The Sky Turned Into Skyscrapers.

I have spoken in haste. Yeah so obviously that wasn't my last post. Words are what I know and I can't stop forming them, even if I don't want to anymore. I hoped that would be my last post but no, my mind continues to work. Anyway I thought I'd try something so I can see how what I think is creativity fizzles out and sputters and dies yet again.

The Sky Turned Into Skyscrapers

I don't know where to begin, or if there even is a beginning. But that doesn't make sense, cause all things have to have a beginning, right? I guess if I had to choose one, it'd be this. It seems the least wrong. Sometimes there is no right, only what's least wrong. I digress. I guess it begins like that. I met a girl, and I loved her. I say girl only because in my mind's eye that's who I see, a girl untouched, untainted by life. I wish I could have kept her that way. So sweet and pure and innocent and. She is gone now, both the innocent girl and the woman she became. I loved the woman as keenly as I loved the girl, but I don't know if she knew that. I wish I had a chance to let her know that. I'll never have that chance again. In a way, this isn't my story. It's hers. But it's mine too.

I've not been able to sleep. It's not that I've been plagued by nightmares or even worse, dreams. It's just that I can't. Sleep is good. Every minute you sleep is another minute less to live your life. Or what remains of it. As the seconds tick by you are unaware of the world, and the world of you. Sleep is good. This insomnia, it's like a self-imposed hell, a vigil. Every minute more I spend awake is another minute I spend thinking of her and thinking of what I couldn't do for her and what I didn't do for her and.

I couldn't continue dying like that. And so then, even after she was gone I couldn't stay true to her. I left the home we both shared and knew and loved and.

"Hello sir! Where would you like to go?"
"Away."
"Excellent choice sir! You don't look like you need telling, but!"
"I'm listening."
"The only baggage you can bring, is all that you can't leave behind."

I thought about it for a while, and then I came to the conclusion that,
"That's fine by me. I have left everything behind."

He gave me with a dark smile and a knowing look. As if to say, "No, you haven't."

How could he know? I shrugged and put my palms up in the air and said
"See, I didn't even bring anything. No baggage."

The look and the smile didn't go away, but he shrugged. As if to say, "You may not know it. And you may think I don't know it. But I do. You have brought baggage along."

"Have a nice day sir! Enjoy your trip!"

His grating cheerfulness was all at odds with the expression on his face when it seemed for a moment he could see right through me. The name on his name tag was Charon. I should have been alarmed or at least mildly disturbed, but it didn't matter to me. I had to get on the plane.

I got on. All around me were people buried in their books or the magazine or their screens in front of them. It should have alarmed me or at least occurred to me that I knew all of them. Beside me was my dad and beside him my mom and beside them my brothers and sisters and friends and lovers and. I knew these were the people who were no longer among the living. On the other side was her. Charon was right. I couldn't leave them behind. I couldn't leave her behind. I had brought them along with me.

I said "Hullo."

Or rather, I tried to say hello. They were not the only things I'd brought along. They came with me. My shame and guilt and regret and grief and. I could not speak with them on this plane as I could not speak with them in the real world. It occurred to me then that this was not the real world. But it did not matter to me. I had got on the plane and I had to get to my destination. But it was worse now. It was bad enough when I couldn't see them and I couldn't speak to them. Now I could see them but I still couldn't speak to them. Her. It was much worse. Going down the aisle to the toilet, I saw people from my life that brought back fragments of my life that I told myself I would never forget but I did. But in a sense I never did, or why would they appear here on this plane? People who have never known each other, they were sitting next to each other, all connected by one thing in common. Me. Are these the people whose life I've impacted, or the people who have impacted my life? Is there a difference in the two? Yes there is, and there is sadness in that truth.

Something else connects them. It is seen in their sad faces and their melancholy and their smiles which are the smiles you smile when there is nothing to smile about and. I wondered then if a plane could take off if everyone on it has a heavy heart, the pilot, the flight attendants, the passengers. Would it cross some emotional threshold and weigh the plane down? And the silence. Oh yes, what a heavy silence. I wanted to speak but I could not. They had nothing to say. I wondered then if my face would appear to someone else to be like their faces, sad and melancholy and with a smile which is the smile you smile when there is nothing to smile about. Yes, we are all connected by loss. We are none of us unaffected by it.

I saw out of the window, an incredibly tall, impossibly bright white building. And the plane seemed to be circling it.

"Hello. You're arriving at your destination. That is where you can drop off your baggage. Forever. And move on. You'll have closure, and maybe, dare we say it, peace."

It was Charon's voice, but no longer irritably chirpy. He was in his element, steering the boat, or in this case, my plane. And he was addressing me, there was no "Ladies and gentlemen" and he was addressing my hopes and fears. Dare I hope for closure and peace? Was it right for me to? Would it not be wrong for me to move on from her death? How could I drop off my baggage, if they were the people whom I've cared for and the people who have cared for me? How could I move on and have peace when they were dead?

The white spire no longer seemed so impossibly bright, like the few moments that my doubts assailed me were in fact hundreds upon hundreds of years which had caught up on it. But it seemed to have become taller. Graying and taller, did that mean something?"Yes, this is what you've wanted. You weren't living a life, were you? You were slowly dying. Why? Because of all this baggage. Nobody can live with all this. You have to let go. Does it feel some days like you no longer want to move? That it's too much to ask for to keep walking, to keep putting one foot ahead of the other? You are being weighed down. And now finally, you can cast it all away and live."

Is that what I want? Would I want to live life without all this baggage? Would I be allowed to pick up new pieces of baggage after dropping all these off? Would I..? I didn't know the answer. And then I did. I wanted to live again. Those of us left alive, we are left to suffer hope. The hope that there could be a life to live again. All of a sudden I had that hope.

And then I looked out the window and I saw the plane, all of us, me, we were hurtling towards the building. It was black now. A Stygian black that seemed to absorb even light into its infernal gloom. At the back of my mind I thought, how could I have even for one second mistaken this for dazzling white? It was so clear from the first time I saw it, the darkness, my mind just needed time to grasp it. I needed to hope, for without hope you cannot see the darkness, without hope you cannot define it, just as without expectation there is no failure.

It was right in front of us now. I say us but there was only me. My hopes turned into fears as the sky turned into skyscrapers. We hit. The windows shattered. I heard it but what I heard wasn't the sound of windows, it was the sound of glass hearts cracking. Boom. As the body of the plane plowed through the skyscraper. I heard it but what I heard was the sound that's made when disappointment and regret collide.

Then I thought. I want to go home. Where is home? What is it? Home is where the heart is. Home is where the hurt is. Are they one and the same?

The end.

Well. that took me a really long time to write. I always wanted to write about how the sky turned into skyscrapers. That's a line from Apollo Sunshine's Happening. I think it's a rather poignant expression of how 9/11 must have seemed like from a passenger's point of view. It could also be interpreted as a plane making its descent into a city, with none of the smashing into the skyscrapers. I had always wanted to write it but never expected it to turn out like that. I was thinking of maybe a hopeful story with a tragic ending, but I don't know why it seems to be rather tragic all the way. I think I'm drawing from some very excellent sources. Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, which reminded me of 9/11 and the story I always wanted to write. And Walk On by U2. I was listening to it and the phrase "The only baggage you can bring, is all that you can't leave behind." struck a note within me, and I decided to use it. Using it meant that I had to start with loss, and the title meant I had to end with loss. So it's a story about losing, I don't know, anything that's dear to you I guess.

The fantastical part about meeting Charon and the people who are lost to him, I think that's Neil Gaiman's influence. Charon is, if I'm not mistaken, the boatman who ferries people into Hades, in greek mythology. I borrowed a line from Death Cab's Title And Registration. The paragraph about sleep was inspired by my brother, who manages to sleep almost 12 hours a day, that lucky duck. I hope you enjoyed it. I quite enjoyed writing it.

It might not be the 6th Burrough but this is my bedtime story for you. I'm sorry I can't come up with anything more hopeful.

Well thank you, reader for reading all the way to the end. I hope it was a good story for you. I'll end here cause my brother is probably almost done with bathing and should want to use his comp. So happy new year, just in case I don't have a chance to say it. And just because you read this doesn't mean you're obliged to give me a present, I'll still love you, whoever you are. But it would be nice. Hah. Then again no, I'm neither good at giving nor receiving presents, sometimes it's hard to keep disappointment off your face isn't it? That's a rather negative ending which I don't want so, HAHA BYE BYE HOPE TO SEE YOU SOON WHOEVER YOU ARE!

MerryHappy Boxing Day Yet Again.

Hullo all, hope you guys had an awesome christmas. A day of revelry and merry-making. Or of contentment and simply being happy.

The new year is beckoning. A fresh start, a new beginning. A chance to right wrongs. It is the beguiling lure of a clean slate. It isn't, actually. How could any one day of the year do all that and represent all that? And yet it does. Funny. What is also funny is how do you call 2010? We're used to oh eight and oh nine so how do you say 2010 in short form? Oh ten? Funny how I can't recall 1998 or 1998 either. I think they were ninety-eight and ninety-nine, but at least they have more than 1 syllable. Ten? It's just gonna sound funny. If only we could find someone who lived in the year 1910 and who is still coherent and ask him/her, that would answer many questions.

I guess the end of the year is also a time for you to take stock of what you've got. Or what you think you've got. Anyway. If a good year is one where you've achieved alot, attained alot, then no it's not been a really good year. If a good year is one where you've experienced alot, gone through alot, then yes you could probably say this was a rather good year. If a good year is one where.... I guess it's all a mattter of perspective. How you want to spin your story. If you want to say it's been a good year or a bad year. It's really all up to you. How you want to remember your year. How you want to be remembered.

I've had a good year. 2009 was a good year for me. I lived, I laughed, I loved, I lost. If you run your finger down the list from grief to joy, all that is in between, you'll find that every word can be used to describe my 2009. The entire gamut of human emotion. And through it all I've changed, because what you feel changes you doesn't it? And I think I've changed for the better, that I've managed to grow some. I don't think it's my vanity speaking. And I have to, I'm almost 18 and it's time to grow up.

But sometimes I still feel like a child. A confused child. I don't know what to do and I don't know what to think. And I don't know what I'm supposed to think. I don't like being clueless. I don't know if it frustrates you but it does frustrate me. I frustrate me. You sow some doubts here, and then sprinkle some hope there, and what am I supposed to do? It rather confuses me. Believe me, I'm not trying to be a bumbling idiot.

Do you sometimes wish you were someone else? I sometimes wish I were the kind of person who does stupid things, who doesn't have to think things through every single time. But I'm not. I analyze (and over-analyze) the littlest things and think of the possible consequences of doing anything and everything and what do you know, I end up doing nothing at all. Why can't I act on emotion and do what I feel like doing, say what I feel like saying? (I'm not saying all the time, cause that's not good, only those times that matter.) Why am I so afraid of sounding stupid, looking stupid, seeming desperate, looking bad? Is it pride? Vanity? I don't know but whatever it is I don't like it. Something is inhibiting my actions and staying my hand and I don't like it, sometimes.

I'm stuck in limbo and no, limbo does not rock. I understand it takes time so I'll give it. I don't have to like it.

I'll end here. I hope and I'm sure you guys have had a good 2009 (c'mon don't act pitiful and be mired in sorrow I'm sure there's at least that something that redeems your year.) If you gave me the option I wouldn't mind re-living my 2009. Yes, that is in spite of the ridiculous amount of studying it entails. I've rather run out of words so there might not be another post till next year. (Yes I think I've typed myself dry. 31 posts this year!) Have a blessed year ahead of you (all 5 days that remains of it) and be of good cheer! Devote these last few days to the storied "eat drink and be merry" and enjoy yourselves. Goodbye.

Merry Christmas.

And happy birthday.

Have you ever earnestly made a wish, and then you realize it could be the wrong wish? Do you get to wish again? Can you cancel your wish? Make it not count somehow?

This Is The Day That The Lord Has Made.

This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Thank god I went for service today. It's weird but I haven't been to the indoor stadium for service in years. Maybe the last time was in sec 2. I don't know what creeps into me during the "festive season" that makes me miss christmas service year after year. Festive season in quotation because the past few years have not seemed particularly festive to me. This year is promising to be something quite different, however. From the cheap christmas tree at home (at only $19.90!) to finally attending christmas service. Yes, I am feeling the festive cheer!

Maybe it comes from remembering the true reason for christmas. Make that reasons. It is a time for celebration, to celebrate the presence, the miracle, of friends and family. It is a good reason. And just as important, maybe even more important, the reason for christmas is You. You who have given Your life for the world, let us consecrate this one day to Your name, in remembrance of Your sacrifice. Let us not cross out Christ from Christmas (Xmas) and remember the true reason for this celebration. It is the best reason we need.

I have missed christmas service so often that I never realized we had a tradition of being granted wishes to make. These were mine. Shalom peace to me and mine. Prosperity to me and mine. And by me and mine I refer to everyone whom I care about, and if that includes you, be blessed.

I see how I've been really narrow-minded lately and it wasn't working wonders. When you try too hard you leave no space for god to work in. So I guess it's time to let go and let god. It's not that I think assuming an air of indifference is a good thing, but sometimes you have to not let stuff affect you too much. I feel happier already.

As promised, I've kept off the books until the end of A's, and upon resumption I've been reading some awesome stuff. Book 12 of the Wheel of Time, understandably awesome. Neil Gaiman (what a talent) with Neverwhere and Anansi Boys, both books of which I devoured each in one sitting. And I've borrowed the book that I told myself was gonna be the first book I borrow after A's, Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close. It's gonna be exhilarating.

So I end here with a merry christmas to you and yours, enjoy the festive season and be of good cheer! Shalom!

All That Glitters Is Not Gold

I hate acting out in frustration. It always leaves me feeling like an ass at the end. And rightly so. I am an idiot sometimes. Maybe, most times but I like to think only sometimes. Do not correct me if I'm wrong.

Maybe what seems to be inevitable isn't. Sometimes I have my doubts. I don't like them.

Love Will Tear Us Apart Again.

It's raining. A sneaky little drizzle that I didn't notice until I looked out the window. It promises a lazy day at home, after 2 nights staying out, rugby, barbecue and general merry-making. The match was a mixed bag, scoring a try but mis-tackling twice and letting in tries. Really annoyed. But I guess it's not about any of us anymore, but rather about letting the juniors gain experience and help them improve.

Chalet was alright, I reached a day late and in merely a while about half of them left, leaving 8 of us guys very alone and very gay. We played some fun card game Bang! which was interesting enough to keep most of us awake till about 4? No idea what time actually. Woke up at 8.30 checked out and finally reached home. No place like home indeed. Nobody around though.

I guess it's hard to manage expectation. You have to temper your expectations with a dose of reality every once in a while, or they just get out of hand, unreasonable. It's a good thing I've got my daily dosage.

Some awesome songs by Joy Division, although his voice takes a little getting used to. So depressing though. Love Will Tear Us Apart? Ah The Killers cover Shadowplay pretty nicely too. Been so long since I managed to use the laptop which has glorious sound, my comp's keyboard failed on me just like its distant cousin, the audio.

$60 DOLLARS ON BOOKS. That was like the only saving grace from a day of attempted shopping. The next book in the Wheel Of Time, GOT IT. More Neil Gaiman, GOT THEM. Simply awesome. I could live in bliss for the next few days without stepping out of my room.

Hahahaah check out Don't Shoot Me Santa by The Killers guys, the music video is so awesome, like the best christmas song ever. I wonder how they have so many good songs though, I'm on youtube and I'm listening to some good stuff that I've never seen. Wonder if I should catch their concert in january.

Some random line from A Great Big Sled stuck with me. And then I heard The Youth by MGMT. I'm saddened at the state of the world today. Kids these days, they're growing up so desensitized. And innocence seems to be so rare now. We're losing our innocence at an earlier age with every passing year. Children now, they hardly have their childhood anymore, with all that exposure to sex and violence, profanities and obscenities. Is it not the job of any living creature to provide for their young? The least they deserve is their childhood, their innocence. Let's not rob them of that.

Maybe I'm a little sad that our structured school life has basically just ended. And our paths all diverge from now on. And we'll never know each other the way we do now. It's like this tiny frame of time where all of our lives intersect, and once we leave this brief intersect we'll all change, we'll never be the same way again. So yeah. It's been a pleasure, friends, knowing all of you the way you are now. Please resist the inexorable pull of the future and not change too much, it would quite sadden me. Yep. Melancholy over.

Leaving house in just a bit, dreams of a lazy afternoon just me and my books dashed. Ho hum. Goodbye.

Starts With W Ends With W...

Er..... WOW. Yeah that's the word. The A's just ended but oddly enough it doesn't feel so momentous. Maybe that's just the lack of sleep talking. It's funny cause on my way home I was thinking if I should dota and I realized that hey, I don't even have to stop myself anymore. But nah, not going to play too long. Gets boring after a while.

Some mahjong last night, hey? I really started to feel sad for you guys after a while, I didn't want to burn your backsides so bad! Winning so tiring though, I was the first to fall asleep. Gotta do this more, the looks of anguish on your faces so satisfactory :D ZMMT FTW EHEHEEEHEHEHE.

And it's a whirlwind of a ride. Picks you up and spins you round, and when it's done it throws you down. It makes me a little fearful the ease with which it does that. I guess I have no choice but to hold on tight and enjoy the ride. It's not one with a set destination though, it's not as simple as that, at least I don't think so.

Right I can read books again. Captain Ho is lending me Flowers For Algernon, which is simply awesome. I'm really looking forward to reading that. And he has some 40% off thing at Borders so I'm gonna borrow money from my mom to buy books! Yahoo.

Hahah, this rush of euphoria, it's not natural it isn't. But if something makes me unnaturally happy, who cares? I like it. I can sleep worry-free now, tata :D