Nothingness

And I welcome the tears, the hot tears that flow down my cheeks. Because they tell me one thing, that I am still able to feel.

When emotions cease to exist, and all I feel is... a void... and I know, I'm not feeling anything, I'm just... numb... and I think, I don't want to feel nothing, because there is nothing beyond nothing, and I wonder, why am I not feeling anything, why can't I feel anything... and I search, for something to feel for, for anything to feel for, because there is nothing worse than not feeling; except maybe... I don't know, I don't know anything anymore.

Perhaps that is what happens when grief ends. Nothing.

The Happy Prince

*****
There was once a sad prince. He wasn't really a prince, but some people (well, one person at any rate) called him the prince of posh, and once upon a time he had been a King of Corn, so for the purposes of this little parable he was a slightly blue-blooded prince.

Anyway, the point is that he was aggrieved.

*****
Grief, according to Kubler-Ross -

In a nutshell, there're five stages.

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

*****
He was used to grieving, it had become second nature. It's a fucked up world, and as we get older, we realise more and more that people fuck each other over all the time... and with every subsequent fuckover his heart grew just a little more cynical and cold. Sometimes he got screwed over by purported "friends", and he'd watch it happening to himself and laugh.

Something happened one day, and one suspects it happened in the prince's head.

Then try as he might, grief seemed to have taken a hiatus...

He was sad from time to time, of course... life is all about little moments in time.

But where for the longest time he had lived in an relative absence of sadness, interspersed with the occasional happy moment...

Now he found himself smiling at the quirky little messages on his mobile screen, as he blundered down the street oblivious to the people around him...

... laughing as someone struck him hard on the shoulder, again and again...

... trying not to smile, looking into her eyes, then glancing away, then irresistably being drawn back again...

... and laughing again at her, and with her, and with the clever and funny little things she said from time to time.

... and trying not to smile, and failing, as he watched her lolling on a park bench by the waterside struggling valiantly not to fall asleep in what she called sunshine, and the rest of the world would have called dreary, overcast twilight.

And often when he laughed, he really laughed.

Illogical

And I guess the reason why I am scared, is because I can see where this is heading.

How many times have I been hurt because I allowed myself to lose control? To fall, deeply, for someone I knew would never reciprocate my feelings? To abandon all sense of logic, and just feel.

I don't know when he will be ready, and even when he is ready, if he'll be ready for me. Given the uncertainty, logic dictates that I should not allow myself to like him too much. But I've always hated controlling my emotions, hated having to control my emotions, hated losing control of my emotions. Whether my feelings for him develop or not is irrelevant, I just want to be able to let go right from the start. Because that is what makes me happy, that is what I consider living life.

But I am scared. That my feelings will develop. As they invariably will. That he will never be ready for me. As they never are. That it will all go horribly wrong. As it always does. What happens then? That I know I will be able to handle it is irrelevant. I don't want to put myself through all that. Because living life has worn me out.

Logic dictates that I should walk away. At least for now. But since when have I ever listened to logic?

Happiness

I had not noticed how beautiful the view outside the window was initially. It was only when I was lying on his bed and looking up, did I see the silhouette of tree leaves against the dark blue sky. And when they rustled in the wind, it was a sight to behold, indeed.

His arms felt good around me, and I snuggled into the nape of his neck, inhaling his scent. And as I closed my eyes, I heard the first plump drops of rain as they splashed clumsily against his window pane. I drifted slowly to sleep, lulled by the rustling of tree leaves.

And I smiled. Because I was happy.

Acceptance

It started out simply enough - an honest desire to play gracious host; an empathic memory of one's own past, a wish to transform a potentially mind-numbingly boring elective into something worth remembering.

He had done it before with other women (mostly women, why that should be so he wasn't certain). It was a tried-and-tested formula of hospitality - the odd meeting here and there, the infrequent evening of fine dining, the offer of his gym... little things. It made for some enduring memories and some firm friendships.

Something was different this time. Something about the way he watched - couldn't help but watch - the corners of her eyes crinkle up when she laughed, yet with her eyes calmly holding his... and heard his own voice ringing out too frequently with laughter in reponse. Something about sometimes, when her eyes found his just... watching in silence, and her lips smiled with his in... ? knowing? silence.

Something about how he could not and would not assume, or even make conjectures about what she - or even he - was thinking.

It didn't bear thinking of. Things were too... complicated.

But when he found the word... missing... rising unbidden to mind after barely twenty-four hours absence, and then read it as it arrived, highlighted against the frigid green glow of his cellphone display...

...he realised that something was... amiss.

Depression

"...by the way would you like to join me?"

He reads the message, and smiles to himself.

Forty-five minutes till Sunday mass begins.

What about these fleeting thoughts of filling those minutes repairing the broken fan-blade of the laptop cooling pad; and these idle ambitions to clean the ridiculously grimy kitchen counter-top...?

What about this resin glue I've just bought minutes ago, and these table-wipes and super-strength industrial cleaner...?

Well, what about them?

Yes. Yes I would love to join you.

*****
There is a strange sadness afflicting this country.

And perhaps I am afraid of becoming infected - or perhaps I already have been.

Perhaps the reason I catch myself offguard, smiling, with my thumb on my mobile's OK button is simply because of this gilded cage we have built around ourselves in our own minds, in this shiny city we call home. Perhaps I am distracting myself from it all, like everyone else; content to pass each coming moment in the safety of the matrix.

Or perhaps this gut feeling - that it would all have been the same - anywhere in the world - is true.
Perhaps i would have known you before I met you - when I met you - if i had found you in London, or Paris... and perhaps we would have laughed, just the same by the Thames, or the Louvre.

The paths before me are as uncertain as they always were; I still do not know where they lead - except far away from this false utopia, this prison of perfection.

Right now, right here... all I know is that - a brief thirty minutes snatched out of time this afternoon, laughing with you...

is enough.

*****
Perhaps in the wake of your departure I will encounter depression... or perhaps I will feel only apathy.

But this much is true - I will miss you.

Bargaining

He studied her as they spoke.

The corners of her eyes crinkled up when she laughed, which was often. It was very appealing.

She had double eyelids; actually double on the right, with a hint of triple on the left.

The eyes themselves were large, liquid, and alive. They flashed constantly with the myriad emotions she portrayed, the one constant being mirth - when they sparkled.

They were just killing time together until her next engagement, which was delayed once, twice, and then thrice.

It was a pleasure just laughing with; listening to; and watching her. Joking about being ravenous. Little things.
Every minute passed was a moment savoured... albeit an increasingly hungry moment as the evening wore on.

At last it came time for her to leave. He held her gaze for a while as they parted, then turned away and smiled as he walked, glancing at his watch.

Nine thirty... Three hours!

It had felt like thirty minutes...

****
Bargaining : If I could only live a day for thee...

It would be over too soon.

...if only it were so simple.

She was

Have you ever thought about what you would like other people to say about you when you die?

It was a question that caught me off guard. I have never thought about how I would like my eulogy to read. It is not in my nature to contemplate such thoughts that to me are seemingly not for me to think. But he commented that how a person would like to be remembered in death gives a good guide as to how he should live his life. And I found myself agreeing.

I want to be remembered as the girl who loved to laugh, who always looked on the brighter side of things. I want to be remembered as the girl who loved to love, who was never afraid to hurt in her quest for love. I want to be remembered as the girl who loved to live, who embraced all things good and bad that came her way - because truly, that is the only way to really live life.

Above all, I want to be remembered as the girl who was happy, if not always, then for the greater part of her life.

I'm not so sure I'm doing well on my scorecard though. It's been so long since I was happy. You know, really happy?

Without Bargaining

As by Rote

"You know, if you don't want to keep meeting up, that will be ok, okay?"

"What? What are you trying to tell me?"

pause. Again, that question.

"I'm not trying to tell you anything, I'm just being considerate."

Sometimes there are ways of knowing what to say, and what not to say in advance. Sometimes our choices are clear and the tricky bit is deciding which choice to choose; multiple fates hang in the balance, culled to singularity by the destinies we select on our fleeting, narcissitic whims and fancies.

Yet sometimes all we have is a sense of being a puppet in the story, or perhaps game, of some higher being, and there is only one particular path to walk; one set of keys to a single door. One permissable answer to every question...

Moments are allowed to slip away, silences are mandatorily respected. It is almost a form of cinematic convention.

Mistakes are made, consciously.

Words are left unspoken, with difficulty.

Eyes meet, and are held, then glance away in slow motion; a moment is a celestial masterwork forged from nothing, flaring to painful, blinding brilliance for a brief instant - acknowledged, beheld... and then cast callously aside to to the floor, left unwatched and uncherished to fade to dull, pitted, unhoned normality with the cold passage of forgotten todays.

We toy with almost-fates in our infant minds, and then they are taken away from us, leaving us to wonder if the destiny that remains behind was even ever ours to choose.

Our subconscious minds rise up, palms pummeling desperately against the stained glass of our weary eyes - why can't you hear us - we are you? Don't!

But sometimes....

... we have only a script, which we are obliged to follow.

*****
A lifetime ago :

the asker was different.
the question was different.
the answerer was different.

The script was the same.

The answer was a white lie, to be uncovered years later.

*****
Several nights ago :

the asker was lost
the question was different
the answerer held his silence for a moment, straining to ignore the voices behind his eyes.

The script was the same.

The answer, a white lie.

*****
Perhaps we both know the answers to your questions :

Perhaps I am trying to tell you something...

Perhaps I do know why we speak so -too often ?- reaching out to one another with words, spoken, written, typed, keyed-in.
Perhaps you are right to remind me in my own voice - it takes two... and perhaps the fault is not yours alone...

Perhaps our eyes seek out each other's too easily, and too often, and perhaps we laugh too much, and I catch myself smiling too frequently.

Perhaps there is a reason I lean in, unconsciously, when you speak - only to be made aware of it when this newly-acquired fire flares in my side.

Perhaps there is a reason why the uncanny similarities accumulate so; why it is so easy to spend time by your side without a growing sense of unease...
... perhaps it is not similarity that creates the escalating arguments you described to me once... that have you backpeddling and standing down in the face of a hail of words... but perhaps it is inconsiderateness.

Perhaps, as I listen in silence to your thoughts, nailed by the sleeping serpent of pain to my mechanical, inclinable bed... I burn to speak...

... perhaps as you ask me that question, in the pitch blackness of my darkened hospital room...

... perhaps I want to tell you something... different to what I will eventually hear myself say, out of decency, respect, and morality.

Perhaps I watch you turn to go and almost know already what you will do - because you are me, from a lifetime ago - I burn to call once more to you - wait! and reach out, without words this time, to bid you goodbye.

Perhaps there is a reason I find myself once again futilely wading against the tide, climbing uphill, stumbling through the snowdrifts, biting back the truths, watching the moment fade...

... perhaps there is a reason why everything is scripted again.

Perhaps it is time to speak not in questions, but in answers - after all, every question belongs to an answer, both are members of an intimate couplet, a lock and a key to a destiny falling inexorably out of time.

And the first answer is this : you were unexpected.

But now you have chosen.

I only pray that you did not base that choice on the basis of my white lie...

*****
Or, perhaps not.

*****
He cannot bargain now, the stakes are too high and his codes of tired morality too unyielding.

But time will erode everything, and there will come a time when he will ask if there was, or is something he could have given, promised or done...

by then, it will no longer matter.

Welcome

Perhaps it was only a matter of time that we few would meet and unveil the faces behind the words. Perhaps the very first sense was realized in that gathering at Sentosa, the sense that we were a bunch of people who loved the written word.

Many moons ago, Reminisce started Some Kind of Everywhere with the intention of roping us few in as contributors. The title aside - which was derived from a rather delectable acnedote told to us by our mutual friend D - no one had any idea on what this blog was to be about.

Personally, I see Some Kind of Everywhere as an attic in a shophouse, its entrance not quite publicized but open nonetheless for any one to wander in. One would climb the rickety staircase that looked as though it has been there for decades, and having reached the top of it, find the attic. There would be a ceiling fan dangling precariously from the already low roof rafters, spinning lazily at a speed that no amount of cranking its broken speed knob would alter; dialing the knob to Number 5 would just be as slow as Number 1.

The three walls that envelopes the sole casement window on the shopfront would be of a dirty cream color. Littered around the tongue-and-groove timber flooring would be carpets of mismatched motifs and colors, along with an assortment of throw cushions and bean bags. There would be a worn, familiar couch with a small table next to it, on which there would be a small hi-fi set dishing out music. And it is on this couch that one would find one - or some - of us sprawled in, as we pass a lazy afternoon shooting the breeze over a couple of drinks.

Along one wall there would be a corkboard that runs its entire length, and on the corkboard would be countless scraps of paper tacked to it, each containing a passage written by the few of us, and every one of them a post on Some Kind of Everywhere.

This den - this retreat - would be there just so. There would be no political or societal aspirations in its existence, and the people you would find here have no overreaching and grandiose ambitions to be founders of the sole superblog; we do not even want to try. We each write and post for only one -- ourselves. This is not a place of sleek gazing and stainless steel; it is but a humble joint with a few like-minded cats lounging, where the ambience is casual and laidback and, above all, unassuming.

Anger

Anger : dark, bitter and unpalatable.

There's nothing to be angry about and nothing to forgive. It wasn't personal; it was a futile rant directed at society, built of a year's pent-up frustration.

****
Perhaps there is a little anger.

Premature, but present - anger not at you... but at myself, for turning so sentimental.

****
Ignorance

I don't know :

- what to say, when you pause in wonderment as I order the same mix-and-match breakfast you were just about to...

- what it means that it feels like I knew who you were before I even met you.

- what to think when I turn unconsciously to you, and find you already waiting, your eyes searching mine and the corner of your lip curling up into a smile, as I catch myself smiling at you.

- how to stop myself from laughing when that surprising wit of yours flares up - frequently - and I find myself parrying, and being drawn into the riposte without a second thought.

- what you mean, when you marvel aloud as I, with my hands on the steering wheel, fall uncharacteristically silent for just a moment - that we never stop talking, somehow... whether it be speaking, SMSing, or MSNing

- what to say when you remark that we have met each other every day since we first met, or when the words cross my mind - and doubtlessly enter yours - that we have not become bored of each other yet...

- how to stop myself from subconsciously scanning the contours of your face and inadvertently committing them to memory

I do know :

- that I shall miss you, when you are gone

Random Thought

To have choices is a privilege. To choose is a right. The problem begins when people think it is a right to be given choices.

Falling in love, with words

Sometimes, when I miss him too much, I go back and read what he's written. Over and over again. Then I feel as if he's right there, talking to me. Because it's always been that way, when I read what he writes - I feel like he's right there, talking to me.

And when I read him, I am reminded all over again, why I love him so. He makes me smile, he makes me laugh, he makes me frown, he makes me cry. Because it's always been that way, when I read what he writes - I feel like he's right there, touching my heart.

And I never did tell him how much I love him, how much he made me feel again. And I never will tell him how much I love him, and always will. Because it's always been that way, when I read what he writes - He's never really there.

Denial

"i just think that sometimes, you don't want to "try" anything with the other person, but still you can't help doing certain things that show you like them"

What's in a smile, in a laugh, in a moment in time when someone says something that strikes you as funny, and you begin to laugh prematurely with that hyperacute yet atypical sense of humour that has never stood you in good stead - and realise the person next to you has started to laugh as well?

What's in minor moments of mutuality that mean nothing on their own - liking the same foods, disliking the same aspects of people, and a country, thinking the same thoughts - being asked if you were thinking.... and knowing that no question, but rather an observation was this.

What's in that instant when you find yourself turning unconsciously to look that other person in the eye as a sitcom moment unfolds and find her turning to you?

The answer :

Familiarity.

Nothing more.
Nothing less.

Perhaps familiarity breeds contempt; perhaps friendship. Perhaps it takes time to develop with some; yet with others - almost as if we are near-duplicates of some celestial template - it flares up instantaneously from the first hello.

Perhaps we can't help turning and looking that other person in the eye at that precise instant; perhaps we can't help but laugh, or be struck by odd similarities. Perhaps we can't stop ourselves leaning in metaphorically, against our wills.

But what of it?

Perhaps sometimes it is best that familiarity breed nothing more, and nothing less, than a friendship that might endure - rather than a hedonistic ' madness that will be forgotten with the passage of time, and hurt.

Unexpected

He studied her face appraisingly.
It was beginning to dawn increasingly on him that she was very attractive.

It wasn't simply about appearances - a previous girl vaguely involved in his confused past - and surprisingly cynical beyond her years - had casually thrown that postulate at him over dinner : ultimately, attraction is all about looks, no? He had rebelled instinctively - and only in part because he had felt she was insinuating something shallow in himself, with respect to their then-relationship... In truth, he had always wanted to believe he was atypical, someone with more substance in his soul than fleeting himbotic superficiality. Someone... more than the average, pathetic horny man she was so casually dismissing. In retrospect, he realised that it had been she who had been truly shallow.

He had noticed that she was pretty before, over lunch by the Old Market by the riviera. It would have taken a blind man not to notice that fair skin set against the long, flowing black hair, and the delicate, yet pointed - feline - jawline set below those dark, almond eyes.

It hadn't meant that much to him then. The encounter had been brief, and born of a mutual need to simply while away time. Their companies had been thrown casually together, and they had passed the time as strangers would, lightly tasting each other's thoughts without really engaging each other.

Tonight was different.

As she spoke of her life and her past, he found his eyes straying over hers... he found his interest piqued. He discovered an irrepressible spirit and courage. She had a thirst for knowledge beyond her confines and the tenacity to chase it down. She parried his little jokes with deft ease and riposted with well-timed counters, some immediate, some delayed till much later, all delivered with impeccable timing at just the right instant.

She was utterly unexpected.

He absently traced the countours of her eyes with his gaze, and realised with a shock how beautiful they were.

A self-styled casanova friend of his had once declared that all women have beautiful eyes : it only takes for you to see it, and tell them so.

But the truth is, for us mere mortals - we only see beauty in the eyes of a few women, and we only tell a fleeting few of these what we see - because we do not search for it in the others. Life would become far too complicated if we did.

Her eyes were communicative and sought his out whenever they laughed together, which was often - and sometimes when they didn't, which was less often. He found himself searching them out time and time again, lingering for a moment as something unspoken and inexpressible - yet intuitive and eloquent passed between his mind and hers.

She had the eyes of the Watcher.

He didn't watch to see if anyone else was looking at her, or at him looking at her. Tonight it didn't matter at all.

*****

Later that evening as they parted company he offered her and her companions a lift home. They clustered on the far side of his car around her, standing in turn before the passenger door.

He watched as they paused, looking first at her, and then him, and then shyly demurring and turning away, even as she turned towards him and looked him in the eye.

The words were soft, but clearly spoken.

Her tone of voice was a gentle command at odds with the subtle, tentative arch of her brow.

"Take me home."

Shuttered eyes

It is not that my eyes do not speak to you.

It is I, that does not want to open up to you.

And so, my eyes give not my feelings away.

The Look

(Writer's note: Only because I can no longer speak my mind as freely as I wish on my own blog, because certain intimacies are not meant to be shared with friends.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"hey, another way of good flirting is to look deep into the eyes ..."

He had only just read about the performance and seemed amused by it all; he thought it sounded like I had a 'stimulating' time. He was reminded of Tina Turner who used to describe her performances as 'orgasmic' experiences.

"I wish!" I laughed at his words and the rather inappropriate thoughts that popped into my head while I was still - supposedly - hard at work. I said it had been a rather surreal and unusual first-time experience, and a lot of fun, but I most certainly did not come close to an orgasm. (Not too sure about the 'prop' though - I forgot to look where my hands were going because I was trying not to forget my steps.)

And I offered that if the 'prop' had asked me to go out, I would have.

What I really meant was that if the 'prop' had invited me back to his place, I would have followed him home. (But he did not, which is probably a very good thing.)

Look away

It is with a soft sigh that I look away, for the last time.

His eyes do not speak to me. His intentions, hidden behind a cloud of confusion, make not themselves known to me.

I do not want to search anymore. My searches, they yield... nothing.

And in these vacuous spaces, it is all too easy to bow my head low, and look away.

Touch me

I just need to be touched.

I shivered as his fingers traced a path up my thigh, slowly, lifting my skirt. As he slipped his hand under my blouse. As he traced the curves of my body.

Touch me.

Caressing, gently. Stroking, all over. Feeling... a strange love. And it is a strange love indeed, for a friend who turns lover, if only for one night.

And in the morning, I bade him farewell. Friends, once again. Friends, as always.

My lover, he leaves me wanting

There is something about the evening sun that captures me.

I love the way the evening sun bathes my bedroom in orange and yellow hues as he streams in through the window. I love the way the evening sun throws shadows of the flowers on my window ledge upon the lifeless wall, bringing instant life when the winds blow softly. And surely I love the way the evening sun caresses me with such light warmth, ever so gently, lulling me into a drug-induced slumber.

And like an illicit lover, my cries for him to stay just a little while longer fall on deaf ears. All too soon, he slips out of my room as quietly as he entered, leaving in his wake darkness and cold. I pull the sheets closer around me, and shiver.

The Making Of, Some Kind of Everywhere

DL was in full swing, telling us all about his exotic experience at a "mens' only" massage spa...

... including the bit where the masseuse kept ringing him back on his mobile to... chat.

"Where did he touch you?" she asked, impishly.

"... ah, some kind of everywhere"

It had a nice ring to it.

And so the name stuck.

*****
Some kind of everywhere - not some kind of wonderful.

Quantity, and diversity - as opposed to purported poseurish 'quality'.

We can damn well write about anything we please here.

And I trust with this crew of writers, quality will be a given.

Sanity and discretion may not be.... laugh

Now let the games begin.

Generic Sappy Story

"Amen".

The world blazes back to life as he opens his eyes.

There is a girl there, seated at the table to his left.
Light and shade contrast strongly here, in the dim orange light of the restaurant. Everything's in soft-focus.

She's still saying Grace. We have an impression of Her being lanky, and tanned; slightly broad shouldered. Her head is bowed and her eyes are closed in prayer. Her mouth is absolutely still - her lips don't move in silent prayer or anything trite like that.

But as we watch closely, the corners of her lips twitch upwards. She is saying Grace with joy, and gratitude. She is thanking God.

A single strand of hair courses intimately down the right side of her face, lightly skimming her cheek, the angle of her jawline, and then further down towards her shoulder. It makes her look somehow vulnerable, almost childlike.

He doesn't move a muscle; he doesn't reach out to touch her.
But we watch his eyes, and see that something inside him has broken... for the very first time.

Realisation is dawning.

Truth will out.

*****
End scene.

Littlemissshagalot

If living life is like staying in a hotel, then I would like a room at the Shangri-La please. Make that a suite, with my personal butler - six pack, no less.

Forrest Gumptionless

Living life is like eating a box of chocolates...

Everytime you take a piece out and want to eat it, a great big bear comes along and smacks it out of your hand, pops it into his mouth, and walks away, without even a word of thanks.

Forrest Grumpy

Life... is like a box of chocolates.

If you don't guard it close enough, the ants will take it away.