Self-awareness

I accidentally trespassed some red ants' territory on Saturday. Now, I have ant bites on my right second littlest toe. I've tried, but I can't count how many distinct bites there are. I also don't know how many distinct ants bit on it, because I must have brushed them off too quickly. It's very itchy. I scrunch my toes on the carpet or rough ground every chance I get just to scratch it every chance I get.

There are certain parts of the body where one could get the most irritating itchy insect bites. They are:

• On a toe,
• On a sole,
• Behind a knee,
• On a private part,
  
• On any part of the body beneath the elastic band of one's underwear, especially at the pelvis,
  
• On or around a nipple,
  
• At an armpit,
  
• On an elbow,
• On a palm,
• On a finger,
• On or near a knuckle,
  
• On a ear (front and back),
  
• On and inside a nose, and
  
• On an eyelid.
  

I don't think the above list is exhaustive, but I do think it's generally important to know such things, because it's really about being self-aware. As compared to knowing the details of the next American president's campaign speech, I believe that, at the individual level, it's more important for everyone, including the next American president, to know at least some intimate details about oneself.

Also, should one ever find oneself in a mosquito infested place, with only a little bit of insect repellent, one might know better where to apply it.

想你19

昨晚，在我回家的路上, 天下起雨来。
我停下脚步, 站在路灯下, 往上望。

被照亮的雨滴，从黑夜空中 莫名其妙 地掉了下来。
我的脸 感到了雨的冷 也感到了世界的奇妙。

你说 你那里 下雪了。
雪 的感觉会很不一样吗？

By the way: The Guitar Player

The Song of the Cradled

There was a people who was poor and lived in drastic and harsh conditions. They lived in the high mountains where food was scarce and not tasty and it was cold. They don't think and invent tools to improve their lives because they don't have enough to eat and don't have enough energy to think. These people quite often gave birth to stillborns since marriages were usually between very close relatives. In fact, their children were weak and they often died before maturity.

After their passing, the dead body would be washed and cleaned and wrapped up in some hide or cloth. The parents, or if not, only the mother, would usually cradle the dead child and sing a song. This was known as "The Song of the Cradled". The song was about being born into this world and the harshness of the land and the beauty of the love that the child has never got to experience, and how fortunate it was to die young and having not to suffer hunger any more, and about how the living had to suffer their ill-fate for not being dead yet. When it should come to be their turn to die, they would not be held by their parents, but only be cradled by the merciless chill of the mountains... and they bade their goodbyes.

After the song was sung, the parents would cut the head off the carcass and de-gut the body. They, and whoever at the ceremony, would then eat the flesh of dead child.

I overheard the cats...

I overheard that night, when the cats downstairs and below my window were talking about how there's a kind of crazy cat doctor. I don't know how it works and where these cats came from and why I understood what they were gossiping about I don't know. But they talked and I overheard about how there's a kind of crazy cat doctor from their kind of crazy cat world where they came from. The crazy cat doctor was a kind of cosmetic surgeon who was basically going around trying to multilate other cats. He was cutting off tails and ears and don't know what parts off cats and then transplanting them onto other cats.

What? The other one of the cats exclaimed. no, it was more like, WHAT? (In a way you must imagine a crazy cat would say it in.)

So the first cat went on and on about how those stranger than strange cats that would go and visit this doctor would all be granted these deviant secret wishes, to have 2 tails, to have 4 ears, to have 11 tits and all that. But the real question was, is, was, is? (They weren't particular about grammar and tenses.) Where did all these extra body parts came from?

Some rumours said it was from dead cats who recently died. Some said it was from like orphans that the mothers sold. Some said it was most likely from those cats who didn't speak and were normal and didn't have higher cognitive abilities... that would have been the most humane. like, dummy cats, farmed for this very purpose.

But the truth is, was, is, was, and I know because I know someone who knows someone who went to get an extra leg (apparently so that she could scratch herself better) and saw the doctor for herself, that it was done by some kind of blue magic, or black magic, or the ancient magic of the moon. You could ask for any body parts except for the eyes. There could be no mention of eyes. Because the doctor himself also has no eyes.

You see, the doctor was a subject of mutilation by some powerful magician - probably a human being who owned him as a pet or something - who gouged the eyes out of him and transplanted his testicles into his eye sockets. Makes sense, because only they could be bothered to do something like that. Then apparently, something strange must have snapped and happened such that not only could the doctor still see very well, he had a magical power for things like that.

If you ask me, I would say that the cat doctor probably was a powerful magician to begin with. And he might could might have performed the strange transplantation himself, because of some ancient magic or something, because it's really unlikely that any human being would have known better than his cat. The testicles thing must have only boosted his initial prowess exponentially.

And they went on to talk a little about the degenerate state of their cat-kind before they went away and I couldn't overhear them any more.

(sneak.)

Relieve

There was once a girl who was at a meeting when she suddenly felt a big piece of snot falling apart from the roof of her nostrils. She found it hard to concentrate on what was discussed because the loose piece of snot flapped with her every out-breath and threatened to drop out of her nose.

It was a big one. It was a potentially gooey one as well - the hybrid kind of snot with the dry end and the gooey wet tail...

She really ought to excuse herself and go to the toilet and get it out before embarrassing herself - but being a junior executive, she was uncomfortable with having to get out of her chair in the middle of senior management's discussion and to possibly disrupt anyone by going across the room and opening and closing the big and heavy door.

Thus, she decided to take a deep breath - and to suck in the snot.

It was a big mistake. She sucked too hard, and it got pulled back too far into her nose and that was so uncomfortable that she wanted to dig it back out, but she still wanted to keep a low profile, so she struggled a bit and kept quiet. In a desperate fit, she thought to take another quick and hard breath to suck it further back in so that she could swallow it.

It was an even bigger mistake. She was right that the snot was sticky at one end, and it was stuck somewhere. She felt like gagging and wanted to cough, but again, she was shy and reluctant to attracting attention to herself, so she held it in and kept quiet, and she was did such a good job until she silently choked and died.

Soon after her death, they noticed her anyway because she relaxed and released her bowels.

(sneak.)

Withholder

There was once a girl who was particularly adept at withholding her breath so much so that she fooled everybody into believing that she was dead. They held her wake and funeral and everything. She thought it was funny and marvellous that she should be able to pull off such a feat - until the sombre timbre of the resonance of her self-amusement startled her to realise that she was alone in a coffin buried five and a half feet underground.

So, she decided to crawl her way out of her grave.

After much effort and might, she managed to gasp a breath of fresh cool graveyard air.

After getting over congratulating herself on how capable she was, she thought of what to do next. She imagined that she would go home and scare the living wits out of the people who buried her, and have a good laugh. They might send her for counselling to find out what psychopathic condition might have induced such a funny behaviour before failing to diagnose her with anything specific. Then she'd be sent to school. If she's lucky, the kids at school might find her cool. Otherwise, she'd be ostracised - no big deal - because in a few years, she'd be out to work. Then she'd work - wake up earlier than she did for school - and get home later - she'd wear high heels or sandals and wrinkle-free office clothes. Then, she might start a family with somebody. Then, she might have some children - who might grow up - and start their own families. And by then, she'd realise how old she'd have grown - and then, she'd die of some terminal illness - then, they'd cremate her.

She looked up at the sky and forgot about the blood that was flowing from her nail-less fingers for a moment. Some of the stars shone clearly from behind the scattering of orangey clouds. The moon was new. There was the smell of some random flowers and other things from the offerings to a grave nearby. She thought briefly about looking for something to eat but decided that it would only be too troublesome.

She prayed silently and sincerely for peace to prevail and for all beings to relax and to eventually find salvation from suffering. Then, she anyhow re-buried herself before she suffocated.

Would write

I remember her telling me about how she was feeling depressed and out of hope for life and tomorrow. When I suggested that perhaps writing could help to make her feel better, she said to me, "how can I bring myself to write about anything when all I want to do is to end my life?"

"Don't you have things to do? Things that you want to do and have not yet have the chance to do? Start a family? Go to Europe? Write a play?" I asked.

"Sure, I'll want to do them if I were alive, but if I die, I won't have to do any of them. Don't you get it?"

Even though I pretended not to get it, I did. I saw how her logic worked. I empathised with her and it scared me.

She told everyone that she was going to Europe, but she actually sealed herself into her cupboard, that she sealed inside her room - so that the smell of her rotting flesh wouldn't easily escape. In the cupboard, there were drawers, which was modified by her handiwork to become a planter which contained soil. In the soil, there were seeds of different kinds buried, the most absurd of which was a lotus seed. And she must have sat on top of the soil. She killed herself by blood letting. When they had discovered that she was gone, she was gone, there were traces of blood and other liquids and bits of her bones, but most of it had disintegrated into the earth. There was a little ikea light fixed in the cupboard, perhaps to help the seeds germinate, perhaps to let her write. The ikea lamp was kept on for quite some time because she had made giro arrangements for her utility bill payment and left enough money in the bank for that. Amongst the things she wrote, in a little blue notebook, as she was dying in the cupboard, she wrote this,

"...my greatest regret is not having brought a watch along. Not because I want to know how many days passed, but only to be even more conscious of how time is passing by slowly. Perhaps, the gold casio watch that somebody gave me - if it were digital and without the ticking - that would drive me crazy - it would be perfect. Or perhaps I could live with - no, die with - the ticking.

She had suggested that I could try writing to make myself feel better.

I remember once I was writing under the blue sky. The sky was so fine and brilliantly blue, that my white paper was blue in colour. The gentle breeze, the sound of the trees swaying... the blue sky was so blue... I remember the yellow curtains I had when I was very young. The curtains were very thin, and the blue sky would come through. On Sunday mornings when I woke myself up to watch cartoons, I would spend some lazy time to watch how the blueness of the sky shone through and complemented the pale yellow curtains so well.

Writing does make me feel better. If nothing else I'm leaving behind finds her, please let at least this find her - that she was right, and I was wrong. Writing does make me feel better.

I can't imagine if I didn't have paper and pen to write with now - how else could I make myself sit still here and wait for myself to die?..."

She was wearing shorts and tee-shirt, and bra and panties, and her specs. She was 32.

(sneak.)

The Racoon

There was once a raccoon who rode a Harley Davidson bike. He wore chunky Harley Davidson biker boots and black Harley Davidson biker tee-shirts. He liked the way it matched his tail and dark eye circles.

One day, he got in an accident while riding his bike, his almost last thought was, "What the fuck?" Then, he thought, "Well, after all, it's a befitting way to die for a biker to die on the bike... like for a samurai to die in war. What more could I ask for?"

With that he muttered, "ah fuck it" and closed his eyes and let go of his life and passed away in a simple way shortly after.

The Case against Marble Cakes

"There's one problem with marble cakes.

Okay, two. Two problems.

Firstly, if you have two marble cakes, and you eat some slices of each, then because of the swirls on the cake that don't match, you can't join the remaining slices together and pretend that you have one brand new cake, which would give the impression that the leftovers may not be really leftovers, which is generally a good impression for leftover cakes to give.

Secondly, as in the second problem, marble cakes are just not as popular as chocolate cakes."