Fiction #202

Since the holidays started with bedridden nights spent watching Fargo, drinking a bottle of red wine by myself, and smoking a drawer of duty-free cigarettes, I had been yearning for a change. Couching was beginning to feel too lazy for anyone who was easily prone to boredom, so, naturally, I called up some old friends to enliven my free time.

These were friends whom I had shared a likeness for downing alcohol to knock out our senses, since we met five years ago. These were friends whom I'd dial on Fridays, Saturdays, and- in festive spirits- Public Holidays, even, since everybody else was now preoccupied with a work week.

And since we only go out after 11, I met Lisa and Jason on a familiar street, a rendezvous for our wild nights of self-abandonment, and hopped the bars like the musketeers we used to be.

The first taste of rum on the tongue, spiked with the fizz of Coca Cola, the stale, bitterness of gin, spiced up by a litter of mint leaves- cocktails can be as much a friend as those whom I share my drinks with: They can be toxic.

Midnight, between the next tall glass of Whiskey and another shot of Tequila, we doctored up quite a night. While I couldn't recall the exact conversation that swerved drunkenly from table-talk politics to personal conundrums, a memorable one went up like this:

Lisa: Tell us what's going on with your new person.

Jason: Him? Oh, he's sweet. I feel great, you know? It's been a long time since I could call someone without worrying about imposing.

Lisa: How long have you been seeing each other?

Jason: As of now- 6 months.

At this point, the music was so grating to the ears, I had to lean forward to catch the words falling out of their mouths.

Lisa: Well, I'm not a downer, but he's going to disappoint you, you know. Relationships.

Jason: I don't think it's fair for you to say that... You don't know him.

Lisa: I know. I'm only speaking from experience.

I interjected, with more common sense to know the difference between wanton cynicism and a string of bar slurs that'd lead to a fight. "I don't think it's fair too," I turned to Lisa with a lame smile. "You can't be too cynical about these things."

"But that's what I'm like, you know?" Lisa replied. "And people always end up disappointing you."

I felt dread roll back from the graves of regret. There and then, facing friends whom I've spent years of squabbles, banters, and- finally- fights with, I felt gas belch from my stomach. It wasn't the Tequila, but a familiar pang of guilt that caused the unease: Why was I here listening to this crap?

The last time I met my friends, we ended up by the gutter with the unpleasantries of exchanged insults, which wasn't uncommon for friends who drank so dangerously, so often together. We never spoke thereafter, until recently. So within a year, one'd think that the wisecracks would grow up wiser, and the Debbie Downers would start looking up for a change.

But nothing changed so much as did the menu of our drinks. Indeed, a year may have expanded our vocabulary of cocktails to order, but the same self-deprecating talks dredged out from one's cup hadn't. I was staring straight into Lisa, at a friend whom I loved so endearingly then, yet could not muster any empathy for today.

That said, while Lisa was sullen, it was clear we had to move onto something more jocular- to ease the tension. So I tried to laugh.

"A toast to 'new beginnings'," Lisa raised a glass. Then, I surrounded myself to the night, marooned under its spell- sex talk, gossip, mind-numbing affairs. Fun stuff, in brief, without the drama.

By two in the morning, we had hopped from one joint to another. I bumped into an old friend and grabbed onto him like a lifebuoy. It felt refreshing to catch up with someone I barely knew.

By three, the bar was closed. Lisa was out of sight. Jason was on his way home. And I was made responsible for the former's whereabouts. In one long swig, I swallowed my drink whole and felt vodka scratch against my throat like nails.

The crowd was spilling onto the sidewalks like alley cats. Old perverts were negotiating the bar corners, looking for a quick hookup with anyone too groggy to care who was toying their man parts- as long as he paid for cab. Weary bartenders were rejecting last minute orders from those too eager to stay, and everyone looked so stupid when the place stopped serving drinks. Everyone should have been on their way home, except me, who had to wait for Lisa to show up.

She reappeared, after an hour missed on all the hijinks she was supposed to have with her friends, only to confess an emotional call she attended to. "I'm such a mess. Do you think I'm a mess?" Lisa asked. I offered a "no"; I told her it was fruitless to look at things with a half-cup-empty-half-cup-full mentality; there was no cup, simply. If anyone wanted to be happy, he'd have to accept every other emotion that freewheeled with it.

Life's like that.

I hadn't seen Inside Out; though, if I did, I was confident of its takeaway to be of the same.

"But I have no control over my emotions," Lisa replied.

And then, a year later, I suddenly understood the sagely advice offered by professionals who worked emotionally laborious jobs. Nurses, doctors, therapists- I finally realised how independent they were of others' hysterics. One didn't have to feel with others to feel for them, I remembered.

"I just want us to go back to how we used to be. I want to fix things," Lisa sighed, without a clue that the present had no room for her past, and everybody's latter days could only be better off without it.

I, too, heaved a sigh of relief: I suddenly remembered I had Fargo to binge on at home.

Protect Me From What I Want

Bright lights, big city, and dangerous people. 

Desire is a dangerous thing because it scorns you, no matter how paltry it is you want. Like jealousy and envy (which are both fuelled by passions), you hex yourself when you desire; you're not you when you desire.

Think of the last thing you wanted so badly- to own, to possess- like a shiny, new toy that costs more than you could afford eating ramen noodles for the rest of your life, or someone whom you've only briefly loved, yet exoticized about tirelessly into thinking of spending your sunset years with.

And then, think of how you entertained yourself with ridiculous ideas to procure that desire. Because no matter how far-flung the idea, you yearn and daydream insufferably to calculate scintillating ways to get what you want.

Once, I strategised an elaborate bank heist to, you know, "get rich quick".

But where does desire spring from?

I can't speak for everyone- I'm not a poet- though the only viable clue as to why desire makes me a maniac for the things I cannot have is because I'm equal part coveting as I am disinclined to the things I want, for the fear of not having enough.

Money buys happiness

"Protect Me From What I Want" is but one of conceptual artist Jenny Holzer's many famous artworks-as-writings, a series of "truisms" of which the Brooklyn artist has turned to language as her medium. I chanced upon them in the library. Her words, like digestible soundbites, were cutting. They were a visceral performance, without so much as to conjure horrific imagery than to nail a cold truth at the hearts of many- she knows what makes a person tick in the middle of the night.

And this truism, the urge to crave, the protection one needs from what he or she pines for, can only be explained by what it means to not desire. Because, you wouldn't have wanted anything if you were already, always satisfied.

For instance, I may want thousands of million of dollars today, yet I wouldn't know what to do with them tomorrow. Complete with the amount of luxury I could buy, I'd still be more curious as to know what should- no, ought to come later. Is it, then, crazy to think that anyone who lives a corruptibly rich life must be very boring? No. Not really.

Desire, then, is dangerous because the question of "what's next?" makes it such a locomotive to always want, want, want. You're only motivated by the discomfort of remaining stationary; you're only as satisfied as the last breath you draw; curiosity is the passionate hand of desire.

Thus, perhaps, this is why Jenny Holzer's LED messages are so wickedly charming, yet unpretentious in its language to me. Beside Ms. Holzer's other powerful writings- "Lack of Charisma Can Be Fatal" and "Expiring for Love Is Beautiful but Stupid"- "Protect Me From What I Want" wields a dispassionate eye over people's starkest self-interests. The medium Ms. Holzer chose- like those of advertising- aren't of a persuasive art; rather, they're a mere mirror of people's anxieties.

As a phrase, it is a neat summation of why I do not choose to desire. I just do.

Of course, only I know this much is true.

On Thought Catalog

Imagine any day when you're unsuspecting of falling from, say, a ladder or a pole whilst fetching something as trivial, yet delicately dangerous from a standpoint high above ground, as a luggage.

You could count the number of people you'd call, should you be alone and fall and break your bones from impact then such that you're also covered in a sheet of your own blood as you writhe and howl in excruciating pain: None. You'd call the bloody ambulance like any normal person would.

16 Lessons Learnt

I was never big on New Year's Eve until I saw fireworks flourish bright explosions in the sky. It was a moving sight. 

And until I celebrated with other merry thousands by the bay this year, the past has always been forgettable: The tradition of sending one year off while ringing in the new in its crowd-shoving atmosphere happens less than I sloshing shots by the bar with few strangers under dim, low ceilings- where the booming can only be heard at a distance, but I, completely blind to its cause. For this last, I was in the clear to enjoy its standstill moment, absorbing sights, sounds, smells- everything.

Naturally, I also made a list of the hits and misses and regrets of 2015, and what better things to expect thereafter. Without further ado:

1) 2015 was a like a flex of a muscle so hard, I broke a hamstring- I'll take things slower this year.

2) There are 14, 000 things to be happy about that's listed in a compact book for sale at Kinokuniya. 

3) You can put an egg in a microwave and make a great supper.

4) Pasteurized eggs come from "free range" chickens, which means they're uncaged and free to hang, making them healthy and their produce more delicious.

5) Though, I make chicken-feed for the work I do.

6) "Farm-fresh" eggs is marketese; it doesn't mean anything- like "the greatest", "the best", "the richest".

7) Relationships are not concepts; they're as free-range as chickens roam.

8) Politics make men strange bedfellows.

9) What doesn't kill you will give you a stroke.

10) Who knew pitching a campaign could be so EXHAUSTING and REWARDING (at the same time)?

11) And writing an entire training manual under the snap of a week- with the amount of research and planning- is my proudest work so far shared with bright, industrious team members.

12) I can't garden to save my life. In fact, I almost killed all of my mother's favourite plants when she was away on a holiday.

13) Some people are so dim to speak with, any talk further and I'd have to water them.

14) Judge less, accept more.

15) People overcompensate for their bad habits with niceties. If you have a knack for arriving an hour late, don't apologise- just buy the other person lunch.


16) Long distance Skype calls are the most poignant tools of communication- what's connecting you and the recipient is a thin, glossy computer screen and a strong Wifi. And as near of a portrait the other person seems to be, he'll always be as far away as history. Little wonder, long distance relationships never work out.