For the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometimes a paradox, but now the time gives it proof.
I did love you once.
You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it.
I loved you not.
Get thee to a nunnery - why would you be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent, honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not given me life. I am very proud, indifferent, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them beck than I have thoughts to put them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all, believe none of us.
-Hamlet, Shakespeare.
Shakespeare's the only genius with words. now, do YOU know when you're being insulted? :)
Monday, March 27, 2006
Friday, March 17, 2006
when
I wish I could say that many things have changed in the course of 6 months, but nothing much has changed. I was just thinking the day before that instead of searching along the streets of booze and decadence and lanes filled with the raucous laughter of the drunk, I now search along the housing estates, past the men in thin cheap white shirts crying for their livelihood, cajoling others to stop and take a look at their durians, or the various fruits of the seasons. I walk past the men togged in white shirts and ties, barely past reaching adulthood, a stack of leaflets in hand, resorting to fake smiles and cajoles as a trade off for their time. I walk past the ladies with painted faces who sit and varnish their nails as they wait for customers to arrive, customers who browse unceasingly through the pile of clothes, nitpicking, and who vanish as quickly as they come, hopes of earning a quick buck from the sales of the items hopeless vanishing, evaporating.
Instead of looking at bright lights and fast cars, I now look at clothes hung on bamboo poles, billowing in the wind, a testimony to air molecules moving, rushing past each other in a dance of love. I now look at bright lights of a different sort - they blind the eyes and you've to be careful not to look directly at them. When in the past bright spots were tandem to the night sky and the bright lights flashed and swarmed before your very eyes when music blared in the background, the fluorescent lights now only serve to hurt your eyes.
When in the past I grabbed my gym bag and headed to the pub alone after a solitary dinner and watched the words "absolut" rotate unceasingly across the walls and bored waiters trip over themselves as they tried to serve me and bouncers asking me what was in my huge red bag and advising me to up my protein intake before exercising (think soy products and egg whites), I now search the neighbourhood streets where medicine men tout their latest products and men and women of different ages with degrees of varying interests in the products stop by to watch the medicine man break glass bottles with a thin piece of paper, sweat dripping across his forehead and rendering the cheap thin shirt to be plastered to his back in a layer of sweat.
When in the past I never thought much of the old man with his little grandson who chuckled shyly at the many glances towards him cast by so many teenage boys and girls whenever his grandfather brought him to the exercise corner in my college, now I wonder whether the old man still exists in this world and what has become of that young boy.
When six months ago I was still in the classroom with almost 35 seven year old children and trying hard not to scream at them, a seafood dinner followed in the dingy coffeeshop well-known for their crabs. I remember licking the spicy gravy off my fingers and the place that we sat at and how we had to wade into a stall in order to make use of the wash basins situated inside the stall.
And while it was sweet while it lasted, I no longer think about you, not even when I was away and watching the sea in a foreign land or in my stupors along life, tumbling over the abysses and finding my way up again.
"I am on another flight away, away from Singapore once again. I wait in the departure lounge, reading yet another Murakami novel. This time, it is Dance, Dance, Dance. A science fiction novel that outlays the boundaries of realities and makes me think of fiction in a new light. I board the plane and get to a window seat. I sit next to an old man and his wife, they are huddled in blankets and remind me of what winter in England must be like. I only have a cardigan on.
And then I see you. On a flight to Tokyo."
Perhaps you recognize me, perhaps you do not.
"It is like an ordinary day and the wind streaks through the cold air, streaming through leaves. Like fingers weaving through unyielding coldness.
On a humid and cold morning as such, the sky seems water-painted. Clear visions of colour are passing before my eyes. The tree outside my window thinks it is spring and time to bloom and it is right. On such a morning, it is difficult to imagine that the world is moving, that people are in motion and that clouds are drifting lazily by.
You are but an imagined concept, one that is built up upon dreams, visions, hope and a tiny bit of reality. What transpires may never be fulfilled."Perhaps not, or perhaps I don't want it badly enough to.
"Perhaps it shall provide me with a clue as to whether it was a deliberate one or an accident. not that it really matters. i guess i just need to find out. was he crying with fright at all the noise? was he in a hammock hung down from the ceiling? did they make sure he was in a different room?
i imagine the house without any air-conditioning, a bright day or perhaps a humid night. the leaves were not flying in the wind due to a lack of it. the sheets would be stained with sweat. a pink nightgown or perhaps shorts and an oversized top. the rotating fan causes a slight breeze in the room. and something magical occurs."
When once I searched the streets of decadence, I now search the faces of the common people, the grief-stricken ones, the ones clad in cheap shirts and flat slippers.
Instead of looking at bright lights and fast cars, I now look at clothes hung on bamboo poles, billowing in the wind, a testimony to air molecules moving, rushing past each other in a dance of love. I now look at bright lights of a different sort - they blind the eyes and you've to be careful not to look directly at them. When in the past bright spots were tandem to the night sky and the bright lights flashed and swarmed before your very eyes when music blared in the background, the fluorescent lights now only serve to hurt your eyes.
When in the past I grabbed my gym bag and headed to the pub alone after a solitary dinner and watched the words "absolut" rotate unceasingly across the walls and bored waiters trip over themselves as they tried to serve me and bouncers asking me what was in my huge red bag and advising me to up my protein intake before exercising (think soy products and egg whites), I now search the neighbourhood streets where medicine men tout their latest products and men and women of different ages with degrees of varying interests in the products stop by to watch the medicine man break glass bottles with a thin piece of paper, sweat dripping across his forehead and rendering the cheap thin shirt to be plastered to his back in a layer of sweat.
When in the past I never thought much of the old man with his little grandson who chuckled shyly at the many glances towards him cast by so many teenage boys and girls whenever his grandfather brought him to the exercise corner in my college, now I wonder whether the old man still exists in this world and what has become of that young boy.
When six months ago I was still in the classroom with almost 35 seven year old children and trying hard not to scream at them, a seafood dinner followed in the dingy coffeeshop well-known for their crabs. I remember licking the spicy gravy off my fingers and the place that we sat at and how we had to wade into a stall in order to make use of the wash basins situated inside the stall.
And while it was sweet while it lasted, I no longer think about you, not even when I was away and watching the sea in a foreign land or in my stupors along life, tumbling over the abysses and finding my way up again.
"I am on another flight away, away from Singapore once again. I wait in the departure lounge, reading yet another Murakami novel. This time, it is Dance, Dance, Dance. A science fiction novel that outlays the boundaries of realities and makes me think of fiction in a new light. I board the plane and get to a window seat. I sit next to an old man and his wife, they are huddled in blankets and remind me of what winter in England must be like. I only have a cardigan on.
And then I see you. On a flight to Tokyo."
Perhaps you recognize me, perhaps you do not.
"It is like an ordinary day and the wind streaks through the cold air, streaming through leaves. Like fingers weaving through unyielding coldness.
On a humid and cold morning as such, the sky seems water-painted. Clear visions of colour are passing before my eyes. The tree outside my window thinks it is spring and time to bloom and it is right. On such a morning, it is difficult to imagine that the world is moving, that people are in motion and that clouds are drifting lazily by.
You are but an imagined concept, one that is built up upon dreams, visions, hope and a tiny bit of reality. What transpires may never be fulfilled."Perhaps not, or perhaps I don't want it badly enough to.
"Perhaps it shall provide me with a clue as to whether it was a deliberate one or an accident. not that it really matters. i guess i just need to find out. was he crying with fright at all the noise? was he in a hammock hung down from the ceiling? did they make sure he was in a different room?
i imagine the house without any air-conditioning, a bright day or perhaps a humid night. the leaves were not flying in the wind due to a lack of it. the sheets would be stained with sweat. a pink nightgown or perhaps shorts and an oversized top. the rotating fan causes a slight breeze in the room. and something magical occurs."
When once I searched the streets of decadence, I now search the faces of the common people, the grief-stricken ones, the ones clad in cheap shirts and flat slippers.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
sinew
i was at MPH and i scoured the bookshelves for the kafka book today. at first i passed the chick-lit section, and then i wondered on and saw books by atwood, nicholas evans - the divide - the book i borrowed in december and never managed to read, and the i spotted it. i don't recall whether it was the cover with the painted face that first drew my attention to it, or whether it was the one with a black cat and a white background that drew me to it. i looked at the covers and then i looked at the prices, one being inconsequentially cheaper than the other by five cents, and then i looked at the quantity, one being the last one on the shelf and the other with around five copies of it remaining. the content would be the same, the translator was the same - philip gabriel - and then i saw that the one with the black cover had a scratch on the mid portion, around the right hand side, and i decided to take it anyway because the scratch reminded me of you, because i usually only see your right profile and i've never quite got down to figuring out whether that scratch was a fold caused by the crease and lines of your pillow after you get out of bed, creased with sleep as you are, or whether it was a testament to a fight, nails, sinew, flesh under skin, glass? a smash of glass, a fall? a fall caused by a trip and the delicate cheekbone that hits the ground. perhaps. that much i shall never know.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
grille
the sky's now turning grey as i speak. respite is in the air, the last week before school closes. i wish i could speak of summer breeze and restlessness, of the smell of summer that comes after spring, but i can't.
the grille gates have not changed and today i got off the bus. the same bus that i was on 5 years ago that stopped abruptly when a car sailed merrily into the lane the bus was travelling along. strangely though, that the driver of the car was more shaken than the driver of the bus, pausing and getting out of the car with a look of astonishment. astonishment at the near-accident, astonishment at escaping and perhaps ridicule.
that time 5 years ago, i don't know where he was. pottering around the wet market perhaps, gnawing on his fingers. cut your nails, please. playing with stones, fruits, grass, bits. many many things change in 5 years. like the other time when we went to block 213 to a tiny room and listening to songs that included "alleluiah". i still remember suggesting that we use that song while it rang out "alleluiah!" pretty weird.
there are many called fuckwits around me.
i'm tired.
i don't mind the rushes and sprouts of youth coming back to me, after all i could have forgotten what it was like once to be young and dumb. i'm not infalliable, i'm not perfect.
the grille gates have not changed and today i got off the bus. the same bus that i was on 5 years ago that stopped abruptly when a car sailed merrily into the lane the bus was travelling along. strangely though, that the driver of the car was more shaken than the driver of the bus, pausing and getting out of the car with a look of astonishment. astonishment at the near-accident, astonishment at escaping and perhaps ridicule.
that time 5 years ago, i don't know where he was. pottering around the wet market perhaps, gnawing on his fingers. cut your nails, please. playing with stones, fruits, grass, bits. many many things change in 5 years. like the other time when we went to block 213 to a tiny room and listening to songs that included "alleluiah". i still remember suggesting that we use that song while it rang out "alleluiah!" pretty weird.
there are many called fuckwits around me.
i'm tired.
i don't mind the rushes and sprouts of youth coming back to me, after all i could have forgotten what it was like once to be young and dumb. i'm not infalliable, i'm not perfect.
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