Category Archives: Writing

Firstborn

There she laid asleep with a smile full of joy unknowing of her future. Born to a father who was raised on a boat anchored to the edge of the village, and a mother from an unloving family.

He was 26. She was 16. Her parents and seven brothers objected the reunion. Not because she was too young, but because he was poor. But they got married anyway. For it was what people do.

Her mother was the seventh child of an opium addicted father and an abusive mother. Since the age of five, her day to day ranged from waking up before sunrise to work in the fisheries, her mother beatings, and walking for miles to fetch her father’s opium in the middle of the night. All she was wishing for was to get away from them.

Her father lost his mother when he was 3 years old. They were on a refugee boat to Malaysia, running away from the Japanese. She got sick half way through the journey and they had to dump her body. He wouldn’t have understood it. After the war, all is left to his father was a boat and each other. Without any education, he scrapped knowledge from anywhere he could find and learned to read and write in Chinese. And thanks to his dedication and a kind friend, he gathered enough knowledge to start his practice in Chinese Traditional Medicine.

However, that was never enough. The village was full of sick people who couldn’t pay. His skill and knowledge were effective and the villagers loved him for that. But it was never enough to feed the family. It was all for his wife’s hard work that lead them to this point of life. Without any education and being a women, it would have been impossible for her to earn much money. But with their firstborn in her arm, they saw hope. She understood the sacrifice she would have to make. All the hard life ahead of her. For her firstborn.

Telling you the truth.

I’m dying. In fact I was dead long time ago when I was hit by a reality. A reality that I believe to be the truth. That I lived my everyday thinking of how to end this life, gracefully, for me, and especially for you.

Here is the thing though, I’ve lived, and I’m done with living. But you, the truth, the reality that you believe in is not the truth I want to live in. You often say that pain is what make us feel alive, but my truth is, live is pain. It’s funny how it is true the both ways you can say it. Pains make your life more meaningful, but at the same time if you look at it from the other side, life is all about pain.

Unfortunately, my dearest, this time it is real. I’m not dying hypothetically. I’m really dying now, biologically shutting down. I have cancer. Doctor says I have 3 months left max.

I have been silent all these years. I avoided you. I ran away from you. I thought I hated you. I thought that you are the reason I’m so miserable. I enjoyed the days and weeks of my life without any memory of you. Everytime I think of you, hurts.

But I just realized today as I am writing my last words to you, it hurts not because I hated you. It was because you are my most dearest. My unfulfilled dream. I was disappointed because I couldn’t give you what I want you to have. That I’m too ashamed of myself to even talk to you, to look at your lovely eyes. It hurts because I’m so weak that I couldn’t give you happiness. But I failed to accept that I’m your happiness, that I was the only thing you wanted.

You should know that by the time you’re reading this, I am already gone. But be assured that I was happy, not the happy that I wish I had when I was with you, but happy and ready. Isn’t this what I’ve always been looking forward to?

I’m writing you this because even in my last days, with all the desires to push you further away, I can’t run away from the truth that it hurts me to hurt you, much more than you would realize. So be happy for yourself. Find your happiness in your believe and know that I will be happy for you too.

Good bye.

The trending problem

We recently have a new addition to our already too big family. Actually it’s not too new, he is almost 3 years old.

The problem is, most of my siblings are already in their late 30s to 40s. Naturally a lot of my family members are pretty grown-up, including my nephews and nieces.

This 3 years old boy was surrounded by grown-ups who gave so much attention to him alone. He tuned out to be a total badass in the family. One of his special rights was biting and pinching the grown-ups playfully and getting away with it. One day, this pampered little gem was brought to visit his grown-up relatives who live a few countries away. The boy was very welcomed by everybody. But being such a naughty boy he was, the grown-up couldn’t help but to comment on his naughtiness. So erupted a trending problem that has been retold over and over again for the past few days. And it goes something like this:

Grandma: “I’m so disappointed at my grown-up grandson for commenting that we are being such a bad parents.”

(The boy lives very near to his grandma)

Mother: “I know right, he is just a little boy. Furthermore, he thought they were just playing.”

Grandpa: “Bob (The grown-up grandson) threatened to cut off baby boy’s hands if he didn’t stop pinching people. Bob’s sister was even worst, she was the one who started the pinching game. Baby boy didn’t know how to control his strength yet, he didn’t know that he was hurting his cousins”

Mother’s brother: *too lazy to contribute in the conversation but couldn’t stop himself from writing about it*

The whole drama made me think of the basic of parenting. My parents weren’t really kind to my siblings to start with. Surely they love their children, but the stories my siblings told were not always the cheerful ones. Perhaps they were too busy working and surviving. But when they are taking care of their grandchildren, they turned so protective of them, even against their own children and grandchildren.

Also when drama involves parents and their children because of their grandchildrens, it’s awkward.

And for me, it’s just another reason not to reproduce.

The affordability of risk taking.

I’m not a risk taker. I’ve never really been one. Unless I’m in a video game world, or interviewing for a new job, or trying a new food.

This morning I was put in a situation where taking risk is to be considered. I was driving with my friends out for lunch where we were stuck in the parking lot waiting for the next car to take its right turn while it was also waiting for the car in front of it which was waiting for a driver to load his groceries so he could drive away so it can park.

You probably got confused there, but it isn’t very important.

The important part is that I was happily waiting while my friend who was in the passenger seat asked me to overtake the car in front of me. There was a gap between the car in front of me and the wall on my left that was wide enough for my car to go through. I didn’t want to take the risk even though I was pretty confident that I could pass. But my friend assured me that it has enough space.

What’s happening in my mind is this calculations of the “what ifs”. If I didn’t got though, my car will get damaged and probably the car in front of my will be damaged as well and I can’t afford to pay for the repairs. Even though I have insurance, but it still cost some form of money.

By the way, we made it through that, it was quite a big space after all.

I was thinking about this whole incident when I was driving home from work today and start thinking about all the risks that I avoided in my life. There are opportunities out there but they all cost a lot and the risk of failing is expensive. And that is also why I avoided them.

Think back about risk taking, we often say words like “You are a risk taker” or “You are not a risk taker” and it kind of become a type of personality. But today I realize that it’s not as simple as that. It’s also about the affordability. It’s not just about your tendency of taking risk. It’s about affording to live with the consequences if it goes south. If you lose all your money, what then? lose your friends, what then? lose your life?

Retrovitrarcer

Retrovitrarcer (Retro-vitr-arcer)

retro – behind

vitrum – glass

carcer – jail

This word describe the feeling of being locked behind a glass wall with the world of possibilities behind it.

Imagine that you can see the things that you want but it’s behind this glass wall. You know exactly what you want but unable to reach it. Leaving you angry, hopeless and sad. And you ended up sitting there with your head tilted to the left, listening and watching as it moves around, wishing that you can touch it, smiling as you listen its voice.

And you let it consume you, wishing that it notices you, look at you, call your name. But that thing behind this thin glass doesn’t know you, cannot see you, nor care about you. And you come back here every day, repeating what you’ve done until you get bored, and forgot about it, and find another thing behind that wall to fall in love with.

The beginning of time, which time?

First thought about the “Hindsight – Rewriting your very first post” idea is, which first post? The one I wrote when I was in high school, college, graduated, or last year, or from this blog?

Why not all? well sh**t, how do I find back my old posts?

First blog ever, or is it?

Let’s look back to 2007 where I really started writing on a blog. Apparently, unlike what I’ve remembered, it was a post with 4 photoshopped images.

http://phelio-gimae.blogspot.com/2007/08/good-to-see-this-i-just-do-everything.html

Well, not gonna rewrite that blog. But, just don’t give it too much attention please.

Looking back at that abondoned blog I have in Blogspot, I have noticed that it has been visited quite a number of times. Not to the point of “thousands of click per day”, but a few. I’ve never visited it for a long time, and the last post was from 2011, almost 4 years back. I wonder what’s going on over there. Maybe it’s time to revive it.

First post in here, the Random Post a Day

Hold on, still looking for the first post ever in this blog.

Here we go: https://pheliorandom.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/oct-30-the-eleventh-google-image-of-the-random-word-random/

And here is the re-write. But first, let me read through it again.

On a second thought after re-reading, why would I rewrite a post? that was the original, and I would love to keep it that way.

That was a post from 2 years ago. I should start celebrating the anniversaries of this blog.

Introspection

My writing style hasn’t changed much from 2 years ago since I started the daily prompt. It was a fun journey and for some random posts like this, it really hasn’t changed much.

Is it because I haven’t learned much for these 2 years of writing with Daily Prompt? or I’ve reached a stage where the learning curve has been slowed down? Either way, I believe I’ve still so much to learn. Maybe I’ve not read enough to improve?

But I bet I’ve been writing more story type posts now. I hope the journey to the first completed book should be soon now. It might take another year, maybe two. But I believe it will come true.

Oh well, what now? Keep writing folks!!

The traces of life

There is nothing much better to do than writing when life has turned out to be like it always be, limited. But when the time has come to call it an end, it tries to expand, wanting more.

It’s a curious case what it has become. There is no clear destination to reach but it won’t stop moving forward. It makes you wonder for both what am I doing and why am I doing this. Maybe it’s still a metaphor, or maybe it’s a stack of books.

Opening a door into a new strange room with bookshelves all over it, you started to read. With over 7 billions bookshelves around you, and countless of books. Some are blanks, many in different languages, different genre. How many can you read? How many will be left untouched?

Though millions of people will walk through this room, with the increase of its accessibility and maybe some helpful translation, how many will be read, appreciated, or memorised? Will it matter? What about the writers? do we care?

And then the end will come, it will come eventually. There will be a huge crack on the library’s floor it swallowed every single books. Every single life. What is after the crack nobody knows. But we know one thing for sure, whatever came after the crack will end too.

Everything that has a beginning will end. Even the heaven fell apart.

And then what? does it matter? will it matter? What about now? isn’t it more precious than what that will come? The writing on a white screen, though will left unread, unknown, but the joy of writing it down is sufficient even just for a little while.

You will need me there

It has been 3 long days since his last message. Julian left for a solo photography trip on a boat he rented a week ago. But it was as much shocking for me as well as for the rental company for they had also lost track of his ship. My only thought was that he must have stranded on some island.

Now all I can think of is how lonely will he be. And then I think about it again, he must really enjoy his lonely days. But I still hope that I will be there with him. Imagine all the talks we will have. The theory of being the island itself.

Speaking of talking, how I remember the shames of me being so full of my own shitty righteousness when we talk. Though he does the same sometimes, but it’s always worst when he was righter but I was too proud to admit that I was wrong. So I will bring myself a note saying “I won’t judge you by what you have said because I am not always right myself.”

Such a terrible thing to type on my phone. It’s a shame that my laptop died in the middle of finishing another post. And this phone just got me thinking of getting a new laptop as soon possible. And with you left alone in some lonely island, I will get a new one and bring it along with me when I ship myself to your island.

Who cares about food. We will catch fishes and cook them on fire woods. But I know you love ice cream so much, so I will bring you a box of those, packed in a mini portable refrigerator.

And last item will be the flight ticket home. Though I would love you to leave you there alone to enjoy yourself, but it is not very healthy for you, especially for your mind. So I will bring you back here where you belong. And the people that care about you all along.

The time when Earth slow down

A panic has attacked the Central Science Association of Earth just so suddenly that everything is going extremely wrong. People are still safe on Earth, but the Earth as we know it has gone through a sudden change that the entire living beings in it is having difficulty in adjusting to it.

“It all started four days ago out of a sudden” explained one scientist on the television, “There were no clear evidence on what caused this sudden change, we are still investigating on it. But what is more important now is to plan for our lifestyle changes to cope with this unusual phenomenon that doesn’t seems to be fixable or revertible.”

Most of the things still looks normal. The day and nights are still balanced between that 25 hours and the weather is still bearable. That sudden addition of extra hour in the day is more of a psychological issue than physiological. But who knows what will it do to us for a long term? Longer Winter? The next Ice Age?

But what really troubles me is that I’d been always struggling to fill the 24 hours day that we used to live at, but now with the extra hour, days are literally longer. “Should I start sleeping 9 hours a day?” I thought to myself. But the fact that I’ve never been able to really sleep for 8 hours has just proved that it is not a solution at all. I need to find more things to kill these time, plus that stupid extra hour.

It’s kind of fun to think about it as well, I mean, when it all just started. It was a normal day, nothing unusual. It was just that the sun set a bit later that day. I thought I’ve lost track of time and that it’s already summer. But it get stranger as the day pass by, the sun rise earlier and earlier every morning, as if the whole day and night is moving back in time. Then the Scientists started to realize that it’s because of the day is getting longer, it’s no longer 24 hours, but it’s 25 now. The Earth has slowed down its rotation.

The stranger thing is that I’ve thought about this before. But I thought it won’t happen so suddenly. I’ve always exited when the Scientists made statements about some earthquake somewhere that had slowed down the Earth’s rotation by a fraction of a second. But to imagine that it has slowed down by an hour in just one day is just fascinating.

Now that the Scientists has confirmed the exact duration of a day, 24 hours 55minutes and 23 seconds, not exactly 25 hours but it’s pretty close to an hour extra from what we used to have. It’s catastrophic but not physical, at least not yet. Business are going haywire, schools are having trouble adjusting, the watch makers are going nuts, and it’s just too many things to adjust.

And what am I doing here? sitting here next to the window on a rainy day while watching that old Grandfather clock ticking. Is there anybody know what time is it now?