Fictions: outputs of a random mind, the result of boredom, a thorough waste of time. Who gives a damn about these stories of make-believe people with their make-believe lives pretending to be a mirror to 'real' world, I tell you. All a truck load of rubbish, it happens when people get bored. when they have nothing to do. An evidence of the human race's complacency until the next great castastrophy arrive. Side effect of having enough, a pretense at knowledge and tradition. We should all just go back to basic. EAT, DRINK, BE MERRY. Who ever mentioned anything about stories. Those old storytellers all act like some big shots. Holders of knowledge, bearers of wisdom, keepers of secrets of the Gods. load of Bullshit. Liars everyone of them. so you be careful of these storytellers. They tell you all kinds of crap-shit. And their bloody fiction gets better everyday. They get more and more detailed, coupled with more and more descriptions. It is like the man in the moon. Like newton's apple, like the law of gravity. These storytellers come in all forms and guise so you be wary of them.

I don't know what the world is coming to. Maybe people are getting so affluent they need lies to sustain them. It is no longer a matter of having, we need the lack, the absent to make sense. Pathetic. If there was a God, he would sooner turn the whole damn civilization with all their vices and corruption into bacterias, single-cellular organisms than have them running around like they are 'Kings" destroying the whole world, wiping innocent creatures off the map. Maybe they are already bacterias. germs mutated, rotten to the core, in their self-deluded bubbles of bliss filled with sweet-smelling lies. Making up even more stories about being a chosen race, whilst all the time being afraid of tiny creatures like crockroaches, because they know the crockraoches are more of a chosen race than them. Calling them dirty, diseased, pests, all the while being blind to their own filth.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a people hater. I have seen great works by the human race. Pyramids, great monuments what not. Amazing games and dances with fate they have played. I have seen their Hitlers, their Picassos, their Mrs Smith, their Tan Ah Kows. Their miserable short span of existence wasted in years of futile worry, anguish, hatred, petty pleasures, delusion of accomplishment, and their dues to their gods, their pact with the devils, and the attempt to salvage their souls. I seen them proclaim how every life is a treasure, every birth a miracle, and yet I have seen the slaughter of whole race of people in senseless brutal murders. Homicide, Infanticide, Genocide. Always with more stories and lies to justify everything they do. Gory, Glory, just a play with words.

But people, they are forgetful. They live through hell, of killing, murder, slaughter, politics, death and decay. In trenches, in colonial outposts, in prisons, in graves worn down, weathered by time, these ugly things are covered up with more lies, more stories told to gloss over the dirt, the filth, the disease, the decomposition. The rotting bodies, the very stench of death at their door-step becomes clean white marble memorial monuments and national heroes, of youths fighting for ideals, patriotism, heroism. Gory, Glory. The filthy worm eaten flesh and the diseased blood becomes sanctified and baptized, a spiritual gaurdian of the future race. Soil soaked with blood of the saints, the patriots. Demons comdemned henceforth safely inside sanitized format of words. it is easier to make villains and heroes out of people then to see them as what they truly are. People, just people. everyday people, like you drinking a cup of coffee, buying a newspaper, boarding a bus, wiping your ass. You see yourself in the mirror and you think you are safe. You are different. Making more stories about yourself, lies you act out perfectly, lies made to fit.

I wish I could tell you what lies after the lies, the storytelling. i wish I could say for sure there is a god, and give you the name, or that the devil is real. As real as Hitler, or as Santa Clause, And assure you what lies beyond is indeed a paradise or a burning inferno. But then I can no longer tell the fiction from truth, and to me there is no real difference.For I am no divine being, no timeless voice from some unknown abyss from outer space. I am your product, your essential utmost lie, I am your history. Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. I do not say 'come unto me" because you are in my midst. And I am unsure whether you have written me or I, you. What I know is this, that I am your stories, your lies, your secrets, your meaning of existence, your gods, your devils, your heroes, your villains, your morals, your savageness. Your purity, your very filth. And I can have no mirror, nor reflections, only distortions piled one on top of another until it can be understood that the word 'truth' was one of the first inventions before fire was discovered. I was there. And I will be here, until the word 'history' no longer exist.Then I can consume myself.

fishes [schools] down
the
waterfall
they fell
scroll
the toolbar is horizontal
down the straight edge
the birds [flocks] dived down
ruins lie on the flat plain
monkeys [troops]jumped up backwards
in slow motion
WAltz with me
123 123 123 123
absurdity is the norm in this kingdom
where time is disoriented
the place, dislocated
the world illogical.
Stranded, travellers. [groups] search for time, the place,
destination, only imagined.
Words like symbols, nonsensical
like a bear on bicycle trying to sing a song in Khmer
while you drink cocunt drinks, try to find your reflection
all the unfamiliar, even your own skin feels like its in constant slippage.
feathers [bunches] floats around randomly
the world through the glass of a snow dome
shake it. shake it. shake it.
Your search for something to tell you who you are.
Where you are headed for. makes sense.
next to the mixture of the [groups] of people
alll frantic, in their own tongues, balleting to and fro
arrive and depart. come back and leave again.
A passerby, forgetting.
The fishes [schools] are back, leaping up
the waterfall
they fly (again).

running her fingers through her hair, she looked at him. But look was not exactly the right word to describe it. It was a gaze from lowered eyelids, not exactly innocent, nor was it outrightly saying anything, rather it was a rather opaque kind of gaze. She lifted something from inside-something not quite capturable in words, nor is it a mere thought, or feeling. It was a communication of sorts, but she wasn't saying anything, not really. Not something you can put in words at least. It was half animal, half sacred, half satanic, half child-like. Half everything else you can conjure up. So he was slightly thrown off balance. trying to decipher her look, trying to read her as if she just made a statement. But she had not moved, nor spoken. She sat there, still fingering her hair, but her gaze has left his body and settled somewhere else-restless like those reflections which danced on walls when light hit them as if by some magic. But there was no magic here, only a game. A primitive game. No one loses, no one wins, but still everyone plays it, once in a while.

He watches, he waits. She looks away, she waits.

They are both baiting, waiting for their prey to step into the ambush. Trying to unbalance each other. It was a matter of timing, of chance, of will. She will not yield to his presence, she has left her clue, a scent, he was to pick it up. Stalk, wait for the opportunity to pounce. She was looking away, but she was alert. Her whole body was just waiting. The look, the retreat, the distancing, the pretend unawareness was all a farce. He stands on the edge, gathering his mind, strength, gauging his opponent. The mind is a minor actor in this play. People get pissed when you tell them that in general, as a whole, human beings are really just animals. They prefer to think of themselves as spirtual, mental, emotional beings ranked somewhere just below the angels and above animals. Descarte in his arrogance proclaimed that he 'was' only because he thought. But the mind had little to do with what the body was secretly, blatantly, consciously and sublimally doing. The loosening and tightening of the kite. Released and withdrawn. A dance, a ritual. A step forward, then backwards. Forward again, twirl around. Backward. Spun, pushed, pulled by forces, the romantics call "amore", pragmatics call chemistry, cynics call biology.

She glances his way again, a quick scan over his body, a slight smile, pretends to be looking at something beyond him and loses interest in the next split second. He was prepared this time, so her glance did not make him lose his grip. He takes his time now, he has his own strategies. An intriguing dance, the steps, the rules have all been ingrained, memorized from millenias ago. It was as expected, and as formalized as every rain dance, delicate rituals involving birth, death and maturity. The music plays, the dancers take their place, the move in specific patterns, flowing in, draining out of those fixed places, but always in the standard ways. Sometimes the partners change, the gaze meet, the dance becomes a frenzy of energy. Sometimes he leads, she follows, sometimes she break into a solo that he has to accompany. Always the distance makes it possible. That they are distinct. That they see the difference, the gap. The lack and the desire.

He looks around for possible distractions. A glass of champagne, a stalk of rose, a phrase from a song, a quote from a poem, a joke, a line, a word, a name. He plans his attack moves. She foresees the possibilities. They wait. By the kind of animal instincts which lead the lions to emerge from their hiding as if the clock struck the destined seond announcing the time is NOW. The kind of instinct which drives predators to start to give chase, and the prey to run. The ancient knowledge instilled in all animals which make them understand poison, warnings, and make them afraid of fire, of enemies. It is unleashed. The kind of timing, coincidence and beauty of chance and opportunity and possibility which made the universe possible. Formed the solar system, the planet earth and gave life. The inexplainable causes and webs of occurences which made possible every life. A chance meeting of a man and a woman, a sperm and an egg. Forces involving gravity, science so complex it has no names, that even the word 'God' is too facile as a reason-- occuring on an everyday level, in every second. The zebras dash across the plains, the lion bursts into a speedy chase. The herd of buffalos stampeding across the river, the crocodiles taking a chance. The insects pollinate, the world revovles, he approaches her. She turns around with her enchanting smile. He delivers his lines, plays his part of the courter. They take their place and start the dance.

Always wonder about the strangers, those people you register only through the corner of your eyes, over the edge of your reading materials on the train. Rivals clambering for seats, negotiating for standing space, a bit of air on rush hour trains. People you sometimes hate for small reasons like smelling like overdue sweet powder that will choke all life out of you. Like men sitting with legs too wide open so it cuts into your own space. For screaming loudly on the phone, or falling asleep with their heads like a pendulum swaying with the movement of the train, half defying gravity, half threatening to go crashing down on you in any unsuspecting moment- like a cannon ball on a leash made of spring. So you feel tempted to push it all the way to the other side and watch it rebound. Or girls with ponytails ticking your nostril driving you half insane with the desire to whip out a pair of scissors and snip the darn thing right off and watch them flutter to the floor like raining seaweeds. These curious specimen called strangers on public transport. All carrying with them their own history, bad mood for the day, weird odours of lunch, places they have been and the kind of soap, perfume, shampoo they use, their own memories, stories, worries, private jokes wrapped up inside. Strangers you sometimes only ever meet once in life and quite quickly forget. How you see your own stupidity, absurdity reflected in some one else and you despise them for it.

That rare glimpse, or chance encounter with strangers you will never know, never understand their history, learn of their worries or share their private jokes. And how you swear under your breath about that "stupid man who wouldn't budge even though you had already said 'excuse me'." or that "crazy bitch who kept pushing and poking her finger at everyone around her to clear some space." it is a down right madhouse, a freaking zoo of the insane, quirkly, exhibition of the strangeness of being a commuter, a stranger. How you hate, despise, pity, admire, envy, secretly laugh at these 'other' strangers, like watching simpsons live in action. And you feel like you would eventually go mad and start screaming at them for all these reasons and for no reason at all.

Like that slightly overweight man I once saw, waddling out of the train at Kembagan. I pitied his backview, and wondered if he had a bad childhood, if he had always looked so sad, yet so ridiculous from the back. How he carried a plastic bag in each hand, looking as if he was doing a funny juggling act of balancing with that comic quality of extremely lonely clowns. I wished he had someone he would return home to and tell him he was the best father or husband etc, and not like an amusing but pitiable sight from the back in the eyes of a stranger. Maybe he had friends waiting at home who knew that he was so much more than what looking at him from the back on a certain afternoon at kembagan station will ever unfold. How my sadness was facile, a superficial thing, that only strangers will ever feel toward each other. That kind of unforgiving harshness, or unconditional forgiveness strangers sometimes give in their ignorance, in their shallowness. how they hate you and then forgive you because you are just a short disruption, a interruption, a tiny kink in their life. How sometimes for no apparent reason at all, you have a desperate wish that a certain stranger would be blessed, uttering a prayer on their behalf that things would turn out well for them. Because sometimes you see sadness in them, the kind you don't ever feel from movies, or people you know, but because they are strangers. And because you know that perhaps you are just like him, wondering if someone else might perhaps have whispered a prayer in your name- from a stranger.