Prelude
And so the magic delivers itself, as the first chapter unravels its fleeting fantasies...
Chapter 1: A Hero was Born
I dare not say this is purely to subside my stress, to help alleviate growing tensions that are intertwined with the approaching Judgement Day and I am not prepared. I am only afraid I cannot make it out in one piece, or even worse, I may lose some part of myself. I am now writing this journal to record the secrets dearest and most intimate to me, the multiple events etched within my head, the illusions I long for, the things I hold close and dear to my heart, I am doing my best to spill it all out. Lest I make it out alive but different, may this carved words jog my memory back to life and safeguard the memories I treasure.
The first thing that springs to my reluctant mind is to confess my psychotic problems. I would not consider myself to be insane but I'm definitely captive to the innocent mindset of childhood. I cannot trace the origin of this obsession but ever since a certain age, I have been conjuring a set of superheroes and a lifetime move that they star in. When I am feeling down, when I find tranquility and serenity in solace, or even dead in the night when I awake to use the toilet, I speak to myself and as crazy as it sounds, I create a story and I simulate the fights. Of course, given my "mature" age, the intensity of insaneness has died down but I cannot forget this weird fetish, if you will consider it to be. I remember the glorious moments when I uproot certain plots from various movies and piece them together to form my storyline and how I always imagine that it would be a real movie one day. Of course the far-fetched idea brings me nowhere but inevitably, it lightens my heart and makes my day.
I do not know if it is wise to release these somewhat shameful secrets of mine but I hope it will not be manipulated by the wrong people. I have not planned the future of this journal but I hope 21 secrets will be more than enough to satisfy your cravings. Perhaps I don't have a hidden past or something worth exposing to the world, but it will change your life in some ways if you do read this.
(The title may suggest 21 but if time does not permit and fate does resent, then we cannot only share 20 "ones", and that will be one short of delights)
Chapter 2: The Sound of Music
Today I find my attention bound to the adhesion of music, the cohesive harmony that pulls me close to their core all the time. I have been gracefully sucked into an addiction of music, but I have yet to discover the true meaning of music to meaning to my life. I cannot differentiate when music is blasted to silent the incessant whining of this woeful, troubled globe, or when it is used to extricate the dying emotion inside me and to expound on the jubilation or sorrow becking to leave my heart. And yet, there are moments when music is like a facade that hides my insignificant position in a world.
When my ipod shuffles to one of those few songs I love so much, I feel so much more powerful and might I say, cooler. It is a weird feeling but when epic music plays during dull moments in life, the atmosphere is vastly different and I sometimes get suck into this black hole of delusion. It is a scary discovery when I take of the earphones singing the tunes I dance to and I feel so awkward being exposed to the silent, dull world. And then my mind drifts like the ocean, wondering how I was being perceived. I may have been induced by the music to imagine myself as a famous public figure, strutting down the streets with my music playing off the instruments but to the rest who are freed from the captivity of music, they can see the plight I am so happy to be in.
Perhaps I may be enslaved to the constrictive world of music, but I am pleased to be held within its bars. It is my call for escape, my shelter in war, my heaven in death, my friend always.
I've got the magic in me, and when I hit music, I turn into Gold..
Chapter 3: The Egocentric Globe
Today, I want to record my sinful ways of psychology, the way I think, the way I feel, the way you never knew. Perhaps from the title you can already hazard a good guess, that I have a tainted heart, stained with the darkness of an egocentric mindset. Albeit I may not look like it, deep inside me lies some resent whenever a close friend of mine climbs up the steps of glory at the podium, to receive whatever insignificant (as I deem it to be) award it may be, and I cannot control it. I always restrain myself, telling my respect that everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful, but because I am always laid back, hardly striving for the very best, when I fail and others triumph, I cannot prevent this natural scent of jealousy sprayed all over me, the stench sometimes tempting to waft into other's noses.
I see myself so great sometimes, that others cannot surpass (except for those few individuals), but yet I do not deserve such praise. Maybe this is my own form of reassurance, a congratulations of behalf of yours truly, to reaffirm my status in the world? This is something doubtful that I myself have yet to uncover and unravel, but I hope that this will stop. I am sorry if you were every one of those victims of my petty thinking.
What goes around comes around, and the egocentric globe makes its revolution, faltering with each step but growing with velocity. And as the devil strings his puppets and they scorn at the victors who emerge, he is unaware of the sphere, dripping with evil intent, almost completing its revolution, and ready to hit its rightful target and full force.
I am waiting, waiting for this wake up call, for my heart to hit me where it hurts the most--itself.
Chapter 4: A wandering want
As the keys on the keyboard replicate the visual image of letters, I perpetually sink deeper into the draw of this journal. I grow so weary when I unleash my personal life but it feels good to let loose my worries, to be freed from the subtle turmoil that escalates with amounting secrets. It is comforting to know that I no longer live in darkness alone, but with those I can trust as well.
I cannot help recall my childhood ambition, an innocently misguided attempt to follow in the footsteps of my elder sister, an inner calling to care for the little creatures that roam the earth, free from the bestiality we humans cannot conquer. I detest the creepy insects that serve no real purpose, but I find great warmth amidst animals alike. It was rather queer that I had always wanted to enter the profession of a veterinarian, considering the fact I could hardly spell the word nor pronounce it at that tender age, let alone understood what it entailed. But maturing in an environment of a sibling who had chosen to purchase a "family member", as I would like to address my beloved dog, and the multiple years of caring for it has left a strong attachment to creatures like it. I must confess we have started to neglect certain aspects of Twinki now and she has indeed let her weight go over the ears but I have the calling to become a vet, hopefully because I have an affection for animals.
I still cannot decide, if the balance is tilted towards the idea of honoring your promises and to seal the deal that I had once laid down back in the younger days or has it subsided towards the other end, so much so that it is now my personal choice. I have always been confident and adamant in claiming that I aspire to be a Vet since the origin of time but my heart wavers at times when I consider such a decision.
To what I grow into, I cannot clearly decide but I hope as time progresses, so will my visibility.
Chapter 5: The Dream Team
You know how they always use the excuse that you can never choose your family members (but only your friends) to ease their guilt when you're in denial of having a good family, I reckon that's just the superficial means of this phrase. More deeply as I deconstruct and analyze the hidden meaning concealed within literacy labyrinth, I have understood that by not choosing our family members, we are guaranteed with the perfect people placed together to comprise a community--the family. The guarantee that we will not make errors in our choice, as we do and end up with undesirable friends, but Gods showers the opportunity of a family upon every one of us. Sure, you might complain and say life is never fair, which means we may have been guaranteed a broken family (as I sometimes do vent when I am frustrated), we are always wrong.
I know it is weird to be discussing about my family when greater secrets have yet to tell their tale. But today, I have been touched gentle by my father's love again, and this time I have ensured an advanced booking for a storage room in that egocentric globe. I've always preferred my Mum in anything, from signing examinations or report cards, getting reimbursement in cash or even getting reprimanded. My Dad has always been the silent man, and yet inside him is a genius waiting to exploit opportunities and unleash his potential. Because of his more resilient nature, I do not really recall significant events of how he has showered his love. I can only reminisce about the times he treated me to electronics or rewards, and they seemed just purely materialistic lust rather than appreciation. But I've finally understood, after all these years of ignorance, that my Dad's love is shown through these actions which I have always failed to capture because I was blinded by my excitement or joy. But the fact he takes so much time off, to haggle at the price and to find out the best deals, or to find a telephone wire to fix my modem to my desktop as he did this morning, really shows his love has no limit nor is it bounded by conditions.
I am here to admit that I've always neglected my paternal love but I am ready to confess and repent.
Because after all those wings will take you, up so high,
So bid the forest a fond goodbye, as you brace the wind,
and take to the sky!
6: The Ups and Downs
(Curtain closes, stage lights 1-10 switched off, spotlight flicked on)
So the education has drama has taken a toll on itself and gone on vacation once again and so that just leaves me with the company of my mugging material. I haven't really gotten used to the word 'mug' because it reeks of a nerd who wastes his precious time pouring over useless information and this connotation gives unnecessary and undue stress amidst other issues weighing my heart down. I am lost in such a frenzy and I give myself too much pressure when others use the word mug. But one friend shares my exact deposition, the same attitude towards studying, similar interests and style, and just two individuals that make up the best relationship ever.
I've always been queried, why him? Why choose that good-for-nothing (as they understand his character by) and be ruined? Why do you study with him when you're results are world apart? Frankly, I am unconcerned with such minor details because friendship is built on trust and interests, not because he's smart or useful in my future developments. Friendship isn't another governmental policy which you analyse so critically before churning out something so obvious, it is a natural occurrence that sparks off randomly and possibly haphazardly. And I am glad I am best friends with Chiraag, because while many despise or look down on him, he is the closest I can get to a perfect friend--faithful, funny and sacrificial ("Sacrifice, sacrifice!). I don't feel embarrassed to be his friend, and I am grateful for someone so special to be in my life.
I wouldn't want to postulate my path without his support and guidance. Maybe I could have taken a road most Rafflesians travel through, the road of pure determination and hardwork combined together to produce outstanding merit. And yet there is the dirt ground, naturally imprinted by the footsteps of the strayed, lost in their deep fantasies and lost sight of everything else. But I chose the road less traveled by, to dig a middle ground and find balance between studying and true enjoyment. The path is curved and zigged-zag because it is easy to stray and lost direction but it is an amazing view that I have chosen to admire.
True friends don't come very often and I will continue to cherish this steadfast and unwavering friendship. Without his presence in my life, perhaps the will to power may have dissipated over time and the chaotic force in nature would have chosen a more defaced route to life. But he is the light that have shown me the bigger picture, that life's ups and downs are no more than the same image. It is the parabolic smile on anybody's face that lights up our mood because something makes us smile. And when we are high and happy, we are because we have conquered the peak of the smile. But when tragedy hits and we say life has its ups and downs, really we are just back at the centre of this expression, at the base of the smile, the root which stems the happiness that gushes out our heart. But until I really hit such a stage of ubermensch, I will just live in the eternal recurrence. (Nietzsche must be getting into my head already)
If Nietzsche said God is Dead, I only regret to inform that God isn't dead, just missing--missing beneath our blind spots, our weaknesses, our myopic foresight.
Chapter 7: A partner with no shadow; A shadow with no partner
I had always believed that I was an easy-going person, versatile in social interaction and quick to fostering a friendship between any individual and me. This had always been my conception of my personality and when my MBTI revealed the opposite of my prediction, I was certainly appalled and rather unwilling to accept. I forced myself to digest that possibility only because the questions at play were the type I wouldn't know how to be energetic in--a world of strangers. And I continued to assert that I was an extrovert, with just one point tilting the scale towards the other side and that was really negligible. I do not know what folly was at hand but I must have been oblivious to the fact that the world is a composition of strangers, and friends are the evolution of a stranger-stranger relationship. I did not understand this simple concept at that time and always believed that my extroversion nature was exemplified when I'm around with people, but really these were the closest friends of mine. Awkward moments when two individuals stood side by side, peering deep into their own minds to get ideas to strike a conversation, and when they finally get a topic out, the cold and awkward atmosphere returns soon after. My experience is very much alike, just that I sincerely pray for both of us to just shut our gaps so I can avoid this disgusting awkwardness.
I would really have deemed that just unique but now that I relate it back to my type-indicator, I am very much an introvert as I am an extrovert. Perhaps it is really a 50% balance on both sides because I am friendly only to close buddies but contradictorily cold towards others, and it gets more intent the more foreign someone is. And maybe I need to strike more connection with people by taking the first step, to build more foundations and than expand on it using my extroverted side.
When the shadows of the night drift by, I bite the bullet and chase for the silhouettes, to find shadows who resemble my figure.
I should have known that any shadow fits any individual. And the shadows left me, but a shadow without a partner is as pitiful as a person without a shadow. And an abandoned, deformed shadow slid neatly into my shoes, laying flat on the ground with a slant. I could only control my smile but this is what I need to cherish..
Chapter 8: Fortress of love
I am out of love. Not because it ended, but because it has yet to taken its rebirth.
Love fills the world. I am part of the world. But where is the love?
I blame social context, no girls in education up to secondary level. Church grounds aren't parties to make new relationships. I stare in the distant and see her, and him too, and them all in pairs, coupled with their perfect partner.
Where is mine? I search faithfully and yet I am mislead. Sometimes the devil tempts me with a mere illusion, a mirage with no sincerity, the love you always search for. I try to look in every nook and cranny but it always runs away with some other guy.
I am in shambles, the array of thoughts just flushed out of my mind and I can only remember my first love, those preliminary contact with emotions. Where have they disappeared to? I do not want love to be lust, and yet my heart inevitably calls out to those aesthetically appealing ones. I have yet to encounter yet another person I share my inner thoughts with, to disclose my personal secrets, to experience true love and share it with
Wait, they say--How much longer?
Chapter 9: Kiss upon the rainbow, bliss upon the snow
I've been drifting in thought and I always pondered what snow feels like. A compound shape-shifted with a single driving force of energy can produce such an astonishing sight. To the Eskimos, snow is probably the grass we lie on, the flora and fauna we sing our hearts to. I imagine a soft touch to its icy feeling, a particularly attractive material that we can all relate with. And yet those that live in its presence rebuke at its insensitiveness to our natural temperature, freezing the world in this icy stage of death, with no room for clothes, and they long for the sun and rainbow, in which we all laugh. Double rainbow much?
Perhaps we just need to learn how to appreciate what we have, and forget what we don't. And it is also true that we must pursue our dreams, to achieve our life-long passions and aspirations. But when one comes down to these two choices, even the Government's pragmatism cannot save us. We can either split ourselves (virtually impossible?) or give up on both. We cannot choose to forsake one, but can only give up all at once. That leaves us with nothing, nothing to choose, or nothing we want to choose--that is our real decision.
Chapter 10: The devil's gift
And then the dragon wagered its tail to the stars, and with a gigantic sweep they fell to the earth, scrambling for forgiveness but temptation overwhelmed morality. The Creator could only set the devil free, and the third of the angels changed to demon. Lucifer, our dark lord, has thus beset so many sinful gifts upon the weak human flesh and I have been challenged to resent.
My temper has been notorious for its short fuse, but even thinner when the people involved are closer to me. Blood relations will suffer the greatest blow, and then the closest friends but those too distant shall never get a taste of my blood-thirsty rage. It isn't very pleasant--absolutely not. Wielding a knife and threatening to kill, perhaps a scene only a madman will be staged in--well then, I am most pleased to be the star of that show. Quite fearful that I used to stagger with such anger and resent within me, a timebomb that went off whenever it longed to, a reason to commit sins, an excuse to cower in my nest, a solemn confrontation with God. I have always been ashamed to have such a bad characteristic and I am slowly on my way to curbing the anger meter. All has been well for 1 year already but only time can tell if another rebellion will occur.
I hope deep inside the devil will never cross my path again, so that I may experience God's love and his love alone. Hark the angels and let their halos be the guiding light to truth and enlightenment, while the devil retreats into his shadow and sooner or later, be burned by the fire of God's infinite love, which extends to the universe beyond.
Thank you God, and continue to watch over me. The exam come hither, and I am only thus prepared--the remaining confidence comes from your close guidance.
Bless me
Thank thee
Closure
I lied, I couldn't do it. That demanding commitment was not something I can easily offer I guess. I'm sorry I let you down but I'm wandering in the final moments of the day where my woes and worries have all been carried away into the velvet sky, and the physical war is nearing its completion. The commander has given its orders and a final report is due next Monday. It has been a fruitful term of preparation, in which we began our preliminary offence just five memorable days ago. The kingdom with irrationalities gave way as their front-line of defense crumbled at the sheer camaraderie portrayed by our die-hard troops. Come second day of war, and the weary starts to seep in as tongues, though freaky, slither from the filthy mouths of the ones called 'mother' and they flock to dig our graves. But alas, it is for themselves that they plow the ground for even a foreign enemy cannot surprise our bricked steadfastness. The political war set in, as the government unleashed a new set of policies to bestow liberty on the troops. Now we have more freedom to fight, more rights to kill, more lives to take. The third day and the sun is setting, the slithering tongues that once wagged lay helpless, soaked in the chemicals the scientists had developed. News spread that the fourth will be a devastating revolution and that the troops had to gear up against something deadly that had never been witnessed. An abandonment of morality painted the scenic view of the bloodless battle. Not a single drop was shed, only tears for fears, as biological agents literally raped the souls out of our brave soldiers. Such is the pity that many came home, broken emotionally but further spurred to finish the final fight. Day five, today we report, that all ammunitions and weapons had been depleted. We had to engage in a physical contest for survival, and many fell into pieces, torn away by the funeral pieces. And as the blood bath starts to clear, both parties retreat to recuperate their losses. There is only one more day before operation Armageddon. It has been a period of drought, but evolution has thought us that revolutions are but a subset of a larger system. Everything dies for a reason--to make way for progress. I am deaf to the hypocritical cries for more marks, I am ignorant to those who spread blasphemies to climb up the hierarchy, but this is OUR war, not yours or mine.
You want to win this yourself?
Guess what--you just lost.
I have betrayed you. But please, forgive me because the battle is almost won.
Because you
and I
have done
our best!
(P.s. I will finish up the EPI(c)logue another time. Have fun :D)
Epi(c)logue
Tis the story of the created, the world hero who no one knew about because he was enslaved by my imagination, but he has broken free and have been set loose.
You have found the hero at the peak of his life. For so many years he has lived, because time in memory has no real existence, it is in constant fluctuations and it is believed that our hero has been living for over 10000 years already. You must have heard about Genesis, when God created light and darkness, water and nature, life and death, villains and heroes were thus part of the indirect consequences of the perfect system God had laid out. But he was the only hero but no one knew how much evil lurked in the unknown corners of the Earth. This hero had once only been equipped with mere boomerangs and the ability to control these instruments to be tools of death. He once fought alone, facing the many dangers solo and always coming closer to death each time. It wasn't only after he thought of making a team, a group of alpha mutants, that everything in his life changed.
He created his best friend first, and a few other members--his closest friend with the ability to shoot energy balls that attract tangible energy rays from the universe, and thus a magnet for a cosmological beam. They were a great team and were thus address as the World Champions. Our hero slowly grew in his footstep and advanced his powers and expanding his manpower. He went from an average Joe, to a hero matched up in size and skill. There was the Champion League, Champions 555, G-revolution, Team Garuda, and eventually boomer was acquitted with the power of sound. He had learnt the art of maneuvering sound such that is could be felt, and the legendary sonic boom was at birth. His friend discovered the art to subduing the God of Ra, a legendary sunbird which is now being tamed by him. These are just the very important hallmarks of his life, but our hero went through thick and thin, turning against his own team and being threatened by his very friends. But after 1000 years of pain, none could be as torturous as this.
Our hero is in the middle of his fight, his fight to solving the enigma in reality, his will to power to believe that calamity can be stopped, and that the idea of inception was not another diabolical plan by the Empire. These words that make no sense are the fears the shroud his thoughts, but that story will be told another day. Until then...
And still the hero is in constant doubt and afraid to face his delusions. Calamity is arriving, the forecast-ed apocalypse that will wipe out both good and evil, predicted a thousand years before it's actual arrival. But no one can reaffirm the exact day Calamity will hit and what it even comprises of. It has been foretold that Calamity is no mere burning asteroids being hurled through the night and disintegrating the beings on Earth. Such is childplay to the likes of the Empire and the Sanctuary. Both good and evil powers can withstand such a light blow but it is more than that. It is the revolution of time.
The hero is fighting it's greatest enemy of the empire, the foothold of the dark side--Chronos. Chronos, not to be mistaken with the God, altered his name in admiration to the Holy One himself and to express his deepest regards and crave to follow in his footsteps--not so much to reach immaculate goodness but to have immortality and to be able to destroy time. Time shifters, like Chronos himself, are mutants with the potential to shape and shift time, ranging from abilities to stop and reverse time. But it has always been a puzzle trying to deconstruct this intangible element and only the God himself had unraveled the secret of destroying time, to completely erase and remove both memory of existence that ever started. The only way our Hero can die or for Calamity to be prohibited is to attain such a skill but alas, Chronos has yet to reach such perfection.
And our hero has encountered a group of misguided souls, told by their leader, who has been recently discovered to be Chronos' disciple, that they are living in a dream world and calamity can be escaped only by waking up. He has already instructed them to kill their loved ones, the preliminary stage in accepting reality. Our hero has killed his best friend after heavy deliberation but is beginning to doubt the trustworthiness of their leader. He refuses to disclose his name, let alone his past. But nevertheless, he is strong and powerful, being able to wield time in a way that he controls who stays when he reverses time. In such a way, he can create multiple illusions that can be both tangible or not when fending off enemies. This remarkable skill is long sought after by his own master, who he has told our Hero had been abandoned after Chronos turned to the Empire for help. Our hero is lost in his own thoughts, fighting to stay alive and trying to choose what to believe.
Can he really escape from Calamity by waking up?
Can their leader be trusted?
Is Calamity even real?
And if all truths were lies, what can he do?