NOTE: Best viewed with "Word Wrap". The first one , "For No One...", is not a short story but it is pretty much tied in with "Sickening THUD!...". They complement one another. === Title: For No One In Particular The brightest daisies (in time) will fall and wilt. The darkest shadows too, fade. Waiting for the sun. And then... Where will I hide with a truth so glaring, No void would cover? --- From places I've been to things I've seen. Words can't describe some beautiful scenes: ...Sunrise over Seletar, a river flows through it. Catfish, crabs and critters within it. ...Smell of the jungle, call of the wild. Cranes, swallows, sparrows and their assorted kin. ...And not to be left out... Bugs, fungus, algae. All in their colourful splendour. --- But one night, I sat alone. Facing the canal where the East Coast waters flow. All the sights & experiences hold no meaning no more. For with every thought & presence, of beauty & wonder I think of her. "Only a cigarette or two distracts me from you." === Title: Sickening 'THUD!' of a Recycled Heart. IT WAS ABOUT 5AM WHEN HE DECIDED TO TAKE A WALK AFTER SENDING A BIRTHDAY MESSAGE TO A 'FRIEND'. HE FINISHED HIS CIGARETTE AND STOOD ON ONE SIDE OF A CANAL SEPARATING VICTORIA JUNIOR COLLEGE AND CHIJ KATONG CONVENT GIRL'S SCHOOL. I see a familiar sight, and I mumble, "One night... Where the east coast waters flow... All the places I've been mean nothing... Every thought & presence, of beauty & wonder..." And I laugh. The canal is almost dry. Low tide. A small stream through the centre. Mud and garbage along the sides. Bright lamp-post lights cast deep shadows through flowering rain trees. A day before, tiny yellow pieces(with all that irritating pollen) had fell on the pathway where I am currently standing. The smell... Argh! Of moisture after rain, a little sweet, but the decomposing leaves overwhelms everything. On the other side, the lights from the junior college still shines on as bright as before. "That used to be my ambition... Never got there." Behind me, is the girl's school, and farther to the right, stands the newly renovated primary school I used to attend... Behind me, and across the main road(and the so-called "bridge of love"), opposite the girl's school, stands a boy's school. St Patrick's. "I always thought both of them bred homos... I'm lucky, I guess." I reach in my pockets,"Hmm... no more cigarettes." The tax on them keeps on increasing, and people will always continue to smuggle them in. Suddenly, I put one foot on the canal's fence, which has green paint peeling off its rusted interior, wanting to jump over it. Then I stop. A glassy-eyed mudskipper seems to be starring at me from below. THE SUN CAME UP AT ABOUT 6:45AM, AND HE WANDERED OFF. "Time for breakfast." === Title: Modern Repressed O (Yet another shallow Oedipus essay.) Every night, Odie always went to bed after drinking a compulsory glass of water his mother pours for him. But tonight tonight... he bucked the trend. He asked his mother for two glasses! This unexpected request made his mother feel rather odd. So used to routine, she was. With a sickening sense of a slightly bloated bladder, Odie slipped into a dream. Odie awoke in the middle of the very early morning. He did not consciously know what he wanted but he knew what he must do. He walked into his father's room and said, "Father I want to ..." "Borrow my power tools?" "Erm... No. I just wanted to say to you, as cordially and respectfully as possible, that I have made up my mind to rise up the corporate ladder as you did, force your peers and rivals into near-poverty, throw money in your face, and leave you to die alone in a retirement home." "Oh... That's nice, son. It's great to see a young man with so much conviction. Does that mean I can finally kick you out of the house and have more space for more power tools?" "Grrr... Nevermind." He walked out down the hall, turned into his mother's room and said, "Mother I want to..." "Shut up. I'm watching soap re-runs. The cookies are on the second shelf to the right. I've stocked up the fridge with cheese and milk. Go get them yourself." Odie stared at his mother, who stared glassy-eyed at the dusty old 21-inch television screen, with disgust. "Grrr... Nevermind." He walked on, into his sister's room and said, "Lilith I want to..." "Hmmm... Yes?", replied his sleepy-head sister. "May I borrow your Herworld magazine collection? I... erm... I'm starting a glam-rock-revival band and I'm looking for some affirmation... I mean confirmation... ARGH! I meant INSPIRATION! Yeah..." "Sure, bro. Go crazy." Odie woke up and found that he had wet his pants. === Title: Incoherence. "Brrr... It's cold." The water splashed on his face on an early morning. The purpose, to freshen rather than to clean himself. Everyday, he stumbled through the same steps, seemingly endless in repetition. He would always ponder up some new goal, as he sat on the toilet bowl. Funny how one's bowels could make one brood. [i]How can one break free from the debris of his own history? The blue-collared slave mentality of an african-american who might live and die in the ghetto, not that much different from the original homeland of his ancestors... The cuban boy who might seek social acceptance, some sense of normality, in the arms of a preppy white girlfriend... Yet another chinkie bastard, with his material ambitions, wonders if there is something more... Communist tendencies, converted from catholic buddhist, depraved personal ads, unwritten teenaged emo song in the trash. Viable expressions in indifference/repression or trivia trends of the affluent?[/i] The mimosa patch he stepped on yesterday, closed its leaves to protect itself, as if the thorns were not enough. (The redundancy of nature's defences amplified in a modern jet fighter.) He got up and looked in the mirror, smiling that well-practised grin, that always turned into an awkward smirk when faced with someone else. "Every day, in every way, I'm becoming..." He took a glance at his feet, his teeth chattering, perhaps hungry for another cigarette. He didn't know. "Perhaps nostalgia will distract us all. And trap us forever. Who leaps over their own shadows, when they find relevance and comfort in them?" === Futurology: Singapore 2046 -------------------------- just thought this while smoking a cig... what may singapore be like in 3000 A.D. ? then thinking of how the PAP is trying its darnest to push up the standards of s'pore , and push their citizens away, forcing them to migrate , n the accelerating speed at which civilisation is changing, the we might not have to wait till 3000. it may happen in half the time. 2046. ya, im ripping off the title of that movie... Singapore would be like a mini-machine world. "machine world" isn't quite the right title. a machine world with a small but vital sector for commerce/business/trading. no more will s'pore be a place for earning a JUST a living. all original citizen of s'pore will have migrated to other countries. only the high-fliers, elitist scum, and frequent business visitors of singapore will live in singapore itself, or live in nearby cities. only a small number of technical specialist/workers still required for the high-tech industry will live in colony-like living-spaces provided by the multi-national companies they work for. security forces will live in their barracks or whatever outpost they patrol. staff for miscellenous services(e.g. groceries, food, hotel ...) will all be working for international/multi-national companies, and "attached" to s'pore. staff for these services will seasonally "rotate their shift" in s'pore with other staff working in other countries. they will live in colonies similar to the high-tech workers or in their places of work itself. Sinagpore's geography will consist of mostly 5-star hotels, office buildings, conference halls, high-tech industry buildings/factories, and just a few nature reserves perserved for use as water-catchment areas and recreational use. Singapore will cease to be a country. it will be labelled as an "international state" under special protection from the UN and the various companies/businesses it serves. it will have no citizens, passports, or identity cards. temporary or permanent security passes will be issued by the administration of the remaining elitist scum(or the ever-present men in white), as according to the "singaporean's" job scope or working contract. AND THAT IS ALL.