World's Greatest Mum

 

I rarely see my mother these days. I tried to avoid her. I think it was when she told me this -

Me: "I have been busy with work lately. This is what is happening, I got a very good appraisal at work just this week."
Mother: "Really? Is there money in it?"
Me: "What? No, I guess, a few hundred in the bonus. It's not much."
Mother: "..."
Mother: "Do you know how much does your younger brother earn nowadays? He's earning big bucks."
Me: "Oh."
Mother: "Don't you want to change your job?"
Me: "I like my job."
Mother: "Your brother is really earning astronomically."
Me: "I get it."
Mother: "Alright, alright."
Me: "..."
Mother: "Say, your brother has a bunch of clothes he don't wear as much now. Do you want them?"

Sure, I want them to build a parameter around the refrigerator box I will be living in with my meagre wage and they will be also handy to collect rainwater for me to drink.

Set fire to the rain

In Frank Miller's grisly version of Batman (graphic novel) - 'The Dark Knight Returns', when the caped crusader had retired; in his fifties, hang up his cowl and sealed away his cave, his soul would not let him. It drew him and cajoled him.

Particularly in page 25:

"You are puny. You are small. You are nothing a hollow shell, a rusty trap that cannot hold me. You cannot stop me - not with wine or vows or the weight of age..."

I think a similar voice is calling out to me. No, no to dress up like a rodent and plummeted criminals night after night with my bare knuckles. No.

Something grisly I have helped put away, is returning to -

I don't know what it wants. For months I grew increasingly restless. I paced around like a old bear in a tiny cage. I loathed the mundane stuff and people and conversations. Food devoured without passion or satisfaction. Days went without really meaning anything. I stared ahead hoping that if I try hard enough, I could see.

I tried to trace back to its origins.

I think it started when I thought better to improve my game. Time to nut up and get some serious writing skills, clean up your grammar, plan structure with plot ends, twists and motivations. Edit, edit and edit. Write journals, write to newspaper, write to a bigger audience. Write well. Write clean. Write shit that people read.

And that's when it started to head south.

I wrote hard for official letters and journals. My grammar improved and there were files of characters and plots and motives to fill my cupboards. I joined a writing club of budding writers.

I haven't been able to write the past year. I can't write shit now. Paralysed by anxiety of writing for people, I forget to write for myself. My writings have accustomed to a solid structure that it bored the crap out of me. When I read back my former posts here, even though the grammar and structure had sucked, I wrote lyrically and out of the box. It was thrilling.

If what I write now is better, then I don't want be better. I don't want to be a stick in the mud and buried deep alongside with literary greats. I want to be roaring alive.

Comic shot of L4D2 - Tank was late

Drawing of Mr Tan Kin Lian

Drawing of Mr Tan Jee Say

The real identity of Danny the Democracy Bear

Drawing Dr Tan Cheng Bock

Drawing Lady Gaga for Modpak

The human ouroboros

I often have to remind myself to dismiss estranged ties and unreciprocated relations; like severed appendage and gangrenous limb.

Then I realise -

I was that severed limb. From the very beginning.

1st attempt at caricature

Designing a banner for Nursing Pride's contest

Baby Boat meets his great-grandparents + I've made a startling discovery!

Today, HL and I brought Baby Boat to my grandparents's house in Bedok North. It was the first time the elders met their great-grandson.

四代同堂

Baby Boat meets the ancestors of Ang family

We bumped into my grandmother's youngest sister, which I call her as my "小老姨". I wondered what should Baby Boat call her nex time when he is able to speak - "老小老姨"?



When we were there, I had the chance to flip through old photo albums and looked at pictures of us growing up.

As I flipped through the photos, I've made a horrific discovery about our childhood!

Zooming in, David and I were wearing couple-like clothes. Matching white singlets with stripped shorts. That was a coincidence, right?

AND THE WORST
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Drawing assistant nurse Sara from scratch

This is not a tutorial on how to draw, but a presentation on a character from scratch. AN Sara first appeared in my comic strip for TTSH nursing newsletter 'Nursing Pride' (Jan 2011 issue).

 

Great expectations

Gonna show his GF next time.

Galileo was wrong. The sun is not the centre of the universe, family is.

Naming our kid (old doodling)

This was something I dug out from my Doodling Files. I thought this site might need some colors. FYI, my boy was named nothing of the above.

I am Not writing a zombie story

After submitting my entry for National Arts Council's 2011 Golden Point Short Story competition, I stood at outside the entrance and it was poetically drizzling. I knew that I would not be shortlisted for any prizes. But then again, I knew that a week ago. Somewhere between rewriting another 5,000 words of utter frustration and researching for my school assignment which was another 2K, I had almost gave up. Why bother when you know you won't win anything? The idea of my story was interesting to begin with (Honeymooners caught in zombie apocalypse), but a test-read with pals on the first draft have shown that it was illogical, poorly executed, possessed zero character sympathies and was structurally messy (like my room). Why bother to continue something so miserable and unsalvagable, wasting both time and effort?

One has to start somewhere, innit?

As I stood in the Mountbattenian drizzle, I knew that I have won, well, metaphorically just by sticking with it. I have learned so much, I suspected far more that what costly writing classes could offer. And there in the drizzle when everything was done and sealed, when I was expected to go back to the mundane and predictable routines of my daily life, because I have 'unclogged my pipes', 'got it out of my system', 'pre-middle age crisis' or 'skeletons put to rest' – envisioning pallbearers lowering down a tiny coffin filled with my manuscript, word processor and Thesaurus into a shallow grave and the priest had said something about moving on and being in a better place, probably in investment banking...

I was already thinking of my next story.

Over the week, I have learned three important things on writing:

"Multiply Untitled Story by multiple writers" Part 5

This entry was written by Owen. The original can be found here.

 

As Pablo sat in the train that was vibrating to the uneven metal tracks of the Paris Metro, he thought of two things - how amazed he was that he was now travelling through the hellish darkness of the Paris underground (surely, he thought, hell doesn't come much closer than this!) , and how long he would take to reach the Arc de Triomphe.

Pablo heard the wheels screech for the third time, as the train pulled to a stop and the driver yelled "Étoile!", and stepped out of the carriage to heave a rusty lever, about the length of his arm that was beside every carriage door, to let its passengers out.

At last. Pablo stepped out of the carriage and huffed and puffed as he walked up the stairs where he could see daylight again. God, he thought to himself, and then scoffed at his invocation of the supernatural. Well, God or not, at least I'm finally out of that bloody hellhole. The only place where he wanted to find himself claustrophobic, he decided, was with Lea in a broom closet. He made a mental note to suggest that to her later in the day.

As he stepped out of the station he made out the Arc de Triomphe. Such an irony of a name, Pablo thought to himself. Napoleon had commissioned the building of the Arc to celebrate his triumphs - but was defeated more than two decades before the Arc was completed. Stepping ever closer to the Arc, he found himself drawn by his occupational hazard. The intricacy of the carvings, the sheer grandeur that the architect Chalgrin was trying to express - he hated grandeur, but he loved the intention of Chalgrin (or Napoleon?) and how wonderfully it was carried out.

He was supposed to do something here - he remembered, clutching that flat, squarish object he removed from the hotel room - but he was dazzled by the architecture.

He was standing underneath the Arc when he heard a familiar rasp from behind.

"Enjoying triumph, Pablo?"

Pablo knew who it was before he turned his head. The silhouette had betrayed what the owner of the voice had certainly wanted to achieve - a surprise. The man was dressed in a well-cut dark suit with a matching bowler hat, covering his rotund figure and framing his rather round but unpleasant face. All dressed to match the times, thought Pablo to himself. Prim, proper, and boring. But this was no way to talk to a potential buyer.

"Monsieur Montmartre," Pablo took off his grey flat cap and made a little bow, half in feigned respect and half in annoyance. "How nice to see that you are also here to take a little bit more glory away from Bonaparte's legacy."

"I am not," growled Montmartre, adjusting his bowler hat with one hand that was attached to a very short arm and with his other arm fishing rather uncomfortably into the inside pocket of his jacket and eventually brandishing a cigar, "A man who basks in glory of any sort."

"No, I presume not," chuckled Pablo. "But you would allow your son on frivolous adventures with me so that he will be preserved in my painting and for you to show off to your friends and family?"

The hand on the cigar clenched a little too tightly and still-smouldering ash started spilling out. Picasso was not at all a humble man, despite his destitute beginnings, burning his own failed artwork to keep himself warm in a room without heating. Now, however, with Gertrude Stein as his ardent fan, Montmartre was facing stiff competition in buying the art that he loved. Pablo now had a newfound desire to speak to people willing to pay an exorbitant fee for his few strokes of a paintbrush.

Pablo was about to give what he thought would have been some choice words when something collided on his stomach and made him fall to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. After he finally caught his breath he stared at the cause of his falling down - a boy no older than twelve, wearing the same type of cap that Picasso loved so much.

And he realised something.

"They sent you?" Pablo whispered in disbelief.

The boy nodded. "They want it back," he said, adjusting his cap and dusting himself as he stood up. "And I have a message for you. From him."

"I was talking to him, boy," Montmartre's rasp sounded almost comical when he raised his volume, hardly what he intended to do. "Wait for your turn."

"Count Montmartre," Pablo said, "There is something important going on here, and if you are looking to buy my painting for what I believe is a pittance of what you can actually offer..."

"We're running out of time," said the boy nervously.

Pablo handed him the object, and bowed. "Thank him for my enlightenment," he said, and smiled. The boy smiled back, and handed him the package.

Then, a gunshot.

The boy's smiling lips were broken, in a sudden, ugly manner, by a trail of fresh red blood that spewed out from his mouth. As he collapsed onto the ground he saw an unmistakeable shape of a person's body with one hand on a smoking barrel just outside a cafe across the road. He could make out that body from a mile away, and he still thought it a compliment.

Lea.

A second collapse; this time, Montmartre had fell, most likely faint from the entire experience. His lips were quivering in fear.

He was certain it was Lea, as certain as he had been inside her at 1.30 that morning.

Had she found out his secret? Did she now realise that genius could not possibly be created, that he had sought a shortcut out of his desperation to become famous?

Pablo Ruiz Picasso stepped away from the Arc, and bolted southwards, towards the River Seine. As he felt the whiffs of air that accompanied every bullet that was fired he knew he just had a very close shave. When can I ever trust a woman? He thought absent-mindedly to himself, as he tried to run faster than the bullets that tried to catch his heart.

Was it Lea? As he panted and thought about it, he started doubting his initial certainty. She's got a figure, but I might have been mistaken... could have been a fucking whore from Pigalle. He did not have time to think. Pablo knew he wouldn't die - not yet anyway - but he thought that there was no purpose in letting the world know yet.

The bullets stopped, and Pablo felt thoroughly relieved to see the faint traces of dawn spring out from the east end of the sky. She decided not to trail me. For now. Pablo allowed himself two deep breaths and slowed himself to a more comfortable jog, but stopped and clutched his sweaty head in horror when he realised that he had left something terribly important at the lion's mouth.

The idol, he thought miserably. It's in the hotel.

 

 

"Multiply Untitled Story by multiple writers" Part 4

This entry was written by Ann. The original can be found here.

 

Lea did not really fall in sleep. She was holding the key in her left hand, and tucked it in the pillow under her head. She knew exactly what was that for. She crossed her right arm over to Pablo's chest, and held him tighter, closer to herself. Time is short, she sighed slightly. 

She felt Pablo's hand that was under her neck, gently held her wrist and moved her arm away. He then carefully pulled his hand out for the curve of her neck. He got up and stood at balcony. She turned her face to look at him standing in the dark. He smoke a bit. Threw the cigratte down on the floor before he finished it, and stepped on it. It seemed like he thought of something. 

Pablo went to bathroom quietly, went out with something in his hand. Lea could not figure out what exactly it was. Squarish and flat. He put it down on the living room table, walked toward side of the bed Lea slept on. Lea was surprised that he was already dressed in a T-shirt and probably a pair of Jeans. He bended down and kissed Lea on her forehead. Lea lifted up her hands and held on to his neck, "You are going out, now?".

"I will be back in a minute" He padded on Lea's nose, and lowered down to her lips. "Just sleep on a while more".

Pablo left with that 'thing' he took out from the bathroom. 

Lea waited for another 10 minutes before she washed up and dressed up herself. She took out the key and put it in her purse. before she closed on her purse, she saw the tiny pistol she always brought along wherever she went. How would I wished I could be any other girl, who could raise up a family for the one she fell in love deeply. She smile, yes, she has fallen in love with him. She shouldn't but she did. That was not in the plan.

She held tight to her purse and closed the hotel room door behind her. She turned back and touched on the number plate. I would remember these few months for the rest of my life. She told herself. 

Walked down through the corridor with firm steps, she knew, she needed to do it, no matter how unwilling she was...

"Multiply Untitled Story by multiple writers" Part 3

This entry was written by lianchye. The original can be found here. 

The instruction was specific:  'This package must be delivered personally to Pablo, and to him alone.  No witnesses."

He arrived in Paris and spent several days tracking down the man named Pablo.  Finally he located him.  But he found out Pablo was not alone.  He has a woman with him.  Somehow he has to get Pablo alone or at least no one to witness him handing over the package.

That night he approached the hotel where Pablo was staying.  He waited for him to return to his room.  It was way past midnight when the man showed up.  The way he walked, the way they both walked, suggested they'd been drinking heavily.  The female companion was with him.  He waited for them to settle in.  An hour after the lights were switched off, he knocked on the door.  Once.  Loud enough for someone still awake to hear it.  Then he stood away from the door and waited.  There was no response.  None was expected yet.  He counted the seconds.

Ten minutes later he knocked again.  And he waited and counted another fifteen minutes.  Once more he knocked.

Perhaps the woman is still awake and Pablo cannot risk it.  If that is the case, he'll have to wait and try again.  Another hour.  Or until morning.   No it cannot be in the morning.  This mission is too risky to be carried out during daylight hours.  He'll have to wait until nightfall again.

He approached the door again and raised his hand.  His hand froze before it reached the door.  Forget it.  Tonight's over.  Another knock and it will raise suspicion.  Pablo is a careful man.  That's how he survived this long.

"Multiply Untitled Story by multiple writers" Part 2

This entry was written by j, the original can be found here.

 

Oh fucking hell. Pablo thought.  Is nothing sacred anymore?  It's my goddamned honeymoon for Chrissake.  Can't they even wait until it's over?

Of course he noticed them.  True, he's distracted than usual, smiling wryly to himself, but artists, even the laziest ones, have a keen eye.  Details, it's all about the details.  He certainly didn't appreciated it when they first showed up at Concorde Square.  Romance is fucking hard work with these bastards around.

"Mm?.. " he responded sleepily to Lea.  

"There's someone at the door!"  she whispered more frantically.

"Someone?" he sat up slowly.  His mind raced and wondered how he'll play this out with Lea.  

"Yes, I heard noises...." Lea's voice trailed off and she looked a bit embarrassed.  "I.. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but I'm almost certain someone knocked.. but it was only one time and I.. I'm not sure..." 

Three fucking times Pablo mentally corrected her.  First time when they were in the balcony kissing, second time when she was about to climax and the third time at fucking 2:15am.  

"Let me check.." he started to get out of the bed when she put her hand on his chest.

"No.." she said, "I'm sure it's nothing.. I.. I just need a glass of water."  And she stood up and reached for her robe.

Pablo pretended to yawn and shut his eyes.  He could hear the rustling of her slippers as they made their way to the kitchen.  The faucet running.  The glass laid down on the counter tile.  Her sighing.

Even in the dark he could see doubt on her face and relentless curiosity that needs to be satisfied.  Perhaps she didn't mean it but he knew she kept secrets from him.  He half wondered if its was because she knew he kept secrets from her as well.

He thought about the long scar on her thigh he discovered months ago.  "I was such a tomboy when I was a kid I got that jumping over the fence" she said.  He trailed his tongue over it and nibbled her skin.  Whip?  Knife?  He thought of the options.  It definitely wasn't the fence.

She was trying to be quiet now.  He almost felt the air move when she crept up to the front door.  She might actually open it and check out what's going on.  

"Lea?" he called out.

She stopped in her tracks and quickly returned to the bedroom.  She removed her robe and went back to bed with him.

She nuzzled under his arm and sighed.  Soon she was asleep.

He knew they slipped the key underneath the door and she found it.  Goddamit.

 

 

 

"Multiply Untitled Story by multiple writers" Part 1

 

Lea was admiring the waterlilies in the purple pond when she heard the television. Or, what she thought was the television. They sounded like muffled yelping and distant raining. Maybe she had left the television on.

 

The noises were inching closer. Somebody was definitely calling away. Lea was distracted and decided to wake up.

 

Lea fluttered her eyes open to the dark of the room. The television wasn't on.

 

She did not remembered turning on the television before sleep. Lea could not even remember sleeping. In fact her head felt heavy. It was alcohol. Lea remembered it had been a bottle of champagne. Intoxicated, she and Pablo had discussed art. After all they were in Paris for their honeymoon. She loved it when her groom spoke with fiery passion and gesticulations on Rembrandt and Van Gogh. If Pablo had knew about her dream, he would have claimed that Lea was in an Monet's painting! Pablo had lived and breathed art.

 

Lea heard something trailing off like the wails of police sirens. She couldn't believe she was right here in Paris! Pablo had chose France and Spain for their honeymoon. It's the 'Picasso Journey', he proclaimed. He had wanted to follow the artist's development from Paris to Madrid and Barcelona.    This was their first night in Paris and everything had been wonderful. They had cruised along the Seine river in the sunset and had dinner on the Eiffel Tower. Drunk and madly in love with one another, they went back to their hotel and had crazy rockstar sex.

 

Lea closed her eyes and smiled widely. Two whole weeks of Picasso, wine, sex and shopping, she would need all the energy she could muster. Maybe they could even conceive a child in the most romantic city in the world...

 

Then in the dark, she heard a sharp rap on the door. It had left swiftly the way it had came, almost as if she had imagined it. But the residual blunt in her ears had cast a sturdy ripple that stirred her awake.

 

Lea sat her tired eyes up and waited for a second knock. Or a buzz. Or a voice informing her of a room service she hadn't ordered. Their room was classically kept, with exquisite wallpapers and an large oak door. It had a bolted cylinder lock and had to be opened noisily with an iron key.

 

Maybe a guest had walked past their room and brushed against their door. Lea listened for slamming of neighboring doors or the metal cage closing for one to get into the tiny elevator. There were none, save for Pablo's snoring by her side.

 

Lea turned in the bed, sandpapering the blankets and faced the door. It remained ten feet away, solid bolted with a thin ray of light streaming beneath it. The uninterrupted light showed that no one was at the door. It must had been the sound of water pipes in the bathroom by the door. Old buildings do that sometimes. Hotel Violette was at least fifty years old. Lea had read the hotel's history at the reception while Pablo was checking them in two nights ago. Pablo had difficulty in communication as he spoke little French and the elderly receptionist spoke minimal English and was quite deaf. Lea swore that she could remember the name of the receptionist. His name had sounded like a cough.

 

'Jacques.' Lea smiled triumphantly as she closed her eyes lazily and snugged the covers closer.

 

Maybe old Jacques was making his rounds along the corridors.

 

To fully assure herself that she could go back to dreaming, Lea decided to check the door again. It was a preservation instinct of hers; checking gas before leaving her house, logging on emails before sleep or texting her assistant before the end of the day to reassure that she was infallible and invulnerable. The urban lioness in the downwind. Lea looked at the door for the final time and saw something disturbing enough to sit up straight as an arrow at the edge of the bed. Pablo groaned in protest as he rolled over to the other end. 

 

The light beneath the oak door was disconnected. A pair of shadowy feet broken the line of light.

 

What was the damn time? Lea breathed heavily. Suddenly the room had became claustrophobic. Three, four am? She remembered Pablo bringing her back to their room around midnight. Had they locked the door? Completely? What if the spring in the lock was loose and the door was not fully locked? Was their lock an easy lock to pick? All you need was a hairpin. Maybe they should have gotten a hotel with cardkeys in the beginning. Lea thought about Nellie from accounting. When Nellie had her honeymoon in Switzerland, someone tried to break in unsuccessfully. Nellie's husband had the chair against the doorknob. The person fled when the chair was making too much noise and woke Nellie's husband. The shadow beneath the door stood still. Lea focused her sight on the brass doorknob, half expecting it would be agonizingly twisted to open. Then burly men with accents would rush in with shinning knives and plastic cables. There were nothing viable in the room to defend themselves with. Maybe Pablo could still hurl the table lamp and put up a fight, but they would eventually gut him like a lamb and spilled his blood all over the velvet carpet. This was Europe after all. Crime did not exist with solely with pickpockets, tourists had been kidnapped, raped, organ-harvested and traded off as sex slaves.

 

The shadow as if read her, moved away from the door. The horizon of light resumed uninterrupted, running from one end to another seamlessly.

 

Lea sat there staring. She realized that the alcohol in her body was completely purged by both adrenaline and her running imagination. She could felt her forehead moisten. What now? Is the person still there? Is he pretending to leave? Would he return again when she sleeps?

 

The only way to find out was through the peephole.

 

But Lea didn't want to look through the peephole. What if she saw something? Something or someone just leaning close to the door and stared back through the concave lens. Eyeball to eyeball.

 

'Pablo, honey!' Lea hissed and shoved her husband's shoulder. 'Wake up. Now.'

 

'What is it?' Pablo mumbled to his bride. 'Is it morning already?'

 

'Someone's at the door.'