Conversation Between Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde(Chapter 16)

Part Of The Diary

Chapter 3:Conversation Between Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Greeting here, if you think it's necessary.

What are you doing here? Such an ugly and distorted face.(sneer)

That's easy. What I need to do is wear on a mask to conceal my face. But look at yourself. Here, look into the mirror. You just know how to point your index finger to others' face but yours. Accusing others' faults but yours.Pour streaks of teases and insults towards others.You paste your face with fragrant, lengthy praises and sway your head while facing the audience so that those self-assumed promises may swirl and attracts butterflies with beautiful wings...What a striking jewelery you have here!(Clap hands) Fantastic! Right?

(Laugh)Hahaha...so what if the image inside the mirror is me? Talking about mask, you should be ashamed! Count your collections! How many roles do you want to play? Haven't you feel tired when you have to change your mask while entering different rooms? How careful you must to caress each mask, to mend them so that you won't reveal you true identity, to lock away other masks and to keep your profile as a mystery? Be sensible: for your face is not the only part of your body that's exposed to public. Eventually, people equipped with lantern of wisdom will hold their lamps high and stare straight into your eyes; no matter how many masks you wore, wisdom will shatter you fugly sense of coward. Repent,coward!

Oh now I see you true face indeed. So your egotism was built on foundation of disintegrating your opponents. Supported by bricks of prejudice and cements of hatred, your sole intention is to mince me into pieces and sweep me below your feet so that I can act as your stepping stone. With me this piece of worthless shit, you can lift your achievement bar to a higher level. Tell me: do you think you can gain any pride by stamping on your foes flat on their backs? Your responsibilities, huh?Where is your sense of guilt?

Guilt? Responsibility? (Spit on the ground) Show me a plate of guilt and responsibility! Come, serve me in smoked flesh with bloods oozing out of them and sprinkled with a pinch of salt with a few drips of seasoning and decorated with petals of green broccoli! What's their colour? Their taste? Smells good?(Shrug his shoulder) Who give a damn about responsibility? I'm free of responsibility! We(pointing himself and his opponent) are products of procrastination, aren't we? We have no papa to donate his tadpoles and mama to breastfeed us; our existence affects nothing but one's mind; That's it! We are concepts! Just like those aimless mascots wandering about the crowds, they symbolise nothing but a core meaning ONLY. Crack you head and try to understand, you moron! Meaning only works when people notify their significance and address them into part of their mind labyrinth. Ignore me and you will lose nothing but just a meaning!

You are too emotional. Meanings attached with emotions will no longer contain it's own originality. Admit you are JUST a meaning. A concept. Human beings, we are meaningful, do we? And yet, we are in your heart.

Music, Words and Mind (Chapter 15)

Chapter 2:Music, Words and Mind

You thought about classical music, followed by blue jazz, intsrumental...They occupied most of the space in your mp3 player. You assumed that your choice of music is better than those who only know how to clicked the "repeat" button on the pop songs. Music is an universal language. Distilled off the lyrics, waht you can extract is the music itself. Listen. Can you hear the sound of music? The emotional souls twist and struggle to break free of the chains of songs and gallop across your heart and crush everything stands in the middle of their way. Hence, you are deeply indulged in music as addictive as sentences in millions of pages in millions of books.At this present state, your mind can be easily influenced by these desires and yet, you can't resist their pampering.Songs, movies and words pound impacts on your understanding by unlocking many doors which led to different imaginations. You were startled by the complexity of imaginations crisscross each other and at the same time, you can't stop. You can't shut up your eyes from these all-new landscapes. You refused to tag it as curiosity. If you insist, it's more like somekinda spiritual hunger. Bread? A bottomless pit.

Tales On Thoughts and Feelings Of A Youth （Chapter 14）

I love stories.Hence, let us imagine that I'm holding a blue pen with thousands of my tales and feelings ready to be unfold.Let us begin, shall we?

Chapter 1:Tales on Thoughts and Feelings Of a Youth

It its unfair to generalise people with the same age group as me into 1 category. Well,it is better for me to put it this way: I insert some procrastination while explaining we youth's movements. Born in a city, younger generations were stripped off of choices to make their own decision. Not even learning materials. They laughed when Tom hit Jerry with a baseball bat. They get excited when James Bond performed a cool action to kill his enemies with precise calculations and skills. They whistled along with beats of hard rock songs with rapid head pumping. They adored their favorite movie stars/singers and imitated their clothings and gestures. With an assumption of what was given to them is the truth, they adapted them. For example: X has a brand new Adidas sling bag from the latest season. He started to show off his bag by telling his friends how good the quality is and how worthy to purchase it.X's friends were jealous but then, they praised X for his bag. Y wanted attention too. He bought another branded bag next day to gain others' attention. Hence, the cycles repeats again and again until the entire school was overcrowded with branded bags. Poor thing. In order get rid of the hollowness in their mind, they spend to satisfy their desires. Some even perform certain extreme actions. Teenagers are daring enough to lie in the middle of the highway during midnight just to get a picture. They think they can mark their significance by doing something "extraordinary", even as far as destroying their own body( not to mention drugs and chaotic relationship). Too many versions of philosophy outside and they might as well create theirs. Hence, the dignity of white was stained by bold streaks of many colours. I thought about the "Big Brother" in 1984 by George Orwell. Perhaps, our mind is the "Big Brother".

Open Sesame ( Chapter 13 )

You walked along the street. The sky was pasted with a few piece of ragged clouds, as if a painting with bold strokes of light blue on the background. In your mind, the battlefield is raging. Centaurs spear their enemies with bloody rods and human warriors defend with their shiny shields. The slow motion of an elf archer released his arrows towards his opponents. Corpses hanging down from burnt trees, as if fruits of sins ready to be plucked. Same goes for river, flowing full of corpses and smeared with a smell of blood. You can see death whistling around, busying himself by collecting souls from those dead bodies. Weapons zig-zagged across the warground, forming fences here and there. Imagination rolls in. Ancient mythology hops into. Your heart pounding with excitement. Yes! This would be the last supper! Full of solitudes and sorrow! You replayed those scene in your mind again and again. So, as if a shudder after those childish boy finished their peeing, your let out a gasp and tried to keep those lovely memories deep inside your brain. Open sesame. Here comes your treasure, cave.

I am, you know, an ordinary person (Chapter 12)

Hi there. I am an ordinary person. The fact that I have 2 nose holes, 1 mouth, 2 ears, 2 eyes doesn't make me special. Same goes to my 2 hands and 2 legs. Connected with calcium-built joints (and cartilage too) I am able to move my limbs and transport my body around, freely. Isn't that ordinary? I guessed you won't appreciate that,too. You know what, I don't feel responsible towards my body. It is free, as I declared. Given by my parents, ( which in fact a product of lust and accidentally will ) I can feel the waves of freedom lurking deep in my blood vein. Oh...It is fantastic. I can command my limbs as my wish. I can do what what I loves to do with it. I control it! See? How swift I can to break the glasses with a toss of hand? Look at this! I can lay in the middle of the road in the middle of the night so that cars will trample my brains and all the contents in my body will splat out like those unlucky rodents scattered along the road, stinking with rots and flies' hunger. I can ride on the fast-moving motorbike and crush into the brick wall. Isn't that impact makes me feel wonderful? Extreme acts will leads to destruction, but then, aren't those masterpiece were outcomes of bold emotions and peaks of expressing ones thoughts? Oh, thats' commit suicide, you replied ( and careful in tone not to BOLD my emotions,too ) So? I will remained speechless and go to bed. Good night. Me in the mirror.

Chapter 11（Chapter 11）

My name is Chapter 11. Part of a Storybook. If you flip open a book. You can find me when a new chapter begins. Just on top. So you may start reading. My structure. A couple of alphabets queue in a straight. Horizontal formation. Sometimes attached with brackets and columns and underline. Since I was born. My fate remain sealed. Nay. I wont change my position.I am not stubborn. Soak me into the water and I will start melting. My words fade away and the meanings inside my stomach will disintegrate away as well. I am black.White behind me to contrast my body. Painfully shone my naked body under the florescent light. Black. The colour of night is black. When you close your eyelids. Different intensity of darkness.Some fake.Some in-depth. Some shallow. Some hurricanes your thoughts. Some jolted with fierce blinking dots.Some accelerating in the underground tunnel with unknown end. Some stuffed full of silence. Some clasped your hands tenderly. The creator of Dreams and Fears. Warm breeding ground of Emotions and Uncertainty. All of a sudden. Images shattered. Pieces of mirrors float. Gush. Water flows in. Body speared by millions of pieces. Threads of blood sipping out. Conjured up. Darkness. Hello. My name is Chapter 11. Part of a Storybook.

Reaction Of Shadow When He Saw His Grandson (Chapter 11)

Don't recoil when you saw my face,or any part of my body.Indeed,I am dead and now licking my thumbs covered with human blood in front of your view,you should be peeing in you pants and spitting out unintelligible words.But don't be afraid;hunger of fresh flesh as I am,I won't choke you despite the fact that I am sicked at how brute human beings kill each other and,of course, you are my grandson.Yeah,that's about it:I am a wandering soul,but not aimless.As you can witness(or,you can distinguish),I am in the form of a shadow and able to melted into darkness when the night falls.Then you might throw out a question: Isn't souls(generally speaking,ghost) are gaseous-like form vapour ( flip open those illustrations and you can imagine them like steams evaporated from hot buns)which,even, body itself is no longer a container to sustain the functioning of a soul? To put it in a simpler way, a soul of freedom is unchained from the desires of maintenancing the vehicle: the desire of sleep;of eat;of lust;of money;and, of power. A free soul vaporised from a dead body WAS supposed to work like this.Why out of a sudden, I appeared in the midst of a silent night and swallowed a heart of a dead body?(and you may not withhold your curiosity of the identity of that dead body too)And machine-gunned questions of life and death on me like hows death like and how about afterlife experience and did you weight your sins and good deeds on a balance weight in front of The Mighty One; or waiting in a queue,accompanied by Minotaur and Horse Sergeant to be judged by The King of Netherworld; to be punished by forcing all kinds of unimaginable torture in 18 levels of Hell; To knock on the Gate of Heaven and mocked by the refusal of the doorguard to unlock the bolt for you; To pass by the terminal of lengthy darkness and attracted towards the dim light of a firefly far at the opposite side; Brief yet presice image presentation of your life,flickered as if a flapping butterfly and slided towards borders of pitch black in the spur of moment; Boxes of animals skins to be wear on and a few human skin lefted in it...But behold: I am just a fresh dead.My soul remains wandering.So, lets pray to get virtues from my daughter.

Still,Night（Chapter10）

I stared at my bedroom's ceiling as insomnia was tapping my mind and trying to acknowledge me of his presence. I rubbed away the layer of water vapour on the windowpane. What do I see? I know today the moon is perfectly round. So beautiful and radiating a sense of calmness when I look at her. I was wondering, is it possible for me to pluck the delicate-she down and hug her tightly,feeling her warmness and tenderness?Hey, go away twigs! Why are you interupting my admiration on the moon? I shifted to another angle to get a better viewing of her.



While I am peeping at her showering with stars and veiling of partially-transparent clouds, I heard that weird sound again. Who dare to add filthy the wretched into this harmonious night? I looked at the inkish playground. I am stunned when I saw movements of a shadow. He dragged something else(from the outline of the object, it was a...body?) to the swing. Then, as if showing off some magic tricks,a shining knife(scissors?surgery blade?) appeared in his left hand. He then (I can't see clearly,maybe dissecting)cut the object with his knife.The blade gleamed under his left hand motion.



I was terrified.What are you doing? Oh please please, don't cut him! I forced myself to scream,but my throat abandoned me tonight. He refused to produce any shout despite of my fear and, tremble. I, I want to race down the staircase and unlock my door and stop his crazy act. I want to warn my parents. I want to stop my body from shivering. I want to fold myself in the warm blanket and let sleepiness and it's warmth overdosed me so that I may close my eyes and forget about everything. Close my eyes! My heart shouted.But my eyes were glued to the malicious of the night.



The shadow finished his dissection apparently.He was admiring his piecework, just like an artist finished applying the last touchup of his painting. Then, he detected my stare.He turned his face to me.



He has no face.Only shadow.He smiled, and saluted me with the object on his hand.It was a heart,dripping with liquid. He waved and swallowed it,and,and said,Hi.



I collasped.

Accusation Of A Swearing Machine (Chapter 9)

Fuck. I am a swearing machine. You know that? Look at the title. Yes, I am a fucking swearing machine. In fact, I am a flesh-and-bone teenage boy. You can jab a butcher knife into my stomach and bloods will spurt out of my body (of course, I will fuck you to hell. I am fuckingly dead serious, do bear it in your mind.)Why should I swear these fucking "pure" language? No, lets don't discuss that issue. First of all, why does the term "fuck" was categorized as part of the foul language dictionary? Lets flip open the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. How do they define the word "fuck"? Fuck,verb(offensive) to have sex with someone or Fuck,exclamation,(offensive) used when expressing extreme anger, or to add force to what is being said and this, Fuck,noun(offensive) 1.an act of having sex 2.a sexual partner.See? The word "Fuck" is mainly a term to describe an act of copulation and something to do with having sex. So why do we use the word "Fuck" when we are angry?(or even, when we are not fucking angry?)Having sex is some kinda act that supposedly arouse wrath and treated with brutal blended with violence which in fact an exclamation of extreme agitation? Or, to unwrap it's meaning, we are supposed to be angry when we are fucking others? That is fucking meaningless! Where is the word "romantic" and "love"? Oh..chill,my little fucking tool. You need not stand erect to support my accusation when I am in the mood of fury. So, back to the question. Before you use the word "Fuck" or "What The Fuck" and any terms to indicate (even it's meaning is fucking hidden) the vulgarity of the sex act, do fucking think twice. Please don't misuse them, those fuck-up morons. Look. Scroll through our foul language dictionary. What do you notice? See? You didn't fucking get it? Most of the terms(or rather, I should say all) are relatives to the ultimate sexology in those fuckers' mind. Some may beautify them, pronouncing the purity of the rapid-pumping as ART! Fuck those fuckers! Those who are capable to pay fucking smelly coins to "pressure detoxification workers " to do their "purify" job. How about teens like us with empty wallets and fucking innocent face? This is the part where the word "Fuck" intruded our mind. We are blessed with squishy brain with fucking large imagination capability. Oh, what a fucking blessed gift! You know how do we use it wisely? We started to collect materials, porn-star magazines, "A" movie(those fast-paced and got quality one, of course),video clips, nude pictures..Ok, with a certain amount of storage in hand, we can start to create our own definition of "Fuck". We can masturbate until the heaven collapse, we can throw fucking "pure" language to counter others accusation, we can stare at another teenage girl's breast until they are naked in our mind..We use it wisely,don't be afraid.Same goes for you.Use it wisely. Remember, when you use the word "Fuck" or whatever fucking dirty words to accuse your surrounding, you have just exercise it in your mind and remind others of the act.Do fucking remember.

Music Of Silence (Chapter 8)

An old man was standing besides the lake, swinging his plastic fork enthusiastically rhyming a melancholy tone. You can noticed noodle leftovers stucked between the teeth of his fork. It was a dimming evening, sun shoving his radiance back to the opposite side of the earth. Murkish yellow poured across the sky, penetrated low-hung clouds and created fish-scale like shimmering of the lake surface. As you walk nearer, his tattered clothing flapped while wind blew. You approached him. He continued his singing, ignored the presence of a curious listener. You asked," Old man, what are you doing here? " He gave you a side-glance, and answered," You can't see what am I doing? I am conducting an orchestra! How dare you disrupt me!" You replied," Sorry, Mister, but I would like to ask you something..." You flipped open your purse, and took out a closeup snapshot of boy. In the picture, the boy was staring at the lens blankly. Nothing from the boy in the picture indicates any similarity inherited from his mother,who was you." Have you seen this boy wandering around here?" The old man wiped off his mucus with his collar, and started explaining his action:"You know what, the sun rises and falls everyday(pointing vaguely to some lightsource, which is a streetlamp actually) So when it complete it's oscillation around the sky, we will aged by a day.Well, since our life was your colgate toothpaste which little by little squeeze out time-whitish and heavenly delicious when you brush it on your mouldy bread and chew it-we will try as enjoyable as we can to multiply so that our reproduction rate will be faster than our decaying rate. In another word, fucking. As you can see,(he waved his hand to all direction, the noodle wiggled as he swing his fork) I am conducting the most respectable and saintly orchestra in the world.(sinister, no, innocent smile appeared on his face)imagine how many bodies adjoining themselves in this particular night?(his smile broadened)How many red lights are shining lustrously when people make love at this moment? Yes, I saw a teen boy and his girlfriend making love in this park yesterday(his manhood bulged)aiya, that is normal! I want to conduct this human orchestra!This natural orchestra!An orchestra free of life and death, of struggle and sorrow, of pain and consequences! An orchestra of purely lust and beauty of a human gesture!With everlasting yet a flash of climax with no thoughts of the beginning and the end! "(Ready to unzip his flyers) You shouted flasher.Joggers grabbed his hands and tied him to the nearby lamp pole.He was still mumbling to himself.Apparently he was drunk and on the verge of some erotic delusion.Of course, you don't understand what the hell he was talking about just now. Later, a police car arrived and the miserable old beggar was shoved into the car. Those curious passerby dispersed. You sat on the bench and cried. Hungry ants dragged that piece of noodles out of the plastic fork. Night.

My Name is Hun Yen(Chapter 7)

I struggled to squeeze into the crowd as the storyteller's voice filled the atmosphere with an animated tone. He was manipulating the puppets to bring life into the story. It is a story about a little boy who ran away from his home and embarked his journey to the unknown land of another side and his encounters. I noticed how his voice pitched and fall along his story, how audiences horrified and astonished by his choosing of words which held such gravity and strength that, even they didn't dare to produce a sound which often was interpreted as defiling the respect of the storyteller. I managed to obtain a place at the first row and listened attentively to his story.

'' The boy met an old man. He asked the old man," Venerable Master, have you learned anything else from your journey of life? " Indeed the old man said yes, he replied," Cough, cough, yes I met the devil Himself He has four hands and seven heads He walked on the surface of the sea with His bare legs and performed one thousand and eighty mighty skills that even the best magician on earth will fade in comparison He said good and evil are the same theres no evil without presence of good Presence of light will banish the dark but nothing to compare with if darkness doesn't exist. Our existence is a marking to the good side-regardless of which side are you in eventually you have no choice either you follow the direction of the wind or you are sacrificed, tossed up to the tip of the Mayan's Holy Altar with your body disemboweled and your organs lay exposed to serve the roc, their messenger of the god.

***

Charming. Despite the fact that colours has faded off from the puppets and their robot-like repetitions of the same action over and over again, their performance will never fail to attract attentions. We stared at the jerking of their limbs according to the manipulation of the storyteller's fingers, conducting rigid movements to visualize the story as the it escalates and falls. The boy met all sorts of characters along his journey, did he found the answer? Or solution? The storyteller ends it like this: "The boy decided to seek for a happy ending. He knew he may not found it now, but he must continue his journey up the mountain down the ocean to search for it. How about you? Have you found your happy ending? " Have you?

Night（Chapter 6）

Moonlight unveils its layers of grainy light over his window, creeping along his tablelamp and finally, lands on his eyelids.It is not uncommon to hear the humming of cicadas over the dark background, but tonight they seem to orchestra their way to the climax. In contradiction, the night itself was silent, with shadowy darkness blanketing the intense flowing of activities beneath the surface of the city. When he stares at the window, all he can see are bubbles of streetlight arranged in a symmetrical way, as if yellowish dots pending to be linked to form a picture in a drawbook; or shimmers of fluorescent light sipping through windows of high-rise apartments to decorate the night. He tidy his desk, switch off his tablelamp, and crawl into his bed. Once he close his eyes, the hands on the clock will marathon their way in an extremely fast pace, stepping on each numbers repeatedly. And repeatedly. Of course, things are supposed to happen in such order. But today, the runners in the clock are exhausted; they gasp and stagger, forcing their breath with an almost unbearable sluggish manner. This is the moment where his imagination masters over his sensory organs; a chill feeling aroused by the wind leaks into the room; creaking of wooden floors; stains on the ceiling changing into some hideous shapes; groaning of rusty swing...wait, the sound of a swing in the middle of the night? He regather his bravery, climb out of his bed and peep through his window. He thought he caught a glimpse of a shadow with a tall hat on playing with the swing, but he wasn't sure. "Grandpa?" His breath fogged the windowpane. Quickly, he scrub it off, as he fear the shadow might disappear. As time ticks away, moonlight shifts and gradually unpeeling darkness to a certain visibility, thus enable the boy to outline the shadow and his movement.

Conversation between "I" and "Me"(Chapter 5)

I am a boy. 18 years old. Louder? I am a boy. I have nowhere to go. No, that's not right, I have, had a house. I used to have a house. Where is my house? Here, this is the address. Why am I here, not inside my house? Oh, I ran away from my house. Why? I was bored watching shelves of books in my room, I was lazy to flip their pages, to dirty my hands with their dusts. So I went out and wandered around. Suddenly this idea popped into my mind: Hey bro, let's run away from your house. Since I have nothing to do in my hand, I decided to follow this idea. No, I just feel like it. Hey! I am not childish! Sometimes you need to sway along with your mind, isn't it true? Ok, of course I brought my purse with a few RM50 notes inside, and pursued my runaway journey. No, nothing happen to triggered my feelings and forced me to escape from reality. I DIDN'T escape from reality. I am EMBRACING the reality. My homework? Haiya, I have finished them already. Don't believe? See. All up-to-date. Tomorrow I will pass up my homeworks. What do you think I am? Running away from my house doesn't mean I have to stop going to school, stop passing up homework. Where should I sleep tonight? Hmm... nevermind, I will think about it later. How about your future? What if they publish your picture on the newspaper? And cuttings with sobbing parents in front of the camera facing the reporters? And my name? Stop! so many questions! Ok, ok. Perhaps running from my house is too troublesome. Fine, I will go home after I end this game.
***

(Swing swaying with a rusty sound)
(A boy swinging thoughtlessly in an abandoned playground. Sparrows chirping and leap from branches to another.)
(A man walks over and occupies the swing beside the boy.)
(Swinging sounds multiple and echo against the abandoned playground.)
(Both the man and the boy remain silent.)
(Sunset, boy stop swinging, stands up and wipes away the muds.)
(Empty swing swaying.)

Schooling Days(Still, Chapter 3)

I put down my bag. It is early in the morning, where my classmates are probably on their way to school or nipping their breakfast. Yesterday's lesson notes are still visible on the whiteboard. To kill time, I stand up, do a little stretching exercise, and erase the stubborn markerpen writings on the board. Fresh breeze rustle our curtains and stirs the atmosphere with damp air. Occasionally I can hear the cooing of pigeons by the windowpane and flipping of their wings while they take off. What a lovely morning! I say to myself, breathing in the morning air deeply. Maybe studying is the best part of my life, I nod my head.
***

When you look at my class namelist, there are only 7 names in it with a "M" written besides each name. Yes, a small class. All males. All wearing trousers and isolated from other classes. Since we are studying under the same roof for 1 and a half years, we often sits down and share our stories and experiences among each other. Dirty talks, gaming tips, football match results and player transfers... They add spice to this monotone Form 6 life, of course. Sometimes(When teachers are no around), idiotic genes in our body will start itching and takeover our expressionless nerves. We sing, we dance, we wrestle, we blast songs, we share videoclips...these are bricks that gradually constructs our history in life.

Storyteller(Chapter 4)

-Mr Storyteller, tell us a story.
-A story? Well most of the story I had already share them with you.
-How about the story of a little boy?
-Oh, that story?
-Yes come on Mr Storyteller please tell us the story again..
-Ok, once upon a time there was a little boy. Where he's from is not important nor does how old was he. According to the informations on hand, he was born in some isolated country where nearest land will takes about 30 days to reach. He is the first son of a cobbler in that particular town of the country and was named by the cobbler's friend as his parents are not educated and illiterate.
-Cut off his background, jump straight into the story.
-Be patient, youngman. I am the storyteller. So 1 day after a quarrel with his parents on some private issues, he was fustrated and decided to leave his house. He packed his belongings and set out for a exploration of oneself, without realising this journey was going to be bizarre and interesting....

Schooling Days(Part of Chapter 3)

Don't stray away from the schooling topic. What did I mentioned just now? Oh yes, the landscape of my secondary school. To be frank, nothing grand or catchy will register in your mind during the first time you took a tour around the school. Steel rods buried deep into the ground as foundations and piles of red bricks arranged in symmetrical order glued together with freshly-blended cements and installations of circuits and water pipes and walls coated with water paint and renovations with on-wall cabinets and shelves and height-adjustable chairs and shiny wooden desks, that is a mild description of our office. Oh yes? i know, combination of many elements in certain proportions located in a specific place to form a specific object with a specific name: office. Same goes for our Dewan, our science labs, our classrooms, our reading corner, our canteen...2 dust-jacketed slow-moving KDK ceiling fans, 1 blossomed and experienced cane, a few pieces of impaired chalks(Oh, you can blow up chalk dust on the edge of the blackboard to produce a snowing effect), desks coated with liquidpaper's liquid, marker pen's marking, carves or scribble or sketching of foul languages like "FUck pUan ChiAm" or "sUCk cocK mR tHaM" or, better still, drawings on genital organs or longest finger as illustration will lubricate the imagination of the viewers, and in other cases, secret admirers of who-and-who, "Pek KuAn LUV Yiu lIng" with a crude red-ink heart shape besides it, endless drawings of angels and devils(wings are a must for them), boring repetition of the word "boring", lyrics adapted from some pop songs...they are part of the materials to form a place called "school". So, question is, what is the function of a school? Huh? A place to study and to learn technical information? A place to widen your friends circle and to test your social skill in this quality control section? A place to find a girlfriend or a boyfriend so that you can share your relationship on facebook or friendster or twitter or blog? With pictures included? Naked? tongue-rolling wet kisses? Touching bodies of your another half and arouse their sensation? Creates commercial romantics? Excited and flushed cheek as if gulp down a bottle of wine? Moving of her lips pronouncing the phrase "I love you"? I love you? "I" love you? Your body? Your silky skin? Your intoxicating smile? Your moist lips? Urge to conquer you? Your body? Love? Opps..sorry, stray away again. What? you are not sure? You'd been entering school for how long? 13 years? You don't understand? Understand what? What should you understand? Should you understand, so what? Certificate? Knowledge? Homo Sapien? Homo his fucking-pien! Tell me, What did you get? Oh is it? We are human, so you supposed human should be educated. To prove that you are educated, you need certificate. You need knowledge to unlock deeper knowledge, the professional knowledge. Just like wolves learn how to takedown his prey stealthily; they learn about the techniques to track preys, to lure them, to hunt them, and even, to store them for winter. How about human? Do we learn bow to track, how to lure, how to hunt, and even, how to store preys' corpses? You said of course no, you said humans are different from animals, animals are lower class whereas humans are higher, humans know how to think and to act rationally but not animals, humans are inventive but not animals, you said...enough, enough. You answered. So what, I said, so what. We are Homo Sapien, we are animals. Cells are the element, together they form tissues, they form organs, they form system, they form our body. We are the same. I emphasized.

The Past of Present(Chapter 3)

Surrounded by concrete jungles, my secondary school was located somewhere in the middle of the city. You can't detect its presence without thoughtful observation until you saw the 'Catholic High School' Sign posting itself in front of the road. You have to drove pass a few rows of single storey terraces, only then the school compartments will reveal their bare walls with time as the painter or rather, the factor of cracking and peeling artworks. I can still recalled the first time I stepped into this school, how its magnificent and naturally-crafted trees marks their respective territories, casting a swaying shadow and performs kaleidoscope-like shapes as shadows of each leaves overlaps and separate. Nevetheless, no matter how many renovations were carried out to upgrade the facilities, theses trees will remain erected to protrait their significance as a landmark.
***
People in this school are always moving in and out. The innocent little kids stunk of breastmilk comes in to occupy classrooms, whereas the self-assumed mature minded teenagers will eventually moves out. Just like the the Rules of Birth and Death in this world. Every year, the society was injected with millions of graduates, amatuers with lengthy academic achievements but nil in practical experiences, youngsters who obediently follows the pathway planned by their beloved parents yet doesn't run smoothly as it seems to be...nevermind, they are just unlucky. Perhaps their grandfather didn't manage to get into the Heaven's Gate and hence, unable to protect them. No, no. Thats not true. We are the gambler who toss the dice, and yet we need someone's protection to win the bet? Sounds unconvincing. You mean you can give someone else luck when he runs low? Luck is not something physical that can be given out or shared with. Yes, cut away all the craps about luck and gamble. Better to return to my actual life. Yes, yes, I am doing my maths homework mummy. No, no, I am not daydreaming.

Incense(Chapter 2)

You sigh. You replace the receiver on the phone. As if triggered by an alarm clock, you spring up and extract a few(approximately 9)joss sticks and lit them with white candles' flame which served as part of the offering in the ritual. You let them burn for a moment, then gently shake off the flame on the joss sticks.Their tips are blacken and glowing red, slowing consuming its way and left behind incense aroma, which remains lingering around the atmosphere and vanish without any traces. Holding them, you face your father's picture(which smiles in a blue background, revealing his nicotine-stained teeth), bow 3 times, and arrange them in the censer with sincerity and solemnness. Then you clasp your hands together and prays with a murmur tone. You are so concentrated on reciting your prayers in hope to raise your father's virtue, you did not notice that I just came back from school. I unlock the door and you heard it's creaking sound. You turn your head and hastily call me over. Come, burn some incense for your grandfather, he is dead but by praying and burning joss sticks, we can help him. He will reincarnate to a better place in future. Maybe heaven and he will be born as a god.He can protect us and wash away our unfortunate pasts. Come, come, burn some incense so that you will get good results.

Lush Life(Chapter 1)

-Hello?
-Yes?
-Whats' your name?
-My name? Why do you need my name?
-Oh..so that it is easier to address you.
-I see.But...do we know each other?
-No, we don't.Well, I suppose you don't easily stuck a conversation with a stranger, do you?
-Yes...in fact, I am busy right now..what do you want?
-Me?Ok, lets see...lets talk about life.You know,em...incidents that happen around us..
-Look, I don't know who the hell are you nor your intention.I need to do my laundry and prepare lunch for my family.If it is not something important I will put down the phone,get it?
-A few minutes will do...your name?
-Flower.
-Ok, Flower then.How is your father?
-My father passed away recently...
-Oh, sorry to hear about that.
-It's ok..now we are still practicing the forty-nine days of religious ritual in hope that he can rest in peace.According to our beliefs, at this seven weeks the departed will encounter several diverged paths and he must make a wise choice to enter the Gate of Heaven.Nevertheless, his karma was the rope which drags him to his future...so while his soul is wandering searching for a new body or in another medium,we will do some offerings and pray with sincerity.
-I see...we are not and never will have the chance to decide our fate in life besides ur death and others' death.Ok, put it this way, you can't extend your life bar but you can end it earlier.Same goes for others. Hang on a rope, jump from 18th floor, breath in exhaust gas, stab yourself with your knife, these are decisions that you are capable of. Biologically, we can struggle and climb up from prey to predator, predator of fate but not led by fate. What I am trying to say is death is just another major decision in life.
-Yes...perhaps this explains why I can't shed tears during my father's funeral. It has nothing to do with emotions or feelings, no, I am not cold-blooded or cruel. I just hollowed out my emotional core, as if asking everyone to leave the room in my mind so that I can space out and remorse the silence. Silence without the presence of my fathers' breath symphonied with the dull-rotating sound of the ceiling fan, an occasional cough from his mouth, sound of wooden beads colliding inphase with his whispering recite on mantras and sutras...I can't distinguish whether I am too numbed or too shocked..
-Let bygone be bygone. Did your father's death changed your perception on life?
-Yes. I did reconsidered death and his meaning. Sorrow are preserved and shouldn't last beyond the date after his death. Bodies are shells contained with souls, afterall.When the soul departs, left behind the shell and gradually, decay took place, returned our remains back to our Mother Earth. So you can imagine this: a charming, gorgeous girl will grow wrinkles, degenerate in height, hunchback, visible blue-railway like veins, and can't breath in the last gasp, puff! there goes 1 life.
-Em but now we are still breathing and walking under the sun! No matter how short it is, we still have a few blank pages in our life to draw! Why not produce a VanGogh masterpiece rather than continue sketching and erasing the history of your father's death? Flip to the next page, theres' plenty of empty space for you to fill in.
-No. I am just trying not to escape from reality. Reality that we will die in future. We will suffer and climb until we realised that we can't change our fate. We are mortals, not an invulnerable body.This is called acceptance, not tormenting my beliefs.
-Ok...fine, thanks for this conversation anyway. Catch up with you later, Flower.
-Are you from the Counseling Service or somekind of survey company?
-Tut.....tut.....tut....