The marathon begins

In a new attempt to keep the blog alive, Kesvick and I have agreed to run a story marathon: we will take turns to continue writing a story, each of us writing from the perspective of a different character.

What's best about this plan? Anyone can join in any time, simply by adding a new character and expanding the story from his/her point of view. You can make any links with existing characters (e.g. "I am your father!"), however short or unpredictable. The more the merrier, people.

And so... it begins. Kesvick, your turn!

______

Nick

"Is there nothing cheaper?"
I looked at the price tag on the old Yamaha keyboard, wishing that the old man would say it was a mistake and shift the decimal point. He didn't.
"I'm afraid this one's the only second-hand that's decent. Any cheaper," The shopkeeper pointed at a pink plastic keyboard fit for a toddler and chuckled heartily. "You'd be looking at a toy!"

I can't afford anything but toys at the moment, I thought, trying to picture myself busking at the corner of a busy street on a Sunday morning with this 1.5 octave mini keyboard. Oh, how did I end up even considering this.

It shouldn't be like this. It should never have been like this. I didn't plan to busk alone - never confident enough to feel comfortable under the scrutinizing eyes of strangers - and for years I didn't have to. But people change, circumstances change, and I guess plans must change accordingly.

After moving into this town I'd spent days convincing myself that I should continue busking, that I can just take the keyboard out on the streets and sing on my own, that if I earn some additional income I'll be able to afford guilty pleasures like that extra coffee or occasional cocktail. The first evening didn't turn out great - as a newcomer I hadn't discovered the best spots to perform, and reputation had to be built from scratch. I'd stopped, demotivated, after only an hour. Having just packed up to leave, a group of youths hit my head with a beer bottle and ran off with the keyboard; in a heartbeat they took away my income, my inspiration, and my past. All of which, as I'm now learning the hard way, cannot be replaced.

"I can't help you, son. You should know that keyboards all cost this much."
"I know, I used to have one."
"Used to? What happened to it?"
"I got robbed."
"Sorry to hear that," he said, with a kind, pitying glance I was quick to avoid. "No wonder you looked so down."
"Y'know what, forget it. What's the cheapest instrument you have?"
The old man lifted an eyebrow. "A recorder?"
I couldn't help laughing. "You must be kidding."
"No kidding, it's even cheaper than a triangle."
"No one plays the recorder after they're 10."
"Harmonica?"
I sighed. "Is there something I can play while singing?"
"Ah, you didn't say you could sing," he turned and picked up one of the guitars lined up against the wall. "This one's been used for a long time, but I'll change the strings and tune it for you, and you'll be fine."
A guitar? "But I don't play-"
"It's still music, not rocket science. You play the keyboard, don't you? You'll find it easy." He placed the guitar in my hands. "Fingers will hurt for a bit, though."
 The price was one-fifth of the cheapest keyboard. It was either this, or no music in the near future.
"I'll take it."
The shopkeeper smiled. "That's the spirit, boy. Now you can start over, yes?"

Start over, familiar words returning to haunt me. Sure, I'll start over. What's gone is gone. I'll just have to learn this thing, and take up some part-time work somewhere before I'm good enough to perform in public and expect to be paid for it. No big deal. A new environment, a new instrument, a new job, a new life.

"Yeah. I'll start over."

A song I would like to share

This is me.

Hi.

Things I wish I could tell my Form 5 self

1. Stay in class more.
2. Apologise. Not saying sorry will haunt you for years.
3. Be kind. Never return a kindly-intended word with an unkind one, or worse, by ignoring it.
4. Don't take hostility personally. You can't please everyone.
5. Enjoy Physics while it lasts. You'll never touch it again.
6. Laugh, cry, yell, sing off-key with all your heart. Keep that emotional honesty - once you start wearing a mask, it's hard to take off.
7. Constant chatter is no antidote to loneliness. Silence does not always have to be awkward.
8. Rumours may hurt, but let people talk - no big fuss. If it's any consolation, the rumours you hear now are nowhere as toxic as those you'll hear in future.
9. Make an effort to keep in touch. Suddenly, the people you see now on a regular basis will disappear.
10. Not reading the last chapter of anything before SPM is not the end of the world.
11. Go out and play a sport, damn it.
12. Be proud of waking up at 6 every morning.
13. Be very proud of staying up till 3. Oh, you're still so young.
14. Work smart, don't work so hard.
15. Paint. Even though you don't have to after PMR.
16. Read more non-academic books. Don't waste all that time memorising moral values verbatim.
17. Break the rule, bring a camera into school often, take photographs and videos liberally.
18. Write more. You'll have so much fun reading it later on.
19. Hug your friends tightly before everyone reaches the age where it becomes awkward and no longer feels appropriate.
20. It's okay to make mistakes.
21. Be proud of your BM now. It's at the best it'll ever be, and soon you'll wonder how you ever wrote a Karangan.
22. That emo book you ask everyone to write stuff in just before graduation? It's a brilliant idea. You'll read it and re-read it over the years and it'll never fail to cheer you up.
23. I know you don't need me to tell you to cherish every moment for time flies. I know you're sad at the prospect of leaving. Take comfort in the knowledge that friendship isn't about being inseparable - it's about being separated and, 5 years on, nothing changes.

Christmas Eve (with a few minutes to Christmas Day)

Christmas day with half a heart
Christmas day spent torn apart
Christmas day all on my own
Not with you, not at home.

Tis the season to be jolly,
wreath my heart with boughs of holly.
Sharp edged leaves cause me to bleed,
far away, you're what I need.

Christmas-tide means family
so it can't come here without thee.
The only thing that stills my tears
is hoping you'll be here next year.

Christmas time and I'm pretending.
I don't fit, I'm just not blending.
Christmas day, too crowded here.
I wish my clouded mind would clear.

I know for them I'm meant to care
but I don't want them to be there.
I just want to lift my head
and see you standing there instead.

I know you can't be here,
I know the reasons that you had to go,
but the only thing that stills my tears
is hoping you'll be here next year,
hoping next Christmas you'll be with me.

#BOLEH

 

Don't you just love videos like this that make you feel patriotic about our country? Despite our divided politics, where people would rather bicker about whose name is at the top, I am reminded about how beautiful our country is, and my chest cannot help but swell with pride.

This country isn't perfect; no country is and will ever be perfect. However, we are continuously evolving to achieve Vision 2020.

Because of videos like this, I will strive to ensure that this country will get the plaudit it deserves.

Distance.

Distance means you can't see someone,
Except in pictures.
Distance means you can't hold someone,
Except in your dreams.
Distance means you can't love someone,
Except when you already do.
Distance means you can't be with someone,
Except when they are already in your heart.

  Tell me you love me and to runaway. Tell me you love me and I'll find a way.

Age doesn't matter, love is much stronger, 

Forever is nothing, We can last longer.

Note: This author has probably gone beyond his critical stress value and is currently showing signs of wear and tear befitting an aerospace engineering graduate student of the University of Michigan. Ahhh, sod it, he'll fix himself up again, perform magnificently, and graduate with full honours.

さぁ、行くよ！

P. S. I honestly had no idea where I was going with this post. I just thought that it needed a new post every now and then, to remind us that we, all of us, are in our own little corner of the world. Most may be attempting to better their lives financially. Some may have already found their own corner someplace and are spending the rest of their life in peace. This post shouts out to all of you out there. Also, if this was going to be the anniversary celebratory post, well, you guys get an early present, from me. I ended up being inspired by Christina Perri's "Distance" to do this on a whim.

P. P. S. The second and third stanzas really aren't meant for you guys, but oh well, love comes in many forms. I wonder what she'd do if she actually found out that not only I was a sap, I like poetry. Actually, come to think about it, she probably does. *giggles*

Only in CHS

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Check out the comments. Decades of CHS-ians out there!

On a Bridge...

In a greater effort to make sure the blog does not die out, I've decided to re-publish a very, very old entry that I found in my external hard-disk while doing spring cleaning. I had submitted this story to the school magazine a while ago when I was in Form 3, but for some reason it was never accepted.

In my honest opinion, if I remember correctly, what was written inside that magazine that year was a load of rubbish and amateur literature written for the sake of wanting to be in the magazine, but I digress.

*lame attempt at a joke, by the way. I'm not actually still pissed off over something that happened years ago...*

Anyways, read them, and get back to me on how they are. Let's see if this story manages to stand up to the literary critics of 5S5. Oh, how I can imagine the law school-ers picking this apart with tweezers!


じゃあ、どうぞ！
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Bridges are strange things. They link places and worlds together. Indeed, folkloric tradition is filled with stories of the bridge to another dimension, or of narrow escapes over rivers where spirits cannot follow, and yet, despite their importance, belong to neither. Hovering perilously in-between this world and the next, they adopt their own rules and time, becoming a kind of no-man’s land where the laws of the material and immaterial planes are weak and flimsy at best. Bridges, in essence, have their own kind of magic.

They do not have to be special or elaborately decorated to hold considerable power. The little bridge over the ravine is slowly going to rot and ruin, garish red paint peeling off its softening boards in long, thin flakes, and yet it is more important to the girl than any other bridge in the whole wide world. She has tried to give it a fresh coat in the past, but for its own reasons the bridge rejected these new colours outright. The paint rolled off its balustrades into the dry riverbed below like bright blood, until eventually the girl gave up trying to fix the cantankerous old thing and just left it alone. It seems happier this way somehow, allowed to age in relative peace.

She comes here whenever she gets a chance, to write or draw or just stare up at the sky with her hands firmly tucked behind her head, gazing up into the blue. At first her parents worry about all the time spent alone: shouldn’t you join a club or go out with your little girl friends instead of playing in those abandoned buildings? You could get hurt; they’re not very well-built, are they? 

However, when the girl is stubborn she is very stubborn, and few know this better than her parents. Eventually they give up their cajoling and she continues to go to her special place every day. On the bridge, where the fabric of things is paper-thin, she feels closer to them than anywhere else.

If her parents knew of the girl’s habit of sneaking out late at night there would be more trouble, but she is quiet and stealthy and waits until they are fast asleep and snoring to make her exit. The darkened woods might scare some girls, as might the dusty tunnel with its hollow moonlit spaces, but they don’t bother this one in the slightest. The further she goes the more comfortable she feels; by the time the field with its acres of softly billowing grass comes into view the girl is usually flat-out running, hoping for something. It has never happened yet, this mysterious change she wishes for night after night, but it will someday, of that the girl is certain. As surely as the sun rises in the east the change will come, if she just has patience and waits. The waters will roll in and there will be lights and noise and magic again, and a pair of pale arms waiting to embrace her.

But for now the dilapidated buildings remain dark and silent, inhabited only by crickets and raccoons and all the skittering, creeping creatures of the country dusk. She sits in the middle of the bridge with her dusty, knobbly knees pulled up to her chin and watches the stars as they wheel in stately procession far above, wondering if somewhere on the other side of the rift someone dear to her watches them as well. The little purple hair-tie is clutched in her fist like a talisman, a connection to the world that she cannot see but knows is there. She could almost reach out and touch it, just, just, if only the veil would draw back for just a moment…

.

.

.

.

.

And somewhere on the other side, where an ocean stretches to the horizon and lights glitter on every surface, the boy waits on a bridge, staring up at the heavens. He feels closer to the other side here than anywhere else, and so every night he comes to this place, and he watches, and he waits, biding his time. When the veil lifts again, for however ephemeral a time that may be, he will be through the curtain like water through a dyke, like a river bursting its dams.

But for now, he waits, ignoring the curious stares of gods and spirits as they pass by. He does not care if they stare, continuing his vigil long into the night. 

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I miss you guys. Really do.