A View To Offend

It’s two am. A traffic signal blinks desolately yellow at a now-ignored intersection. The most activity comes from a pack of fighting dogs and three cows. The yeasty crawling of Jack London’s Wolf Larsen is all but at an end.

The jagged road makes a swathing cut through the hutments, the pale yellow lamplight a lame attempt to divide, to cut through a living, breathing mass of the city. The distant road marks a bejeweled, outlined crown.

Surreptitious meetings take place in dark alleyways. Shaken hands, whispered words, short walks together. The sound of the odd vehicle passing by is alien, foreign. It intrudes on the beauty of this silent spectacle.

Cigarette smoke and friendship waft before me, my silent companions in a dark, secluded balcony, reminding me of those I’m with. And those I wish were here.


Inspired by the view from Maniak's balcony.

Utter Randomness meets Utter Nothingness

I don't really have anything that I want to say. It's just been a while since I blogged. Or for that matter, since I let my fingers free on a keyboard. Let them roam randomly wherever my brain may send them. Without any instructions from me, of course. Total loss of control.

I've wanted to do this from home, but since I got the awesome keyboard at work, the one at home is just so rough and clunky that I don't feel like typing at home. So for those of you who haven't guessed yet, and especially for those of you who have, yeah, I'm at work right now. Not the best time to be at work, yes? 11.30 on a Friday evening. But meh, we do what we will. Besides, I'm not working right now, just chilling with some music.


Sorry about the delay. Oh wait. You didn't notice, did you? That last line was typed 15 minutes ago. I'll remember to mention that next time. Anyway, we just ordered food here at the office. Two plates chicken lolipops. The working non-vegetarian adult's escape to childhood. It just got here. Yummy! Awesome chicken smell!

All our wallets emit moths. = )

Yo's gone running to the ATM to pay for it...

2 minutes 49 seconds later...

Damn, those were good. And after a long time, too. * satisfied sigh *

Ah, well, nothing much more to say right now, so I guess I'll see you when I see you.

Note to self: Fingering the keyboard is awesomeness. I need to do it more often.

Moron Couldn’t Keep His Birdie(s) Hidden

A man was arrested on Wednesday for attempting to smuggle 14 birds from Vietnam into the US [link]. He was nabbed when an airport inspector with a wayward glance spotted copious amounts of bird poo on his socks (the journalist would like to assure you that he really wishes he were making this up).

It is still unclear how and why said official came to be inspecting the perpetrator’s socks in the first place. Foot fetish has not been ruled out as a possible alternative.

Investigators believe the smuggler, one Sony Dong, was motivated by deep hatred of his own name and a latent inability to keep it in his pants. Not the name, that is.

Animal rights activists across the world have condemned the incident. On the other hand, Human Rights organizations across the board have unanimously stood up in support of Dong, saying a man thus named could not possibly be blamed for his actions. Legal experts close to the incident expect Dong to plead insanity and mental trauma caused by being named after a large reproductory organ , a product that rivals the male (see defn. #9) and a horrifically valueless currency.

In what is being seen as a shocking fallout, indicative of the trauma they went through, none of the birds involved have tweeted about the incident.

Racing along a lonely highway, two buses, side by side.

He looked out the window and there she was. Searching.
Looking for a familiar face? Seeing her own face in every other.

He smiled when she caught his eye. There, in that moment,
they connected.

His bus slowed and stopped. Hers went on. But those few
seconds were enough.

(Just wanted to let you know, I think of you always)

Reboot

One old rechargeable battery. A seven-year-old movie ticket. A tie pin with a chimp on it. An old, chipped, marijuana-leaf locket. A pouch with Grandpa’s spectacle lenses, bottle thick and slightly scratched. A pink pocket comb, fading to white. A compass, rusted. A gift pen case.

Stories, all of them. Memories of an age long forgotten. Gingerly, he traced the edge of the tie pin. Picked up the pouch. Felt the weight of the lenses in his palm. Held them up to his face. Looking at the world through his grandfather’s eyes. Reverently, he returned them to their pouch, and his fingers came to rest on the pen case.

Carefully, he lifted it out of the box; for a while, just staring at it. Then slowly, he lifted the lid. Lying in repose on the grooves in the fabric inside, like the sculptures of kings on tombs, dormant, were four pieces of chalk. Only one of them was intact, retaining it’s perfectly cylindrical shape. With trembling fingers, he lifted the other three pieces, one by one, out of the case, setting them on the table. Two rooks, one pawn.

And it all came back to him. The days of sucking up to his teachers in school, just so they’d put him in charge of the class cupboard. Bringing them fresh boxes of chalk from the staff room. Filching them slyly to make rocketships, cars. And a full-blown, self-made chess set.

The days of sitting at the back of the class, scratching away at a piece of chalk with the compass, an old and disused pen cap, and the comb – his greatest discovery in the art of chalk-carving. A tool with ruthless efficiency at making straight-line cuts. The memories all came flooding back.

Absently, without even thinking about it, he picked up the compass and the last piece of chalk, starting the second pawn.