Seven tau-gay legs

There was a spider, that had seven legs, that were not proper spider legs - black and hairy. Instead, they were made of tau-gay, or green bean sprouts. She had lost her eighth leg in a fight.

Despite her handicap, the spider was with a lively spirit who enjoyed the occasional practical joke. Once, she was in a store, that was somewhat like Singapore's version of the Metropolitan Museum of Art store, pretending to be brooch. When she was caught, she laughed mischievously in such an infectious way that nobody could then fault her for trying.

She would have danced a little if she could have, but she could not, for her legs were soft and flimsy. She had accidentally stepped into somebody's warm bath water, and her tau-gay legs got scalded and became somewhat flimsy ever after. This was to her greatest regret, as she had loved dancing.

If she felt bad for herself, she would think of her friend, a spider who has cabbage leaves for his legs. Imagine, all eight legs! Cabbage leaves! All too big to fit on a little spider! And all slightly curved! He never walked a single step from birth. If he needed to get anywhere, he would roll his way there. Like a tumbleweed! Except he bruised more easily! Let alone dance!

Tau-gay legs are really not too bad! Or so the spider with tau-gay legs would remind herself comfortingly. She would sing or hum her favourite song to herself. It was ABBA's Dancing Queen. If she let anyone hear her, they could feel sorry for her and go on and on about how dancing was not a big deal. This would then make everything more difficult to bear.

Owl's Story

One day an owl came to me and told me to write a story about him. He was clutching on to a stalk of aloe vera, and I was curious if this owl had come from the desert or something. So, I asked,

"Did you come from a desert?"

"If I did, would you write a story about me?"

"Even if you didn't, I can write a story about you. Do you have a specific story in mind? If you tell it to me, I can write about it."

"Hoot. Hoot. I didn't come from a desert. I like to eat aloe vera. As a punishment to me, one day, my children disappeared and all that was left in the nest were stems of aloe vera, in their place."

"Why would you be punished for liking to eat aloe vera?"

"Because this aloe vera belonged to Queen Cleopatra. You see, I stole it from her garden, so she stole my children from me."

I blinked hard at the strange owl and began to frown. I didn't know how to carry on the conversation from here. I couldn't imagine how to write a story about what was exchanged. So I continued to frown as I tried hard to imagine. Meanwhile, I also realised that I didn't recollect seeing any owls in the day before. This must be a special owl. At that, the owl hooted two times and flew onto my bed and began eating the aloe vera. After staring at him for a while, I decided to turn on my computer to make notes for the ensuing interview.

"So, owl," I asked, in a way I thought journalists asked their questions, "what is your name and please tell me about yourself." I sounded more like someone at a job interview.

"That is not important," the owl replied, "I want you to write a story about me."

"Is it the story of Cleopatra and the aloe vera?" I raised the left half of my face as I watched the juice from what he was eating sipped into the sheets of my bed.

"No. Write a story about me. Write it such that I am an eagle in the story."

"Why would you want to be an eagle when you're an owl?"

"Why would you want to be a man when you're born a woman?"

Then I realised that I do sometimes want to be a man. I did not know why the owl knew that, perhaps he was just drawing a random analogy, but I reminded myself that I shouldn't be surprised with what a talking day-time owl could say anymore. I asked,

"Alright, so anything else you'd like to be included in the story?"

"If it's possible, I would like it to be a love story. Other than that, nothing. I just want to be an Eagle in a love story."

"Alright, then how will you repay me for a story?"

"I don't know. Hoot. Do you like aloe vera? Or name your price?"

"A favour. You will repay me with a favour."

"Hoot. Alright. The degree and level of the favour must be commensurate with the depth of the story you hoot write."

I told myself to aim to earn at least a favour for clean sheets.

*

Once upon a time, there was an eagle named Owl. Many people did not understand why the eagle's mother named the eagle Owl, but these things happen, even for eagles. And when these things happen, they have to be accepted, even for eagles.

Owl was a sea eagle, and liked above all, to eat cuttlefish and squids that usually live in the deep sea. Being unable to dive that deeply, he decided to court a sea turtle, so that she would go into the deep water and catch squids and come to the surface and regurgitate it out for him to eat.

Unexpectedly, Owl succeeded to make a sea turtle fall for him. He named her "Squidcake" as a term of endearment; and because she did not have any other names to be called by as it was unfashionable for sea turtles to have names, being under the sea where they have a "silence please" policy like in the libraries.

Owl and Squidcake spent many many mornings and afternoons meeting on a deserted little rocky island. Owl would bring seagull meat for Squidcake to pretend that he loved her, and then gorged heartily on the squid remains of that she regurgitated. Sometimes, she would bring him whole squids, if she managed to keep them in her beak as she swam to meet him. They would exchange tales about Owl's soaring in the high heavens and exotic sightings on land and Squidcake's deep sea diving and curious friends at the coral reefs.

All was well and full of happiness and delight until one day, Squidcake was late and Owl felt worried, because Squidcake was never before late, and Owl was never before worried. Owl wondered if Squidcake had met with any accidents when she was catching squids, because she weren't really good at catching squids anyway. Squidcake herself liked to eat jellyfish, and ate cuttlefish only to regurgitate for Owl. Oh, should anything happen to her, Owl would never be able to forgive himself. He would rather give up eating all the squids and cuttlefish in the world just to see Squidcake again. This made him realise that he had really fallen in love with Squidcake.

"Why are you crying, my dear?" Squidcake asked when she finally arrived, "Are you upset because I am late? I'm sorry, I had to do run some errands. I'm sorry, I'm just a little late. Please don't be upset with me anymore. I promise to bring you a big cuttlefish next time, okay?"

"No, please don't. I don't want that anymore. Squidcake, I'm not upset with you at all."

"Then why are you crying, my dear? What is wrong?" Squidcake asked.

But Owl could not answer her.

The Champedek Tree

Once upon a time, there lived a champedek tree who wanted to fly ever since it was just a little seedling. Over the years, it painstakingly grew and groomed its branches and foliages in a position that it resembled a bird in flight.

There was just one problem though, the champedek tree, like all trees, have roots embedded into the ground. The only way to fly was to uproot and die. What was the champedek tree to do?

One monsoon season, there was a particularly strong typhoon, and as the strong wind blew, the champedek tree thought "it's now or never!" and uprooted itself and leapt into the air, and it soared across three small hills and three small valleys before being smashed into a mountain in its path.

As the champedek tree laid to die of rotting roots in the ensuing rains, it was full of smiles and happiness.

(sneak.)

The man with the box kite house

There was a man who liked to make box kites so much that he lived in a house that he built with the same engineering principles as box kites. It was made of bamboo poles and water-proofed cardboards.

One day, a strong wind blew and lifted his house into the sky, and the man was delighted to be able to fly.

The house flew higher and higher as the man tossed out his piano and bed frame until it was so high that there was no air to breathe. The man felt like it was his body that was weighing him down, so he took off his body and tossed it out the window. True enough, the wind took him and his house higher and higher, and finally, he flew into space and became an astronaut.

He lived happily ever after, because in space there was no wind and the house was just floating around rather randomly, and he found that very enjoyable.

My grandmother's story

I remember a story about a dragon that my grandmother told me when I was young.

It was about how when she was young and in her village in Taiwan, she saw a dragon rise up from the ground and fly into the sky. One could see the distinct prints of the dragon scales left behind on the ground.

It was something like how the place the dragon rose from was a construction site. In my imagination, the people were digging around, and piling or drilling into the ground, although I am not sure if back then, they had the same kind of technology to do things like that. All that construction work might have disturbed the earth dragon. In my imagination, many people gathered to see the dragon rise away, and the dragon was sometimes white, or green, or golden-yellow.

I find the disturbing thing about how old people tell stories is that they don't give you the descriptive details that you want. I want to know if the dragon breathed out smoke or fire or mist, or if it somersaulted before it flew away, but no, that was the way she told me - in its brevity. And in passing. They like to tell interesting things in passing, and by the time you're coming to terms with what was just said, they're already talking about other things - like if you'd like to have an apple, or drink some milo, or how is your mother - things that require you to respond mundanely and forget your curiosity.

Then, as I grew up, whether dragons are real or not became lesser of a discussed question. The scientists would say perhaps, back in ancient China, people imagined dragons from dinosaur bones and giant snakes or whatever. Perhaps, if I call my grandmother now to ask her to repeat the story, she may tell me that she doesn't remember anything.

But I remember the story. And I believe that she had no reason to lie to me that she saw such a thing happen with her own eyes. She's not somebody who would tell me things for fun, you know. She was somebody who scolded me for pouring talcum powder on the ground (so that I could skate around the room), because it was a waste of money.

I suppose I might have dreamt up the story and think of it to be real. Since I did not keep a diary when I was young and I don't have records of the conversation to refer to. If she did, she must have told me the story over a decade ago, and I don't even remember properly what she told me last week.

Then again, my grandmother might have dreamt it up too.

Yakult lover

She would set aside a task of the day that she did not feel like doing, and promise herself a bottle of Yakult for accomplishing the task. As a child, she did not like taking a shower, so her mother would give her a bottle Yakult to drink, as a reward for going to the shower without putting up a fight.

"Yakult is so nice to drink. The happy little bottles make a kid feel happy about being a kid because it fits so nicely in the palms of a kid. Adults look stupid drinking yakults, but it's so hard to resist. It's so nice to drink! Then the adult would feel happy like a happy little kid." She would tell her friends sometimes when she presented them with yakults for their birthdays or christmas gifts. On one such occasion, her friend tsked and remarked,

"Yakult should really pay you to do the copy-writing. Or for your marketing at least."

She applied for a job in Yakult as a taster.

And she got it.

And she tasted Yakult all day everyday (though she only drank up to the daily recommended serving) and had high job satisfaction and lived happily ever after.

Zhou the Walrus

Zhou was a walrus that lived in a zoo. He had strayed too far away from his homeland, and was captured by a whaler and sold to the zoo because the captain thought he was too majestic to be eaten. He was the only walrus in the zoo.

Everybody liked Zhou, especially the primates and the tortoises. He had nice stories to tell about his adventures and jokes about how he was "blubbly". Whenever any of the animals get depressed about life in the zoo, their good friends or family would bring them to talk to Zhou at night, and they would usually feel better about themselves.

There were times, however, when Zhou was unapproachable. Usually that was when he's in heat, or have a toothache. He usually had a toothache when he's 'heaty' - as in, in the traditional chinese medicine way. For example, when he had a toothache, or more specifically, a tuskache, one would hear him lamenting to the skies, wailing, "Whhhhy does the heavens give me such big teeth? My face is small, unlike the elephants, and I don't even a trunk, let alone hands, to clean them and take care of them. Ohhh... I am so miserable.

"Whhhhy does the heavens give me such big teeth? When it has willed for me to be enclosed in this dreaded zoo. There are no ladies here for me to impress with my teeth. Ohhh... I am so miserable."

Usually, when everybody heard the walrus wailing, they would stay away, as they were afraid of being scolded or chided by the heaty and angry walrus. They have experienced being in heat or toothaches before, and they know how irrational that makes them, so they kept away or kept their children away.

The next door couple of seals, however, had a little pup. One day, when the seals were out performing, the walrus was complaining, the pup did not know better and asked, "Uncle Zhou, my mother said everybody comes to you with their troubles, but why are you complaining about your teeth like how everyone complains about life?"

Looking at the cute and impressionable seal pup, Zhou thought it was important to explain, so he spoke to the pup softly,

"Little pup. I am only a walrus, and like everybody else, I am a subject of the heavens and fate and time. When I feel a toothache, I will feel like being complaining, so I complain. To complain is part of the joy of having a toothache.

"Little pup, it is important, however, when one is complaining, to know what one is complaining for. Complaining is for the better enjoyment of the experience. It is like, part of enjoying summer is to sit around to complain about the heat; and part of enjoying in winter is to huddle around and complain about the cold."

"My mother always tells me to appreciate the heat of the summer by remembering how cold it was in winter, and to appreciate the cool of winter by remembering how hot it was in summer," said the pup.

"Yes, it is very important to be appreciative of the present moment in your heart. That is basically how one is able to enjoy the present moment. When you complain without basic appreciation, then you will be miserable. If you are miserable without basic appreciation, then it is a waste of perfectly good misery.

"It is like, to complain about being in a zoo, is part of the joy of being in a zoo, only if one appreciates that he can sit around complaining about the zoo, instead of say, fleeing from predators or hunting for prey. Without appreciation, there will not be enjoyment, if there is no enjoyment, one is merely wasting the space he takes up."

The pup cocked his head to a side and did not understand everything fully, and said, "Well, anyway, Uncle Zhou, if it would make you feel better, I am impressed with your big teeth. I think it makes you look cool. When I grow up, I want to have teeth like yours too, but my mother said seals won't have big teeth... I'm thinking, I can help you clean your teeth, since you said you have problems cleaning it with your flippers, and maybe if I am close to your teeth often enough, it will help me get big teeth too."

"Gee. Now, I will have to find something else to complain about," said the walrus.

A lonely long legged fly

A long legged fly landed on a rock on a windy coast one evening. It was at an area near to where the river met the sea where the wind was well-known to be especially strong. As he struggled to stand still, the wind would blow away at his wings, stomach, antennae, and even at his long slender legs, making it difficult for the little fly's feet to remain firmly on the ground.

“If only I had somebody here with me,” the little fly lamented as he found a little rock to shield himself from the wind, “then we could laugh and make this incidents into acts of comic and laugh at how each other cannot stand still.”

The little fly sighed, feeling alone, feeling lonely.

“How I wish I was more like the grey little butterfly over there,” said the fly to himself of a little grey butterfly that was flying about lowly amongst the grasses, perhaps, collecting nectar off the wayside flowers of the coast. “Even though I wouldn't be very beautiful, I would have more confidence to make friends with the dragonfly. Which has wings that are so big and that are so strong that they are loud.

“Then again, I might as well wish that I were a dragonfly,” said the fly, a little more loudly this time, as he saw some dragonflies dancing around a tree nearby. The fly did not know what the dragonfly was doing, but thought that if he were the dragonfly... “surely I would understand why then dragonflies fly around trees sometimes.”

Then the fly had a tiny epiphany.

“Maybe they are trying to make friends with the birds! Of course! If I were a dragonfly, I would surely make friends with the birds.

“Then I'd better wish that I was a bird then. A very large bird. That could fly very, very high.” The little fly raised his voice and his little head to face the sky to look for the highest flying bird that he could wish to be like.

The golden sun was setting and coloured the clouds orange, pink and purple.

“I can do no better than to wish that I was a cloud!” He cleared his throat and confidently announced to the lack of audience, “Then I would be higher than everybody and bigger and mightier. I could rain and make birds and dragonflies and butterflies and stupid little flies, like me, miserable!” The fly heaved a loud conclusive sigh, proud for arriving at such a complicated solution.

It would be good and timely if he could fold his hands behind his head and lie on his back to admire himself and the clouds. But as he realised as he turned two rounds about himself, he could not lie on his back, and felt stupid for turning rounds about himself, and quickly hope that nobody saw him.

He looked into the sky and realised that the clouds were different from how he just saw them.

Alas! Thought the little fly, even mighty clouds are subjected to the forces of the wind as well! And they wouldn't be able to find a rock to shield the wind from. Even though they are so mighty and they usually have friends that they probably don't need. Do clouds feel lonely too?

He was disappointed with the world and felt faint and nearly lost his footing again. He was too disappoint to not realise that even the mightiest of seas had to bear the forces of the wind. He was too disappointed to simply wish to be a gust of wind.

......

It was quite dark by the time he recovered himself from the desperation and he wondered if he should be getting back home. Then he concluded that he need not, since nobody was waiting for him anyway. He sighed again and looked at the water and wonder why the dark sea was so vast. It is curious how a little fly had so much capacity to sigh.

The moon was up. The little fly was cold and angry and unable to bear his perceived plight, so he shouted,

“Why is the world so unfair to me? I'm just a little long-legged fly! I have brought fault to nobody! Yet, I am so lonely. Nobody wants to be my friend.”

(sneak)

Red monkey bars

They hang side by side by side by side...
As they titter gleefully to me,
"Come and come and come outside
and come and play with me with me...
and come and come to see to see."

On this rainy day the raindrops play
and play and hang on the red monkey
bars side by side by side they sway
in a random way in a tolerable degree
to the cold wind beneath the tree.

"The sky's so blue and you would know
if you would come and come and hang
and hang on the first or the final row
where the drops will then go and hang
and hang from beneath your shoe and hang."

"My friends my friends my raindrop friends how can you see
when you're watching the sky's so blue
so blue so big so small so red the monkey
bars and your friends that flew right through...
you may weep too if you only knew you are a lucky few."

"Don't weep and come and play for friends who missed the game today
for you know i know they know we'll all die or dry one day
one day two days three hundred days we'll die and fly away
like you like me the raindrops come as the clouds shall surely gray
so dry your tears and wet your face and say ‘Only today is today!
The sky's so blue and now i know how rainy blue sky's blue
because i came to hang to play with the raindrops on my shoe!' "

The Frog in the Toilet Bowl

One night, not too many nights ago, when I was dreaming, I came across a frog living in a toilet bowl.

I was very curious and I found myself asking, "Hello frog, do you live in this toilet bowl?"
"Yes," he croaked as he lifted his stout head to look at me, "I certainly do."
"How then," I asked before I could stop to think, "will anybody use this toilet? I mean, do they flush? or what?"

The frog laughed at me before replying, "Silly person with silly questions. I shall not answer you and leave you to wonder."

It is quite true, I thought to myself, that I certainly do not need to know the answer to whether people use or flush this toilet bowl with a frog living in it, all of which is in a dream. This frog is quite sensible indeed.

So, I said to him, "Okay, frog. Then please tell me something interesting, something for me to remember you by."

The frog laughed again and replied," Silly person with silly questions, I know of nothing interesting to tell. For if I may remind you, I am a frog living in a toilet bowl after all. You shall remember me for precisely who I am: a frog living in a toilet bowl after all."

It is quite true, I thought to myself, that he is a frog living in a toilet bowl after all. Then, I laughed and thought this frog quite sensible indeed.

So, I said to him," Okay, frog. It is true. But at the very least, please allow me to take a picture of you? So that I can better remember you for precisely who you are."

The frog laughed again and replied with what was, I suspect, genuine interest, "Silly person, if you can take a picture of me, sure, go ahead. But how will you take a picture of me? I am in a dream!"

To this it was my turn to I laugh before I replied, "Silly frog, you are a frog living in a toilet bowl after all. Of course I can take a picture of you. We are in a dream."

The frog thought and smiled and nodded and graciously agreed to my taking of this picture of him.