Time is Just a Perception

10 years in the talking, and it has finally begun. Jeane, Boo n I got our first gig. Introducing The 3 Asian Girls Down From The Block.. So we were on stage, at Timbre, after going into our first song, the debut single going by the same name. I glanced at Jeane to acknowlege our move into the next song. I blinked, and as i reopened my eyes, I'm somewhere else.

I'm running along a big canal, lined with green metal partitions. Someone is chasing me, running along forward, I expect to be widening the distance between me and my agressor. Instead, I run into him. A dark Indian man, dressed like a hard labourer. He grabs my hands, and I scream. What the hell's happening? How did I get here? I pull my wrists downward with force and manage to free myself through the weakest link of his grip, between the thumbs and fore fingers. I run back to where I was from but he seemed to get ahead of me again. I just can't seem to outrun him. I'm crying for help. Kamal's supposed to be here at 11am. It's now 12pm.

Wait a minute. I'm supposed to meet him here tomorrow. How did I get to tomorrow now?

The Truth Treatment

Tranquilizer's Delight : Solid, Liquid, Silence

And in tranquilizers delight,
Those wild, lingering thoughts dance on my finger tips,
They dance on my eyelids.
Was my tongue to sing?
Was my tongue to taste?
They dance on the hairs of my forearms.

In this tranquilizer's delight,
Those tasteless, soothing piano keys flow into my nostrils,
Down my throat,
Through my ribs,
Up my head.
It forms a rainbow in my eyes
But my tongue has yet to praise,
My tongue has yet to pronounce
Your silence.

I'm Not Sorry, It's Human Nature

The new tenant moved in today. A guy. I think his name is Zhirong. I only saw him for a moment before I left the house. Alright kinda guy, chinese and pretty decent in appearance. But when I came back, he asked to speak to me in private. So I invited him into my room, then I said he could speak. He found it hard to begin, but when he did, it was hard for me to take in.

He found my diary entry, the single sheet that fell out from my book, the one I was frantically trying to find for a few months now. He spoke in detail how he found it sick that I could think of such things, that I could want my ex-boyfriend to "come to the breasts of a much older woman, and take her milk for gall". He was disgusted, and after that talk, he packed his bags and left. Honestly, that older woman thing was just a misquoted line from Macbeth. And I was obviously angry at that moment. Sigh. These unread people. Better for him to leave then.

Over the next few days, another new tenant moved in. A young woman named Candice. As usual, I briefed her of the house rules, and I had to leave for a meeting. I certainly did not anticipate my welcome home.

Coming back and stepping into my room, Candice stormed in with that single sheet in her clenched fist. She was practically boiling over. How the hell did she get it? She fumed about how she saw a piece of paper fluttering about and landing halfway behind my cupboard (and what was she doing in my room anyway?!!). Thus she picked it up and read it.

She said she found it insulting. I told her it was not her business to go around treading on private property, then she exploded! She was screaming about how I shouldn't write about other people that way, and that we as humans ought to have nothing but love for each other. I told her she was crazy, then she shoved me! We started struggling, I'm telling you, crazy people are strong! I was really fighting back, trying to push her to the ground so I can pin her down. Then out of the blue, she pulled out a syringe full of clear liquid. She aimed it at me, and the needle stuck in my arm for a moment then she pulled it out in our tussle and some of the squirting liquid got into my eye as well.. I got to say it here. BLOODY HELL!

My eye started to slack. The effect was immediate. It started to lose muscle control, and somehow I could see myself. My slack eye was looking to the ground and I saw a mix of half-floor half-crazy-girl-coming-for-me. My arm lost its strength too, and I was freaking out. What the hell was happening? What did she do to me! Candice started freaking out too. She started screaming, that crazy girl. Then the last thing I said to her was,"It's just a diary entry, for goodness sake!!"

For Just One

Even if for just a second
You'd know what it was like,
I'll throw a chance at you.

Even if for just a moment
You told me you would try,
I'll take a chance for you.

Even if for just knowing
That you could almost fly,
I'll cut the chords and draw your breath
And take a chance with you.

Lamentations

Take away all your sorrow.
Lay them all on me.
They'll beg, they'll make you steal and borrow,
Even make you feel you're free.
But think not of this toll till tomorrow.
All the trouble,
All the toil,
God-forsaken, blood-stained soil.
In this world of words that boil,
Years of planning, yet they foil.
Lay them all on me.

I Saw A Bit Of Paradise That...

I was afraid I'll forget..

Karma

What's horrifying is you think you look better in a facial mask, with only your lips, eyes and nostrils exposed.

What's horrifying is you suspect whether all the good you're doing is just trying to score brownie points for heaven.

What's horrifying is you're beginning to endorse the same values as your parents and the things you say sound strangely from those same parents.

What's horrifying is you're at peace with all of the above.

In The Eyes Of A Stranger

I was at the polyclinic to check on something that might be a concern. When I finally got my chance to see the doctor, I was surprised to go through the doors and see a nurse sitting in place of the white coat. After sharing with her my symptoms, she diagnosed that I might be suffering cancer, but in order to prove it, she'll need to take porn poses of me, in public, in front of the other patients. I reacted the way any (half) decent girl would. NO WAY! This is sexual harrassment! So I ran off, but I needed my medicine, and since I didn't want to wait around in the same horrid building, I went to a neighbouring polyclinic with the presciption in hand.

Over at the counter, just as the medicine was about to be handed to me, the disgusting nurse came running by, instructing the other nurse not to sell them to me because I violated "the rules". Put off and in a desperate disposition, I ran to NTUC hospital.

The place was confusing. The reception was so difficult to get to, and I had to ask a million times for direction before I finally got there. I was then directed to the presciption counter, which was right smack in the middle of a waiting room for patients that weren't in emergency, but were suffering in pain all the same. Just flanking the seats was a make-shift operation room separated by just those hospital-blue plastic curtains. There was a strange moaning sound of spurts of extreme pain and discomfort. It was unsettling to hear, so I went to investigate.

Peeping through the gaps, I saw first the feet, then the body of a pre-teen boy wriggling on a transportable bed in seizures. A team of 4 doctors and nurses were trying to hold him down, they had their faces covered in hygene masks, and they were decked out in green surgical robes, whispering in hushed, anxious tones. The boy's skin was badly bruised all over, but the strange thing is that the bruises were coming and going at a constant change of blues, greens and browns. I was horrified. With my hand to my mouth, short of breathing, a small crowd began to gather where I was.

The next thing I saw might traumatise you for life. His feet, pointing in my direction, began to disappear into his ankles. They seemed like they were being sucked in with a strong but limited breath. His feet appeared again, then disappeared once more, leaving stumps cut short at the end of his shins. I was motionless and mortified.

News got round that he was suffering from a new and rare virus infection that would eat up a person's insides at an alarming rate, and in order to do so, it had an ultra high metabolic rate that used up more oxygen than available in the cavity of a person, thus creating a vacuum within the human body. The result would be disappearance or shrinking, not unlike what I had just witnessed.

The poor boy was convulting, the pain immeasurable. As the doctors where trying to control his flailing limbs, I caught a glimpse of his eyes. They looked above him, into space, thoughtless and in torture. I only saw mostly his pupils, black and wet and depthless, squeezed half open. Then, his head got sucked into his neck. I was crying, my mind was frantic. Just within the time I took to draw in a breath of horror, he got sucked into himself, leaving nothing. Like the concept of the black hole, which is the opening of a space of vacuum. Anything and everything in close proximity would get drawn into it.

5 seconds of tension. That's all that was left hanging in the air. An overbearing overcast of an imposing disaster. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Then... BANG! The skin of the upper torso of the boy was spit out from nothing, slapping onto those plastic hospital curtains. It slowly dragged itself down by the law of gravity. Those eyes, now just two empty spaces, went down to the ground, leaving a thick trail of fluid and blood.

Ambiguous Spurrings of a Passive Aggressive

Somewhere during my journey home, something inside me spurred. I just got so frustrated. I tried to control it, but my eyes blinked with a certain force at a man who just happened to exchange glances with me. Boarding the bus, I tapped my card on the electronic sensor with impatience and my feet took charge, stomping the ground with an unexplained anger. I crossed the street rather recklessly while a car zoomed by, glaring its headlights as a warning, my stance exuding such hostility. The buttons in the lift retorted with an agitated click as I punched in my level. I need to breathe, I told myself. This is absurd. The lock to my gate almost turned an impossible extra round with my thinning tolerance, and the door to my room closed before my family could even get a glimpse of my return. I took to my bed. My sanctuary. My confidante. With my face buried in the pillow, I tried to relax, but my heart was still racing. I tried to force sobbing, but no tears wanted to flow. So my hands took charge by punching the pillow. Punch the fucking thing, and the friction from it felt like sparks were coming off, starting a fire. I imagined someone, something I was so pissed off at, and scolded its non-existence, "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKIN FUCKA!" It didn’t help. In fact, it let out more rage, I could see my fist meeting the wall, ending in a limp, but instead I clenched my teeth so so so tight till my jaws hurt and my brain rebelled. Nothing I did helped. Walking to the bathroom with a forced pace, I showered with vengeance, scrubbing my skin like the dirt is glued on me. For that moment, my frustration calmed down a decimal. But it was short-lived. The blood was rushing on a hyper, and I needed something to distract me after my bath, so I picked up my book, but my eyes sped through the words just to satisfy the action, after one page, the attention span was reduced to nothing, so I switched my computer on, waiting for it to load up with such purposed calmness, it felt so straightjacketed. Finally, finally, I could pound out these unexplained emotions, trying to beat the rush hour traffic of my adrenaline.