Intermission X: Post Tenebras, Lux.

Today, You called me home.

i cried out in my despair, Kyrie, Kyrie eleison. Lord, dona nobis pacem.

You said to me

Come home, o sinner. ye who are weary, come home. I will wait with arms wide open

Your words came to me in the voice of an angel

You opened my ears to words that i've heard, but not listened to

You gave me tears to wash away the darkness and anger in my heart

You lifted a lost child on wings of an eagle

And now she lies, safe and at peace, in the palm of Your hand.

Thank You, Lord.

Chapter Thirty-three: The Malaysian 'Kitchen God'.

Demme, but ‘tis the kitchen god who speaks! says he.

Speak he will to the numerous ones, on whose goodwill the fate of my regard runs.

Faith, I must sweeten him with honey, his wagging tongue tame, that he will speak kindly and cast no slur upon my illustrious name.

O god of the hearth most kind, take this gift and sing sweet praises of me and mine. Here is toffee to glue your lips, and smoke most fragrant, your eyes to eclipse.

And finally, most esteemed teller of tales, who reports for all, accept this; ‘tis but colourful scraps, that you may throw around, what your heart desires, ‘twill cost naught at all!

O wonderful deity, o benevolent one, remember to paint me in rays of the sun.

Speak well of me, and you I shall keep, well-fed in spirit, and your pockets full-deep.

For mine is the power, to tear down your shrine, with a whispered word here, and through influence of mine.

Chapter Thirty-two: Says the Reed to the Shell, and likewise.

Said the reed to the shell
You look nothing like me

Get away for a spell

Till you’ve changed completely

Said the shell to the reed

What do you know of substance

When you won’t look inside

At my brains for instance

Said the reed to the duck

Why have you an appetite

For mollusks of the sort

It doesn’t look right

Said the duck to the reed

That you wouldn’t know

Cause you’re you anyway

With your opinions so low

Said the shell to the reed

Here I opened myself wide

But what did you do

You threw sand inside

Said the duck to the shell

It will be alright

Give it some time

And then together we’ll fight

Said the shell to the duck

Don’t know if I can

My shell is fragile

How much can it stand

Said the duck to the shell

You must try anyway

I’ll broaden my wings

And you sandpaper away

Said the shell to the duck

I’ll try for your sake

Let’s hope we won’t lose

Everything that’s at stake.

Intermission IX: Says the Reed to the (Conch) Shell Through the Duck.

you there, born like a reed. 

have you ever imagined how it would be like to be someone other than yourself? (or maybe you do, but not the way i'm thinking).  

tell me, do you know what it's like to have a shell like mine?  

you don't.   i hoped that it'd be like what i've witnessed so often, and secretly dreamed to have. (but i forget, those people were reeds too. not conch shells).  

you found it so easy to judge my shell as unworthy, when you haven't even sampled the contents.  

so easily did you take to it a sledgehammer, not even thinking of what damage you may cause not to just the shell, but what the shell is part of (but you'd like that to happen, wouldn't you).  

How do you think it'd feel like, if i were you, and you me? would you feel as you've made me feel?  

but then, you know don't know the meaning of empathy, i don't doubt. (i simply wonder why it took you so long to blow your whistle. after all, you've seen me at least a dozen times, knowing what i am. but you let me believe it would be alright?) 
 

i suppose i must say a bitter thank you for helping me to finalize a self-fulfilling prophesy, although i doubt i did anything to contribute to it's culmination, apart from growing my shell. 
 

it pays to be a cynic, you know. because if you'd turned out another way, i would be an optimist for a while, and tell myself 'see, what were you worried for? things turned out all right' and maybe get shot at sometime in the future. 

it hurts more when one isn't prepared to be pot-shot at.

so think about cynicism as a shield of sorts.  

and  now, when things turn out like this, being a pessimist, i can congratulate myself on being right all along, and tell myself, i told me so.  

a cynic at 22, i feel faith in good things slipping out of my fingers, like flour through a sieve (everytime you shake it, a little more falls out). 
 

because deep down inside, even as i prayed for it to be alright, somewhere inside, a little doubting Thomas whispered not to get hopes up, 'just in case'.  

(and now i'm paying the price for that folly).

eli, eli, lama sabathani?  

Father almighty, the ever-living God... is this a warning to the little thomas living inside me? (but Lord, you appeared to the other Thomas to dispel his doubts...) 
 

Happy those do not see and yet believe. i guess this means i'm one of the 'unhappy'.    

P.S to the other famous and wealthy reeds out there, if you complain another word about you having an extra millimetre somewhere on those cheese-pared stalks of yours, i'm going to pot-shoot your photos (that have been sandpapered anyway).  
 

because you don't have the right to talk about your oh-so-imperfect reed stalks, or talk about how its all about inner-beauty (when people go crazy over your reed stalk and cares a whit about your inner-beauty... wait, i hear an echo somewhere... oops, reeds are hollow, right?), not when you don't know what it's like to be a conch shell. 

P.S.S Once upon a time, a reed looked into a mirror and saw carrots for legs, a turnip for a belly, and wailed and moaned to the shell. Methinks that one ought to see Dr H, for such is a symptom of horrid self-image distortion.

Intermission VIII: Another Week, Another Friend Gone. To Q, and the Memories of 2007.

When I wrote the tribute to a schoolmate who'd passed away last week, I'd never in my wildest nightmare imagined that I'd be doing the same for you today, someone I'd been thinking of only last night. Life, how could you?

Some of my fondest memories from Form 6 were because of you, you know that? Like hearing you joke with Kulow, giggling over, well, you know who we caught in the room with her boyfriend, and you pole dancing on a dare. Or of you chasing the little kambing around threatening to bbq him. How can I hear the words 小羊 without thinking of you?

I didn't tell you how grateful I was to have your company during the convention, did I? Or that you'd covered me with your own blanket in the middle of the night?

I'll never forget how cheerfully you dismissed what would have sent other girls wailing, and simply said that you were grateful to even be how you were. Did you know I was thinking about you just last night, not knowing you were struggling for your life? and now I'll never get to see you again. 

Rest in peace, Q. And know that we'll be missing you.