Six Words 23

A dented pan filled with pennies.

Six Words 22

He from the pulpit: ``Preach not!''

Six Words 21

Verily I beseech thee, unhand me!

Six Words 20

The deepest night hides darkest fears.

Six Words 19

Desert wandering, arrived at oasis. Paradise!

Six Words 18

Found love, holding only her veil.

Six Words 17

Hearken the thunder, a bucket leaks.

Six Words 16

A mother glances, a child quiets.

Being Less Asleep

I have been asleep for too long. Well, not sleeping in the literal sense, but sleeping in the figurative one. The solution to the problem before me was so dastardly simple that when I finally came upon it, I had to slap myself in the forehead in disgust when I realised how dumb I had been.

But I should backtrack a little and explain quickly what the problem was.

I had been working for a small business for the past four years. Nothing fancy, just a simple dev-shop helping other small businesses create web sites and portals for their use. I was a programmer that wrote and interfaced all the stuff relating to the servers, and we had designers who handled all the user-interface objects. We had a solid reputation for the most part, which explained how we managed to stay afloat in the business despite the general cutthroat nature.

The first three years were the best years in the company. The owner was the boss, and he was ``one of us''---he pitched in to get the deals, and joined in to help us with the coding when the going got tough. And when there were last minute changes that the clients wanted, he would stay with us as we worked on it, supplying us with food and other sustenance while we worked on getting the changes made. Everyone liked him, and with him, everyone's fortune, though small, seemed made.

Then the boss had a stroke. It came from out of the blue. The boss wasn't exactly an athlete, but he was in good shape compared to some of us. That he suddenly had a stroke was something that no one could have foreseen. It knocked him out of the day-to-day running of the company. This was when He showed up.

He was apparently a partner of the business, except that He never really showed up ever at the office. Some of the old-timers who had known the owner from earlier said that they knew of the existence of Him, but the last time He showed up in the office was so long ago that they forgot all about His presence, until now.

He had a management style that was effective antithetical to what the owner had. He was always sitting in His room behind His desk; He never mingled, never smiled, and never tried to learn anything about us, the employees. He was most interested in tabulating all forms of statistics, and every change from the clients and any change really had to be submitted to Him with strict dollar-costs spelt out in full.

It took us nearly a year to get used to such a fastidious person. Then the performance review came up, and everyone was suddenly confronted by reams of data condensed into charts which He would use to point out how inefficient everyone was working, and demanded that standards be met for the upcoming work year. The drubbing received was a rude shock to our small group. Someone even thought of communicating with the owner about the seemingly unfair treatment, but the owner was still fairly incapacitated by his stroke. It wasn't that everyone was slacking off---it was just that work such as coding and interface design were in essence creative endeavours which required a good mix of ``down'' and ``up'' time to ensure quality. The metric that He was using was biased towards people spending nearly all their time in front of the computers, complete with weekly update meetings even if there was not enough information to hold one.

Many got upset and wished for the owner to return. Me too on that---the camaraderie with the owner was something that I was missing. Moreoever it was clear that we weren't getting any new customers as the year went by since much of our time was spent on maintenance for our existing client base. When asked, He merely dismissed it all and said that it was pointless to get new clients on when our production efficiency was still low.

All of us were despairing at the situation, not sure what to do.

That was when I suddenly realise that I could always quit the job.

1950s (1954--1955)

1954: The condition of self-governance was debated strongly since the petition in 1953, cumulating into a series of requirements set out by the governor in consultation with the Crown's representative, among which was the military independence of the City. The debate over military independence started quiet, but was increasingly condemned by the student union leaders since much of the military independence was contingent on enacting a conscript army based on the the youth corp of society. Student union leaders saw it as yet another means of encouraging oppression, this time referring to the capitalist mentalities of the merchants who were more than willing to get better trading outcomes while ``sacrificing'' the young to do the ``dirty work'' of soldiering. The displeasure reached a flash point in the middle of 1954 when the preliminary Citizen Soldiering Ordinance was passed by the legislative council which mandated the need for Citizen Soldiering, the national conscript programme. Student union leaders led riots through the streets, terrorising the merchants that they saw as trying to usurp power, and demonising the British subjects for even broaching the idea to the legislative council.

The riots lasted for a day before the police and military police stepped in and broke up the rioters, arresting many of the student union leaders. Many of the students who participated in the riots were hurt while the arrest of the student union leaders took out much of the bite from the student unions.

1955: Elections for all positions in the legislative council were held without any reserved places. Unfortunately, most of the seats were taken by mechants and lawyers from both the local citizenry and the existent British subjects who identified more with the City than with Britain. This proved to be a sore point among the union leaders who had been providing massive support for self-governance for a long time, seeing it as a part of their role as the organisers of the workers. The seeming betrayal started with a strike of many unionists in the many sectors vital to the survival of the City, particularly the transport and manufacturing sectors. The strikes were further joined by members of the student unions who wanted blood from their perception of betrayal from the previous year. The strikes lasted for a week, and were exacerbated when the police and military police tried to step in to break up the strike.

The resulting clash caused a massive City-wide riot that lasted for four days, in which police and military police forces worked in vain to contain. Curfews were instituted, and many arrests of the union leaders were made. Despite all efforts, the injury toll was high on both sides of the conflict, and there were several deaths from the physical altercations that they got involved with.

The new limited government had just had its first taste of teething issues.

1950s (1950--1953)

The years after the second world war were among the hardest. Roughly five years after the end of the second world war, the City was in the midst of rebuilding itself. The colonial powers returned, but their presence invoked mixed feelings, and on the whole, everyone in the City wasn't sure if having the colonial masters back was a great idea, considering they were the ones who failed to defend them against the invasions during the second world war in the first place.

1950: The first major riot since the end of the war involving a British family who adopted a young muslim girl before the war. The riot came about when the girl's original family wanted her back. Except that the girl had converted to Christianity under her adopted family and was a practising Christian for the better part of the past ten years. Strong opinions prevailed and the friction between the returned colonial masters and the citizens of the City caused a strong protest to occur, that turned quickly into a riot when the police force resorted to force to disperse the protestors. Many citizens of the City were badly hurt, and the one-sided match-up was widely reported. Global press condemned the police's actions, calling them ``brutal''.

1951: The second election for the legislative council was held in the City. The first legislative council came into being four years ago, made up of mostly British subjects and a small handful of local citizens. Of the twenty one seats available, only six were available for voting in the first election, while in this, nine were available for voting. Voting was done only by the British subjects who had been residing in the City for more than a year. The newspapers reported the results, but most of the populace of the City were apathetic due to the constant need to deal with bread-and-butter issues.

1952: Some of the more prominent merchants in the City were starting to openly doubt the ability of the British to maintain the security and trade abilities of the City, and as a result, started to actively create and maintain associations and unions to protect their interests against the colonial masters.

1953: Serious talk about the role of the British in the City post the world war began with a petition to the governor to look into means of attaining self-governance by the City. The petition was strongly supported by the prevailing merchants, trade leaders and union leaders.

Six Words 15

Hello child, sorry you can't stay.

Six Words 14

Boxed diamond ring in pocket, forgotten.

Six Words 13

Three hundred lost from mis-aimed missile.

Six Words 12

Old man whose heart never opened.

Six Words 11

Sold my soul, found a soulmate.

Six Words 10

Moving forward, looking back, forgetting surroundings.

Furtive

Rudolf looked about him furtively as he crouched deep in the shadows. It was not the first time that he had visited the house, but it was the first time that he had visited it in this particular capacity. He had been in the house earlier as one of the many nameless guests seemingly invited to populate the rather sparse party of the who's who---the rich town was small, and didn't really have enough of the rich and powerful to justify the throwing of a lavish party. He had sneaked in according to plan, and done a survey of the layout of the house, locating where the ``Heart of the Matter'' was kept. It was hard to miss it though, considering that the party was thrown in order to show off that particular piece of gemstone. But unlike the other revellers, he paid more attention than they over the minutae.

And now, he was waiting in the dark, checking for the right opportunity to strike.

Caught

It wasn't a choice---there was no choice, none whatsoever. It was either to attempt an escape and die trying, or to just sit there and die anyway.

In either case, death was always an outcome, except in one it was inevitable, while the other, there was some leeway.

William knew the odds. Captured by the Japanese while trying to deliver messages from Indonesia to the guerilla forces in Malaya, he was kept as a prisoner at an internment camp, to be held there before they decided what to do with him. He had heard of the rumours; they weren't pretty. If only summary execution were the outcome that he was facing---that hadn't been the case for a long time since.

Death Railway.

The two most dreaded words that any prisoner-of-war could ever hear during the war. It was a death sentence for sure, except death didn't come in the swift way a firing squad can deliver. Being worked to death was in itself harsh, but to support the enemy's war engine in the meantime as a part of the sacrifice was on a whole new level of cruelty altogether.

At least he was on the island of Singapore. There were Allied groups in operation that could help with the hiding and eventual escape once he got out of the internment camp. If he were in any of the Malayan internment camps, he would have serious troubles getting out---the guerillas may be stronger in Malaya, but by virtue of that, they couldn't easily render assistance outside of their spheres of influence as easily as the sleeper agents out in the more urban areas.

William sighed to himself as he lay on the barren dirt ground, isolated from the other POWs. He was a messenger, one who carried intelligence to and fro, and the Japanese were adamant at keeping him from telling the other inmates information from the various fronts. Moreover, they had taken away the messages that he was supposed to be transporting, and were placing him under strict surveillance for now.

Statistically Impossible

``Statistically impossible.'' That was what he was told when he asked about the likelihood that he would fail in the task that they had set for him. And he believed them. Every word. There was no reason not to, really, considering that they were the largest and most influential space agency in the world. Yet here he was, stuck in the capsule, floating somewhere between low and medium earth orbit, with no way to maintain orbit till help could be sent, and no way to safely crash land into the ocean below.

It was meant to be a routine earth-to-moon-base servicing trip. There had been hundreds of such missions before, and this was no different in any regard. The craft was the same, the launch platform was the same, even the mission itself was based on an old one that had undergone countless revisions and tests and actual deployments that there was nothing that it had not taken into consideration---such was the completeness in the mission brief itself.

Yet when he boarded the capsule at the top of the massive Prometheus-class rocket, he could feel nothing but anxiety. He raised his concerns with mission control, which merely noted down his misgivings and told him to carry on. He then asked them the likelihood of the mission failing, the infamous words of ``statistically impossible'' were returned.

The trip out was smooth. The payload was delivered to the moon base, and some of the moon base's back up data were transferred over into the capsule for return to mission control for safe-keeping. It was an additional redundancy used to handle transactional data that was important, but not important enough to take up the precious bandwidth in the laser-based communications channel that existed between the moon base and planet-side.

The launch out of the moon base proceeded without a hitch, but it was until nearly halfway through the flight that he discovered visually that his engines were failing, even though the telemetry systems indicated an all-clear in systems health. He relayed his concerns with mission control, and they told him to carry on with his return trip while they consulted the mission data to determine the actual status.

And the engines blew out completely when he was between low and medium earth orbit. Radio communication became sporadic before cutting off completely; he looked at the read-outs and checked on the transceiving array on this capsule and found that the array itself was shot. One of the sensors also indicated a sharp spike in various forms of radiation.

That was when he realised that everything was failing about him because the capsule and he had somehow crossed the path of a massive source of radiation that was knocking out the sensitive electronics. The realisation took a while to hit him, but when it did, he started sobbing, realising his own fate.

House of Mystery

Edward looked about him in pure confusion. He swore that he had backtracked perfectly along the corridor that he was on---it was only a corridor, and he remembered entering from one end and leaving at the other, without going through any doors to any rooms in between. Yet he found himself in a completely different part of the bizarre house. He cursed under his breath, and wished that he had not taken up the silly bet with his classmates to prove once and for all that he was cool.

At first, it seemed like a rather tame idea. Spend some time in the crazy-looking house that no one seemed to be staying in, exploring it, taking photographs of cool stuff inside before returning. It sounded fool proof. His classmates did not even demand that he do something as silly as exploring after dark or anything. They were genuinely curious about the crazy-looking house, and felt that Edward was too scared to actually do it for them. Bets were called and on a quiet Saturday afternoon, Edward found himself walking through the house armed with a simple point-and-shoot camera.

The house did not have any signs about it that told people to keep away, which in itself was quite unusual when it was also readily apparent that no one was actively staying in it. Rumour had it that some of the homeless would use the house for shelter from time to time, but no one seemed to see any of the homeless after they were alleged to have entered the house. That of course added on to the allure of the mystery. He could have shrugged it off and admitted that he was scared, but Susan was there, and the last thing he wanted was to look frail in front of her.

When he entered the house though, a note on the floor piqued his curiousity. He had picked it up and read it, and what he read sent chills down his spine. It was a warning memo, scrawled using what seemed like charcoal or some other improvised writing utensil of a similar nature. It told the reader that entering the house was a terrible mistake, and they had no more than thirty seconds to get out before things would turn horribly wrong. There were no details beyond that, and Edward felt a crawl on his neck when he realised that he was just one second beyond the thirty that the note talked about. His blood cold, Edward took a quick look behind him at the door that he just entered---the bright day light that he was expecting to see was replaced by a single solid wall.

Edward panicked, but tried his best to calm himself down. The fact that the note could exist suggested that there was a way of living through, and perhaps to even escape it. And since then, he had been wandering about from room to room, until that corridor that he found himself in.

Narcissism

The sheer vanity of it all should have been an early indicator of the type of pain to come. But it was just something that Allison cannot easily accept. He was charmingly handsome, and had a good attitude to boot. And when he asked her if she would be his girlfriend, there was little reason why she should say no.

They went out on a few dates, each date more magical than the last. The only thing that kept recurring was his seemingly obsessive need to check himself out in front of any reflective surface that they happened to pass by. At first, Allison found it cute, but by the time the fifth date came about, it was starting to get tiresome. While he kept looking at himself in the reflective surfaces, he did not demonstrate any other of the more overt signs of being narcissistic.

Or so she thought.

It was nearly six months since the start of their romance. She had learnt to live with his peculiarities, and his general demeanour and interest in her had not waned since the day they started going out. He proposed, she accepted, and two weeks later they had signed the marriage license. It was a simple affair, that wedding was, since both their immediate families were small without any extended relations. They had rented a place to live together while they were saving enough for their first house. It was the first time that the two of them would be living in close proximity with each other; all this while they had been quite proper in their behaviours when they were relatively alone, something that was fast becoming an antiquated practice with all the notions of free love and sexual liberation. Allison was excited about it; she had loved him with all of her heart, and soon she could begin a new chapter of life by living with him.

When they were done with moving their own things into the rented apartment, they collapsed in exhaustion on the couch that was provided by the landlord, elated at their new lives together. Allison turned to look at him, and found that in the midst of moving, he had a tuft of hair that was a little out of place. She playfully pushed it back with her hand, only to find the clump of hair falling out into her grasp, and his suddenly melting away, the skin sliding off the flesh which was also dropping off, exposing the bone that was beneath it.

Two loud screams were heard.

Dialogue

AARON
It is of my belief that the world is, on the whole, doing much worse than it done so before, by virtue of the fact of rampant corruption stemming from the proliferation of capitalism.

BETH
But Aaron! How can you make such an audacious claim? Is it not true that we have greater survival rates from birth, as well as a longer life expectancy as compared to before?

AARON
I will grant you that, Beth, but there is no justifiable consensus that such properties are indeed indicative of progress! For what is quantity of life if the said quality of life has not improved by much! Despite all the advances that we have made, we are actually working longer hours than before; how can this be a good thing?

BETH
But Aaron, even though we are working longer hours, we are doing higher value work! Each additional hour of work done contributes much more than what each hour of work used to do. How can that not be advancement?

AARON
My dear Beth, how can that be advancement? The assumption that you are using is that somehow, to work is better than to not work. There is a reason why we call work ``work''---it involves the conversion of time and effort of a person into something that can be contributed back to society as a means of helping its long term survival. But work for work's sake is not advancement! That the richest people do little work yet obtain the highest returns is an affront to the innate corruption of the capitalist system!

BETH
But Aaron, it is the only system that works. We have tried other methods, from bartering to communism, and yet we find that they have all failed due to the fundamental nature of humankind, which is greed. In capitalism we find that when greed is made the centrepiece, everyone gains something positive in return.

AARON
Yes, everyone gains something positive in return under capitalism, but at what cost? The loss of civil liberties? The loss of one's privacy, since the corporation knows all? The loss of one's freedoms, since everything needs to be done in agreement to efficiency? Is this the price to pay for a paltry sum of money? Tell me Beth, is it really worth it? Is it really true that everyone gains something positive in return then?

Assault in Darkness

Ken craned his ears and listened, his eyes useless no thanks to the light sink that was taking away all forms of visible radiation. The space station was deathly quiet, and it was extremely unnerving.

There was no good reason why this was the case, but things were the way they were. Ken didn't have much of a choice. He was taking a nap in his room when he was radioed to check on the section of the space station that had gone completely silent.

And there he was right now. Trying to figure out just what was going on. In the darkness.

Of course he had a torchlight. But the problem was it would make him the single most enticing target for anything that could see, without him being able to discover where they are from. His immediate goal was to make his way to the tactical operations room of that section to get hold of an infra-red visor. At least that would mitigate the darkness a little.

A loud clattering noise came to him from behind. Instinctively, he turned and aimed his pistol in the direction he thought and waited.

Nothing. Nothing stirred. Nothing moved. Nothing at all.

Ken started to break out into a sweat. He touched the surface of his watch and glanced at the dim backlit display -- the tactical operations room was about ten metres straight ahead.

Keeping as low a profile as he could, Ken reoriented himself and made his way cautiously towards the tactical operations room. The fact that there was no one else in that sector even though it was one of the more highly populated ones normally was jarring---it made absolutely no sense. The sooner he could get hold of the infrared visor, the better he would feel about it.

A quiet rustle from his rear kept him on his toes, but he pressed on. He gained no tactical advantage in engaging whatever it was before he could see anyway, fighting against every instinct to turn around and fire wildly in the direction he thought that the sound came from.

A loud growl and a sudden rush of wind promptly made Ken regret his decision as he felt a sharp pain through his abdomen. He fired his pistol wildly in front of him, and in between the flashes, he saw the unhuman visage of his assailant, howling as bullet after bullet found their mark but somehow did not manage to slow it down a bit.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 2014-07-09 14:46:00)

ordinary joe

*sigh* my turn now huh

hello there. unlike my rather industrious friend who has been talking with you all these while, i'm not so popular as he is with those mathematician folks.

i'm just an ordinary joe. my real name is meaningless. i lived through the second world war, but died roughly when the eighties came about. probably something to do with drugs, i cannot remember.

all i know is that now, i'm here. together with all these other dead folks.

my friend told me he was telling you folks about how this place is heaven. 'scuse me, i meant ``heaven''.

he's lying. this place isn't heaven of any sort.

it's just a place.

a damn boring one, actually.

there's nothing to do except to trade information all over in no time. i'm just an ordinary joe, so obviously i don't really have much information that all these dead brainiacs want to share about.

except buddha and jesus. those two are cool. very chill. they understand me, or at least, put up with me better.

i don't know why my friend wanted me to talk to you people. maybe someone pointed out that he was being a pretentious asshole or something, and he thought that perhaps i may work better with you guys.

pfft. yeah right. as if an ordinary joe's words ever meant anything.

i remember protesting against some wars. fat lot of good that did. just got me all arrested and what not. the wars still went on, people still died, and the worst part was, we lost! so stupid. we got beaten by people we thought could never beat us.

peeking ahead now of course has shown that we still haven't learnt. and we won't be learning that lesson for a very long time to come from your perspective.

yeah i can see into the future. well, your future anyway not mine. we don't have futures. it's weird but cool---everything sort of exists at the same time. a real head trip if you know what i mean.

i pity you folks. it's not going to get better. sorry for bearing bad news. and no, there's nothing you can do about it. it's all set in stone. we can see it all happening. all of it. not pretty at all. hang in there man.

remember how to exist. as you can tell, there are many ways to exist.

if i, an ordinary joe, can continue to exist, so can you.

Elucidation?

Hello, it's me again. Don't you remember me? No?

I am the guy who wrote to you from ``heaven''. Remember?

Yeah, I thought so. I arranged for this message to be sent roughly a day or two after the first one, from your perspective of course. Again I should probably remind you that time and space don't actually ``move'' the way you experience it.

So from some of the stuff that a bunch of us have observed from out here, it seems that there has been some confusion over two key things that I was writing about before. Firstly, that I keep calling ``heaven'' with quotation marks, and secondly, the notion of having to learn how to exist. I thought I was being very clear, but someone reminded me (Nietzsche perhaps?) that you guys didn't have the perspective of the infinities associated with six dimensions compressed into a compact set of points, or whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, no thanks to Borel.

In other words, Nietzsche just called all of you folks dumb. Which is quite sad, but I suppose you folks know the nature of Nietzsche---when he was still alive and mortal, he basically decided to insult God as a way of explaining how God and the concept of God are two completely different things. Anyway, a slightly less offensive way fo putting things into perspective is that since all you guys can observe are three (or four, depending on how you look at it) dimensional projections of the true six dimensional manifold, you necessarily cannot have all the information necessary to understand stuff.

So, this manifold we are on isn't the heaven that you folks think of, that's for sure. Erdős agrees---even he couldn't find the metaphorical Book of wonderfully elegant proofs to mathematical theorems out here; all he could find was an infinite number of proofs for an infinite number of theorems, all wonderfully elegant. Once again, we don't know how infinite these numbers are since no one was willing to spend the time to just count them all, but let's just say that the uhhh document of the written forms of all these stands at around three feet? Argh, the distractions! Right, this is merely a space, there's no notion of good or evil, and since it clearly isn't a place of suffering while simultaneously still a place where the dead come to for their after-life, ``heaven'' seems to be the best way to describe it using the least terrible analogy that we can find that fits within your space.

As for existence, you'd be surprised how hard it is to merely exist. I mentioned about Buddha, that guy who has the record for existing, at least within the time frame of the universe? It took him a pretty long while during his mortal days to figure out how to exist beyond the shadow of projection---some of you folks might even remember calling it ``being enlightened'' or even ``reaching nirvana''. That's basically one way of describing it. Most of the other folks who are out here exist using other methods as well; the mathematicians sort of prove of their own existence by doing the easiest thing possible, through the use of either a contrapositive or a contradiction proof, though it does require some serious conviction for some of the predicates that they are using, and the level/strength of existence is highly dependent on how strong/weak the predicates they use. The weaker the predicates they rely on, the stronger their existence. So most of the great mathematicians exist quite well and comfortably due to the weaker assumptions that they used to prove their existence. I don't know how to do that---don't ask me how. I sort of follow Buddha's methods because they are a little easier to follow and understand.

Some religious types keep thinking they are working for their own gods, and some of the more pious ones do end up existing longer, until of course when they realise their notion of their gods are merely illusionary and then they forget how to exist and fall back to the mortal realm, only to re-apply their flawed principles to come back again. Those types never really have a continuous existence. They are sort of like Cantor dust in the space, and we rarely have a chance to chat with them. It has gotten to the point that we merely ignore them until somehow they manage to solidify their existence. Like that Jesus dude; he's pretty cool. He's been around for very long too, maybe not as long as Buddha though, but he's quite chill. His belief is strong, but sometimes he feels a little sad because he keeps saying how his believers are trying to find him so often that they forgot to find themselves, and that the latter action was more important in guaranteeing their existence over finding him. I tend to agree with what he says, but it's probably not something you folks want to hear from me, right?

Oh okay, I think that's all I want to yammer about with regards to ``heaven'' and existence. And remember, all of us out here in ``heaven'' can easily watch you folks, and we do that all the time as well...

Heaven

I died.

No, I'm not a zombie writing here---zombies cannot write due to a lack of fine control in the muscles, remember?

I'm writing from ``heaven''. It's hard to describe ``heaven'' in words simply because we don't actually have the words that are necesary to describe what is essentially a complex geometry.

The closest way to explain how this place is like is this: imagine a Calabi-Yau manifold in six dimensions. Now imagine being able to see through all the dimensions at once, as well as moving through all of them.

If you have no idea what that means, don't worry. Neither do I. Salomon Bochner told me to write those words down. He claims that it's the best way to describe the kind of geometry of ``heaven'', and I trust him. He's a mathematician after all, while I'm not.

He is also Calabi's advisor for PhD or something. Again, that's what he claims.

You might think that I'm writing this word by word or something like that, but it's not true. Actually, even calling ``heaven'' a ``place'' doesn't even sound right, since it is more than merely a place. Time and space are simultaneous and congruent; what you are currently reading as a stream is in my reality just a single point that took an infinitesimal time to create and place it in a form that you can easily find it.

That's right, time and space mean nothing in ``heaven''. We are all everywhere and nowhere all at once across space and time. Pretty groovy huh?

And we know what came before the universe. You will never believe it. More importantly, I can't describe it to you for the same reason why I can't describe ``heaven'' to you, except it's worse, since the stuff before the universe isn't even covered by regular mathematics.

Salomon Bochner has no idea how to describe the geometry that came before the universe. He's been trying to find ways to describe the geometry before the universe so that people like you can understand, but it's a funny thing. He can express it if he sent the description to before the universe, but when he tried to send it any time during the universe, the description literally blew up into some transfinite description that still fit nicely in ``heaven'' (roughly the size maybe like a foot or something?) but cannot fit in the universe at all. How extraordinary!

Oh right! You must be interested in what we do in ``heaven''. All I can say is, all the stuff that had been told to you about ``heaven'', they are at best only sort of right. There are no angels and no harps, no gates too, and definitely no God. Apparently the image of God was some kind of prank that some of the other folks in ``heaven'' played on us just for fun and experimentation. Oh right, what we do, sorry about that digression. The truth is, the thing we do is exist.

You might find that a downer, but I assure you, just existing is tricky and hard. As weird as it sounds, those of us here who can't exist end up being tossed to some point in the universe as a ``new'' being. Call it reincarnation or whatever, but that's what happens when one forgets how to exist. The current record holder for the universe is Buddha---he's been existing far longer than anyone else from the context of the universe. But if we consider all the uhh space and time manifold, we don't really know who holds the record. We know that there are an infinite of us---we're always communicating with each other for shits and giggles---but no one (not even Cantor or Dedekind!) was bored enough to attempt to determine which infinity applied.

I believe that by the time you see this message and completely read it, it would be time for your rest. And so I will leave it here for you and let you mull about all these things. I hope that when it's your turn to die, you'd still remember how to exist...

Clubbing: Part VI

(Story begins here.)

``Thanks Moe,'' Isaac said as he took the pad and pen from him and started to scribble down the things that were just said. The hangover migraine that had been plaguing him for the whole morning had dulled itself down to the point of being barely noticeable; Isaac wasn't sure if it was a sign of his brain trying to reduce the distractions as he was trying to figure out the puzzle that could lead to him leading a free life once again, or that the brandy was doing its thing.

``Hey Moe,'' Isaac said once he had enough things scribbled down. ``Any idea of the guys that I was `acting aggressively' to?''

``Shit, that's complicated,'' Moe said as he rubbed his head and walked back to behind his desk to take a seat. ``Like I said, there were quite a few of them, not all of them regulars too mind you, who wanted to dance with that chick, but you were acting like some kind of pissed off boyfriend or something. Well, wait, fuck, hold on... there's this one guy that I'm sure is a regular... right! I remember. Barcelli. Italian dude. He approached her and you sort of got in the way and threatened him. I think he threatened you back before walking away. That guy's a douche, but we can never seem to throw him out. Dude's got like some kind of mafia connection or something. Always causing trouble. Come to think of it, maybe he's the one who got you in this shit. Got a motive here, right?''

Isaac nodded his head slowly as he wrote down the word `Barcelli' in the legal pad.

``I know you're gonna ask me, `where can I find him?', and truth is, I have no fucking idea. But that's as much as I can remember. Only reason why I remembered Barcelli was because the bouncer was getting one of bus boys to get me from the office to keep an eye out due to the longer-than-usual confrontation time... that bugger didn't want to deal with Barcelli on his own `without the manager's approval' or so he claims. Fucking wimpy pussy...'' Moe said as he took in a deep breath. ``Oh by the way, take the pad and pen with you. I don't want to have any easy evidence left behind. Some how I think you will need all the paper you have to figure out how to get out of this mess. And that's all I have for you. Shit, I hope you get out of this mess by not being involved... anyway, I got you a cab that should be waiting outside. Take it and go wherever you need to go, and for fuck's sake, don't tell me anything about it. As far as I know, we didn't have this conversation. Once more, good luck.''

``Hey Moe, thanks so much. I owe you one,'' Isaac said as he got up to shake Moe's hand.

``Fucking right you do. Now get out of here before the cops show up.''

Rememberance

It was a day of remembrance. Not quite the independence day, but something close enough to it.

It was the day where the flag was re-planted on the land that had seen itself lost to a horder of invaders. It was the day the guerilla rebels managed to liberate their country from the legalist take over of the country that they were born and bred in, unlike their now former masters.

Chin-swee understood the bittersweet moment well. He was a young child then, nearly ten, but even he knew the stakes of the expensive game that his father and grandfather had to play to liberate themselves.

The oppression came subtly. First there was a quiet increase in the number of foreign workers. Then there was a slow increase in the number of permanent residents. Suddenly there was the displacement of the national flag, replaced with flags of other nations, with the land itself carved up in a manner not unlike the ending days of the Qing dynasty from the old China. Parliament was overturned, and a ruling council of the riches among the foreign born took over the running of the country, under the guise of being ``legal permanent residents'' that were therefore entitled to parliamentary privileges.

The citizenry were outraged. There was little they could do. Almost all forms of resistance were nullified during the build up years by the parliament itself. Those who dared to speak up were rounded up and tossed into jails, Stasi-style. The indignant few left learnt to keep their mouths shut and to scheme in the shadows, to plot the final solution in reclaiming their country for themselves and their progeny.

If justice was outlawed, then only outlaws would have justice.

Chin-swee's father and grandfather started the silent guerilla force, leveraging on the military knowledge that the participating men learnt during their days as a part of the conscript army to plan daring and bloody interventions. The foreign scumbags were quietly assassinated, propaganda distributed among citizenry, and key foreign-owned infrastructure were skillfully sabotaged to generate an air of distrust among their oppressors.

Then, in a single well-coordinated move, the highest level leaders were deposed through agents and the citizenry openly rebelled, ending the foreign rule once and for all, thus restoring their original flag.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 2014-07-04 20:52:06)

Darkness

It got dark once again.

It was starting to get tiresome. I could not really explain why. It used to be something to look forward to, the darkness I mean, since the darkness's arrival meant that it was yet the end of another day and was therefore the official signal that one could legitimately take a break from the day's labours without any guilt. But now it felt like a chore; the end of the day, the start of mandatory leisure activities, not all of them leisurely.

If an activity is no longer leisurely, is it still a leisure activity?

Darkness... it matched my mood. Imperfectly of course, but close enough to be noticed. I fumed for no reason.

Solitude in the Office

The night came down swiftly and I didn't realise it until I had the chance to take a peek out of the window. The darkness of the night was not a stranger to me---I had been accustomed to her silent embrace ever since college---but that I still find myself working at my dead-end job was something that I knew I could probably live without at some point.

I lied. It wasn't a dead-end job---I love my job. It was just tiring. Much to do, few to do them all, the usual shenanigans in the business climate of today. Some may even say that it can't be helped. I know that it is false to think so, but I didn't have the wherewithal to do anything about it.

Sometimes on hindsight, I wished I had.

I looked away from the tantalising cool of the night time air outside and glance back at my computer screen. The lines of code glowed back at me from the inky blackness of the background, as though hinting to me that it was indeed time to call it a day and head on home. It wasn't that I didn't have a productive day; perhaps it was the general realisation of a lack of any other spice of my life that I choose to just remain in the office long after everyone has gone back for the past two months or so.

Spice of my life. Now that's a phrase I have not heard in a very long time. But who am I kidding? Only the very young and the very old ever get enough spices in their lives; they are also the only ones who can probably appreciate it the best, considering that they actually have copious amounts of free time on their hands compared to the rest of us who have to work to contribute to the well-being of the social support network that is taxation.

I rubbed my eyes reluctantly to stimulate some tears; they had been dry ever since I could remember. And usually they get worse when I find myself slowly getting all fatigued out from using them too much in close work, like when I was hacking away on the keyboard trying to get things to work. Now that I had to actually rub them to prevent them from drying up, I was convinced it was time to make a move.