By the way : You light up my life

Hedonistic Sunday (for Mr Akutagawa) Part 3 of 3 - "Gentle Ghosts"

In Spinning Gears, Mr A drank whisky, and was on medication for insomnia (from which an overdose killed Akutagawa). I do not understand why though, he didn’t seem to drink some more. He didn’t seem to abuse alcohol. I’m saying this from my impression of him from the stories, and I have not yet researched on how he lived his life. While not advocating that alcohol use is for everyone, I think he could have given it a go before killing himself, even as a short-term solution of sorts.

For me usually just two pints of Kilkenny would do to silence the voices in my head. Voices? Alright. It’s not that I hallucinate hearing people talking, or anything serious like Mr A’s condition, but I do think too much about this and that, and I have my ghosts. Ghosts, for example, that help me think in my sleep about my mother after the alarm interruptions and decide for me to get up to change clothes. Ghosts that make me run around in my dreams and that don’t allow me rest enough to appreciate a good night’s rest. Ghosts, I would say that are gentle, and can be quietened with a bit of Killies or drinks drunk in the proper way.

I wonder if anybody had introduced Mr Akutagawa to the proper way of drinking.

Now, I am not an expert at drinking, really, really; but, even I note that there are roughly two ways to drink.

One way to drink is the “drowning-one’s-sorrow-way”. This is not the proper way. But, anyway... before drinking, one prepares by marinating one’s temperament with sense of self-righteousness and self-pity. Then, before drinking each drink, one must visualise that the drink is infused with the validation of self-righteousness. One may choose to season the drinks with a dash of spite or self-destructiveness. This may help to increase the sense of self-pity. Since drinking this way, would lead to more depressive and lonely feelings, letting one become a worse sourpuss and more dislikeable, it is recommended to only drink like this with people whose friendships one wants to put to the test.

The second way to drink is the “proper way”. This is the way I would want to recommend to Mr Akutagawa. One begins with planting a magic seed of the desire to escape from the real world in one’s heart before drinking; after which, one must allow the alcohol to nurture this little seed. When it begins to germinate, one may notice how things surrounding the little seedling become warped, illogical, and trivially amusing. That is the power of the magic seed. Shower the seedling with delight, smiles, and some more drinks. When it grows big enough for one to climb onto a branch and swing around when the wind blows, one should slow down on the drinks, but still drink enough to sustain the tree so that it doesn’t wither and die.

After drinking the proper way, one would likely find oneself drifting off to sleep, having been rocked like a baby on a tree top. Well, at least until the branch breaks, all is well. Maybe, Mr Akutagawa would have liked that for a while, and be less hard on himself.

I didn’t write the above for Mr Akutagawa to read, because I know that he is dead, and I’m not delusional like that. I do dedicate this to Mr Akutagawa, even though I’m not sure why, perhaps it is out of my respect for him, or perhaps, it’s some sort of thank you or hello. I may wonder if what I wrote is good enough to be dedicated to him, but I must stop myself from pursuing the matter, for it is inconsequential.

What is more consequential, is that I wrote the above for you to read, in case you have not been properly introduced to anything I had just elaborated upon, and you needed to be introduced. As usual, I hope that it was enjoyable to you to read.

What is most consequential, may be that I wrote it mainly for myself, in case I forget myself, for a lot of things can happen in seven years.

Hedonistic Sunday (for Mr Akutagawa) Part 2 of 3 - "Mr Akutagawa"

I picked up a collection of Akutagawa’s stories. This is the first serious fiction book that I was finishing since a long time. I was down to the last story, which I read this morning, as my too-hot cup of coffee was cooling to the just-right temperature for me to drink big mouthfuls. I like very much to drink coffee like that.

The last story, Spinning Gears, apparently was an autobiographical account on Akutagawa’s neurosis and growing madness. This reminds me to confess that I used to spell neurosis as “neutrosis”. I think I was dyslexic, but many of my friends disagreed with this, which made me think that I had put in a commendable effort to pretend that I was not. No matter. This, too, I suppose, is inconsequential. I must remind myself that nobody is going to cut me any slack because I am a recovering dyslexic, or confused with being an ex-extrovert or whatever.

In the story, Mr A described the nature of his neurosis and paranoia. He described seeing translucent spinning gears, hence, the title of the piece. In real life, Akutagawa killed himself at the age of 35. That’s seven years away from how old I am now. When I first heard of Akutagawa and that he was a prodigious author who killed himself at the age of 35, I thought he was another one of those indulgent authors who had no responsibility towards their families and exhausted themselves with velvety chocolate melancholia, and who could not empathise with the rest of us, proletariats, who have to work for a living.

When I am through with the second story of the collection, though, I knew that I was wrong, and his melancholia had to be more sophisticated than I thought. He wrote about some endearing characters, among those who are horrifying. This shows that he must have recognised some very endearing aspects of life, just that it was not enough to sustain him. A man who could write with such precise and delicate sensitivity shouldn’t have been easily misled nor disillusioned by the mere superficial hypocrisy of his time. He must have tried very hard to find a philosophical way out of his hell.

Hedonistic Sunday (for Mr Akutagawa) Part 1 of 3 - "Sunday"

Last night, I drank about two pints of Kilkenny (or Killies) at an over-priced pub. I knew that the Killies were overpriced, they were not the extremely tastiest beer I could have gotten, and I should probably have saved that money to give to my god-mother for the Chinese New Year. (My family’s tradition has it that children should give parents money for necessary preparation of CNY.) But, after the first pint, being mid-way of a contemplative discussion and nowhere in sight of reaching a conclusive-enough-revelation to advance my world-view, I wanted to drink more to nurture my growing drunken stupor. So, I got my friend to agree to order one more pint to share, following which, at my implicit insistence, we ordered one more pint.

I said I drank about two pints of Killies, but I probably drank closer to three. That was because my friend did not like them as much as I did. I suspect it was not because he disliked its taste, but just a sign of protest against how I theorise that drinking ales is less fattening than drinking lagers (his first pint was a Heineken). It would, however, be more convenient for the both of us, if we just attribute his abstentions to his social responsibility for having to drive us home afterwards, thus, I did not, and shall not, pursue the matter.

When I reached home, I fumbled for my keys as quietly as possible. I did not want to wake up the dog, which would surely then rush excitedly towards me for a pat on its head, which would in turn encourage it to jump up, and possibly scratch me with its nails. I wanted to avoid it since that might then remind me of the errands I had to run in the real world, such as having to bring the dog for a pedicure or something like that.

Luckily, I was quick and quiet enough, and made it to my bedroom without alarming anyone.

I did not bother to switch on the lights nor change out of my uncomfortable going-out-clothes. I simply laid on my bed, on my left side, and fell asleep.

I did not dream, or perhaps, I did and do not recall my dreams. Either way, it was a pleasant night’s rest. I never understand why I always feel the need to clarify how I might have merely forgotten my dreams, when I just want to say I did not dream.

The radio alarm clock sounded from about 6 am until it gave up trying to wake me up at about 7 am. Just as I was about to lift my hand to hit the “snooze” button, I distinctly heard it going out by itself. At this point, having built up too much potential energy, I turned to lie on my other side. I was satisfied that my childish-lethargy won over the adult-intention to start work early. (I had brought some work home to do over the weekend, maybe I will do them later today.)

About one hour later, I got up to change into my home-clothes. I had been thinking in my sleep, since the alarm episode, about changing. I thought about how my mother would occasionally, usually on Sunday mornings, come to nag at me for sleeping in or about some other mundane thing. I decided not to let her to find me still wearing yesterday’s going-out-clothes, for she might think that I had gotten so drunk that I couldn’t change myself. She wouldn’t have understood, even if I had tried to explain, that it wasn’t so much that I couldn’t, but rather, it was because I didn’t want to change at all. Falling asleep in going-out clothes can be very comfortable sometimes. It may be as comfortable as going back to sleep after breakfast, or falling asleep in one’s school uniform after coming back from school, or sleeping-in despite the alarm-clock’s blah-blah.

After changing to my home-clothes, I slept again, until about 10.30 am, when I had enough sleep and got up properly. I could tell from the quietness in the house that my parents have gone out. I asked R (our domestic helper) to make me a cup of coffee.

When I wake up, I like to drink coffee immediately, and before I brush my teeth. When I wake up, I also don’t like to talk to people before my senses have warmed up. Then again, maybe I just don’t like to talk to people, regardless of my senses. Lately, I have been wondering if I was truly introverted, though I’ve thought of myself as being a typical extrovert. It is inconsequential, I suppose. As I am writing this on a Sunday morning, I can’t think of anybody who would care if I’m extroverted or introverted, myself included.

Observations (Jan 10)

1. The bigger the leaves a particular species of bamboo has, the louder and slightly more bassy the rustling sound the bamboo makes when the wind passes by.
   
   
2. When one first hears the trees sway in a strong gust of wind, it will take a moment, or two, for one to feel the wind in one's hair. The time between, as I have decided, is the definitive span of how long "a moment's time", or two, should be.
   
   
3. The cicadas' songs sound like tinnituses - which are ringing or buzzing sounds in the ears that are not caused by external stimuli, such as the ringing sound one hears in bed after spending a night too long and near loud music speakers at a disco - except that they are more pleasant to listen to.
   
   
4. On a pleasant enough day, the smell of dog shit may be bearable, as is the smell of one's own smelly feet. The smell of smelly feet has a salty quality, similar to that of the smell of salted fish. The smell of dog shit has a musky quality.
   
   
5. The smell of one's own farts is usually bearable; when it is particularly smelly - then it may be even amusing. On the other hand, the smell of other people's farts is never ever bearable; and when it is particularly smelly, it may be amusing or annoying depending on whether one is in a good mood or if one enjoys the farter's company.
   
   
6. A person with big nostrils may have developed them from the habit of digging one's nose with the index fingers. I have once seen a man with one nostril twice the size of the other and wondered if he had dug the smaller nostril by putting his finger through the bigger one, reaching in the smaller one from behind (through the pass where naughty little boys sometimes try to stick a piece of spaghetti across).
   
   
7. They say people with "hooked-noses", or "parrot-noses" as the Chinese call them, tend to be devious and untrustworthy. I have, however, never once heard any one of them denying this. In this way, at least, they must be honest, if they are indeed devious and untrustworthy.
   
   
8. When it is breezy, birds tend not to fly straight. They may fly in horizontal or vertical zig-zags, or in spirals or circles, almost as if their paths have become loopy because of the wind. Perhaps, they are playing. This does not seem to apply to larger birds. Incidentally, larger birds give me the impression that they are more serious and less inclined towards playing anyway.
   

Purple Land of Golden Oats

Once upon a time, there lived a group of elephants in a land of purple grasses and golden oats. These elephants loved to eat golden oats all day. They ate so much golden oats until they shat shits of golden oats, and their hides turned a little golden at some parts.

In the purple land, these elephants had no natural predators, except time and age. Occasionally, they would get into quarrels amongst themselves but they would never fight. They did not know how to fight, for there was no violence in the purple land.

At least, that was until one day, when a human boy, who loved to eat brinjals, ate so much brinjal for dinner that, at night, he entered the purple land in his dreams. He was so overwhelmed by the magnificence of the gold that stood out shining brightly from the purple in the land. The brilliance of the gold and purple land nourished the seeds of corruption that laid hidden in his human heart with greed... They germinated. The boy wanted some of the gold for himself.

The boy schemed to capture an elephant to bring back home so that he could harvest the elephant's shit. This was because, after drawing some irresponsible conclusions, he had decided that the oats were golden because they were nourished by the elephants' golden shit. He could sell the shit, or grow some golden oats for sale, and he would become rich and eat all the brinjal he wanted.

The boy laid a trap to capture a little elephant. It was an elaborate trap, but an ineffective one, as he was soon found out. The elephants asked him why he was trying to capture an elephant, and if he had any difficulty that they could help he with. This moved the distraught boy (imagine being confronted by a herd of talking elephants in a foreign purple land), and he told them his true intentions.

His honesty, however, only repaid their kindness with implanting notions of greed, envy, and violence into the elephant's culture.

The boy was sent back with an elephants' kick in the behind.

***

Sometime later, when the boy became an old man, he returned to the purple land. It seemed that things changed.

Golden oats were farmed in plots of land and did not shine as brilliantly as before. Perhaps, as purple grasses were hardly to be seen, there was no contrast for the gold to stand out from the land.

There was a bustling industrial area, where metal works and machineries were constructed and sold. Elephants were haggling with each other over lower prices and other matters of business concerns. There were also cages to contain huge and obese elephants held in captivity, apparently for the harvesting of their waste-matter for the farms.

When the old man witnessed the scene, he felt so displaced that he forgot to keep out of sight. He was caught by the elephant police for trespassing.

Upon establishing his identity, the old man who was once the boy caused another sensation amongst the elephants. Some of the elephants wanted to celebrate his return, as he was the benefactor and founder of the modern purple land society (as was taught in the elephant schools). Some of the elder elephants, particularly those who were children of the civil war, wanted to hang him for corrupting the elephant culture and the purple land of peace as they remembered it.

Finally, a rich elephant merchant bought him and kept him as part of a private collection of humans. During this time, he was fed with brinjals for his meals. These were the sweetest brinjals that the old man had ever tasted. When he later found out that these brinjals grew from the coarse purple grass of the land, which were basically the weeds in the oat-farms owned by the merchant, the old man fell into depression until his eventual death, upon which he was flushed down the elephant's toilet bowl.

Lenny's Video

He set up the video-camera on the tripod, positioned his chair to the suitable distance and height, watched the play-back of his test-shot, and adjusted the white balance.

Lenny was wearing his company polo-tee shirt. He was proud of getting into the company that they did not think he could have gotten a job in. He liked to wear the polo-tee shirt, thinking it makes a good impression; and, it was blue - his favourite colour - and it matched his jeans and favourite sneakers.

He had his hair styled especially for the occasion. He gave away his usual side-parting when he went to the hair-stylist yesterday and asked for a fashionable haircut. It was fashionable indeed. Possibly worth the sixty dollars more than what he would have paid if he went to his usual barber.
He liked it. It looked like one of the hairstyles David Beckham wore. That was a good thing. Girls liked David Beckham, right? The new haircut made him feel younger and more confident.

"Hi, I'm Lenny Lim. I'm 29 years old. I graduated from the school of engineering from Nanyang Technological University - a.k.a. N-T-U. I am currently a systems engineer, with this company," he held up the logo embossed on his polo-tee and grinned sheepishly.

"I have been working there for 4 years now. In terms of career prospects, I am ahead of my peers. This is proven by how I was promoted last year to an engineer's position. Those who joined the company around my time are still junior engineers."

He lifted the hand-drill into the camera's view. It was a new heavy duty Bosch in
green and black. He depressed the trigger a bit. It gave the loud and intimidating whirl that a professional hand-drill should make. This seemed to assure Lenny. He had practiced using the drill on something else to familiarise himself with how it worked, and he had since cleaned it.
Lenny looked at the rotating drill bit now coated with a fresh film of oil which caught the light coming through the curtains.

As if having forgotten and then suddenly recalling the camera, he nervously re-composed himself,

"Today, I would like to say sorry to... I mean, apologise... sincerely, to the two most important women in my life.

"Firstly, to my dearest mother, whose death I caused by coming to the world, for my failure to make her proud... Mother, please forgive me," he recited, "Then, to my most beloved Jenny, for... my bad behavior... against your wishes. I am sorry for hurting you, and taken advantage of the kindness you showed me. If you should ever find it in your heart, please forgive me...because I really love you dearly."

He tilted his head to the left and put the hand-drill to his right temple, which he had decided was the softest part of his skull, drilled a hole in his head, and killed himself.

(sneak.)

Tick-talk

I dreamt of being infested with my dog's ticks. In my dream, the ticks had evolved, and were no longer single red bulging dots with six legs; they were with three jointed parts, like ants, and had ferocious teeth - ferocious as in it looked like it'd hurt a lot if I were bitten - and looked blood thirsty.

I woke up being a little afraid.

The next day, I kept feeling ticklings on different parts of my body especially on my armpits, my private part, and the part of my back I can't reach enough to scratch properly.

Now, the paranoia has died off, and I don't quite still feel the tickles. I don't rule out the possibility, however, that a couple of ticks are living on me - there're quite a few places to hide - especially if they stay still so that I won't even detect their crawling motion. I mean, like afterall, I don't remember the last time I took a good look at my back.

When I do consider it, the idea of having a couple of ticks on my back is actually surprisingly alright. It's kinda freaky, but really, I should have enough blood going around to afford such "pets".

Maybe if I stay still enough they would breed and breed and one day, there would be ticks all over me. I'd be like I'm covered in red scales - except that they're actually ticks. It's kinda gross, but if I stop thinking that ticks are dirty and disgusting (which they're not inherently), it can be kinda cool. If I were all covered in ticks I'd probably get into guiness books of records in a new catagory and appear on reuters or something.

Ah Hoi on the Train

Ah Hoi held on to the train handle tightly and stared out of the window. If he concentrated hard enough, he could see the walls of the tunnel and tell the cables apart. He should find it interesting, but it was just difficult... he couldn't help noticing that people were standing too far apart from him like there was a radius - an invisible shield or force-field - that was repelling people from him.

He looked at his own reflection and reminded himself that he did not care.

He did not care that people would not want to be close to a man with tangled long hair and a mangled beard. He was a man whose clothes from Kek Sng Kio bore a smell that could not be removed with repeated washing, and did not fit well enough such that he had to tighten his khaki cargo pants with a raffia-string-belt... His rugged Jansport purple and turqoise backpack that had been with him since his sailing days, that he had carried with him for the past twenty over years from port to port, smelt like rotten fish in the air-conditioning of the train and that other people would avoid rotten fish smelling things... To him, these people were just shallow.

And it was because of their shallowness that they would never know him and they would not get to know the secrets he keeps - secrets about the great sea - stories he picked up during his sailing days.

Once, his ship sailed past a small waterspout that was just beginning to form. He was close enough to stick his arm into it, and to feel the tug of the air that made all of his hair stand up. It was foolish and not to be recommended, so he didn't mention it to anyone. Sometimes, when they were sorting out the trawler catch, Ah Hoi would steal a starfish and put it into his pocket to bring back to his room to tickle the underside and be amused by himself. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, he would go to the deck by himself to lie down and find the moon so bright it was glaring to look at...

He should feel that his life was everything meaningful and beyond the materialistic pursuits of the average person. One day, he should meet a nice girl who would look pass the appearances and appreciate him for who he is - He is romantic, responsible, and wise. A girl whom he would not have to pay after sleeping with her.

Until then, there, on his way to Cathay Picturehouse to use the free internet point to play "Farmville" on Facebook, Ah Hoi felt lonely.

22 Nov 09 - Mostly Cloudy with NW Winds at 14.something kph

When I was young, they would say, that Singapore had only two kinds of weather - it was always either sunny or rainy. "It's boring," they would say, and I would echo, "to only have Spring and Summer." So what if the birds would migrate to Sungei Buloh to hide from the cold? And our equatorial climate supported growth of the spices - precious commodities that the Ang Mors had to come here to trade for. I wished that I lived somewhere that had the four seasons - four seasons like what I saw on the TV, in movies, in books. If you also grew up reading Archie comics, I'm sure you'd empathise with how I felt left out reading about the snow sculpture competitions (Jughead would almost always be making a sculpture of a hamburger and Betty of Archie) and how Lil' Jinx might be making snow angels...

Having two kinds of weather was boring, because it meant that I didn't have the chance to put on more clothing or see the trees change colour or have a childhood with snow angels. If you also grew up reading Archie comics, I'm sure you'd empathise with how left out I felt - to be growing up in Singapore.

In Singapore, it might have been possible to lie down in the sand pit on the playground to make sand angels - but it's not quite tempting. The occasional beer bottle cap poking out of the sand was usually enough to set our imaginations on the defensive mode - that the sand is clean enough to run about barefooted and not to think about what else could be living in the sand. Besides, having grazed my knees on the sand deterred the idea of lying down and rubbing my limbs around on the ground... (Now, snow angels must seem even more remote because playgrounds are tiled with those sissy spongey cushions.)

Another common reason to wish for the four seasons was the imagined entitlement to a wider variety of clothes. Autumn and Winter clothing in fashion magazines always look great. They promise to hide body flaws and make everyone look more pensive and melancholic. With autumn, anyone could have the rights to sensibly own three dozen scarves and a blue coat just like Paddington Bear's. One could have twenty-seven cool sensible hats and seventy-two sensible sweaters in a variety of styles. One would even have a pair of sensible ice-skates...

Yet, today, I'm not sure if you noticed anything... but today, the weather was a little bit strange. It might have started last night, but in the morning, the winds were already blowing hard. It seemed, that the winds were from different directions - sometimes from the East and sometimes from the North or West. The trees, if you had the chance to look at them properly, were swirling. It's really interesting, you know! Swirling trees.

Sure, other countries might have swirling trees too, but would they have swirling bougainvilleas from overhead bridges next to swirling iron tree hedges next to swirling pong pong trees? Would they have trembling orchid plants and jasmine plants outside your neighbour's home in the common corridor?

It was all quite cute to take note.

And I realised that having only two seasons doesn't make any place any more boring than a place with one million seasons.

Then again, perhaps a million seasons are quite hard to beat... but what I mean is, happiness lies in the details, and we all just need to know what works for us so we know where to look.

Honestly, do I wish for Singapore to have autumn and winter? So that I could match a colourful South American woollen poncho with a black turtle neck top and my new Uniqlo jeans? No, and why not? Because I know how expensive it would be to maintain a wardrobe for four seasons and how much more wardrobe space I would need. What a hassle it would be to manage all that?

I'd much rather be spending my afternoons watching the wind.