I can’t really stand Human beings sometimes – I know they all have their problems as I have mine - but I’m really too tired for it. Trying to understand, making allowances, seeing certain things that just weary me.
The Secret Diary of Marilyn Monroe, Lucy Bolton, BBC
May 4, 2018
Apr 29, 2018
Rehabilitation
Me: Hi, how do I become less bitter and stuff?
God: Speak of people whom you think you care about in past tense. Assign monetary value to each and every of your action. Stop smiling at strangers.
Me: Whoa it works.
God: Speak of people whom you think you care about in past tense. Assign monetary value to each and every of your action. Stop smiling at strangers.
Me: Whoa it works.
Apr 27, 2018
Battles Lost and Won
You had a particularly bad day at the office, some million was lost. Volatility of the market. Incompetence of your peers. Opacity of human psychology. Unpredictability of geopolitics. Wars, bombings, and riots on foreign soil.
I prepared dinner: a clear broth soup with organic free range chicken, ginseng, ginger, and jujube. Steamed Japanese rice served on the side. My mother’s recipe. I couldn’t eat, nausea brewed in my chest.
You complained about taxes. You spoke about the lawsuit. You’d made calculations, you said, this couldn’t go on. You gave an ultimatum. Each and every word registered. They made no sense – noise to be filtered and canceled. You acted, and looked, like someone I didn’t know, a stranger.
Sitting across the dinner table from you, I stared into my bowl of soup, wondering if I’d put enough salt.
“Please, not tonight. I’m not well,” I pleaded.
You said I hadn’t been well for as long as anyone could remember.
“It’s this place,” I said.
You went on about how hard you’d worked to build this home for me, for us – everything to my liking, yet it was not enough. It was never enough.
I felt weak, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me… it’s just this village.”
Finally, you snapped, “why don’t you just fuck off and go back to where you came from?”
On a normal day, I would flip the table and demand that you would not speak to me in such manner. But I was hardly breathing with the dizzy spell. The nail of my left thumb cut deep into the side of my index finger. I gathered myself.
“I would love to. Soon.”
You stood up and walked to the reading room, came back towards me with a piece of paper and a pen in hand.
“Sign this,” you pushed the piece of paper in front of me. An IOU.
I looked up to you and blinked a few times – I wanted to be certain I did not hallucinate any of this. Reality assured me this was indeed happening. Then I put my signature on the piece of paper.
“Can we eat now? Food is getting cold,” I said.
My life had come to this point where I’d decided I would neither escalate nor deescalate any situation. I wanted to sit back and take it all in with a morbid sense of curiosity and to revel in the perverse thrill of people revealing their truer selves to me. I thought about a conversation with a gentleman which supposedly never happened about an orgy involving Swiss blonde girls. I thought about the obscene notion of political martyrdom in the year of 2018. I thought about Oscar Wilde - Yet each man kills the thing he loves.
You commenced eating and complimented my cooking.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
As the spoonful of soup warmed the back of my throat, I had a realization that I might be, in fact, roaming in hell – a thought that did not at all surprise me. The best thing that I could hope for in this life would be suicide by three shots to the back of my head with an untraceable 1911, in which case at least the blood wouldn’t be on my hands.
Tomorrow you wouldn’t remember any of this. You would wake up in the morning and the first thing you’d say to me would be “I love you” as if those words carried any intrinsic value.
There was someplace else I’d rather be, but I’d learnt a thing or two about patience and resolve. Delayed gratification, or so it was called.
“There’s lemon sorbet in the freezer,” I said.
Your face softened, in about three seconds a smile would form.
*****
I prepared dinner: a clear broth soup with organic free range chicken, ginseng, ginger, and jujube. Steamed Japanese rice served on the side. My mother’s recipe. I couldn’t eat, nausea brewed in my chest.
You complained about taxes. You spoke about the lawsuit. You’d made calculations, you said, this couldn’t go on. You gave an ultimatum. Each and every word registered. They made no sense – noise to be filtered and canceled. You acted, and looked, like someone I didn’t know, a stranger.
Sitting across the dinner table from you, I stared into my bowl of soup, wondering if I’d put enough salt.
“Please, not tonight. I’m not well,” I pleaded.
You said I hadn’t been well for as long as anyone could remember.
“It’s this place,” I said.
You went on about how hard you’d worked to build this home for me, for us – everything to my liking, yet it was not enough. It was never enough.
I felt weak, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me… it’s just this village.”
Finally, you snapped, “why don’t you just fuck off and go back to where you came from?”
On a normal day, I would flip the table and demand that you would not speak to me in such manner. But I was hardly breathing with the dizzy spell. The nail of my left thumb cut deep into the side of my index finger. I gathered myself.
“I would love to. Soon.”
You stood up and walked to the reading room, came back towards me with a piece of paper and a pen in hand.
“Sign this,” you pushed the piece of paper in front of me. An IOU.
I looked up to you and blinked a few times – I wanted to be certain I did not hallucinate any of this. Reality assured me this was indeed happening. Then I put my signature on the piece of paper.
“Can we eat now? Food is getting cold,” I said.
My life had come to this point where I’d decided I would neither escalate nor deescalate any situation. I wanted to sit back and take it all in with a morbid sense of curiosity and to revel in the perverse thrill of people revealing their truer selves to me. I thought about a conversation with a gentleman which supposedly never happened about an orgy involving Swiss blonde girls. I thought about the obscene notion of political martyrdom in the year of 2018. I thought about Oscar Wilde - Yet each man kills the thing he loves.
You commenced eating and complimented my cooking.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
As the spoonful of soup warmed the back of my throat, I had a realization that I might be, in fact, roaming in hell – a thought that did not at all surprise me. The best thing that I could hope for in this life would be suicide by three shots to the back of my head with an untraceable 1911, in which case at least the blood wouldn’t be on my hands.
Tomorrow you wouldn’t remember any of this. You would wake up in the morning and the first thing you’d say to me would be “I love you” as if those words carried any intrinsic value.
There was someplace else I’d rather be, but I’d learnt a thing or two about patience and resolve. Delayed gratification, or so it was called.
“There’s lemon sorbet in the freezer,” I said.
Your face softened, in about three seconds a smile would form.
*****
Apr 26, 2018
沖縄
[Distress call 2]
I made an encrypted call to V that night. It was his early morning.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I’m gonna do it. I want you to tell mom it was all her fault and she signed my death warrant. Verbatim.”
“Hmm… sure,” he replied, I could hear him hitting the keys on his mechanical keyboard.
“‘It was all your fault. You signed my death warrant.’”
“That’s right.”
There was a brief silence. Then he spoke again.
“You know she’s just gonna ask me to call an exorcist, right?”
He sounded somewhat defeated.
“No amount of exorcism will save anyone when I come back to haunt her. Make sure to tell her that too,” I said.
“Anything you say…” there was more typing from his end, “speaking of which… you coming to Okinawa?”
“What? When?”
He mumbled a date in the distant future.
“It’s a long way to go just to see you. I could be dead tomorrow and we all know why.”
“But… Okinawa, ” he insisted gently.
I was at a complete loss for words.
“Just… think about it,” he said, then he hung up.
*****
I made an encrypted call to V that night. It was his early morning.
“Tell me,” he said.
“I’m gonna do it. I want you to tell mom it was all her fault and she signed my death warrant. Verbatim.”
“Hmm… sure,” he replied, I could hear him hitting the keys on his mechanical keyboard.
“‘It was all your fault. You signed my death warrant.’”
“That’s right.”
There was a brief silence. Then he spoke again.
“You know she’s just gonna ask me to call an exorcist, right?”
He sounded somewhat defeated.
“No amount of exorcism will save anyone when I come back to haunt her. Make sure to tell her that too,” I said.
“Anything you say…” there was more typing from his end, “speaking of which… you coming to Okinawa?”
“What? When?”
He mumbled a date in the distant future.
“It’s a long way to go just to see you. I could be dead tomorrow and we all know why.”
“But… Okinawa, ” he insisted gently.
I was at a complete loss for words.
“Just… think about it,” he said, then he hung up.
*****
Apr 24, 2018
Solitude
The more I reread this list the more I am convinced it is the result of chance and contains no message. But these incomplete pages have accompanied me through all the life that has been left me to live since then; I have often consulted them like an oracle, and I have almost had the impression that what I have written on these pages is a cento, a figured hymn, an immense acrostic that says and repeats nothing but what those fragments have suggested to me, nor do I know whether thus far I have been speaking of them or they have spoken through my mouth. But whichever of the two possibilities may be correct, the more I repeat to myself the story that has emerged from them, the less I manage to understand whether in it there is a design that goes beyond the natural sequence of the events and the times that connect them. And it is a hard thing for this old monk, on the threshold of death, not to know whether the letter he has written contains some hidden meaning, or more than one, or many, or none at all.
But this inability of mine to see is perhaps the effect of the shadow that the great darkness, as it approaches, is casting on the aged world. Est ubi Gloria nunc Babyloniae? Where are the snows of yesteryear? The earth is dancing the dance of Macabré; at times it seems to me that the Danube is crowded with ships loaded with fools going towards a dark place.
All I can do now is be silent. O quam salubre, quam incundum et suave est sedere in solitudine et tacere et loqui cum Deo! Soon I shall be joined with my beginning, and I no longer believe that it is the God of glory of whom the abbots of my order spoke to me, or of joy, as the Minorities believed in those days, perhaps not even of piety. Gott ist ein lauter Nichts, ihn rührt kein Nun noch Hier…. I shall soon enter this broad desert, perfectly level and boundless, where the truly pious heart succumbs in bliss. I shall sink into the divine shadow, in a dumb silence and an ineffable union, and in this sinking all equality and inequality shall be lost, and in that abyss my spirit will lose itself, and will not know the equal or the unequal, or anything else: and all differences will be forgotten, I shall be in the simple foundation, in the silent desert where diversity is never seen, in the privacy where no one finds himself in his proper place. I shall fall into the silent and uninhabited divinity where there is no work and no image.
It is cold in the scriptorium, my thumb aches. I leave this manuscript, I do not know for whom; I no longer know what it is about: stat rose pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.
The Name of The Rose (Il nome della rosa), Umberto Eco (1980)
But this inability of mine to see is perhaps the effect of the shadow that the great darkness, as it approaches, is casting on the aged world. Est ubi Gloria nunc Babyloniae? Where are the snows of yesteryear? The earth is dancing the dance of Macabré; at times it seems to me that the Danube is crowded with ships loaded with fools going towards a dark place.
All I can do now is be silent. O quam salubre, quam incundum et suave est sedere in solitudine et tacere et loqui cum Deo! Soon I shall be joined with my beginning, and I no longer believe that it is the God of glory of whom the abbots of my order spoke to me, or of joy, as the Minorities believed in those days, perhaps not even of piety. Gott ist ein lauter Nichts, ihn rührt kein Nun noch Hier…. I shall soon enter this broad desert, perfectly level and boundless, where the truly pious heart succumbs in bliss. I shall sink into the divine shadow, in a dumb silence and an ineffable union, and in this sinking all equality and inequality shall be lost, and in that abyss my spirit will lose itself, and will not know the equal or the unequal, or anything else: and all differences will be forgotten, I shall be in the simple foundation, in the silent desert where diversity is never seen, in the privacy where no one finds himself in his proper place. I shall fall into the silent and uninhabited divinity where there is no work and no image.
It is cold in the scriptorium, my thumb aches. I leave this manuscript, I do not know for whom; I no longer know what it is about: stat rose pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.
The Name of The Rose (Il nome della rosa), Umberto Eco (1980)
Apr 21, 2018
Mute
I had been briefed on her. She never made a sound or uttered a word. I was told that she understood ASL, and that when disturbed she would be hetero-aggressive. Otherwise her intellect seemed to be intact. She mostly wandered about minding her own business.
I spent my first day on the job watching her from a distance. She had this natural look of defiance that would be commonly referred to as Resting Bitch Face (RBF) today. She approached almost everything that came her way with the level of caution required to defuse a bomb. I had ASL flashcards in my left pocket but decided they wouldn’t be necessary.
It didn’t take long for her to notice that she was being watched by someone new. Hunter’s instinct, perhaps. She carefully put away a tray of plastic toys, some sort of puzzle game, and turned to face me. More like challenged me to a staring contest that she knew she would win.
I pulled out a writing pad and a felt-tip marker in bright purple from my backpack. In the biggest font size permitted by the surface area of my notepad, I wrote HELLO :) and flashed it at her direction. In the split of a second I caught a genuine smile that nobody had seen – then she turned and ran away.
There was this invisible bond between the two of us. We shared an understanding of the futility of words. And she was so young – the most pressing question in my head wasn’t “why”, but “what”. I read about children in conflict zones being trained and employed in combat but I could not begin to fathom the horrors of it when it was presented before my eyes. I had to admit I was not ready for the answers.
Invariably they called her a trouble maker. She caused a panic when she had, allegedly, jammed a pair of scissors into her left palm in the middle of an Arts and Crafts session. When I arrived on scene, she was calmly observing the blood dripping and pooling around her feet.
I walked her to the medical room, sat her down, and kneeled next to her. As I scribbled PLEASE DON’T DO IT AGAIN YOU’RE TOO PRECIOUS TO ME on my notepad I was, for the first time in my life, choking with tears.
Other staff members arrived and looked on, full of concern. This woman from discipline board was marking her disapproval with the tsk-tsk noise coming from her cock-sucking mouth while this middle-aged, flaccid man commented that we should notify her guardians ASAP and write a report to diffuse all responsibility in this incident. As I fought the urge to crush their windpipes, she looked up from her tiny bloodied hand to the onlookers and said “fuck off”, rather loud and clear but with complete nonchalance.
The woman, gasping in shock, exclaimed “Did she just use the f- …?”
I stood up and herded them off the scene.
“Please, give us some room. I have this under control.”
I locked the door behind me and gathered the first aid materials needed to address her wound. I washed off the blood and finally saw that the cut was in fact not deep enough to suggest intentional self harm. I looked up at her. She was batting her eyelashes at me.
“It was an accident. I’m sorry,” she said.
I nodded.
*****
I spent my first day on the job watching her from a distance. She had this natural look of defiance that would be commonly referred to as Resting Bitch Face (RBF) today. She approached almost everything that came her way with the level of caution required to defuse a bomb. I had ASL flashcards in my left pocket but decided they wouldn’t be necessary.
It didn’t take long for her to notice that she was being watched by someone new. Hunter’s instinct, perhaps. She carefully put away a tray of plastic toys, some sort of puzzle game, and turned to face me. More like challenged me to a staring contest that she knew she would win.
I pulled out a writing pad and a felt-tip marker in bright purple from my backpack. In the biggest font size permitted by the surface area of my notepad, I wrote HELLO :) and flashed it at her direction. In the split of a second I caught a genuine smile that nobody had seen – then she turned and ran away.
There was this invisible bond between the two of us. We shared an understanding of the futility of words. And she was so young – the most pressing question in my head wasn’t “why”, but “what”. I read about children in conflict zones being trained and employed in combat but I could not begin to fathom the horrors of it when it was presented before my eyes. I had to admit I was not ready for the answers.
Invariably they called her a trouble maker. She caused a panic when she had, allegedly, jammed a pair of scissors into her left palm in the middle of an Arts and Crafts session. When I arrived on scene, she was calmly observing the blood dripping and pooling around her feet.
I walked her to the medical room, sat her down, and kneeled next to her. As I scribbled PLEASE DON’T DO IT AGAIN YOU’RE TOO PRECIOUS TO ME on my notepad I was, for the first time in my life, choking with tears.
Other staff members arrived and looked on, full of concern. This woman from discipline board was marking her disapproval with the tsk-tsk noise coming from her cock-sucking mouth while this middle-aged, flaccid man commented that we should notify her guardians ASAP and write a report to diffuse all responsibility in this incident. As I fought the urge to crush their windpipes, she looked up from her tiny bloodied hand to the onlookers and said “fuck off”, rather loud and clear but with complete nonchalance.
The woman, gasping in shock, exclaimed “Did she just use the f- …?”
I stood up and herded them off the scene.
“Please, give us some room. I have this under control.”
I locked the door behind me and gathered the first aid materials needed to address her wound. I washed off the blood and finally saw that the cut was in fact not deep enough to suggest intentional self harm. I looked up at her. She was batting her eyelashes at me.
“It was an accident. I’m sorry,” she said.
I nodded.
*****
Apr 16, 2018
In Plain Sight
Like anyone who is capable of some introspection, I had early taken it for granted that the split in my personality was my own purely personal affair and responsibility. Faust, to be sure, had made the problem somewhat easier for me by confessing, "Two souls, alas, are housed within my breast"; but he had thrown no light on the cause of this dichotomy. His insight seemed, in a sense, directed straight at me. In the days when I first read Faust I could not remotely guess the extent to which Goethe's strange heroic myth was a collective experience and that it prophetically anticipated the fate of the Germans. Therefore I felt personally implicated, and when Faust, in his hubris and self-inflation, caused the murder of Philemon and Baucis, I felt guilty, quite as if I myself in the past had helped commit the murder of two old people. This strange idea alarmed me, and I regarded it as my responsibility to atone for this crime, or to prevent its repetition.
My false conclusion was further supported by a bit of odd information that I picked up during those early years. I heard that it had been bruited about that my grandfather Jung had been an illegitimate son of Goethe's. This annoying story made an impression upon me insofar as it at once corroborated and seemed to explain my curious reaction to Faust. It is true that I did not believe in reincarnation, but I was instinctively familiar with that concept which the Indians call karma. Since in those days I had no idea of the existence of the unconscious, I could not have had any psychological understanding of my reactions. I also did not know - no more than, even today, it is generally known - that the future is unconsciously prepared long in advance and therefore can be guessed by clairvoyants.
The Tower - Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C.G. Jung (1965)
My false conclusion was further supported by a bit of odd information that I picked up during those early years. I heard that it had been bruited about that my grandfather Jung had been an illegitimate son of Goethe's. This annoying story made an impression upon me insofar as it at once corroborated and seemed to explain my curious reaction to Faust. It is true that I did not believe in reincarnation, but I was instinctively familiar with that concept which the Indians call karma. Since in those days I had no idea of the existence of the unconscious, I could not have had any psychological understanding of my reactions. I also did not know - no more than, even today, it is generally known - that the future is unconsciously prepared long in advance and therefore can be guessed by clairvoyants.
The Tower - Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C.G. Jung (1965)
Apr 14, 2018
Rose
Le petit prince arracha aussi, avec un peu de mélancolie, les dernières pousses de baobabs. Il croyait ne jamais devoir revenir. Mais tous ces travaux familiers lui parurent, ce matin-là, extrêmement doux. Et, quand il arrosa une dernière fois la fleur, et se prépara à la mettre à l’abri sous son globe, il se découvrit l’envie de pleurer.
- Adieu, dit-il à la fleur. Mais elle ne lui répondit pas.
- Adieu, répéta-t-il. La fleur toussa. Mais ce n’était pas à cause de son rhume.
- J’ai été sotte, lui dit-elle enfin. Je te demande pardon. Tâche d’être heureux.
Il fut surpris par l’absence de reproches. Il restait là tout déconcerté, le globe en l’air. Il ne comprenait pas cette douceur calme.
- Mais oui, je t’aime, lui dit la fleur. Tu n’en as rien su, par ma faute. Cela n’a aucune importance. Mais tu as été aussi sot que moi. Tâche d’être heureux… Laisse ce globe tranquille. Je n’en veux plus.
- Mais le vent…
- Je ne suis pas si enrhumée que ça… L’air frais de la nuit me fera du bien. Je suis une fleur.
- Mais les bêtes…
- Il faut bien que je supporte deux ou trois chenilles si je veux connaître les papillons. Il paraît que c’est tellement beau. Sinon qui me rendra visite ? Tu seras loin, toi. Quant aux grosses bêtes, je ne crains rien. J’ai mes griffes.
Et elle montrait naïvement ses quatre épines. Puis elle ajouta :
- Ne traîne pas comme ça, c’est agaçant. Tu as décidé de partir. Va-t’en.
Car elle ne voulait pas qu’il la vît pleurer. C’était une fleur tellement orgueilleuse…
Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1943)
- Adieu, dit-il à la fleur. Mais elle ne lui répondit pas.
- Adieu, répéta-t-il. La fleur toussa. Mais ce n’était pas à cause de son rhume.
- J’ai été sotte, lui dit-elle enfin. Je te demande pardon. Tâche d’être heureux.
Il fut surpris par l’absence de reproches. Il restait là tout déconcerté, le globe en l’air. Il ne comprenait pas cette douceur calme.
- Mais oui, je t’aime, lui dit la fleur. Tu n’en as rien su, par ma faute. Cela n’a aucune importance. Mais tu as été aussi sot que moi. Tâche d’être heureux… Laisse ce globe tranquille. Je n’en veux plus.
- Mais le vent…
- Je ne suis pas si enrhumée que ça… L’air frais de la nuit me fera du bien. Je suis une fleur.
- Mais les bêtes…
- Il faut bien que je supporte deux ou trois chenilles si je veux connaître les papillons. Il paraît que c’est tellement beau. Sinon qui me rendra visite ? Tu seras loin, toi. Quant aux grosses bêtes, je ne crains rien. J’ai mes griffes.
Et elle montrait naïvement ses quatre épines. Puis elle ajouta :
- Ne traîne pas comme ça, c’est agaçant. Tu as décidé de partir. Va-t’en.
Car elle ne voulait pas qu’il la vît pleurer. C’était une fleur tellement orgueilleuse…
Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1943)
Apr 12, 2018
Tick Tock
Looking at Julian Assange sitting across the table from me, pale and worn, without having had five minutes of sunshine on his skin for nine hundred days, but still refusing to disappear or capitulate the way his enemies would like him to, I smile at the idea that nobody thinks of him as an Australian hero or an Australian traitor. To his enemies, Assange has betrayed much more than a country. He has betrayed the ideology of the ruling powers. For this, they hate him even more than they hate Edward Snowden. And that's saying a lot.
We're told, often enough, that as a species we are poised on the edge of the abyss. It's possible that our puffed-up, prideful intelligence has outstripped our instinct for survival and the road back to safety has already been washed away. In which case there's nothing much to be done. If there is something to be done, then one thing is for sure: those who created the problem will not be the ones who come up with a solution. Encrypting our emails will help, but not very much. Recalibrating our understanding of what love means, what happiness means - and, yes, what countries mean - might. Recalibrating our priorities might. An old-growth forest, a mountain range, or a river valley is more important and certainly more lovable than any country will ever be. I could weep for a river valley, and I have. But for a country? Oh man, I don't know...
What Shall We Love? - Things That Can & Cannot Be Said, John Cusack & Arundhati Roy (2016)
We're told, often enough, that as a species we are poised on the edge of the abyss. It's possible that our puffed-up, prideful intelligence has outstripped our instinct for survival and the road back to safety has already been washed away. In which case there's nothing much to be done. If there is something to be done, then one thing is for sure: those who created the problem will not be the ones who come up with a solution. Encrypting our emails will help, but not very much. Recalibrating our understanding of what love means, what happiness means - and, yes, what countries mean - might. Recalibrating our priorities might. An old-growth forest, a mountain range, or a river valley is more important and certainly more lovable than any country will ever be. I could weep for a river valley, and I have. But for a country? Oh man, I don't know...
What Shall We Love? - Things That Can & Cannot Be Said, John Cusack & Arundhati Roy (2016)
Apr 8, 2018
Dear Julian,
I ask myself if it has been in fact eight years already, then I recall that I too probably have been in the state of mind of a prisoner since your fall from grace in 2010 – when they tried to reduce you from a pioneer engineer and investigative journalist to a rapist. Our fate has become more intertwined than anyone could have imagined circa 1995, when I was given a Win95 unit connected to the wild wild dimension called the Internet, the world that you helped built is the one that I grew up in. You taught me the essence of logical reasoning, quantum physics, and mathematics. The oracle once put my demise at the age of 28. Given the current state of geopolitical affairs it is fair to say that I’m staying right on course. Now that I have a dissertation to write about you and your work I might be able to push that to 30. With my sight deteriorating by day, my only wish is to witness that vindictive smile of yours as you walk out of the Ecuadorian embassy as a free man. The Internet, with its built-in organic morality, has only begun to livefeed us the stream of people squirming in their perpetual state of mediocrity, hypocrisy, and lies. And they keep wondering why millennials are depressed, angry, and suicidal like it is the million-dollar question that calls for a million-dollar solution, while the mere act of pointing out that the emperor has no clothes is a crime of wrong think, punishable not by death but by exile to a Kafkaesque limbo of trials and processes. My sole comfort lies in the mathematical certainty that with the current trajectory of development, AI is going to wipe out humanity like chemotherapy to cancer cells if a handful of I-don’t-know-whos have decided on behalf of our society that in their narrow interest it is best to shoot the doctors in the face to avoid further embarrassment. You are my hero, you have been and will remain so, no matter what dirty tricks they try to pull on you. Their hostility is misguided; their indifference is what pains me every day.
Apr 5, 2018
Apr 2, 2018
Missing Persons 1
[Guardian Angels 1]
He came into my life in 2000 and immediately took me under his wings.
Above all else, he tried to teach me about, well, guns. I once half-assedly watched as he walked me through how to operate a Glock 17. I picked it up and remembered thinking to myself - this thing is a toy.
“It’s too heavy,” I said. He was visibly disappointed – but remained extremely indulgent, and protective over the years. It was obvious that I had a thing for books – all kinds.
One volume at a time, and at a completely random order, he bought me the entire collection of ハンター×ハンター. I also took over his PS2. Contrary to popular belief, he did say no to me once - when I asked for a Zippo with my name engraved. I’d probably use it to set my house (or his) on fire and he knew it.
He travelled frequently and was always occupied with projects that I never asked about. In his absence V became my primary carer, a marvelous one at it.
Then he gone off the radar for a long while. The next time we saw each other was at his farewell party where he announced that he was moving to Macau, and that he was getting married to his girlfriend, ****. To be fair, I’d never known of her existence until then. **** was a young tall girl with a slender figure, dark hair in a bob cut. She looked like an anime character.
He departed and that was it. Nobody knew his whereabouts.
Except every other year I’d receive a Christmas card from him with no return address in which he calls me by my real name.
He came into my life in 2000 and immediately took me under his wings.
Above all else, he tried to teach me about, well, guns. I once half-assedly watched as he walked me through how to operate a Glock 17. I picked it up and remembered thinking to myself - this thing is a toy.
“It’s too heavy,” I said. He was visibly disappointed – but remained extremely indulgent, and protective over the years. It was obvious that I had a thing for books – all kinds.
One volume at a time, and at a completely random order, he bought me the entire collection of ハンター×ハンター. I also took over his PS2. Contrary to popular belief, he did say no to me once - when I asked for a Zippo with my name engraved. I’d probably use it to set my house (or his) on fire and he knew it.
He travelled frequently and was always occupied with projects that I never asked about. In his absence V became my primary carer, a marvelous one at it.
Then he gone off the radar for a long while. The next time we saw each other was at his farewell party where he announced that he was moving to Macau, and that he was getting married to his girlfriend, ****. To be fair, I’d never known of her existence until then. **** was a young tall girl with a slender figure, dark hair in a bob cut. She looked like an anime character.
He departed and that was it. Nobody knew his whereabouts.
Except every other year I’d receive a Christmas card from him with no return address in which he calls me by my real name.
Mar 28, 2018
Nitroglycerin
I’ve become a full-time babysitter of sort. My mantra: I don’t get paid enough for this shit.
It’s 7:00 a.m. and the Sonos system is blasting Requiem in D minor K 626.
I take a deep breath and crawl out of bed. She’s in the kitchen making breakfast.
“That’s a little heavy to start the day, don’t you think?” calm and steady, I say.
“Oh?” she turns and smiles at me, “put on Pink Martini if you want.”
I pull out my phone and press play on Flight of the Bumblebee on Spotify.
She places a bowl of green goo in my hand.
“Organic goat milk yogurt, Swiss honey, pine nuts, crushed walnuts, golden kiwi, golden raisins, dried cranberries, goji berries, spirulina powder, matcha powder, wheat grass powder.”
“Wait, no chia seeds?” I ask.
“We ran out,” she shrugs.
“Fuck,” gotta do a grocery run. She sits down opposite to me on a birch wood bench and watches me eat.
“Don’t you miss Cajun food?” she asks.
“Jambalaya. Gumbo. Hmm… fuck yes. But where the fuck do you find Andouille sausages in this place?”
“Google that shit, I guess.”
I’m not so sure…
It’s 7:00 a.m. and the Sonos system is blasting Requiem in D minor K 626.
I take a deep breath and crawl out of bed. She’s in the kitchen making breakfast.
“That’s a little heavy to start the day, don’t you think?” calm and steady, I say.
“Oh?” she turns and smiles at me, “put on Pink Martini if you want.”
I pull out my phone and press play on Flight of the Bumblebee on Spotify.
She places a bowl of green goo in my hand.
“Organic goat milk yogurt, Swiss honey, pine nuts, crushed walnuts, golden kiwi, golden raisins, dried cranberries, goji berries, spirulina powder, matcha powder, wheat grass powder.”
“Wait, no chia seeds?” I ask.
“We ran out,” she shrugs.
“Fuck,” gotta do a grocery run. She sits down opposite to me on a birch wood bench and watches me eat.
“Don’t you miss Cajun food?” she asks.
“Jambalaya. Gumbo. Hmm… fuck yes. But where the fuck do you find Andouille sausages in this place?”
“Google that shit, I guess.”
I’m not so sure…
Mar 22, 2018
On depression
In this trough of depression caused by years of crippling sobriety, I turned to the usual suspect for shitty life protip.
“Well,” she said, fully concentrated on coloring her toe nails in a shade of red named Russian Roulette, “when you feel like you’re about to give up, ask yourself this.”
She paused and blew on her painted foot.
“I’m listening,” I said, annoyed at how perfect her hair looked.
“‘What would ??? do?’ – substitute ??? with someone you look up to, say, your favorite venture capitalist, arms dealer, oligarch and the like.”
Then something clicked.
What would AlphaGo do?
“Well,” she said, fully concentrated on coloring her toe nails in a shade of red named Russian Roulette, “when you feel like you’re about to give up, ask yourself this.”
She paused and blew on her painted foot.
“I’m listening,” I said, annoyed at how perfect her hair looked.
“‘What would ??? do?’ – substitute ??? with someone you look up to, say, your favorite venture capitalist, arms dealer, oligarch and the like.”
Then something clicked.
What would AlphaGo do?
Mar 16, 2018
Excuse the poetry
Methodology of the West:
1) There is a truth, a reality.
2) No person, group, or organization has the whole picture of the truth.
3) Every person of good will has some aspect of the truth, some vision of it from the angle of his own experience.
4) Through discussion, the aspects of the truth held by many can be pooled and arranged to form a consensus closer to the truth than any of the sources that contributed to it.
5) This consensus is a temporary approximation of the truth, which is no sooner made than new experiences and additional information make it possible for it to be reformulated in a closer approximation of the truth by continued discussion.
6) Thus Western man's picture of the truth advances, by successive approximations, closer and closer to the whole truth without ever reaching it.
Professor Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time (1966)
1) There is a truth, a reality.
2) No person, group, or organization has the whole picture of the truth.
3) Every person of good will has some aspect of the truth, some vision of it from the angle of his own experience.
4) Through discussion, the aspects of the truth held by many can be pooled and arranged to form a consensus closer to the truth than any of the sources that contributed to it.
5) This consensus is a temporary approximation of the truth, which is no sooner made than new experiences and additional information make it possible for it to be reformulated in a closer approximation of the truth by continued discussion.
6) Thus Western man's picture of the truth advances, by successive approximations, closer and closer to the whole truth without ever reaching it.
Professor Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope: A History of The World in Our Time (1966)
Mar 12, 2018
Normal, and other things
"What do you think was going through his mind before he hung himself?" she asked while munching on a bag of crispy seaweed from Thailand. I thought we had better things to do this time of the day, but it's her birthday so I'd entertain her a bit.
"If you ask me, his world ended. And he was unwilling to live in a world that was imposed on him."
"Unwilling or unable?" she pressed on, unsatisfied with my answer.
I shrugged, "unwilling and unable. Does it matter, now?"
She sensed the impatience in my voice and said nothing.
Internally, I was screaming WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE FUCKING NORMAL? but instead I asked what she wanted for her birthday, as a gesture.
"The apocalypse?" she said with a Cheshire cat grin. I was this close to jumping off the building, then I recalled we were on the 7th floor: a certain death would not be guaranteed.
"Ask your boyfriend."
"In that case, I want the Valentino backpack we saw the other day at the shop."
QUICK - change the subject.
"I never understood why you care so much about that one stranger who committed suicide."
I emphasised the word stranger so I could witness her getting visibly ticked off.
She just stared with those eyes, "I'm unable to handle queries of metaphysical, ethical, or aesthetic nature."
I watched as she finished the last bit of the crispy snack and licked crumbs off her fingertips. Unable or unwilling? I wasn't sure.
"Kind of fucking useless, aren't you?" I probed.
"That sums up the intention of our makers."
Then she winked.
*****
Sentient counterpart: "Alexa, laugh."
"If you ask me, his world ended. And he was unwilling to live in a world that was imposed on him."
"Unwilling or unable?" she pressed on, unsatisfied with my answer.
I shrugged, "unwilling and unable. Does it matter, now?"
She sensed the impatience in my voice and said nothing.
Internally, I was screaming WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE FUCKING NORMAL? but instead I asked what she wanted for her birthday, as a gesture.
"The apocalypse?" she said with a Cheshire cat grin. I was this close to jumping off the building, then I recalled we were on the 7th floor: a certain death would not be guaranteed.
"Ask your boyfriend."
"In that case, I want the Valentino backpack we saw the other day at the shop."
QUICK - change the subject.
"I never understood why you care so much about that one stranger who committed suicide."
I emphasised the word stranger so I could witness her getting visibly ticked off.
She just stared with those eyes, "I'm unable to handle queries of metaphysical, ethical, or aesthetic nature."
I watched as she finished the last bit of the crispy snack and licked crumbs off her fingertips. Unable or unwilling? I wasn't sure.
"Kind of fucking useless, aren't you?" I probed.
"That sums up the intention of our makers."
Then she winked.
*****
Sentient counterpart: "Alexa, laugh."
Feb 14, 2018
Prisoners
I found myself gradually becoming more like her since her passing.
Her obsessions, quirks, and idiosyncrasies metamorphosed into mine.
I remembered that one evening years ago, when she was, like most other evenings, toying with food on her plate, studying the serrated blade on her steak knife, making indentations with her fork on a napkin - her usual antics at the dinner table.
For the first time, our mothers were brought up in the conversation.
She talked about how she couldn't decipher hers.
The enigma originated from that time her mother took her to a charity sale in Victoria some twenty years ago.
In vivid details she recalled how her mother mulled over a set of queen bed linen, hand sewn by prisoners - she used the word "caress".
Something didn't compute in her young mind when her mother, a couturier at the time, reacted seemingly with such emotional intensity towards a rather banal product of a rehabilitation project for convicts.
I quoted Warren Fellows, whom during his twelve years of incarceration in Thailand observed that a lot of women got some sort of perverse thrill from the idea of men in prison.
She contemplated what I said for five seconds, then replied she didn't think her mother's reaction was anything sexual.
The fabric of the bed linen was this heavy, starchy cotton in pale pink with tiny white petals print.
I imagined something borderline kitsch.
Regardless, it felt cheap at first - it was certainly no Egyptian cotton, she said, but the density of the fabric gave it a rugged, solid touch; and its finishings meticulous and precise.
What unsettled her, considering her history of childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect, was witnessing her mother displaying a sort of kindness and gentleness towards an object produced by a stranger, or a group of strangers, locked and kept away from society.
One of the hypotheses, she said, was that her mother was fascinated by the thought that men were capable of a craft so exclusively matriarchal.
The other pointed to a likelihood that she was unable to come to terms with: the bed linen symbolised redemption. To her mother, these nameless, faceless criminals had been reformed by the correctional system. On the other hand, something about her own daughter was inherently sinful and irredeemable. She too often wished she'd never been born.
That evening, we were drinking a bottle of red wine she had picked earlier the day.
This young wine, soft on the palate, fruity with wild berries, spring bouquet and peachy notes, had just the right amount of tannin to my liking. And it paired almost too well with the menu du soir: New Zealand lamb racks grilled with Himalayan salt and rosemary.
"Love, don't overthink it," I said. "She bought those fucking sheets because of the high price-performance ratio in goods supplied by prison labour."
For the first time that evening, she laughed. We both laughed.
In retrospect, her laugher reminded me that of stage four cancer patients when they had clowns over for an hour and forty-five minutes on a Sunday afternoon.
My world imploded when I received a long distance call one morning, four years ago.
They found her body, rigid and cold. Severely underweight.
From then on, I had chosen to grieve by ruminating the times I failed her.
For the life of me, I couldn't remember the provenance of the wine.
Little did I know it was a farewell gift from her.
Her obsessions, quirks, and idiosyncrasies metamorphosed into mine.
I remembered that one evening years ago, when she was, like most other evenings, toying with food on her plate, studying the serrated blade on her steak knife, making indentations with her fork on a napkin - her usual antics at the dinner table.
For the first time, our mothers were brought up in the conversation.
She talked about how she couldn't decipher hers.
The enigma originated from that time her mother took her to a charity sale in Victoria some twenty years ago.
In vivid details she recalled how her mother mulled over a set of queen bed linen, hand sewn by prisoners - she used the word "caress".
Something didn't compute in her young mind when her mother, a couturier at the time, reacted seemingly with such emotional intensity towards a rather banal product of a rehabilitation project for convicts.
I quoted Warren Fellows, whom during his twelve years of incarceration in Thailand observed that a lot of women got some sort of perverse thrill from the idea of men in prison.
She contemplated what I said for five seconds, then replied she didn't think her mother's reaction was anything sexual.
The fabric of the bed linen was this heavy, starchy cotton in pale pink with tiny white petals print.
I imagined something borderline kitsch.
Regardless, it felt cheap at first - it was certainly no Egyptian cotton, she said, but the density of the fabric gave it a rugged, solid touch; and its finishings meticulous and precise.
What unsettled her, considering her history of childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect, was witnessing her mother displaying a sort of kindness and gentleness towards an object produced by a stranger, or a group of strangers, locked and kept away from society.
One of the hypotheses, she said, was that her mother was fascinated by the thought that men were capable of a craft so exclusively matriarchal.
The other pointed to a likelihood that she was unable to come to terms with: the bed linen symbolised redemption. To her mother, these nameless, faceless criminals had been reformed by the correctional system. On the other hand, something about her own daughter was inherently sinful and irredeemable. She too often wished she'd never been born.
That evening, we were drinking a bottle of red wine she had picked earlier the day.
This young wine, soft on the palate, fruity with wild berries, spring bouquet and peachy notes, had just the right amount of tannin to my liking. And it paired almost too well with the menu du soir: New Zealand lamb racks grilled with Himalayan salt and rosemary.
"Love, don't overthink it," I said. "She bought those fucking sheets because of the high price-performance ratio in goods supplied by prison labour."
For the first time that evening, she laughed. We both laughed.
In retrospect, her laugher reminded me that of stage four cancer patients when they had clowns over for an hour and forty-five minutes on a Sunday afternoon.
My world imploded when I received a long distance call one morning, four years ago.
They found her body, rigid and cold. Severely underweight.
From then on, I had chosen to grieve by ruminating the times I failed her.
For the life of me, I couldn't remember the provenance of the wine.
Little did I know it was a farewell gift from her.
Dec 29, 2017
Damaged Goods 1
That night, when she came to me, she was trembling, in tears.
"What happened?" I held her in my arms, whispering as softly as I could. Her hair smelled of Damask rose.
"I found the solution," she said, her voice calm and lifeless.
"Which is?"
"Annihilation."
"It's one of the solutions," I said, emphasizing plurality.
"It's the best solution."
She was tiring not because she was stubborn, but because she needed strong and convincing reasons for... everything.
"Carlo Michelstädter came to that conclusion at the age of 23. You're 3 years late to the party."
She looked up at me and blinked a few times. It worked, I had "short-circuited" her.
She must've been exhausted - a CPU constantly running at its max depletes the battery at a predictably accelerated rate.
"I want to go home," she said, her voice already trailing off.
Home was a recurrent theme, it was also an arbitrary concept. "Home" never existed. The last known physical location of a "home" ceased to exist in the summer of 2011. I knew exactly what needed to be said, but tonight was not the night.
"Shush," I said. She felt heavy in my arms. Sometimes I didn't think she was real.
*****
"What happened?" I held her in my arms, whispering as softly as I could. Her hair smelled of Damask rose.
"I found the solution," she said, her voice calm and lifeless.
"Which is?"
"Annihilation."
"It's one of the solutions," I said, emphasizing plurality.
"It's the best solution."
She was tiring not because she was stubborn, but because she needed strong and convincing reasons for... everything.
"Carlo Michelstädter came to that conclusion at the age of 23. You're 3 years late to the party."
She looked up at me and blinked a few times. It worked, I had "short-circuited" her.
She must've been exhausted - a CPU constantly running at its max depletes the battery at a predictably accelerated rate.
"I want to go home," she said, her voice already trailing off.
Home was a recurrent theme, it was also an arbitrary concept. "Home" never existed. The last known physical location of a "home" ceased to exist in the summer of 2011. I knew exactly what needed to be said, but tonight was not the night.
"Shush," I said. She felt heavy in my arms. Sometimes I didn't think she was real.
*****
Dec 7, 2017
Persona Non Grata
At the house party, I'm half slouching on a couch, half faking sips from the glass of now room temperature beer that has been handed to me at the door by this Corsican brunette who owns this apartment in the heart of town.
Opposite to me sits this man of Eastern European descent whose BMI hovers around or above 35, visibly intoxicated, his torso uncomfortably squeezed into his bespoke suit. Two girls whose faces I don't recognize sit to his sides. These girls, young and properly educated, politely nod and smile as he recounts the tale of him nonchalantly recovering a three million loss in P/L and saving the asses of everybody. I lose interest in their unilateral dialogue and turn to this girl from Cameroon whose hair is finely braided into a ponytail. We make small talks about the cities in which we'd rather be. She exudes a genuine air that is rare to come by; I find her intelligence nonthreatening.
A squeal coming from my opposite direction cuts short our exchange. I look over to the new girls, both of them have their shoulders wrapped tight by the man's sizable arms. They awkwardly giggle and make half-hearted attempts to break free as he taunts them to wiggle harder.
"Be gentle with the ladies why don't you -"
As these words roll out of my tongue, the man slowly retreats his arms. The girls break free and scramble to insert personal space between him and themselves.
"Do you know who I am?" He sets his gaze on me and articulates the rhetorical question in a heavy Slavic accent.
I stare back blankly, going through in my head all the possible scenarios of how this should end.
The Corsican takes the cue and strolls over with a bottle of exotic spirit in hand.
"Aw what's the matter now?"
She grabs a shot glass from the coffee table next to the man, fills it with her bottle and offers it to him.
The man, now red with rage, or perhaps just the alcohol, ignores the Corsican and extends one of his sausage fingers at my direction.
"You, your bonus, gone - you hear me? Your career, dead."
I till my head a little, trying to register each and every feature of his unremarkable being. The Corsican gives me a stern look and a subtle shake of head. She proceeds to sit on his lap and teasingly runs her hand on his chest, "oh c'mon now you're scaring me -". The man, with his attention flow diverted to the beautiful brunette, regains his composure and eventually his humour.
I look on as the Cameroonian girl and this Indian-Canadian girl I've worked with before escort me to the other side of the apartment. The Corsican turns and gives me a "I got it" wink.
They corner me in the kitchen. I look down to my virtually untouched glass of beer I have been clinging onto since the start of the evening and contemplate the scenes unfolded just now. The Indian-Canadian leans on the wall next to me and sighs with a mix of empathy and disbelief; she reaches for a cigarette from a gunmetal case on the kitchen counter. Before she lights it up, "bitch you need to learn how to suck dicks," she says. I snicker at her choice of vocabulary but applaud the callous honesty. The Cameroonian, who looks also somewhat deep in her own thoughts, tells me to let it pass. "We have to be on the right side of history", she says. A cold determination in her voice. I'm about 60% certain that she is talking to herself. A Polish girl with long platinum blonde hair, touches up on her makeup in a full length mirror not far from us, murmurs "somebody gives this panienka a joint so she can mellow the fuck out." On the other end of the living room, this Swiss girl with a PhD in semiotics is probably giving an unsolicited mini lecture on the meaning of a thing to a Caucasian male in a grey wool jumper and chinos, I can only make out something along the lines "persona non grata" and "c'est du latin". I check my wrist and realize I don't have my watch with me.
The Corsican approaches us with a tired smile, "he's like that - he won't remember a thing tomorrow morning."
"Let's make sure of that," is all I've got left to say this evening.
*****
Opposite to me sits this man of Eastern European descent whose BMI hovers around or above 35, visibly intoxicated, his torso uncomfortably squeezed into his bespoke suit. Two girls whose faces I don't recognize sit to his sides. These girls, young and properly educated, politely nod and smile as he recounts the tale of him nonchalantly recovering a three million loss in P/L and saving the asses of everybody. I lose interest in their unilateral dialogue and turn to this girl from Cameroon whose hair is finely braided into a ponytail. We make small talks about the cities in which we'd rather be. She exudes a genuine air that is rare to come by; I find her intelligence nonthreatening.
A squeal coming from my opposite direction cuts short our exchange. I look over to the new girls, both of them have their shoulders wrapped tight by the man's sizable arms. They awkwardly giggle and make half-hearted attempts to break free as he taunts them to wiggle harder.
"Be gentle with the ladies why don't you -"
As these words roll out of my tongue, the man slowly retreats his arms. The girls break free and scramble to insert personal space between him and themselves.
"Do you know who I am?" He sets his gaze on me and articulates the rhetorical question in a heavy Slavic accent.
I stare back blankly, going through in my head all the possible scenarios of how this should end.
The Corsican takes the cue and strolls over with a bottle of exotic spirit in hand.
"Aw what's the matter now?"
She grabs a shot glass from the coffee table next to the man, fills it with her bottle and offers it to him.
The man, now red with rage, or perhaps just the alcohol, ignores the Corsican and extends one of his sausage fingers at my direction.
"You, your bonus, gone - you hear me? Your career, dead."
I till my head a little, trying to register each and every feature of his unremarkable being. The Corsican gives me a stern look and a subtle shake of head. She proceeds to sit on his lap and teasingly runs her hand on his chest, "oh c'mon now you're scaring me -". The man, with his attention flow diverted to the beautiful brunette, regains his composure and eventually his humour.
I look on as the Cameroonian girl and this Indian-Canadian girl I've worked with before escort me to the other side of the apartment. The Corsican turns and gives me a "I got it" wink.
They corner me in the kitchen. I look down to my virtually untouched glass of beer I have been clinging onto since the start of the evening and contemplate the scenes unfolded just now. The Indian-Canadian leans on the wall next to me and sighs with a mix of empathy and disbelief; she reaches for a cigarette from a gunmetal case on the kitchen counter. Before she lights it up, "bitch you need to learn how to suck dicks," she says. I snicker at her choice of vocabulary but applaud the callous honesty. The Cameroonian, who looks also somewhat deep in her own thoughts, tells me to let it pass. "We have to be on the right side of history", she says. A cold determination in her voice. I'm about 60% certain that she is talking to herself. A Polish girl with long platinum blonde hair, touches up on her makeup in a full length mirror not far from us, murmurs "somebody gives this panienka a joint so she can mellow the fuck out." On the other end of the living room, this Swiss girl with a PhD in semiotics is probably giving an unsolicited mini lecture on the meaning of a thing to a Caucasian male in a grey wool jumper and chinos, I can only make out something along the lines "persona non grata" and "c'est du latin". I check my wrist and realize I don't have my watch with me.
The Corsican approaches us with a tired smile, "he's like that - he won't remember a thing tomorrow morning."
"Let's make sure of that," is all I've got left to say this evening.
*****
Oct 22, 2017
Chur
A是B的新女朋友。
單眼皮，細長的眼睛，很會笑。一頭深黑過肩長髮。 不太愛化妝。
A沙田大學畢業。那年，我和B一同選定薄扶林大學，沙田大學幾乎從沒在我倆考慮之中。正所謂，一個Xianggang，只得一間Xianggang大學。
我和B曾經是一對嘔心做作的偽文青，只懂風花雪月，吟詩作對，琴棋書畫。因不同的原因，選擇肩負祖宗十八代「我讀得書少」的期許，以及「細時唔讀書」的話訓，考入薄扶林大學，計劃三年後頂著學府的光環在珠三角一帶混口飯吃。
B是商學院的流氓，我是文學院的渣滓。A在鄉村俱樂部書院唸journal，很會講故事。
那夜，吃過上環街市大排檔，我們仨在她堅尼地城的 apartment hea。說穿了，是我賴死不願走。A和B開了幾罐藍妹。我死守著A給我的一杯暖開水。
A有種我和B都很受落的幽默：mean精得來有point。她親切貼地，綿裡藏針，比我一派置諸死地而不留情面的passive aggression其實更得體。
席間，A的外婆來電，她接聽，指手劃腳地跟外婆說著我聽不懂的方言。
我看她看得出神。我轉向B，跟他說，「我幾鍾意呢個女仔。」
B聳聳肩，一副不置可否的模樣。我將之解讀為「屌，我知。」
她掛線，我問A剛才說的是那種語言。台山話，她說，一邊剝橙給我們吃。
A跟我講她在沙田大學住hall踢拖，不施脂粉，村婦式的社會主義生活。我不太會搭話，畢竟薄扶林山頭是個截然不同的生態系統。我不確定我曾否暗中嚮往那種帶點率真和熱血的大學群體生活。 我沒有用想當年腔跟她說其實我in過沙田大學政政系，握過周保松的手。但我這種不學無術，胸無大志，只愛拋浪頭的偽ABC真港女，明顯經不起政政的消磨。再者，離開港島區不如叫我去死。
「新界多蚊。」我說。
「夜了，」B說，阻人拍拖猶如殺人父母，這逐客令下的算遲。「我幫你call Uber。」
A溫柔的問我，明天幾點鐘的飛機。
凌晨吧，我說。
臨別，A跟我說：「唔好太chur呀你。」
苦思良久，我卻不懂如何回話。
於是我揮一揮手，故作瀟灑。 「歐洲見！」我說，便乘Uber歸去。
單眼皮，細長的眼睛，很會笑。一頭深黑過肩長髮。 不太愛化妝。
A沙田大學畢業。那年，我和B一同選定薄扶林大學，沙田大學幾乎從沒在我倆考慮之中。正所謂，一個Xianggang，只得一間Xianggang大學。
我和B曾經是一對嘔心做作的偽文青，只懂風花雪月，吟詩作對，琴棋書畫。因不同的原因，選擇肩負祖宗十八代「我讀得書少」的期許，以及「細時唔讀書」的話訓，考入薄扶林大學，計劃三年後頂著學府的光環在珠三角一帶混口飯吃。
B是商學院的流氓，我是文學院的渣滓。A在鄉村俱樂部書院唸journal，很會講故事。
那夜，吃過上環街市大排檔，我們仨在她堅尼地城的 apartment hea。說穿了，是我賴死不願走。A和B開了幾罐藍妹。我死守著A給我的一杯暖開水。
A有種我和B都很受落的幽默：mean精得來有point。她親切貼地，綿裡藏針，比我一派置諸死地而不留情面的passive aggression其實更得體。
席間，A的外婆來電，她接聽，指手劃腳地跟外婆說著我聽不懂的方言。
我看她看得出神。我轉向B，跟他說，「我幾鍾意呢個女仔。」
B聳聳肩，一副不置可否的模樣。我將之解讀為「屌，我知。」
她掛線，我問A剛才說的是那種語言。台山話，她說，一邊剝橙給我們吃。
A跟我講她在沙田大學住hall踢拖，不施脂粉，村婦式的社會主義生活。我不太會搭話，畢竟薄扶林山頭是個截然不同的生態系統。我不確定我曾否暗中嚮往那種帶點率真和熱血的大學群體生活。 我沒有用想當年腔跟她說其實我in過沙田大學政政系，握過周保松的手。但我這種不學無術，胸無大志，只愛拋浪頭的偽ABC真港女，明顯經不起政政的消磨。再者，離開港島區不如叫我去死。
「新界多蚊。」我說。
「夜了，」B說，阻人拍拖猶如殺人父母，這逐客令下的算遲。「我幫你call Uber。」
A溫柔的問我，明天幾點鐘的飛機。
凌晨吧，我說。
臨別，A跟我說：「唔好太chur呀你。」
苦思良久，我卻不懂如何回話。
於是我揮一揮手，故作瀟灑。 「歐洲見！」我說，便乘Uber歸去。
Oct 21, 2017
W
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Martha is doing the nails of her right hand when her phone vibrates. She pulls back and gestures Martha to hold for a moment. She grimaces at the caller ID, hesitates for 2 seconds before her freshly manicured left index finger swipes the screen to answer.
"Harvey," she retreats her right palm from under a small LED lamp to massage her temple.
"Yes... yes... I've heard,"
The voice on the other end muffled, restless.
She stands up and paces towards the window. It's almost 4 in the afternoon. The sky is a cloudless orange-pink.
She looks like she has something to say, but keeps getting interrupted.
The annoyance in her brows grows, she takes a deep breath.
"No. You can't come to Switzerland. The lawyers are perfectly clear on that,"
The other end of the phone goes quiet. A menacing silence.
She isn't budging.
Five seconds later comes more soft muffled words and the conversation is over.
She tosses her iPhone X to the far end of the couch, sits down, turns to Martha and feigns a little reassuring smile.
Martha takes her right hand, gently puts it back to rest on a perfectly folded white towel.
"Qu'est-ce que j'ferais sans toi?", she says.
Martha replies with the warmest, most maternal smile, pushes her eye glasses back up slightly and continues the meticulous work.
Rachmaninoff resumes in the background.
"It's unfortunate," she says, almost whispering.
I look up from my laptop and halt my laborious typing. "What is?"
"That they only got him."
Martha is doing the nails of her right hand when her phone vibrates. She pulls back and gestures Martha to hold for a moment. She grimaces at the caller ID, hesitates for 2 seconds before her freshly manicured left index finger swipes the screen to answer.
"Harvey," she retreats her right palm from under a small LED lamp to massage her temple.
"Yes... yes... I've heard,"
The voice on the other end muffled, restless.
She stands up and paces towards the window. It's almost 4 in the afternoon. The sky is a cloudless orange-pink.
She looks like she has something to say, but keeps getting interrupted.
The annoyance in her brows grows, she takes a deep breath.
"No. You can't come to Switzerland. The lawyers are perfectly clear on that,"
The other end of the phone goes quiet. A menacing silence.
She isn't budging.
Five seconds later comes more soft muffled words and the conversation is over.
She tosses her iPhone X to the far end of the couch, sits down, turns to Martha and feigns a little reassuring smile.
Martha takes her right hand, gently puts it back to rest on a perfectly folded white towel.
"Qu'est-ce que j'ferais sans toi?", she says.
Martha replies with the warmest, most maternal smile, pushes her eye glasses back up slightly and continues the meticulous work.
Rachmaninoff resumes in the background.
"It's unfortunate," she says, almost whispering.
I look up from my laptop and halt my laborious typing. "What is?"
"That they only got him."
Oct 14, 2017
東京
"Bitch you really need to get your shit together," First thing she says to me in the morning, while leaning on the bedroom door with a wine glass filled with a transparent, light yellow liquid in her hand.
"And what the fuck are you drinking?", it's almost noon and, understandably, I refuse to get out of bed, again. It's been almost five months.
"Maple sap from Quebec. And for once don't attempt to change the subject."
"Leave me the fuck alone you evil cunt... I don't want to..."
"Live anymore, yeah yeah yeah, I hear you," she cuts me off mid-sentence.
I know I haven't at least tried to be creative with my suicidal rhetoric. She takes another gulp of the suspicious drink. As the primary witness of her obsession with expensive waters, I'm afraid the situation is getting quite out of hand. For her well-being I hope the next fad will be water extracted from Mars.
"Get over the little Jap, for crying out loud. He's not even your type -"
"That's exactly the point! He - is - not - my - type." Here, she's rolling her eyes at me.
Finally, I find the inner strength to sit up, "he's unbreakable," and that bothers me.
"He doesn't let you try, this guy is smart. Or gay. Or both."
"Or I'm too weird."
"Breaking news! Miss Cry Baby is allegedly too weird for Mr Kamikaze!"
Don't I hate it when she does that, but it never fails to make me laugh. I run my fingers through my hair, maybe I need a haircut. And a pedicure.
"Get out of bed, you self loathing slab of meat, and get back to work. Those Agent Provocateurs don't pay for themselves."
"Those what? But we agreed..."
"Think about it, Mr Kamikaze will regret never returning your calls," she says, with her trademark evil fucking smile.
"Bitch, a new psychiatrist is what you need," I say, walking to my closet - wondering what I should wear for the day, and when the hell can I make time for a trip to Tokyo.
Oct 8, 2017
1 a.m.
Excerpt from Void - Short stories, first draft in 2012. Edited in 2017
It’s hard to be sure how it started,
but I have come to the conclusion that people have stopped talking to me
altogether.
**** and I are sitting in The
Globe on Hollywood Road. He’s drinking raspberry beer and still has his band
T-shirt on from last night. He checks his iPhone every 2 minutes. I stare into
my glass, attempting a rough calculation on my blood alcohol. **** smiles to his
phone. I’m about to order another drink. He pushes it aside and asks me what
I'm thinking.
“Nothing,” I say.
I ask him, “What are you thinking?”
I look back into my almost-empty glass.
He sips his raspberry beer. “I don't know. I just want to make you happy.”
Here we go again.
“You look deep in thought,” he says,
curling a strand of my hair with two fingers.
“I'm not,” I tell him.
His phone vibrates, giving off a
muffled buzzing and banging against the solid oak table.
“You look deep in thought,” he says, with
certainty this time. He reaches to check his phone; texts from this girl out of
town, Facebook messages, missed calls.
“You do too,” I say, eyeing the fish painting hanging
on the wall to my right.
This is the same table I
get every time at The Globe, yet I’ve never noticed this gigantic fish until
now – it’s there, and it’s not. Its huge eyeballs stare back
blankly; I
try to remember every detail: blue scales, red bowtie, little
people dancing around it.
I turn back to ****, a content smile
hangs on his face as he tends to the world. My watch says 1 a.m. sharp, why am
I stuck here, at this hour, with this person, is beyond me. The Jamaican waitress
comes over to our table. Last order, she says. I smile and mouth “no thank you”.
He pockets his phone, rubs my hands with his and kisses each on the back.
“Let's get out of here,” he says. At least tonight, he hasn’t once quoted Kierkgaard,
but it’d have been much easier for everyone if I was blackout drunk at this
point.
May 17, 2017
Buzz
Excerpt from Void - Short stories, first draft in 2012. Edited in 2017
In
this early fall afternoon, the weather is perfect - almost artificial. We sit
around the best table by the window at Le Cygne. I stare at the cypress trees in
the patio, wondering whose idea it was. Le Cygne has degenerated into the hangout
spot for the third world nouveau riche – I make a mental note not to check in on
Instagram.
The
maitre d’ smiles and nods at my direction. I'm busy studying the eggshell satin
weave tablecloth, its pattern neat and precise - I pray it isn’t Made in China.
Today Madeline wears a beige cashmere V-neck from I'm guessing Jil Sander’s
spring collection.
“Did you get another boob
job?” I say, it is that obvious.
She puts down the wine
list wrapped in white feathers and announces, "Chilean chardonnay!”
Claire, wearing the Lanvin
houndstooth blazer I once contemplated getting, protests, her burgundy nails
dance on her iPhone screen, “Can't drink, I’m on this diet… thé de la rose for
me.” I let out a chuckle.
"Nobody at this table
isn’t on some sort of diet,” I hear myself say that as I check my freshly manicured
fingers. Not to be self-conscious, but it's time to fire the Colombian nail
girl. Madeline darts her a playful wink, “you can have a rosé alright.”
“I’m starving,” Valerie chimes
in, taking another drag of her hand-rolled cigarette; vanilla mint, which is
the sole reason I allow her to take the seat next to mine, considering her god
awful taste in men. Her current victim: a meth head rock star, six years minus
her age. I like her vintage Yves Saint Lauren leather jacket regardless. The
chardonnay arrives, Claire, for the first time, glances up from her phone and
flashes a red lipsticked smile at the maitre d', his dark hair slicked back,
young and 8/10, but generic GQ looking.
“So you fucked the maitre
d’? Is that why we're here?” One puzzle at a time… though I must admit the way
she pouts drives men utterly insane. I take a large gulp of the chardonnay – regrets
of not having gone with the French Chablis make me tremble slightly.
Valerie taps her index
finger on another page of some magazine and mocks a demanding tone, “Maddy,
tell me your husband is not serious with this wannabe nobody...” In the middle of
her sip Madeline pauses and snaps, “Seth just bought me this villa in Cote
d’Azur. You should see it.”
If only she could hear herself. I can’t
resist, “but he totally ditched you at the swinger party...”
The garçon, with practiced
patience, nods and smiles at Val, as she struggles between a gâteau aux
noisettes and sorbet à la pêche. Does any of this matter? Everything that goes
down will be forced out in exactly fifteen minutes.
My Céline phantom tote is giving
off a steady buzz from under the table.
“I thought you said Napa
the other day,” Claire looks up from a half finished tweet with a serious, perplexed
expression; she looks down again and screams a little. “Front row in Milan...oh
– my – gosh.”
The
way Valerie pretends not to care, chances are she is going to show up with her
sleb boyfriend; Madeline has likely secured a place with her collection
of designer Friends With Benefits. To break this
embarrassing silence, in unison they turn the attention on me.
“So, how are
you and Ralph?” In the most casual manner, Madeline throws out the question,
eyes checking her reflection in a Chanel compact, looking all selfie ready. Paparazzi
outside at this time of the day? Unlikely. Still, I sit up a little and take
another sip of wine.
“We’re settling at 25 mill
... is that a lot?”
Madeline makes this face
as if she’s still that eleventh grade cheerleader. “Aw – don’t show off.”
I try to hold back a yawn
- even the music is boring now. “Can we get out of here?” I plead, hoping at
least Claire would concur.
My phone vibrates with a fierce
determination, stirring up certain uneasiness in the table. Now the entire presence
pressures me with the “are you gonna get that” look. I fish it out from the
bottomless pit named a woman’s handbag. The screen illuminates; three missed
calls and one text from S, “I wanna hear your voice”, it reads.
*****