Please

as i was crumbling, he came to my rescue; swiftly, without signal or shadow, swooping down to envelop me in warm, familiar sounds and heart-filling explosions. you are here, i exhaled with the last breath that clawed its way out of my throat, please dont leave me again i could not bear it if you did. but as i grasped in cold panic, he became old teak wood splinters and fell to the ground in a faceless and soulless heap of dust, so quickly and painfully, at my fingertips. why would you do this to me. why would you show me glimpses and then — be back again, shooting out of the soil with tremendous speed and great strength, just as i’ve always known, providing canopy, scowling, gentle. i have no blood left for this fever; you have to either stay or go.

September 26th, 2009

Chocolate Croissant Nights Again

to take my mind off stuff, i was watching City of Glass on Youtube earlier tonight. Leon Lai, Shu Qi, Daniel Wu and Nicola Cheung star in this movie, one of my favorite Hong Kong movies of all time. when i watched City of Glass in 1998, i remember how my heart stopped during the scene in the University of Hong Kong stairwell where Leon Lai and Shu Qi first locked eyes amidst all the laughing students hosing and pouring buckets of water on each other. Leon Lai… he and i go way back. i first found him in my neighbor’s house when her brother was singing karaoke to one of Leon Lai’s songs. i was six years old then. now i am twenty, and it’s been about seven years since my neighbour’s brother passed away. but Leon Lai still stops my heart. and he will always remind me of Kar Hou holding the microphone and belting out cantopop in the living room. one time when i was about eight, my grandmother got a stroke and all the adults immediately bolted out of the house to rush her to the hospital, leaving me alone at home. i remember being absolutely petrified. so Kar Hou took me over to their place to have dinner. i refused to eat, but he coaxed me into eating by making aeroplane noises with the spoon and challenging me to catch the aerospoon in my mouth. how i giggled, and how he laughed. it is a scene that is exhuming a lot of forgotten feelings from within me. i wouldn’t be entirely surprised if he was my first love. oh, that smile. that accent left over from Adelaide. that earring. when he died, we were all stunned. as i watched City of Glass earlier tonight, i thought of him and missed him.

******

i’ve always dreamed of flying. in 48 hours i will be doing just that. in 48 hours i will have fallen asleep and slipped into delicate dreams that i wont remember when i awake. where will i awake?

February 10th, 2009

The Sound of Silence

if there were a sound for silence, it would sound like stars. and if there were a sound for the shining of stars, it would sound like a million needles falling together, the tinkling crashing of their dissonance playing in an infinite loop that never seems drudging or tiresome. instead, this limitless sound feels naturally eternal. if you listen to it long enough as it rings in your ears, sometimes you can hear the truth.

after i hung up the phone, i sat for a long time listening to the sound of silence. it is such a passively piercing sound. but its permanence comforted me. it also didnt expect anything from me, and that liberated me. it is a kind of liberation where i’m sitting in a booth. a very small booth. we always think that freedom is a vast open field where we can run and flail our arms and air our screams of victory… but all those histrionics are demanded from us by the blue skies and endless green grass. we see before us an expanse of verdant, sloping hills, and our instincts tell us to run and chase the wind. but why? why do our instincts impose such expectations on us? what if i want to just sit on the grass, in that very spot i appeared in, and just sleep? i dont want to run with wide open arms and scream; all i want to do is be idle. and that’s why my liberation came in the form of a small phone booth with no phone. here, nobody can find me.

and thus, i can heal myself. far, far, far removed from the toxic aid of humanity.

December 27th, 2008

The Sparrow

i worry for the state of the world if loneliness is left to fester in the hearts of people, if education continues to be inaccessible to some, if the first thing on people’s minds is to always be cynical of good intentions, if there are people who misuse good intentions, if psychopaths can freely roam the earth without a huge warning sign above their heads, if carbon emissions and cruelty are allowed to permeate the air, if bad air never gets cleared up, if the police are self-employed, if the first reaction to potental threat is to wage war first, and finally, if the wrongest people continue to hold power and recognition. with all this going on and perhaps a lot more that i blissfully remain ignorant of, i don’t imagine it impossible that the world will explode should a sparrow land on the tip of the planet. i worry when i wake up. i fret before i sleep. but at the end of the day, the burning question remains: what can one person do?

August 17th, 2008

Who I Would Share My Last Oreo With

i figure that by now most of you guys have seen the Oreo posts floating around the blogosphere lately, so you must already know what this post of mine is for :)

Oreo is having a competition where they are inviting people all over the world to make a video that depicts an Oreo & Milk Moment. if you look up their Youtube channel, you will find some excellent submissions up already – some touching, some cheerful, some funny, but all really good videos.

Oreo also engaged a handful of bloggers to write about this competition, and i was lucky enough to be one of those selected. you don’t have to persuade me very hard to write for a cookie like Oreo, which i already know like the back of my hand and love :)

below is the video i made for this competition:

i have had a lot of Oreo moments in my life. one of them was this time I went on a trip to Genting with some friends, and i was tasked with buying snacks, and all i bought was RM 30 worth of Oreos cos i had a craving :P everyone scolded me at first but we ended up finishing all the Oreos on the first night. then there was the time we made a cheesecake with an Oreo cookie base, and the time i spilled an Oreo McFlurry all over Azlan’s car. remember my dessert fast two years ago? i broke it with an Oreo McFlurry at the airport :) and then there are all the times i sneakily buy a small pack of Oreos while Martian isn’t looking, so that i can snack on them while he’s sleeping at night….

but i guess nothing tops the Oreo Moment i had when i made that video up there. it was a moment of realization that was very personal and very precious to me, so i hope you guys wont judge me too much as you watch the video. and thank you Oreo, for this new Oreo Moment, and for being such an awesome cookie :)

86 comments July 28th, 2008