling right now.
I was just sitting there alone, staring out into the darkness, while everybody else was busy catching up with relatives and old pals from work or school. It was supposed to be a time of mourning, but at the superficial level, people here seemed to be having a whale of their time. From smiles to laughter; from tears of sorrow to tears of joy; from condolences to jokes. This funeral wake was slowly but surely turning into a farce.
Granny whom I so dearly loved was called home to be with the Lord just days before that. Perhaps, it was really the right time for Him to summon her after watching her, for quite a while, succumbing to the worst disease anyone could ever suffer on earth – dementia.
Just the other day, she looked into my eyes and said I really resembled Elmo. Then she woke up one morning and called Pa Ma, both of whom were rather bemused. She went on singing “…she’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes…” throughout that day. Of course, nothing beats that time when she hugged our neighbour, Mr Ong, and said, “I love you!” Apparently, she saw my late Grandpa in our flabbergasted mister handsome.
So, the day must come. She called all of us into the room and insisted that we sat down together with her to have a round of mahjong. We were baffled. She had never played the game before. The closest she had come to the game was those times she spent sitting by my Grandpa’s side while he played. Anyway, we obliged and Pa sat on my right while Ma sat on my left. Granny, who sat at the opposite end, rolled the dice. What happened the next half an hour or so was rather amusing. Granny did not know the rules of mahjong, but she went on telling us how to play the game, her own way. The three of us who could be considered mahjong veterans just tagged along. It was rather fun, except that we never got to win the game. Granny did all the winning, based on her own rules, of course.
Just when we were cheering for Granny for winning the fourteenth consecutive time, she let out a chortle and collapsed onto the floor, hands clutching her chest. We scrambled to our feet and rushed towards her. She never woke up after that.
I could hear the distinct sound of the mahjong tiles on the table not far from me. I looked up and saw Pa with a stick in his mouth talking loudly. He said he was going to win the next game boastfully. His three friends at the table laughed with him as they arranged the tiles neatly before themselves. Pa rolled the dice and another game began. Surprisingly, Ma was not there to watch or play along. She was sitting at the far end with her group of tai-tais. They were speaking very softly to each other, obviously building up their gossip prowess again. I could have joined Pa or Ma, but I had no mood. It wasn’t that I felt terribly sad to lose Granny. Yes, I loved her and I missed her, but I didn’t really feel devastated seeing her gone forever. Not when she kept calling me Nemo in her last days. I just felt that I should give her my utmost respect as a grandson. I might not be crying, but my heart wept bitterly on behalf of Granny. She must be crestfallen to see her son and daughter-in-law enjoying themselves with their companions at the wake.
I stood and ambled towards Granny’s coffin. Through the glass panel, I looked at her sullen face, much aged with wrinkles and faint red spots. She looked calm, and that soothed my heart somewhat. As I was about to walk away, I saw Granny smiling. I was stunned for a moment. My heart skipped a beat. I placed my face nearer to the glass panel and observed. No, there was no smile. Ha, I must be dreaming. I straightened up to get ready to go back home to rest a bit.
Just as I was about to leave the wake, I could hear another set of mahjong tiles being shuffled on the table behind the wall next to Granny’s coffin. Ma must have initiated another round of mahjong with her tai-tais, but why would she want to play the game so close to the coffin?
As I walked towards Ma on the other side of the wall, I could feel a little chill. This weather was getting on my nerves. Hot for five minutes, cold for fifty minutes; and this cycle went on and on. Then, the mahjong table and the group of players came into sight. But what I saw next got me standing there, rooted to the ground. Granny was sitting right there at the far side of the table with three other players. They were all rearranging the mahjong tiles, almost ready to start the game. Granny looked up and our eyes met. There was this strange sense of homeliness and alienation going round in me. I simply did not know what to do next. The moment of silence was interrupted abruptly when Granny opened her mouth and said, “Nemo, come and join us!” Well, she might have died, and her spirit might be haunting me now, but surely her state of dementia remained. I would never ever forget what I was about to see next. As soon as Granny finished talking with the smile I had seen earlier at her coffin, her three mahjong ‘pals’ at the table turned to face me, and none of them had a face.
That totally freaked me out, so I yelled as loud as I could and took off. Pa and Ma might have seen their son running in countless sprint races in school, winning each and every one of them. But I bet they had never seen me run that fast, as I disappeared from the funeral vicinity in under five seconds. They found me some twenty minutes later behind a trash bin on the floor just outside a 7-eleven store, arms over legs, the whole body shaking violently with a trail of white foam from the mouth. I swear that wasn’t vomit.
Guess what? I told Pa and Ma, in the presence of many concerned relatives, about what I had seen earlier when I was finally resting comfortably in my bed. And guess what again? They all laughed out heartily and said I needed a rest. I could not believe them, especially my folks. After watching how I had broken into a canter just an hour earlier and finding me next to a bin in a contorted state, they could actually trivialise my story!
“You sleep tight here, Sumo Lee! I’m going back down there to carry on my winning streak,” Pa said. Every one of them started streaming out of the room one by one, all appeared indifferent. I could hear Ma say, “I don’t think Sumo is taking Mum’s death too well.”
I close my eyes and feel a tinge of disgust. How can they doubt me? But I am too tired and too kind to hold any resentment now. My drooping eyelids are about to shut when I hear someone say, “Nemo, come join us in the living room here. We are short of one player.”
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Miss James
I have nothing much to say, Peter. I mean, how wonderful could my life be when I was named after a comic character?
You see, my man of old back in Webster was a big fan of this superheroine that has the ability to fly and create auras of different colours with power. I mean, come on, what kind of a weird character is that? And just because I was born a female, he gave me that stupid name, Halo.
Halo? I mean, “HELLO?” How many people had actually heard of this comic character? Nine and a half out of ten people associated my name with this bright circle round the heads of some holy bastards. What did I get?
“Hey! Look at that chick with prick, HALO JESSE JAMES!”
Now I can laugh with you, Peter. But I wasn’t laughing then. I mean, look at my name! A freakish superheroine and a fucking male outlaw combined. Can you blame me for having this little gender identity crisis?
Yes, I was wrong to check her boobs. I mean, I myself had none even when I reached 21, so I asked her if I could see what I had been missing. It was my first time for Pete’s sake (not you). Should he be so mean to me? Was it necessary for him to drag me into the woods and shoot me?
Enough! Don’t wanna cry. Can you open the gates now, Peter? I’d like to see how God looks like.
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2.5º
I woke up this morning. It was Valentine’s Day. I remembered the flowers and the cards he used to give me. But today, there were no cards or flowers. Someone ought to have received them from him.
I looked at my mother, her head over her arms. She must be drained from all the crying. I love her very much. I knew I would be away soon, and I was going to miss her. She was all that I had.
She lifted her head, looked into my eyes and beamed. Seconds later, they walked in.
For the next hour, I could only lie. I lay still in bed and I lied that I was feeling fine. The physical pain I had to endure was unbearable, but I was too distracted by my emotional pain to be bothered at all.
The question “Why” did not make sense to me anymore. But I still held it against Him, I must admit.
“…many things about tomorrow…I don’t seem to understand…but I know Who holds tomorrow…and I know Who holds my hand…”
They went on for awhile in that song. I felt comforted; about 2.5º to be precise. And that level of comfort brought a smile on my face.
I shut my eyes.
I stood.
I could only hear whispers now.
I began to walk.
There was silence.
I opened my eyes.
I saw the most beautiful tree.
I felt the most perfect peace.
I finally understood Him.
(Written for you in 2008. It still hurts that you were gone too soon.)
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2009
Where am I?
Why am I here?
Who am I?
I gaze at the CNN TV. The newscaster rants about the gloom in recent history:
- 2001, 911 attacks; 2002 to 2003, SARS; 2003 to 2008, H5N1 deaths; 2004, Indian Ocean tsunami; 2005, Katrina struck U.S.; 2008, Sichuan quake, global financial meltdown. Now, more bad news. There are official reports of an unknown pandemic across the nations which confound medical experts with its agent – a neurological virus that can apparently inflict serious…
She becomes silent and appears baffled on screen. She takes stock of her surroundings for a while. She mutters:
- Wh…Where am I? Wh…Why am I here?
She stands and leaves the newsdesk.
I feel a tug at my sleeve. I turn to my right. A little girl is holding my hand. She asks:
- Daddy, Mummy, where’re we going?
- I don’t know her. Do you? says the woman next to her.
I have no idea who they are. I shake my head before observing the multitude. It seems I am moving in the same direction like the rest, up these escalators. I see armed soldiers with maroon helmets guiding the human traffic. I pull one close and ask:
- What’s happening? Where am I going?
- Do you remember anything at all? Anything?
I stare at him. He looks at me. There is a long pause.
- Yes. It’s 2009.
- Good. You are heading for hope, says the soldier, smiling.
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The Bus Stop
The bus pulled over by the bus-stop. It was the last chartered stop. The door opened and little Tiffiny alighted from the bus. She was humming a tune she just learned from school. She waved goodbye to her friend, Ginny. The bus driver turned the vehicle round and went back the way he came from.
Now Tiffiny was all alone at the bus-stop that was smacked right in the middle of a 27-km two-way road. Parallel to the road on the same side of the bus-stop was a 100-acre farmland with huge plants lined up in an almost regimental fashion. On the opposite side of the road lay a vast amount of beige sand that stretched the entire the coastline of the deep blue sea. There was nothing else in sight.
The girl sat on the bench, still feeling tremendously happy with her first-day experience in school. She couldn’t wait to share her joy with her father. He was coming to fetch her home from the bus-stop before heading for their little cottage at the end of the road. He had checked the bus schedule and knew exactly the time to pick his girl up from the bus-stop.
The five-year-old looked at her watch. It was six in the evening. She pulled out her favourite storybook from her bag and started reading it. She was oblivious to the familiar surrounding environment that was characterised by dead silence and stale air. Her mind was preoccupied with thrill.
Almost 3 km away, the father was cycling on the straight road, whistling a melody. He was busy working as a site supervisor at a construction ground during the day. He was looking forward to seeing Tiffiny, especially it was her first day at school. She was the only one he had in the family after his wife had died from breast cancer. If he had a choice, he would have accompanied his girl in school. His boss had wanted him to be present at work for an emergency meeting in the morning.
Soon, the bus-stop came into sight. His heart pounded pleasingly as he saw Tiffiny. Just as he picked up pace, his bicycle ran over a small stone. He lost his balance and fell off the bicycle. Fortunately, he was not hurt. He hauled the bicycle up and jumped onto it. As he lifted his head, his blood ran cold. His daughter was not at the bus-stop.
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Door Left Open
Aubrey puffed the cigarette. She refused to cry. The emotions from within could still be contained. She knew she had done the right thing. As much as she cherished her girl, she had to do it.
Alan put his hand on her shoulder. His touch reaffirmed their faith in each other. He knew he was right. There could not be another way out. As much as he cherished his girl, they had to do it.
The screen had been telling a promising story. Images of her eclipsed the dark side of the house. The playground, the barn, the pony ride, the swimming pool, the birthday cake… Her life could have gone on to a fireworks display.
“……happy birthday to Adele! happy birthday to you!” the cheers and applause preceded the end of the movie clip.
“It’s time now,” Alan kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll wait for you.” He disappeared through the door.
Aubrey finished her last bit and put the stub away. Then, it came. The sorrow from deep down surfaced tremendously and took over her entire being. She wept, her hands on her face. She went on for about five minutes, absolutely losing control.
Then, all of a sudden, the tears stopped completely. She removed her hands from the face that was scarred with trails of her mascara.
She stood and moved towards the long flight of stairs. She scaled it slowly, and came to her door. It was left open. She pushed it away and walked to the bed. Alan was there, head hung low. He was sobbing. Aubrey put her hands on his shoulders and pulled herself close.
“I’m sorry, Adele! I’m really sorry!” he couldn’t help but utter, visibly shaken. She was the composed one now. Perhaps, she had dried up all her grief. She took her husband’s hand and placed it on the girl’s face with hers. It was already cold by then. Obviously the drug had worked. She was gone.
They stayed there for quite awhile.
They took one last look at their motionless girl. No more goodbyes, no more pain. They left and came to their lounge. Aubrey sat on the bar stool. Alan went behind the counter and uncovered it from a locked box.
“I love you!” he said, looking at her.
“I love you too!” she answered, eyes closed.
He put it on her head. He pulled the trigger, and she was gone.
He placed it on his and pulled. He was gone too.
The sunlit rays filtered through the curtains and woke her up. She just had a long, wonderful dream. The little girl stretched her tiny body. Then, she was up. She saw the door that was left open. She yelled in excitement and ran through it, the pacifier still in her mouth.
“Mummy! Daddy!” she shouted as she searched. Then, she saw it… through the balcony. The morning sky was bathed in a golden hue. She just stood there, admiring God’s gorgeous backdrop. She smiled.
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Mozart
The metre-tall boy picked up the screwdriver and began pounding on the lifeless body of the man repeatedly. He was sort of sniggering. The background music of Hitchcock’s Psycho seemed to give him the momentum to swing his arm.
No, he was no Chucky who was probably still chasing after his eloping bride. He was just a victim of his own success. A prodigy in music prophecy, he was the brainchild of the Almighty’s effort to boost the rootless life of a drunkard. Or at least that was what the latter believed. Day after day after the boy’s mother took her own life from prolonged depression, his father put him on the walkman that spoke nothing but Mozart. His mission was to predict the winning dog on the race track.
It was in fact accidental that the man discovered his son’s gift. Mozart was playing at his wife’s cremation when his boy whispered to him that the undertaker was going to take a tumble into the furnace. In all sanity, he slapped the boy and ordered him to shut up. Ten minutes later, while everyone was wailing or pretending to wail at the sight of the woman on the firebed, the undertaker slipped and fell into the fire. In the midst of the chaos that followed, the man looked at his son in disbelief. He knew God had finally arrived in his life.
The first weeks of the boy’s music prophecy reaped benefits for the parent, much to the boy’s own delight too. He was only four, but he could already feel what pride was. However, he soon found feeding an insatiable drinking beast an order too tall for even a Philistine. That animal started forcing him to spend every second of his 24-hour-a-day life listening to Mozart so that he could help him create his own almanac for the baseball games that coming new season. The man was determined to win every odd for every game and player. Sleep became a luxurious commodity for the little boy. Beatings began to co-exist with Mozart in his life.
That night, the boy was weeping tearlessly in his sleep when a voice spoke to him. He knew that was God who went on advising him on how to capitalise on his gift to further His kingdom. God closed the session by whistling a tune of Requiem and the boy swore his soul was much soothed by his Creator.
Just as God’s serenade faded into the darkness, the father stomped into the room and hoisted the boy from his bed. He commanded him to pull Mozart close to his ears. The little one did as he was told, remembering every word that God had uttered. He was going to get it, he reminded himself. He was going to get it.
The boy clicked ‘play’ and the music rolled. It was Requiem — the trail of hope God had just left behind in thin air. He closed his eyes, and for the first time, he could see. His mother was right ahead in all red. Her lovely tresses fell nicely on her breasts as she lifted her head to look at him. He thought he saw peace in her eyes, but her mouth was full with needles and she was chewing on them. She went on peeling the skin of her left forearm with the apple knife. The boy recognised what a monster depression was.
Before he could call out to his mother, she vanished. Then, a full-length mirror erected in front of him. He could see his own reflection and he looked gay. Quite abruptly, bruises, swells and cuts began to appear on the face and arms of the boy in the mirror, and he was crying. A huge arm of a strangely familiar headless man began to drag the boy in the mirror away.
Again, the boy wanted to shout, and again, he was distracted by what he saw next. His father was standing in the living room, back facing him. He started walking straight ahead and seemed to be talking to someone. As he squatted to pick up a stool, a boy came into sight. The boy saw himself, again, and this time, he was bleeding profusely from the head. His father was about to stand up when the bloody boy grabbed the man’s hair violently with one hand and thrust a screwdriver into his throat with another.
The crescendo startled the boy. He opened his eyes and found himself still sitting at the corner of the living room. One bead of perspiration trickled down from his forehead and brushed across his lips. He wetted his lips with his tongue and tasted blood. He wiped his forehead with his hand and saw blood on the palm.
His father was watching Psycho on TV from the couch. Intermittently, the man would turn to glare at him, obviously warning him to do his job well. Quite bizarrely to the boy, the man resembled some food item he had learned from the pack of flash cards his mother had bought him about a year earlier. Potato. Yes, he was thinking of potato. He recalled what his mother had taught him about potatoes. They must be mashed.
A screwdriver darted across the room and hit his shoulder. He looked up. His father was yelling at him, demanding the name of the winning team of the game between Red Sox and Mariners. Then, a voice boomed in the boy’s ears. It was God and He said it was time. The boy removed the headphones and remained calmly seated. He asked his father if he could take him to the restaurant to eat waffle ice-cream. Incensed by the boy’s audacious request, the man picked up a stool and hurled it at him. The stool landed heavily on the boy’s head and it left him with an open wound. As he struggled to sit upright, his whole head was in red.
The man, who must have been shocked by what he had done to his own offspring, acted apologetic. He was adamant that he was not wrong. He told the boy that they could both work closely together to attain huge measure of success. He ambled towards the boy and went down to pick up the stool.
“Now!” God spoke and the boy pulled his father’s hair with his left hand. The man was stunned by his son’s enormous strength and thrashed about to get free. He looked into the boy’s eyes and for the first time in his life, he fully embraced the meaning of fear. The pupils were plain ravenous. The boy seized the screwdriver swiftly with his right hand and pierced through his father’s neck with it. Like a contorting dying cockroach, the man lived out his last moments in tremendous agony, body twitching acrobatically. Soon, he left.
The boy stared at the body, his vision impaired by his own blood. He did a slow visual scan of the man he used to call Daddy from head to torso to toes and back to torso to……
“That’s not a head!” he mumbled cheerfully. “It’s a potato!” His father had a potato head. Potatoes must be mashed. Almost instantaneously, the boy raised the screwdriver and began pounding on the man’s head.
“Potatoes must be mashed. Potatoes must be mashed. Potatoes must be mashed……” The boy went on to mash the potato completely in some God-given time. When he was done, he leaned back to rest.
“Well done!”
“Thank you, God!”
“Are you ready for the next step?”
“Yes, God. But…”
“But what?”
“Can I see Your face, God?”
“Ha! Why?”
“I’m just curious, God. Hmmm, never mind, God.”
“Since you’ve been such a good boy, I shall grant your wish.”
“Really, God?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…thank You, God!”
“Meet your Maker.” The boy could see someone walking towards him from the darkness of the bedroom. As the figure moved under the lights, he gaped at a little boy who looked just like him.
“Who are you?”
“I am God.”
“You look like me. You are not God.”
“I am God. You are me and I am you.”
“What?”
“I am God. You are God. We both are. In music, there is only one genius — Mozart. In music prophecy, there is only one genius — you and I. You…I…prophesy to kill. Let you…me…continue to draw strength from Mozart’s energy in his music-making when prophesying the death ends of all the naughty people. I will kill all the naughty people like how I killed the undertaker who touched me all over and my father who failed his life. They don’t deserve to live……” It dawned upon the boy that he had been talking to himself, and he was rather bemused.
He stood gingerly as he remembered three names. Tom had beaten him several times, citing fun as the reason. Dick had labelled his mother a witch. Uncle Harry had rolled off his father’s bed naked. He put the headphones to his ears and clicked ‘play’ on his walkman. Mozart made him smile, again.
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