Sometimes I forget it’s already August. Sometimes I forget it’s 2011. I double-, triple-check everything (all right, maybe not everything; just the date, the time), and still I have doubts and then forget. I even doubt the faithful, immortal scientific calculator I have since I was fifteen. I just jab, jab, jab at the buttons a million times and even then I’ll typically start asking my sister, my parents, whoever just happen in the room with me for the answers (only valid for maths problems; otherwise I just google stuff) — I feel lost all the time. What is this? Look at me, writing silly things like this. I need to go back to uni fast. I need to read more. My brain is crying from months of disuse.

Every day last month, last week, and today: “I’m sure I did something. But what, exactly?” Then on every rare occasion: “Well, that was something.”

Mum: We’re about to head out — don’t forget to do the laundry.
Me: What if I don’t want to do the laundry?
Mum: What do you mean you don’t want to do the laundry?
Me: I don’t want to do the laundry.
Mum: Do you want kaya balls?

Meet my mother, she still thinks kaya balls would solve everything and get me going. I’m sad I’m not nine, I’m sad she always forgets that I’m not nine.

i. I wouldn’t mind being mistaken as the girl who lives at the graveyard. My breathing disturbs the living, and contrary to what the living thinks, the dead wouldn’t mind.

ii. Projection: We accuse elephants for never failing to forget anything.

iii. My name is the sound you get after dripping water slowly onto the rim of an almost full soup bowl in the kitchen sink. It’s rare, and purely accidental.

iv. I understand anonymity. There is nothing wrong about donning on that anonymous cloak and pretend that you are everything they think who you are. By the end of the day, we’ll have a good laugh.

v. Seven years. I woke up this morning and counted. Seven years ago, I was sixteen years old. Seven years ago, I thought I was in love. Seven years ago, the stars left my eyes. Seven years ago, I left.

vi. (I like it here, I like who I am today.)

vii. I’m standing on an uneven ground. I’m going to mold this ground according to the contours of my feet, and shall I fall, my body.

Other ephemera

Sunset has long ceased to be the saddest sight in my book; which means, I have fallen out of the page of everybody else’s book. I asked them to stop for the loveliest July sunset one day, but they all went on without me. I implored. Once, twice. I told the readers to stop, stop flipping the pages, but they didn’t seem to listen. It finally occurred to me I am just a character, written by an invisible author. Nobody stays for a sunset these days, nobody. It’s true that the sun waits for no mortal, but it’s loyal. The next thing you know, it’s here again.

There was a storm brewing a little after midnight last night, and everyone in the house had gone to bed. I was still awake, lying in bed, reading, when the wind blew in gusts that rattled our balcony glass door. I got up and drew the curtains close together but not completely. Meanwhile the door rattled on in a perfect midnight symphony with rolling thunders and billowing winds. It was then I heard murmurs — one of my roommates was still awake and she whispered, ‘Close the door, please.’
‘Door?’ I asked, baffled.
It was dark, I couldn’t see her expression but I knew then that she was entertaining several scenes in her head — interesting to me but not to her. Amused, I went to close our bedroom door and returned to my bed after. A flash of light. I saw that she had her hands covering her face - I finally remembered that I didn’t braid nor did I pull my waist-length hair into a knot before bed. In short, I had become her worst nightmare.
‘You’ve just locked yourself in a room with a ghost with waist-length hair—’ but I didn’t get to finish my sentence when a pillow sailed my way. I ducked just in time, laughing. 

—

This has been sitting in drafts box since last March, I think. At least I’m certain it’s March as I mentioned “reading” and “dark” … which means I already bought my iPad at this time. Ooh, I do miss writing “dorm stories” (or “tales of friends”). I have special tags for these, tags I haven’t used for so long now. Now, the roommate I described - Nyxie (of course, not a real name) - watches way too many Asian horror films, I’m afraid. Ergo, the irrational fear for my waist-length hair, especially during nighttime - oh, you know the gist. At night before bedtime, I had to pull my hair into a bun or else she wouldn’t look at me at all (as in, no eye contact, covering her eyes with her hands while having our midnight conversations etc. etc.). There were times when I forgot to do so. Those times were especially amusing to me.

I love how desperate Aiden gets whenever it’s stormy outside. Her demeanour screams, ‘Looking for a warm bed. Looking for a warm body. Looking for a warm someone. Something. Someone. Love?’ as she rushes from one room to another until she finds something or someone she can cuddle with. Not a few minutes ago she found me, alone in the dark room, and trotted over, meowing loud and shrill as if saying, ‘OH I’M SO GLAD I FOUND YOU. I’M ADORABLE. QUICK, CUDDLE ME.’ And not long after, scratches. Note to self: Do not touch Aiden’s fat tummy.

I used to have huge ambitions. Out-of-this-world ambitions, yes, those. I wanted to inhabit so many lives. I wanted to be an astronaut, an engineer, a doctor, a vet, a queen (princess? What princess?), a screenwriter, a cat, a cat, a writer— but it never occurred to me, not even once, that I would actually end up studying the arts of shushing librarianship. Oh no, it never occurred to me at all. You would think that a used-to-be avid reader would figure it all out since she was five.

I love space, and my parents said, ‘Yes, an astronaut, why not?’ I said okay to that. Then my younger uncles, one by one, graduated from engineering schools and landed smashing jobs, and my parents said, ‘Yes, an engineer, why not?’ I said okay to that. Several years later I found out I hate applied physics. Then people started sending helpless kittens and stray cats on our doorstep until we were up to our eyeballs with cats, and my parents said, ‘Yes, a vet, that would be great, too.’ I said GOSH YES to that. Then I turned fifteen and suddenly, becoming a vet wasn’t all that.

I want to write, I thought. I want to write. I want to live other people’s lives and writing is the answer. Fast forward several years, and all I have is plot bunnies, drafts and incomplete novels. I say what the hell to that.

Now in between this, during all this, I read. Not as many and as wide (I always stick to several genres only) as I’d like to, but they were something. I read enough for this family, and that is something. I am definitely passionate about books, though all I seem to care now is the proper cataloguing, classification and arrangement of books. So no, it never occurred to anyone that I should probably learn library science all those years ago, although I must admit reading and librarian science are sadly not paralleled these days.

I’d love, still, to be a cat though. Meow.

i. I can be so terribly unpleasant. I am not delicate - you jest if you say so. Even my Mum often have a hard time describing me. In this family: Compliments? Physical affections?— when pigs fly. I am kinder to animals. I can be awfully unsympathetic and definitely not empathetic all the time. Then to make myself feel better, I tell myself that it is just introversion.

ii. Last time during a huge family gathering, someone made an honest remark that I actually looked wooden when someone pulled me into a warm hug from behind. ‘You look wooden,’ said she. ‘No shite,’ I said, feigning surprise. ‘He got me by surprise, after all.’ What remained unsaid was “Untouched”. “Sheltered.” “DEPRIVED OF PHYSICAL AFFECTIONS, AWKWARD MUCH? FOREVER. ALWAYS.”

iii. My last awkward moment was definitely when my Mum wanted to hug me and I said, ‘No, it’s okay.’ The moment I finished saying that, my eyes widened. Her eyes widened. Then I smiled my awkward smile, and she patted me on the arm.

iv. How did I get to this point where I still have this yearning to be constantly touched and to touch?— and yet I am afraid to let myself and others to do so. No wonder I think it is all right to love from afar. That shall I fall in love someday, I am content with seeing and having only glimpses.

v. It has been this way since as long as I can remember. My memory fails me sometimes, but my heart does not.

vi. (I wanted to put this under “read more”, but I cannot bear seeing the number of ghostlings reading this piece so no.)