Shades of the town is changing

The town is getting hotter. Heat rises up from the ground and burning the soles of people walking on it. Every corner that was once landscaped with lustrous green turned to infertile soil brown. Construction workers banging their hammers on concrete, the sound of electrical saw and metal scraping against metal-even the area around my house is changing. The sky turned crimson at dusk and sparrows flutter their wings, flying in groups, perching shortly on the tree in front of the neighbor's house. Stray dogs wagging their tails and sprawling lazily on the pavement. This part of the town has not changed. But as the sky dons on its night gown, the stars are never clearly visible with the naked eye anymore, nor with the telescope as the magnificence of celestial objects are shied away by murky clouds. A pity, a loss that would never be recovered. Shrimps can be found in the wet market with a significantly less regularity, so are the crabs and some species of fish. This town as a seafood paradise is losing its relevance. Famous restaurants and eateries no longer live up to the praises they once deserved. Instead, more and more cafes and dining places with modern furnishing, offering foreign culinary are replacing the traditional coffee shops and food stalls. Sandakan is changing its face gradually, insidiously introducing a new facade, which I could no longer trace back to the salt-smell air that I had once familiarize with.

wicky little laughter.wacky old trick

I am snugging under the covers again, reading a novel and typing this entry with the lights off. This thought amuses me. It was under this familiar dim light and this same atmosphere that I have finished flipping through books on the entire bookshelf. This little secret shared with my uncle. It was an unspoken solidarity between us, recalling his act of disobedience when we were little. It makes me want to laugh. Those crazy hours we spent for books, in the name of suspense-quenching and those deprived-of-sleep-looking eyes, tears of tiredness suppressed back in a shrug and pressing on, turning page faster than a toaster popping up a bread. It was not like I am a great Stephen King fan and was making an effort to create a scary atmosphere while his story pestered me with horrifying thoughts. No, I am more of a play-safe-with-after-effects reader. Severe hushing and maternal responsibilty to keep a child in bed before midnight really are cold blankies for avid readers. I was an expert. Torch stashed under my bed, a blankie and comforter-double shielding for the light, all set up for the whole-night-read down to infinitesimal details. The thrill, the excitement...it was all too familiar. Camouflage in the dark, we call it. This is the novel I've just finished reading.
Another heart-crushing story by Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns, the disillusionment centered around abused women and hateable blood-thirst beast-like husband. Similar with the previous novel, Kite Runner, it renders one in deep-rooted sorrow and empathy. You can't really cry at the part where they execute the character with the most brutal way but there is a hand squeezing and gripping your heart. Totally stunning and beautifully woven.

Complaining about complaints

Waiting for the light , also by Ruxandra Papa

I have to come clean now. I have a bad habit-I complain a lot, mostly about my results, not only exam and test results, but also feedback from exercises and homework. Note:mostly about my results but not only about my results, mostly about other stuff too, like towards something that I have grown an increasing dislike, distaste and resentment-PSP. I like to blame others too, if it is their fault to be blamed, indirectly, by using....(best not to say it). The worse thing is that all of these unbearable behaviors have to be bore by someone whom I have no intention at all...at all...to torture. Why do I have a tendency to swing to bad moods? (at the wake of someone) Why do I carry such sarcasm in my tone as if it's a natural way to speak? All of these I can only (once again I) blame on the eternal monthly suffering of women.

Incurable excessive inner garner

Incidence by Ruxandra Papa

There were times, most time in a day, that I dug deep and I found a resounding answer. There were times when I plunged into my inner department of thoughts and found spaces brimming with vacuum. The truth is, I want to stop this business of searching within and find an answer to every spontaneous action, which has already been my habit since a long long long time. I have been leaning more on my chaotic side recently. Not only is my bed strewn with clothes, sentences that come out of my mind are mere miserable fragments with no style, no good connection and bad taste in verbs choice. Yes, I am talking about Leseverstehen and Hörverstehen. Allow me to escort you through my painful self acclamation of brain-malfunction. After reading the text or hearing it, I roll my pen between my fingers while the wheel in my brain is (vermeintlich, supposedly) attempting to roll. However words that are then being formed are even beneath shallow. I am sorry if this entry has again turned out to be a self complaint, which I am trying very hard not to sound so by choosing my words carefully, but somehow it is what it seems now-my wheel of thoughts lack lubricant. Once again, I am disappointed, frustrated, annoyed by myself.

A choice

I am ruminating on events that took place two years ago..around this time...:

The colour of the sky changed;
the wind took a different course,
around the mango tree with brown fungi(which you conned me into eating).
Wheels are still rolling,
at the absence of two white rats(which you tortured in a smoking chamber);
And our days as residents under one roof turned to dust,
a whiff of smoke that never recollects,
in that living room where our laughter once roared.

Paper rolled at the edges,
ink fades on that card with all your blessings.
But words come back,
like waves returning to the shore from the deep waters
of awakening silver images.

Moments when time froze
are when goodbyes tugged the core of a softened heart,
when phone dials grew cold,
as the line went dead
with your voice ending with a helpless sigh,
during your exam,
after I left a goodbye-note on the tv,
before I took off.

My heart was heavy,
my limbs weighed like tonnes.
My conscience screamed out the unfairness,
of having not enough hours, minutes and seconds
to hear that faithful old man;
to indulge in his lecture
that explains all
all about how the universe works,
a language that makes out logic
drafts out sense
crafts out what we all know as a whole called physics.

Now I wonder how things would be
if I never got the letter,
if you never said goodbye,
if we never took that last picture together,
with eyes that reflected a strange light,
and smiles that concealed much sadness.

As an entity

I focus on the lacuna and search for something to dam it up but the closer I get to the answer, the more I miss its absence. I permit laughter and liveliness to atone for valediction to rules and rigidness in life and wish for la dolce vita. By this fateful rite, I am freeing myself from this labyrinth of regulations, of perceptions of humans, of norms and of crude comments for this kismet that I have never asked for. Life is too short to be contaminated by any specks of kitsch which explains the sensibility of being lackadaisical to everything that will annihilate your positive and upbeat spirits. Having a little staunchness in everyday surprises is no kudos at all. It is what keeps the cycle of hope going. I as a humanoid sometimes approach prostration chanting complaints. All I am saying is: Live Life to the Fullest.

At the rain, a tribute to the weather

Threads of water fall on my cheeks and my head, rhythmically. Like the girl in Fahrenheit 9/11, I tilt my head backwards and let the rain fall on my lips, fall on my tongue, fall on my taste buds. I take the rain on a daily dose basis. During such moments when I am lost in my thoughts, abducted among the atoms in the air, my eyes look at some distant object and my mind travels.

I am walking on the way back to the hostel without sanity and stability. My large coke in my right hand, the third refill of the day. I breathe the outside air with eagerness and I stretch my legs after six hours on that yellow stool with my burger, coke, fries and math-my numbness gives way, my senses return, my nerves rejoice. Back to my stroll:I am amused by the coolness of night, even my wobbly legs-now with more blue black patches than before-enjoy the tortuous route with a wicked slow pace. I let my drowsiness manoeuvre my limbs and the swaying of my body and I say "you are in charge.", like a pilot giving up his command.

The rain, the water in the puddles, the splashes and the vapour trailing car tyres find favour in me. Near my feet, my pants are drenched; my toes coated with sand and dirt. But all these for the pleasure of water from the sky, the best bargain I could ever have.