Room One-Three-Ow: #3 - Where Is My Mind

I... I don't know what to say.

Maybe I should stop thinking stuff. Then maybe it would get better. Maybe they would go away.

I... I don't know what to say.

I gotta stop biting my nails. Some of them were black and bloody. I gotta stop tasting myself.

Maybe if I closed my eyes and count to ten. It would get better. Maybe they would go away.

Ten.

I opened my eyes. Everything was the same.

Oh God.

Ten.

Still there.

How
did I end up here? Such stupid question! This was my room. I woke up
and Dee was gone. Her smell was gone. And they were here. Yes. They
were here. I spent the whole morning realizing that detail.

The
walls were made of babies' heads. Giant bulbs of crowning heads grew
from the wallpaper. It was as if I was some sick big game hunter whom
had stuffed babies' heads for trophies on my wall. The babies screamed,
blinked, giggled and wailed. They all stared at me. Every corner of my
wall. Every inch.

Run. Just bolt. I needed help. Now.

Ten. God, they are still here.

I think they are hungry. They started crying. Where could I find giant mammaries to feed them?

Run. While I still could. I needed help. Before I hurt myself.

They
started wailing until they turned green in their faces and puked their
intestines out onto my carpet. They sounded like some twisted concerto
of metals and banshees.

I dragged my feet to the door, with my eyes feasting on the abominated sight on my walls.

Click.
The roll of the door knob gave way and the door was opened. I stared at
the corridor of doors. Each one of them said they were room 130.

No.

I knocked on a door and looked down the hallway. It was dark and gloomy. It was the mouth to some bellies of the beasts.

The door clicked opened. I went in and discovered I'm back in my own room of wailing babies' heads.

I ran.

I
ran as fast as my feet could carry. As hard as my heart could
withstand. I ran like the wind, It didn't matter if I was running down
the stairs to the bellies of creatures. It didn't matter if I fed
myself to them. I ran. I ran some more. Spiraling down the stairs. I
ran down floors and floors. The wailing never stop chasing. I saw
blurry flashes. I saw gloom. I saw my hairy legs bouncing up and down.
Heels crashing to a stop. I looked and stared. And I ran some more.

I
ran to the registration counter. Senneti the maintenance, security and
and the supervisor was not there. I ran outside the building.

The
skies were an odd color. The smell in the air... It was odd. The colors
of the street were washed up. There were not a soul of the streets.
Newspapers flew around the pavement haughtily and cars were silence in
their places. Something dropped from the skies. I think it could be
rain.

More stuff fell. They landed softly onto the gravel and opened up like umbrellas. Proboscis
and colored wing spans. They were butterflies. Many followed. It was
raining butterflies. Like an angry hurricane, they swarm towards me
with hunger.

I screamed and beat them off me. I ran back into
the building, into my apartment. I opened the first door that said room
130 and slammed the door behind me fast. I was back in my room. The
babies' heads were sleeping. I drew the curtain. Thousands of
butterflies splattered dead with their insides smearing my window.

'Dee!
Where are you?' I yelled. She was going to be my genie. My personal
genie. I looked in the bathroom. She was not there. I looked under the
bed, She was not there either.

'Dee!'

The babies on my wall woke up in irritation. They howled and wailed deafeningly.



To be continued...

Room One-Three-Ow: #2 - Reduce Speed When Time And Space Compressed

'Hey! Are you listening to a single word I said?'

I snapped back to my composure and looked at the man who was shouting at me. He looked old and grumpy. He wore a name tag on his red uniform saying that he was my boss. He was the boss of logics and processing. We were at my cubicle in the concrete forestry of cubicles. White lights gleamed softly in the ceiling walls.

'Are you deaf?' He yelled again.

I shook my head. I was almost in tears.

'You got it wrong again!' He slammed a stack of paper onto my desk. My computer shook. 'Does it make any sense to you?'

I left my mouth half-opened like a goldfish. I stared blankly at the stack of paper. My back felt wet. I was sweating like a hog. My hair must be in a terrible mess too. I hadn't look at myself in the mirror. I must looked like a total wreck.

'I want them by my table by the end of the day!' He roared and stormed off.

I sat there, like a child and twisting the tips of my fingernails. I looked at the stack of paper with the corner of my eyes. He was right. It didn't make any sense. Nothing did.

My throat felt empty and lost. I needed a drink. Maybe two. Maybe more. I needed something to hold on to. I'm sick. I think I'm sick. It's difficult to breathe. It's hard to see.

Iris came into my cubicle. She apologised for reporting my mistakes to the boss. She hadn't expected the boss to throw a tantrum. I looked at her and shook my head. She had such large and beautiful eyes. They sparkled like a lake of jewels. I told her my mistakes were significant and assured her not to beat herself up like that. I'm nice in that kind of way. I guess that's why women enjoying sleeping with me. I thought about Dee. I thought about Dee with her yellow top. And I thought about Dee without her top. She looked grand. She looked like an Amazon queen. I hoped Iris would let me get into her pants.

Something real to hold on to.

Iris asked me if I was doing okay. I smiled nervously. I asked her out for dinner. Provided if I could manage to redo my work by the end of the day. Iris looked uncomfortable and she looked away. She showed me her wedding ring and walked off. I never see her again.

Anything to hold on to.

After work which I had stayed overtime alone into dark woods of the cubicles to correct my mistakes, I went home straight. Strange days. Hazy days. Yawning blue. Electrostatic hue.

Anything, please.

The electricity was down. The water was cut. The ceiling continued to leak. There were cracks on the walls. The shadows were multiplying on the screens of every wall. I could not find the ashtray.

Please.

I stared in incredulity as Dee walked out from my bathroom. She was wearing her yellow top. It was very translucent. Her breasts were perky and brilliant in the moonshine. The little crystal skulls jiggled gently around her belt on those tight leather pants of hers. She draped a wet towel on her neck and enjoyed the comfort it brought. The water dribbled around her neck and shoulders.

'How did you...?' I asked in restrained exhilaration.

'Just think of me as a genie...' She sat beside me and looked into my eyes. 'Your personal genie.'

'What do you want from me?' I asked suspiciously. This was all too strange and new. What was she doing? What was I doing? What was she suggesting? Who was she?

'I should ask you that question.' She smiled with a lipstick of perfect teeth.

'What could go wrong from this?' I asked meekly, fully aware of such liaison.

'Everything. You could wake up in a tub of ice with only one kidney.' She laughed. 'Or much worse.'

She was right. Everything could go wrong. They would go wrong. Murphy's law. Crash and burn. Pilot's test-drive. Everything that could go wrong would go wrong. But I looked at Dee's face. It was so right. It felt right. She was right. I was wrong. Everyone was wrong. Murphy was wrong. That was no right or wrong. Happiness was a ploy to prolong lives. Miserable lives. The ceiling leaked. The walls wrinkled. Promises were just positive reinforcements to reward people for enduring living. Miserable living. What could go wrong if everything was wrong in the beginning? Nothing.

I laid my swollen head on her bosom. I asked Dee if she had saw my ashtray. She took off my clothes and told me it was not important anymore.


To be continued...

Room One-Three-Ow: #1 - I Hold An Image Of The Ashtray Girl

Nightmare. Must be. Nowhere. Everywhere. Trees. So many trees in the night. Their shadows moved. Slided and slithered. Someone at the end of the path. Couldn't make out the features. The eyes shone like headlights. Trees shivered. The branches waving. It's too dark to understand anything. Hence, it must be a dream. I felt my legs growing. I felt the darkness overcoming me.

A female voice spoke lightly.

I woke up with a startle. I felt for my face. It was wet. Tears? No. Not mine. I looked at the ceiling. It's wet. It's dripping. It's damp.

I sighed. Someone was sleeping beside me. A woman. A girl.

Who was she? My head hurt. My guts felt squirmy. Butterflies in my belly. Butterflies. Ha ha! I hated butterflies. They had large wings. They flies. I rubbed my eyes painfully. Who was she?

I touched her hair. She looked unfamiliar to me. She was naked. She was warm to touch. She had a large tattoo on her left deltoid. It exclaimed, 'DELIRIUM' in ink. She woke up. She smiled at me.

I walked to the bathroom. I washed my face. The mirror was dirty. I couldn't see anything with it.

I went back to the bed. She was smoking. She looked magnificent. I took the ashtray from her knees and gave her a cup to pour her cigarette into. She asked me why. What's the point of having an ashtray if no one could use it.

'It's from a girl I loved.' I replied simply.

She laughed. And she asked me what was the name of the girl I loved. Then she laughed some more.

She asked me if I had remembered her. I shook my head lightly. The smoke from her cigarette was giving me a headache. She wore her clothes. It was a yellow top. She asked me more questions. She asked me if I could still remembered having sex with her last night. I shook my head. She asked me about my nightmare.

I told her it was about getting lost in the dark woods. She asked me if I could still remember a female voice. I shook my head. I really couldn't remember more.

She asked me if this was our last encounter, then what would I ask of her. I thought for a while and asked about her tattoo.

She slipped her feet into her sandals and said, 'Just called me Dee...'

Then she left.

I looked at the ashtray in the dark of solitude. I wished I could remember whom I loved so deeply before.

It was time to get to work. I went to the closet. I pulled out my working clothes. It was a red uniform. On the back, it was printed, 'PROPERTY OF ANG WEI KIAT'

Hmm...

I dressed myself without the aid of the mirror. The ceiling was still leaking. I placed the ashtray carefully on the coffee table and exited the apartment. Room 130.

Rows and rows of rooms stretched down the corridor. It was very dim in the morning. I found my way to the registration counter. I was glad I was not lost. Like in my dreams.

The security guard behind the registration counter was crippled and sickly. He coughed and coughed. He stank. He was maintenance as well as the supervisor.

I looked at his name tag and it stated his name was Senneti. I greeted him and he greeted back in hacking coughs. I asked him about the leaking ceiling. He shrugged and coughed some more. I smiled and exited the building. I returned back and asked him about Dee. Senneti shrugged and coughed some more. I exited the building.

It was a very dark morning. The sun was lazy. Or sick like Senneti.

I reached my tiny cubicle amidst thousands of tiny cubicles in my company. Everyone wore a red uniform. I punched numbers into my computer all day long. Just punching numbers. A lady walked into my cubicle. She claimed that she was my co-worker. She worked in a tiny cubicle several yards down the row. She said her name was Iris. She too was punching numbers into a computer. She had large and beautiful eyes.

We made useless small talks about the weather and our crappy lives. We laughed a little. She asked me if I had noticed anything amiss. She mentioned something about seeing things. I asked her why is everyone asking me questions. I smiled a bit. She didn't look amused. She checked with me again if I noticed anything different. Did I see anything that shouldn't belong.

I shrugged and shook my head. She was not amused. As she was walking away, I asked her if she ever gave me an ashtray. Iris asked me why is everyone asking her questions. She must be bad in bed. I spent the rest of my day, punching numbers into a computer and thinking about Dee. How could I forget sex? What a dork.

Evening looked like morning as it was night. Everything was dark. It reminded me of the dark woods in my dreams. The one with trembling trees and butterflies. Were there butterflies? I don't remember. Butterflies freaked me out. They had large wings. They flies.

I reached my apartment. I checked my unit number again. Room 130. It was a pain to forget things easily. The last thing I want was to forget where I stayed. The electricity was down. Nothing worked in my apartment. And the ceiling was still leaking. I must speak to Senneti again in the morning.

As I put a pail to collect the leak, someone was at my door. It was a neighbour. He was scrawny and had large dopey ears. He said his name was Years.

Years asked me if I heard anything strange recently. I shook my head and said that I'm not sure. I also said that I was tired and needed a rest, possibly now. I was an unfriendly guy in that sort of way. He shrugged and went off. He stayed at room 155.

I saw the shadows swarm on my walls. They danced and jiggled in the moonlight. I lost my appetite to sleep.

I spent the whole night at the window, trying to remember the owner of the ashtray by the ghastly moonshine.



To be continued...

The Chronology - Part Three (14th June 2004 - 13th August 2006) We Didn't Start The Fire

Eh Why Huh?!!

On
14th June 2004, I was enlisted. Abandoning the near solitude of my
zero socialization and the lack of male bonding in nursing school, I enter
the epitome of brotherhood:

It started with four guys of the same enlistment and ORD date.
- Joshua, Jackson, James (Me) and Jian Ming (Yean) -

I
had wanted to submit pictures of bravery and patriotism of green men in
strapping weapons and on interesting missions. But I'm aware how our
government are anal on such issues, I'd decided to post homoerotic
escapades instead to illustrate my national service experience.



















Embarking
on my 2 years + 2 months of my national service to my country, it
taught me several things for my transition to Singaporean manhood:




On Target Practice:

1. How to play carrom with two hands.

2. How to play carrom for six hours straight.

3. How to play Strip Carrom.

4. How to fart and belch on faces, simultaneously.

5. How to identify the owner of a fart.




On Discipline:

1. Keeping our conversational topic to one single unparalleled subject for the entirety of two years - Sex.

2. How to synchronize our bowel movements at the three busiest period of the day.

(Zhen Rong, Yean (Likes to show his shit!), Jackson (Shit the slowest), Chang, Marcus & Me.)

On Knowledge:

1. That a jug of Whiskey + a jug of Beer = accelerated highness.

2. The importance of coating the stomach lining with food is the key to the victory of binge drinking.

3. How to cover each other's ass should a comrade succumb to his hang-over and needed to sleep it off under some table.


4. That parents can name their son - Huang FeiHong, Master.

On Learning from our Mistakes:

1.
Never microwave instant noodle without inserting water in it. (It
happened to me, the machine burnt a stinking hole, the cup noddle
evaporated and the room was filled with yellow smoke!)

2. Never to use industrial alcohol to set fire.

3. Never try to put out fire caused by industrial alcohol using a book.

4. Do not accept food and beverages easily (Especially yellow drinks). They are most likely peppered with unmentionable stuff.



5. Do not piss Joshua off.

6. Do not feed Elias pork floss.










7. Do not share drinks with Yean.

8.
And buffet restaurants should start banning

Jackson,

Yean,

Joshua

&

Li Soon

into their establishment should they still want their job. (They
almost got chased out due to their insatiable appetites.)

9. Do not down a dozen glasses of Martel even before the appetizers at a wedding.

Keep that in mind.

On Rediscovering Ourselves:


1. Zhenrong sang to a tune of '头上蓝蓝的天!' when he was pissed drunk.


2. Joshua played the piano when he was pissed drunk.


3. I chanted my address every two minutes and would scold Jun Rong when I was pissed drunk.






4. Chang would cried and echoed a certain string of telephone numbers when he was pissed drunk.


5. Lionel would played with a balloon exotically when he was pissed drunk.


6. Jackson would get pissed drunk after a glass of vodka.

The Only One Drunk @ Joshua's Wedding, Super Weak.

All
the above mentioned were of course practised gleefully after office
hours. Unless it's your grandfather's camp. Coincidently, there's a kid
at the next department whose grandfather really owns the camps, hell,
he owns Singapore! Goofing off aside, I toiled my national service days
with a
roomful of comrades whom Shawn liked to call our station (Room 6) as:

The Orphanage Of Unwanted Children.

The Good People Of Room 6.



The Elders' Thrones (Quite racial harmony.)

Kumar Saimon Paul was
PR from Bangladesh . A lot of people didn't knew that Kumar was not his
name, it was however a name his father took up so his business could
function more conveniently. I have learnt a lot from him and hopes to
emulate his positivity, morality and his sunny nature. Definitely a
keeper.

I never could remember Zhen Rong
doing any work. All the time while we were in Room 6, both of us were
always scurrying for sleeping hideouts. Possessed paranoia for a
certain racial group because he was robbed at knife-point and was hurt
by a cleaver. Somehow that anecdote has always generated more laughters
than sympathies.

Chang and I agreed nothing was more entertaining in camp than watching a 1.8 metre man-child always trying to act cute. Lionel
would pout his lips or argue with his two fingers + thumb stabbing the
air for authority. We usually had long conversations at his smoking
breaks about friendship and office politics. Our daily 'Talk About Life' sessions.

Khairi
and me did a lot of great work managing Room Six. Our work involve
utilizing the office supplies to its maximum potential. We CENSORED the printer, CENSORED the photocopier, CENSORED the A4 papers, CENSORED the stationaries and CENSORED the files. We even get our photos CENSORED! It's like a freebie hotel man.

Bee Guat was our Room 6 supervisor. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Bee Guat. Because she doesn't allowed us to call her that.

Shawn, just remember:
从不说向那里去

从不曾向那里去

不经心 又惊心

我们竟就这样避开了确定

每次醒来都怕你不在

John
'Papong' Tan was the inventor of catch-on phrases, which also included
the first line of this blog entry. The smoking buddy of Shawn (who
wasn't?), filled us with the wonders of his 'adventures' from time to
time. I was his constant competitor for company newspapers and girlie
magazines.

The Understudies:
Eng Shing, Shuan and Joel
were to replace Shawn, me and Khairi. Very nice people, hardworking and
friendly. Have to thank Shuan for his 'Aliens' comics during my
hospitalization and Eng Shing for lobbying our outings.

My Drinking Buds And Beyond

Chang was actually the only one who seen me smoked before. But kids,
smoking is bad, it not only gives you good looks and it gives you heart attack as well.
Chang's probably the only friend I made who adores 5566 and Taiwanese
romantic dramas. It was bad of me to often sleepover at his place after
our clubbing, because I want to save taxi fares. But his room power, got TV, fridge, Internet access and air-con!

Marcus'
room was also very charming; attached bathroom, queen sized bed,
Internet access, nice stereos and alcohols. All we do were talk,
talk, talk. He was rightfully the 'Talk About Life' buddy and we
conversed deeply about the many essence of life, inspired a lot
of blog entries in which he was my alter ego, Marx. Marcus is abroad
now, studying. Probably doing drugs and attending bestiality conventions.

Then it struck me, how come I kept getting into their rooms?







That's probably why...








I
think I might have stray my focal point here, National Service is never
about getting pissed drunk and wake up on another dude's bed or how to
slack your two years away. It is ultimately about hard work.

Very hard.

It's about encountering a diversity of characters whom will help to shape you into a true man.

Though there are times of deprivation,











but there's always the trusty Issac the glove,

the Ice-Kachangs,

and the toy monkey whose tail is ever too long for it's own good...

(Warning: This video may be offensive for some!)

to cheer us up.

It is a place where we mature.

In woes,

and posterity.

On 14th June 2004, it started out with four guys.

Judging from the photos posted, the monty crew have gotten so much larger.
With some luck, some things might never have to change.

I completed my national service and all I got were these lousy flowers.

ORD LOH.