My Ghost Story

"Why, a spirit is such a little, little thing, that I have heard man, who was a great scholar, say that he'll dance ye a hornpipe upon the point of a needle."

The Drummer, Act 1, Scene 1,
by Joseph Addison

The above quote refers to this ontological argument, of course.

The thing about teenage boys who aren't kept under the strictest of adult supervision is that they tend to go out in the wee hours of the morning just because they can. Never mind how utterly pointless these nighttime adventures are. Never mind if there is school in the morrow. Never mind if there is exam in the school in the morrow. Teen boys are indestructible that way.

Me neighbour/kindergarten mate/primary schoolmate/secondary schoolmate/multiple tuition mate/serial bicycle adventure mate, Khim Hai, and I are just two such indestructible teens.

As the legend goes, it was 3 am when Khim Hai tapped the sliding glass door of my grandmother's house and I, predictably, was still awake though I can scarcely remember now what I could be doing at that hour so unearthly (I'll wager it wasn't homework).

"Hey, Kok," said my indestructible teen friend who was wearing his characteristic emo glasses. "Jom, mamak."

"Hold a minute," I said to him, and went to conclude whatever I was doing (which, I still maintain, wasn't homework) and in no time at all, I was pedaling on my ol' mountain bike¹ alongside Khim Hai's acid green BMX - I'll concede that I was never as cool as him. I didn't wear emo specs, for one thing. Our destination that night was Jiki, a 24-hours foodcourt which frankly, was not a mamak at all. It just happen to be the nearest eatery still open at that crazy hour for indestructible teens like us.

Our regular cycling route takes us through a village and then a housing estate which bordered St. David's High School and it was nothing more than a narrow asphalt lane on which no two cars can be driven abreast². Said lane was also incredibly badly lit and there were parts of it that were pitch black, but we have used it so often that we instinctively knew just how far the ditches bordering it were. There was a fork in the road which would swing us eerily close to a Malay graveyard, but never quite reaching it.

The next landmark was an abandoned bungalow which was partially concealed by great trees growing around and over it, making it appear sinister even in daylight in that shady copse. One of its room upstairs had its window smashed and there were colourful, life-size Disney cartoon characters painted meretriciously on its walls. In the dark of night, they looked like silhouettes of vaguely humanoid and monstrously deformed apparitions staring balefully with unseen eyes down on us as we cycled past.

Not that any of that fazed ol' indestructible Khim Hai and I. We would be too busy talking and laughing to notice.

After that came the darkest, creepiest stretch of our ride. For the sake of narration, I'll give it a name; The Tunnel. The road swerving through the Tunnel had massive, ancient trees on one side and their verdant, far-reaching branches loomed over the road, giving an illusion of twilight at all times of the day. At night, they blot out the moon and stars. We did so try to avoid looking up into those leafy boughs - I mean, what if we see a face up there amongst the vegetation? That would blow our wits to smithereens. We'd never be the same again. We'd be gibbering and drooling all day long, and have to be fed through a tube. I heard tube-fed food don't taste very good.

And like all good tunnels, there was a light at the end of it - a lamp post belching forth oodles and oodles of orange warmth in the cold of night. The catch: it stood right in front of a Japanese cemetery.

Yes, Japanese. And as everybody already know, Japanese are OMGSOEVIL!

The Japanese cemetery.

Every time we used this road, we had to cycle under that orange lamp and past just a few feet away from the white gates of the cemetery. Of course, it had always been uneventful, and we were our usual boisterous, loud and indestructible selves when we rode by it that night.

Then something weird happened.

The lamp post went off with a low pop just as we were reaching it, washing us over with a curtain of inky blackness. It was as if a pillow was clapped onto our faces. We could have imagined it but the temperature seemed to have dropped a few notches from kinda-pleasant-breezy to freaking-creepy-breezy. We stopped talking that instant. We stopped breathing - we just daren't. We just stared straight ahead at far off lights in the distant and pedaled solemnly past. As soon as we had the lamp post and cemetery at our backs, the orange light suddenly came to life again with a distinctive electric buzz in the air. That was our cue. Both of us just started speeding - pedaling so furiously we thought our hearts were going to beat right out of our mouths till we reach all the way to Jiki.

We didn't talk much about it when we were there, though. We left quite a bit of our indestructibleness behind in that scamper for our lives and souls.

Then something weirder happened.

On our way back past the same lamp post and, yes, the same Japanese cemetery - the exact same thing occured!

I couldn't sleep after I got home. I don't know if this qualifies as a real ghost story but hell, it's certainly the second scariest night of my life. And the tale has the virtue of being completely true, by the way.

Oh, but we still use that same road after that. The spooky incident happened once more, and then never again.

What sort of stupid, pigheaded, indestructible teens were we if we have given up, really?

Happy All Hallow's Eve.



Indestructible,
k0k s3n w4i

¹ ... which I have christened 'Nicole'. It sounded so cool to say, "I was riding Nicole all night long yesterday."
² I still use it when I drive to Jusco though. There's a trick to it.

Socks and Little Booties

"We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know."

W. H. Auden, Anglo-American poet

You remember Socks, don't you? Socks, the Incredible Supine Bitch;

Her default pose in an older picture 3 months ago.

Socks loves her tummy rubs so much that she would flip over every single time I walk by (I can't help wishing that I have that same power over supermodels and beach babes, though). But in the past few weeks, I realised that Socks is getting ridiculously rotund. I mean, she can't even lie on her back anymore;

OMGBALLOON.

I gave her a little shove with the sole of my sandals and she flopped right over like a bloated sack of wet cement. Seriously, she had been a really greedy bitch and I have caught her stealing Fifi's food from her many times (by growling at Fifi till she freaks out and drops whatever she's holding in her mouth). I have to shoo Socks away and close the gates to the stairs leading up to my room on her every time I wanted to give Fifi a bone or biscuit. She's just so tiresome sometimes.

Now that she's oh-ho-ho-bese, I find it an excellent opportunity for me to practice some hard-learned doctor skillz on her. Okay, I know I'm still only in my second year in med school and I have not attended a single Surgery lecture yet - but any old quack with a scalpel can perform lipoplasty. Worse case scenario; I poke a hole in her spleen or create a fat embolus that bobs all the way to her lungs and kill her. But those are risks I'm willing to take.

So here's the rough schematic diagram for the procedure with the postulated outcome.

Yeah. I'm sure it will ooze right out.

Oh, there isn't a vacuum cleaner lying around so I can't like, make a small incision, stick it in and suck it out like what they do for them big, shiny Hollywood royalties - but the basis of good doctoring is improvisation, I think. Just like how I use ice to substitute anaesthetics. Brill, ain't it?

Anyway, the operation was a rip-roaring success...













...except for one teensy, little hitch. The bits of fatty tissues we recovered from the patient's abdomen are... err... extremely bizarre in shape, colour and consistency.

They also squirm a lot and make real cutesy yelping and whiny noises;

Patient in recovery bay.

This will redefine our perception on fat and flab! I mean, you won't diet and exercise these little fatheads to their doom now that you know they are alive and quite literally kicking, right? Liposuction will be made illegal. Before you know it, everyone will want to be tubby and grow their own litter of downy cellulites. This is the dawning of a whole new era, ladies and gentlemen! Fat will be the new fab! Watch out for my name in all the major medical journals - I'll be mailing my research papers as soon as I locate an envelope.

"Mama?" *Kiss*

Life is amazing, isn't it?

Particularly new ones.



Surgeon-in-n00b
k0k s3n w4i 

Malaysian Punctuality is an Oxymoron

"Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time."

Horace Mann, American education reformer and abolitionist

Walking the long, dark mile to the Sky Lounge wasn't a very smart thing to do, particularly since it was raining rather profusely and I had to tote a bottle of vodka along - which was the birthday present from my part. I was told by Shaki to be there by 7.00 pm to be in time to shout 'Surprise!' with the rest - who was all told to be there before 7.30 pm (latest). The guests were... Malaysians.

Predictably, I was the only person not ludicrously late. The. One. And. Only. And I walked. With those gangly things called legs. The second earliest people to make it arrived half an hour later, at the time when the 'Surprise!' bit supposed to happen - and everyone else arrived after 7.30 pm. What did they expect to do, really? Come in after ol' Kok greet the birthday girl with a bottle of Smirnoff in one hand and no cake in the other in an empty bar? You guys should have seen some of the SMS's I exchanged with Shaki during that time I was Guest Singular. Classic hilarious. Shaki actually freaked out a bit.

Anyway, seeing that it wasn't planned by me, and the birthday girl was Shaki's girlfriend and not mine, I don't really give a hoot if the surprise didn't work out at all. The thing I could never wrap my head around is how can people have the nerve to be so late? I mean, I'd be appalled to find myself arriving a couple of minutes past the appointed hour - only to find that I'd still be attendee number one. There are so many dinner dates in which I find myself present with impeccable promptitude, and watching people arriving half an hour - even an hour late - and the only excuse I am ever offered, on the rare occasion anyone actually think they owe me one, is, 'Malaysian mah'. In those times, I found myself dangerously close to shouting back; 'Then what the fuck am I? German?'

The empty Sky Lounge bar. Fucking knew it.

The problem is no one thinks that being late is anything wrong at all - because everyone else is doing it. It's cool. It's fucking high fashion (if I hear the cliché 'fashionably late' one more time I'll beat that person who say it to death with a grandfather clock). Nobody wants to wait for the laggers and so, they choose to lag themselves. What about those people who honour the appointment - people who tried their best to arrive on time so no-fucking-body have to wait for them? I always try to make it at least 10 minutes early every time because I think that letting anyone wait for me is just plain selfish - any conscientious human with an intact brain can work that out. But no, bloody selfish pricks ain't got no conscience.

Of course, I know that nothing I say here is going change anyone's shit attitude. Fuck, I'm just one early guy. Just let me fucking wait till my balls fall out. I mean, I'm the selfish one here for arriving on time and then bitching about it when everyone else is late, right? Damn, that's so fucking inconsiderate of me.

Nah, I wasn't angry yesterday at the birthday party. That comes from learning to expect these things. Oh, and no offence intended to anybody in particular. My beef is with the general 'I'm Malaysian so I don't need to be punctual or apologize when I'm late' attitude. Am I the only one who finds it ridiculous and ill-bred? I wonder where I was when I was younger and they were giving out those free social-conscience-removal surgeries.

Oh yeah, learning basic courtesy from Enid Blyton kiddie classics.



Haha, moron,
k0k s3n w4i

I Saw You

"I’ve had all that I can take
I'm not about to break
Cause I’m happy now
Are you happy now?"

Are You Happy Now (2003) by Michelle Branch

There is a person you don't want to see - someone you try not to think about at any time of the day. You suppress the thoughts and you suppress the emotions, and you sweep them all under a rug. And soon, a noticeable lump forms under that rug, pregnant with all the thoughts and all the emotions you try to ignore, but still you pretend not to see. When people point that out to you, saying "Hey, there's a lump under your rug," you reply, saying "What lump?" and change the subject. You continue to subconsciously press these feelings down, and you let that lump grew to abominable proportions. You don't care because you can't see them. There's only the rug and that's that. And one day, when you finally meet that person you don't want to see on the streets, or at a party, or in a cafe - or wherever that chance venue happens to be - you are pleasantly surprised to find that you aren't reacting to it. There's no upwelling of regret, sadness, disappointment or rage whatsoever. You feel glad. You feel lightened. You feel as if a ridiculously weighty burden have been lifted off your shoulders and for the first time in months, you straighten your back and take a liberating breath which inflates your insides which have shriveled up over all those time you spent being miserable.

Then you leave that street, that party, or that cafe congratulating yourself on having rid yourself of a terrible, protracted, self-imposed sentence of wretchedness. You're fucking pleased with yourself, and there's that shit-eating grin on your face that shows. You have forgiven yourself, and you're a newer man than before you ran into that person you most not want to run into.

Then, a prickly hotness pushes behind your eyeballs, and you blink once. A single drop of warmth run down your cheek to your smiling lips. You taste salt, and the wet trail that warmth left behind on your face feels cold against the evening breeze. You wipe that away with the back of your hand, feeling at once shocked and disbelieving. "This is not how I'm feeling," you say to yourself indignantly, but still you cry some more.

Something inside is hurting real bad, and you're not sure why.



Still smiling,
k0k s3n w4i

What You Missed This Saturday Morning

"Today is the first day of the rest
Of our lives"

Church on Sunday (2000) by Green Day

My favourite song from their album; Warning.

I woke up at 6.30 am this morning to the upbeat Soulchild remixed version of 19-2000 by the Gorillaz, which has been my alarm tune for the past couple of weeks or more now. That always left me singing the line "Get the cool! Get the cool shoeshine!" over and over again every morning on my walk to the lecture hall, and if you have strolled close enough, you would have overheard me. Or if you happened to walk by my house when I was in the shower, you would have heard me too.

It's Saturday, the day all sane people stay in bed till noon hiding their heads under their pillows - but I'm not very sane, am I? At least, I hope not. Sanity is for squares and accountants and people who throw juice cartons out of the fridge when they are empty. I aim to keep up a degree of eccentricity. It helps me make sense of the random... err... everything-ness that my everyday life throws at me. Look, it's just one of those things that sound stupid in words.

I got up that early because I wanted to start on my new jogging trail, the one our batch's footie team uses which involved a long, rocky uphill path to the End Point. After putting on my jogging shorts and debating whether I should go in cognito in my black woolen ski hat (I decided not to finally), I headed out of my moldy room and into the morning outdoors.

And it was some morning.

I just stood there on the terrace of No. 5, first floor and gawked at the incredible sunrise that greeted me there. I was stunned well and good for a full minute, drinking the early light which weren't strong enough just yet to warm my face. The cold of the night still lingered in the air, quite unwilling to go away without a last stand against the impending day. Puffs of sleepy cloud hung in the blue and golden sky, all wearing silver linings on the hems of their still dusky coats.

I reentered my room and rummaged for my camera. Discovering it under a pile of unfolded clothes which I was pretty certain to be somewhat clean, I climbed up to the second floor of my house and out onto the balcony where I hoped to get a better view.

Good morning, Manipal.

My upsy-daisy, top o' the morning mood was chafed when I realised that this was it - this perch of mine so close to terra firma, so low, so obstructed was what I had to be contented with. I was peeved at the overhanging boughs and leaves, and the looming figures of ugly, angular buildings which marred my horizon, hiding it behind their obnoxious eminences. Most of all, I felt angry at my own impotence to swat them all out of my way with a wave of my hand.

So I ran.

I ran down out of my house, into the courtyard and onto the craggy gravel lane outside. I ran past the hostels and across the basketball court where the locals play cricket in the evening. I ran till the lecture hall complex inched into view and I ran towards it, passing the hundreds of motorcycles parked monotonously on both sides of the road. I ran as fast as I could without a single moment of slack in pace. I ran till I reached the fire escape at the side of it and climbed up the stairwell, leaping three steps at a time as quickly as I dared to. I ran through the door I knew would be unlocked at the very top and out onto the open roof, the highest point in town accessible to me, where the sky stretched lazily and endlessly in every direction.

Hi sky.

I ran because I didn't want the sunrise to end before I get there.

My lungs were burning and I was gasping instead of breathing. There simply wasn't enough air for me and no matter how hard I tried to draw it in, it only came thinly - like lukewarm watered down soup through a capillary tube. I was convinced that my heart was trying to smash its way out of my ribcage, and I could feel its erratic protest beating a tattoo against the inner surface of my eardrums.

I staggered to the edge of the roof. I held up my camera, which was clutched in my hand all through my mad sprint, and took as many pictures as I could before I slumped into a heap at where I stood. My knees simply gave way and the cramps crept into my calves. For a whole 15 minutes, I couldn't stand up as the familiar agony squeezed my gastrocnemii in its vise. What a way to reboot my jogging routine after months of phlegm. With a suicidal bang. Very smart. With an IQ above 125, you'd think I knew better.

When I was finally upright again, a wave of dizziness seized control of my head and almost floored me for the second time but I managed to grab the railing before I did. Several crows standing nearby was eyeing me hopefully, probably thinking I was going to expire in a sec or two. To be honest, I really felt like expiring. I have never felt thirstier in my life, and the back of my throat felt as if it was covered in a crust of dust. Squinting, I looked blearily at the show I came to watch.

Was it worth it?

Hell yeah.

And the Sun, he riseth in the East.

My only regret was that I have no one to enjoy it with.



Made it,
k0k s3n w4i