Last Secret Garden

Hello my dear readers. My profuse thanks for all the comments that you have left here. How has everyone been doing? One does hope that you have had a splendid Christmas, what with the exchanging of presents? and the imbibing of the innocuous liquids they call alcohol. Are you going to do the same for New Year's Eve? It will be much more rowdy and happening, I assure you. Somehow the word "happening" coming out here gives a very wrong feeling, but eh bien...

Now now, it seems like all I have been doing recently is apologising for the lack of posts. Sad, but true.

My alternative persona has fully wakened from its slumber and one's afraid that there's no stopping it. There has been too much things that need doing and too little things that needs thinking, thus the awakening of it. But slowly, as Winter's Solstice passed and the Moon wanes, one can feel again the lessening of it. For once again, the great horn blows in the distant fields, calling out to me.

With the awakening of it, my muse has also fled the realm and with her, my thoughts. As if there was no Aristocrat in the first place, no Whispers of A Blue Moon. The pen that resides in my left hand lies there, restless. Yes, I'm a left-hander, a solitary soul among those right-handers. A solitary soul that canst find belonging in this world. And I have taken the first step into the unknown, the first step of the road less taken. It shall remain to see whether it will make all the difference to me as it did for Monsieur Frost.

And with the awakening of it, my secret garden has also vanished into thin air. My secret garden, the one where I retreat to when I'm feeling overwhelmed or when I need comfort. My harbour, my hotel solace so as to speak. Elvina will know what I am talking about.

A place where one lies back in comfort, listening to the rushing fall of water, the peal of the birds in the lush trees and the gentle wind caressing your face. An explosion of colours and serenity, more peaceful than you can ever imagine. Sometimes, just sometimes, I might see a little girl in frocks sitting on that garden swing, her pearlie whites flashing at me, swinging ever so slightly in the breeze. And I might just give her one of those idiotic grins, telling her she's welcome. And it so sets the heart at peace with the world. It gives you the feeling of invincibilty, as if nothing can touch you here. No sadness, no happiness, no longing, no love, no hate.

Just peace.

Poet of the Week

Pardon the lack of updates my dears. The nocturnal persona of mine has just resurfaced recently. And now, I have to work most nights. As a bartender of course, and sometimes as a waiter. Where else can you indulge in excesses and get paid for it? Where else can you meet such interesting humans, be it irritating or friendly? Where else do you get tips that comes up to more than your pay sometimes?

All at my workplace. Free drinks and a familial atmosphere. Almost like my second family, I dare say.

And during this relatively long absence (yes to me it was long), a surprise came up. I'm Poet of The Week at Poetisphere. Lo and behold, I was shocked, needless to say. Long has it been since I wrote any poetry, though the rest of my works are to the right, listed under poetry. Makes one feel guilty for not writing any.

Tsk. Humans.

The Price of Everything

When one lives as long as one should, one tends to learn many valuable lessons in life.

For unlike the horse or the bee, where within the first hour, a foal can already stand and the bee can already fly once it chews its way out of the cell. But a human does not. It is incapable of conveying coherent thought to the rest except through babble. And it is not equipped with the instincts for survival at all. It has to learn its lessons the hard way. Slow and steady. Taking twelve to fourteen years to reach maturity.

And one very valuable lesson that many knows not is the law of exchange. Everything on this terra firma has a price, my dear one. You of all should know that. Yes, everything has a price that must be paid for.

You upset the balance you pay. Some call it karma. Some call it retribution. It's called by a lot of names, all a subset of the whole. Retribution only points to negative events. Karma? Not enough either. It's just simply another version of the Eight Words of the Wiccan Rede: "An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will". Or the Three-fold Law of Wicca: " Mind the Three-fold Laws you should three times bad and three times good/When misfortune is enow wear the star upon your bro"

But none covers it as well as Hemingway's protagonist in The Sun Also Rises. For he says that in this world, there's a price for everything. Even for happiness. I bet you didn't get that, did you? Your happiness, your well-being, everything that you are enjoying, will be accounted for sooner or later.

That's what one calls balance.

Seven Corpses

You know something my dear readers?

The dream came again.

Although the vestiges of it evaporated like the morning mist in the sun, I am sure that it was the same one that had been plaguing me for months. There was a certain familiarity to it, as if one could recognise his dreams. Pwah.

It's always been that one. The one where I'm always running, like an neverending commerical. But with more serious consequences. First in a military installation and then I will end up in an airport.

Running from what, you ask? Don't look that surprised, I'm not a mind reader. But your facial expressions give you away easily though.

I have no idea. On the surface, it looks like I'm running away from soldiers trying to capture me. But deep down inside, I have this nagging ache that tells me it's something more menacing than M16-toting gunmen. Apparently your guess is as good as mine.


The first few dreams were the same. Me being a rogue squad member against the rest.

Trying to be a hero, you say. I don't think so. If I am, I wouldn't be in this sad state where I am now. Well to cut a long story short, the ending was always the same, me being surrounded by countless soldiers on the government's payroll.

But...

What was new in this dream, in today's dream was that I'm no longer running. In this dream, I was sitting down at a celebratory dinner with my colleagues. It raises my hackles, that this dream reminds me of those dinners held by the ministers of the parliament. Somehow, I was spooked. What celebration, I have no idea.

Really, you must stop asking me why. I have no answer for it, just like you do. Do you still remember clearly as the morning sun what you have dreamt a week ago? I suppose not. So stop asking and start listening. And if you interrupt one more time, your rear shall have a rare meeting with the tip of my boot. Believe me, it will be much welcomed by your rear.

And I was saying before you so politely interrupted me once again, I was sitting alongside with his colleagues, in a celebratory dinner of sorts. The whole event was insignificant, except for the end. All good parts of dreaming seems to happen at the end.

I discovered seven corpses. Now doesn't it struck you odd, that one would find corpses at a celebration. This may perhaps be the key as to why I keep suffering the recurrence of those dreams. I know that they are linked in some way, and the ending has to do with seven corpses, seven deaths. Or perhaps seven renewals.

Somehow, I vaguely have the idea what those seven corpses stand for.

Closure.

Death Be Not Proud

Just not too many days ago, a young lady of many talents perhaps, took an earlier step towards eternal sleep. She wasn't related to him in any way. He never came across her tomes, never read what she had written, or even talked to her before.

They were just that, two strangers in a small little island spanning over 40 kilometres. Perhaps unwittingly, they had passed by each other before. On the bus, in the streets, in the malls or maybe in the clubs. Who knows? Maybe it was just a casual brush or a apolegetic nod for bumping into one another. Maybe it was just a disinterested glance by either party, taking note of his or her surroundings like any other day. Seeing who's who and tagging a self-imagined story to the face.

"She looks tired. Probably had a hard day at work."

Whatever it was, they never met. But fate and technology dictated otherwise.

The news hit the community fast.

"She's gone."

"Huh? What you mean gone?"

"She passed away, from a rare blood disorder I think."

Speechless and stunned the community was. They didn't expect this. Moreoever from a healthy young lady.

He wasn't affected in the first few days. Because they didn't know each other, that's why. But the more he read, the heavier the heart became. He could feel the emotions pouring out from the wounds. The hurt, at first trickling, then soon it became a torrent, threatening to engulf anyone who was caught in it.

And he was caught in it. The tragedy and the transience of human life. How fragile it is. So fragile that it has almost become a cliche. He felt their pain and their loss, perhaps not as much as them, but he understood.

Fare thee well, Sondra.

He understood, that was for sure.

Sorry for the agony on your eyes earlier on, dear readers. It was a terrible mess to be sure. But the revamp's done and now, it looks much neater than before. Just in time for a new beginning to be sure. Some little things still need to be tweaked here and there, but one can't convey to you the AGONY of fitting the code for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Needless to say, I would view the partially completed HTML through Firefox first. And later, when it's almost done, throught IE. What makes one steam is that it looks COMPLETELY different in IE and Firefox. IE doesn't render HTML as well as Firefox. Generally, trying to make it compatible in both browsers almost drove me nuts.

Sometimes, I would really like to tie Bill Gates to a stake and burn him as an offering.

Which brings me to the thought that was dwelling at the back of my mind: whether I should ban all IE users for a day and make them download Firefox. That might be another way of blocking those unwelcome eyes here as well.

An experiment perhaps...

It'll be fun...