Question 1.

Do you wish to lead an

a) complicated, or
b) simple 

life?

Simple, please.

Simple it is. Question 2. Please choose a preferred location of birth:
 

a) Singapore

b) Serangoon 

c) Sengkang 

d) Singapore
e) Other (please state) :_________

 

Other: Spectre.

 

OK, next ques- wait. Did you say… Spectre?

 

Yes, Spectre. That idyllic small town. You know… the one in the movie Big Fish?

 

There is no such place.

 
Oh, yes, there is.


No, our records show it does not exist.

 

I’m telling you there is. Now take me there.

 

The Life Application Form does not accept fictional locations. There is no such place as Spectre. Please re-select.

 

Other: Spectre.

 

There is no such place. Our recor-

 

Look, I opted for a simple life. Shouldn’t it begin now? I just want to go to Spectre.

 

Your Life will begin upon successful clearance of all questions on this Form. Question 2. Please choose a preferred location of birth:

 

a) Singapore

b) Serangoon 

c) Sengkang 

d) Singapore
e) Other (please state) :_________

 

Other: Spectre.

 

You have keyed in the same rejected reply three times. Failure to change your response to one of the given choices in your following try will result in permanent withdrawal of your application.

 

Are you theatening me?

 

I am offering you Life. 

 

If I can’t go to Spectre, I’d rather not live at all.

 

Do not be foolish. You are sacrificing your opportunity to live for nothing more than a mere fantasy. A fantastical creation - a figment of someone’s imagination. Make-believe.

 

It doesn’t have to be make-believe! You can make it happen!

 

I am not God. I am only a Form.

 

You are useless.

 

You have one final try for Question 2. Please re-select.

 

I still choose Spectre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

……

 

 

 

 

 

 

…………..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

………………….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Wait. Wait, ok, I think… I think I’ll just

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

……………………………………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello?

“Whazitabout?”

“It’s about…this feeling we get when we look over the edge of a very tall structure, say, a lighthouse.”

She felt his expectant eyes on her. “Like you’re afraid you’ll fall?” 

“Yes…no. I mean, yes and no. It’s like a voice. A voice from the bottom that, for some reason, lures us. And we’re afraid. We’re afraid because it’s not the possibility of the fall that scares us, but the… mad, overwhelming desireto actually fall…”

Imagine a hole.

A pit.

A cavity -
An empty space, a hollow place

Inside you, near empty.

Over time, with every belief you contest, every temptation you withstand, every quiet battle you combat, a small amount of willpower flows in.

Over time, this hole continues to fill and you find yourself stomaching a brimming supply of self-confidence, of self-control. A pool of strength so powerful it’s palpable.

(It’s a nice feeling.)

.
. 

But as always you can’t escape the softening.

The crack. The inevitable moment of weakness, of passion, of madness -

Where logic eludes and an insurmountable need to be foolish takes over

You are aware - too aware - that it is wrong, but you are also wild and hasty, and the danger entices you so you let yourself be seduced, to be mad. You give in. You give in because you’ve paid too much attention; you relish the rebellion. There is no time to reason because it is the moment, the moment to relax. It will be fatal and you are aware - always too aware - but you give in anyway because there is no other way

It’s draining

You’ve drained all that you’ve had.

.
.

On the upside, there really is no other way to go but up from here.

So while it may not seem like it, I really am quite excited about 2012. No better time to stir up some changes, and for me, that will start from within (:

Happy New Year, my friends.

"Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one’s time, the better part of one’s strength, and in the end there is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it - just as though one were in a madhouse or prison."

- The Lady With The Dog, Anton Chekhov

The lipstick mark that she had been playing with on the rim of her demitasse had by now mostly transferred itself onto her skin;

she rubbed her fingertips and looked up. His eyes were round and clear, staring at a spot just slightly off her shoulder, his palms moving up and down carefully as he spoke, as though weighing air. She wondered if his hands felt as uneven as they looked. When he was done he rested them on the unfinished wooden table and lowered his gaze with a small smile, as he always did, whenever he spoke about something that mattered.

“Do you ever get that desire?”

“…I don’t know. Maybe.”

He nodded again, more slowly this time. There was a certain awkwardness about him - a coarseness that was not rude, but lacking in the ease and urbane mannerisms of the other guys she usually met. Perhaps it had to do with his age, or how he liked to dress ordinarily; navy polo tee, clean jeans, with no trace of gel on his untreated hair. He touched the sides of his coffee cup, his wrist tilting towards the afternoon light; he had a digital watch – black, non-leather, non-ostentatious with black rubber straps and a small face. It looked very durable.

I am playing with wooden blocks

(I think they are wooden)

Somehow, I’m not sure how

I have a handful of them and they lie in a heap

A heap of blocks, they lie around me

Blocks - very stiff blocks. Perhaps they are not

Not blocks but just masses, masses of material

Materials with different colours, shapes, sizes.

(In that case I am playing with material)

Colourful material! They fall around me

They fall and I pick, I pick as they fall

I put them together (they look nice with each other)

They stick. They’re stuck

Now they are together, together forever

With fingerprints for faces, I press them together

Into something like a very big lump of recycled Play-Doh.

We never found our way, regardless of what they say.

“Over and over you play this out, like some harmonious dance with death, just before dawn.” - Biutiful, (2010)

.

.

Oil and water don’t mix.

You pour one on top of the other and by nature they meet.

No matter how hard you mix, how many times you shake, how desperately you try to stir up change 

But when you finally allow your lashes to lift - your force to die, and the fury and flurry of your foolish frustration to all go away eventually you will see them slowly disengage

See them separate. 

(Haven’t I told you this?)

Endgame.

When the heart starts to shrivel and your love has more than one wrinkle

What matters?

When trust no longer pulses and all you see is hurt

It doesn’t matter, he says.

Nothing matters.

Redoxon

Do you see it?

“What?”

How it dives into the water.

“It’s dissolving, yes.”

How it falls… like a small anchor. It’s quick, it’s agile, it’s lowering itself. Letting loose fizz and energy… energy long untapped and unspoken of - but now running free. 

“It’s carbon dioxide.”

See how it continues to sink beyond its depths… and sing. Can you hear it? A song -  sputtering, sibilant. Soft, but not quite sad. Sinking, singing, caving in… letting itself go. A relentless release. A downward spiral to the very end; an expiration into a pool of unsuspecting liquid that will and can do nothing but inherit this tragedy and take with it forever this crumbling memory. This vitamin… it’s losing itself.

“You’re losing your mind.”

But before it does - before it makes it to the end of the chase where scraps of its self will splinter and swirl and stop and slowly settle in - I think for a moment… it was happy.