Elizabeth: Part I

Melancholy was written all over Elizabeth's face as she strode down the grand stairs of the house. Standing at the foot of the grand stairs, she pulled out her flute and started playing a haunting tune from Requiem. The sad whistful tune permeated through the household, and woke up Anton who was sleeping in the bedroom upstairs.

Waking with a start, he sat upright. He swore that he had heard a flute playing in the darkness, but it was not something that he had believed to be possible. There were only three people in the house, he, the housekeeper and his wife, and none of them played any musical instruments, let alone the flute. Sensing something amiss, he swung his legs out of the bed and on to the floor as quietly as he could and tip-toed his way out of the room, opening the door slowly and closing it behind him.

The corridor was slightly better lit than his room, with the quiet gas lamps glowing in the dark. The sweet sad tune was still played, and the music gave Anton goosebumps upon his skin. He made his way along the corridor until it reached the part which had a rail which overlooked the main atrium. He inched closer to steal a peek, and saw the willowy form of Elizabeth at the bottom of the grand stairs, playing away on the flute, a melancholous look upon his face that was revealed when her long tresses were blown back by an unseen and unfelt wind.

Anton could not believe his eyes. He had no idea who that person was, and more importantly, why she was playing a flute at that time of the night at that place. Seeing that she was alone, his courage came on strongly and he boldly walked across the corridor to the top of the grand stair.

``Who are you and why are you playing the flute at this time of the night?'' Anton asked, directing his question straight at Elizabeth.

The tune stopped, and Elizabeth put the flute down, turning to look up at Anton, her long tresses flying as she turned her head to face him.

``Oh, I'm sorry. Did I wake you?''

Anton was struck by the beauty of Elizabeth. Her features were soft, like that of a lady of nobility from the colonial era. Her eyes shone brightly as she looked at Anton directly. He was about to smile and reply her when he noticed that she was a good eight inches above the ground, where nothing else other than the floor could be seen.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 10-May-2014 13:43:18)

(Story continues here.)

Trees of Fear

``No no no no no no no no no...!''

``Why? It's just a harmless thing!'' Julian replied in exasperation.

``No! It is NOT a harmless thing,'' Ida shrieked uncontrollably. ``That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard!''

``Look, it's just a walk in the park! How can it be disgusting? Are you seriously off your rocker?''

``It's the trees,'' Ida replied quietly.

``The trees?'' Julian said quizzically. He thought back of the times that they had walked, hand-in-hand, through the city on their dates. Those were blissful moments, the times they had spent in the city. But they had both graduated and thought it was time to take their relationship and lives to a new level, and had moved to the suburbs.

``But you see trees on TV every day! And when we were still in the city, you walked past them too! What's that got to do with walking in the park?''

``The trees on TV aren't real,'' Ida started replying, her face covered in sweat from the anxiety. ``Aand the trees in the city were, well, small. But the park has really large trees, and those scare the hell out of me.''

Julian stared at Ida with a raised eyebrow, his classic are-you-fucking-serious look. Ida looked at him for a bit before staring at her feet, sheepishly as she twiddled her fingers.

``I cannot believe this crap,'' Julian muttered under his breath. ``You're telling me that you have a phobia of trees?''

``Dendrophobia. It is diagnosed. I'm not making this up, Julian. You have to believe me.'' Her voice was pleading as she gripped Julian's right hand with both of hers. He glanced down and saw that her hands were turning white from the strong grip, and her petite veins were showing through her skin. It was clear that the mere mention of trees was triggering anxiety within her.

His disbelief melted away when he looked into her wide fearful eyes which had brimmed in tears. He felt a strong sense of pity and an inexplicable feeling of sadness. Without a word, he shook off her hands and hugged her tightly, pressing her against his chest as closely as he could.

``Alright then Ida, we'll not go to the park.''

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 09-May-2014 21:42:32)

Much Left Unsaid

It was night. Our intrepid office worker had just finished yet another gruelling day at work, reading memos, studying Gantt charts, putting together Powerpoint slides for the big management meeting that is happening the next day. He rubs his eyes, glazed over from staring non-stop at the twenty-four-inch display that sits at the corner of his five-by-five cubicle, one of two hundred that was located on the same floor. About him, one hundred and ninety-nine others were also doing the same as he was, and when the floor clock chimed in at eight o'clock, one could almost hear a collective sigh of relief that the work day has finally, undoubtedly, ended. The official time for the end of the work day was, of course, at five o'clock, but one would be insane to leave at that time on the dot.

Rumour has it that the last time someone actually tried to exercise her rights to leave on time, she never came back, not even to pick up her stuff. The flimsy cabinets and drawers were opened up by maintenance the next day, and everything that was in it was unceremoniously dumped into one of three copier paper boxes. Someone who was there claimed that there were distinct sounds of broken ceramic among the thuds, but since no one could really remember who that someone was, everyone thought it apocryphal at best, though no one had doubts about the plausibility of what was claimed to have transpired.

Our intrepid office worker stood up, and hurriedly packed his things into the satchel that he brought each day to the office without fail. The computer screen was locked and switched off, and he yanked the imperceptible thumb drive next to it and shoved it quickly into his shirt pocket. There were one or two more slides that he needed to add, but would do so from the comfort of his home. Around him were the shuffling of one hundred ninety-nine other faceless office workers. There was only a small window of thirty minutes for them to clear out of the office before the automated doors locked up, thus stranding the unlucky souls that didn't make it out.

Another rumour had floated that someone was once stuck in between floors on the staircase when that happened. When the next day began, he was not to be found at his desk. It was only later that evening when they were filing out of the office that someone found his body lying at a landing of the stairwell. Everyone said it was because of a lack of oxygen since the staircase was not ventilated much, if at all. And since there were strong doors on the stairs between floors, they further limited whatever air there was to be had. The doors were usually open, but when the time was up, they closed and locked up, just like all the other doors. Again, no one really knew the person who found that poor soul, but since no one really knows anyone, there was no loss. Except for that dead guy.

The sound of two hundred office workers stampeding the elevator lobby was a sight to behold. The office space was on the twentieth floor of the building, and thankfully for everyone who was there, they were on the top floor and were the only ones who were still in the office at that time. All the other companies on all the other floors have left a long time ago. Their unfortunate luck came from the fact that each elevator car that came up could easily be filled to the brim with their kind and be brought straight to the ground floor without having to stop at any point.

Of course, there were only three elevators, each with a capacity of roughly eight people. This meant that on a good day, a total of eight waves could make it from the top floor down to the first. But most of the time, it took more than that---elevator cars were not fully filled because of bags being in the way, or the more likely scenario where one of the elevator cars was ``under maintenance'' and therefore unavailable. So a sizeable number of workers would try their luck on the stairs, especially when there is only fifteen minutes left on the clock.

Even though the office was on the twentieth storey, in actual fact, they were actually nearer twenty four storeys up. Four of the floors were void floors containing massive amounts of concrete that was used to support the building. Someone said that it had to do with the ``spinal'' architecture of the building it self, where a central over-sized high-compressive strength ``spine'' acted as the primary (and only) pillar, with the floors extending out like leaves or flower petals. To prevent the building from canting, four floors were built to be ultra rigid to provide additional support for the exterior skin of the building. Each floor was around three and a half metres in height, which meant that one had to walk through three rotations worth of stairs just to climb one floor. Multiplying that out meant that those who tried their luck with the stairs had to contend with spiralling themselves seventy-two full rotations without stopping before reaching the ground floor.

Thankfully though, our intrepid office worker did not have to resort to such insanity. He managed to squeeze on board the first elevator car, and within five minutes was happily out of the building and heading home, only to return the next day for yet another dose of this.

Clubbing: Part III

(Story begins here.)

``Jesus... what took you so long? Did you see any cops coming after you?'' Moe asked quickly as his eyes darted about before closing the heavy club doors behind both of them. Isaac didn't answer immediately, he was taken aback at how the club looked like during the day when it was open only for book-keeping and other business-related work like a thorough cleaning of the entire club from top to bottom. The bright fluorescent lights overhead provided the harsh light of reality over the place that Isaac was sure signified the paradise of fantasy just the night before. It also dawned upon him that he was still hungover and the bright fluorescent lights were triggering a severe case of photophobia.

``Owww Moe... must you keep these bright lights on?''

``Bright lights? Oh damn, you're hungover from last night? Shit man, I didn't realise you were THAT gone. Come on, let's talk in my office. It's quieter and has a place for you to sit that is out of the way of the guys I have to clean and tidy up the place. Isaac followed Moe closely as the latter led the way to the back office behind the DJ's podium, all the while averting his eyes from the lights with an arm or two ahead attempting to provide extra shielding. Moe pulled out a key from his pocket and unlocked his door quietly before allowing Isaac to stumble through and collapse on a pillowed chair.

The blinds in the office were let down, and they were definitely of a sturdier quality than the one's that he had at home, since they blocked out the sunlight in a more effective manner. Moe switched on the desk lamp, and it's orange-yellow glow provided just enough illumination in the room to make it easy to see while not keeping it bright enough to hurt the eye or the brain.

Moe pulled up a chair in front of his work desk and set it in front of Isaac such the the back rest was facing Isaac. Moe sat himself on the chair, resting his chin on his arms which rested on the back of the chair and looked hard at Isaac.

``You have no idea what you did last night?''

``For the last time Moe, yes! I have no idea what I did last night. Can you now please tell me what happened that made you hurry me to get my ass out here to you in spite of my hangover?''

``Isaac, a girl was found dead. Someone saw her leave the club.''

``Dead?'' Isaac said, his blood frozen.

``Yes. Clubbed to death.''

(Story continues here.

Yulia

The early morning light acts as a contrivance to all who must pass through its way, and it is only those who are on the verge of exit of the stage of life that will see each new instance of the morning light as something to look forward to as opposed to the kind of interruption to what was likely to have been a restful slumber of sorts. Yulia opened her eyes against the strong morning sun and rubbed it severally with balled fists, the dryness of the night manifesting itself in the form of the tearless eyes. As each fist made a rotation, a kaleidoscope of induced colouration on her retinas greeted her. Feeling the smarting sensation giving way to the awkard comfort of tearing, Yulia released her hands from her eyes and sat up, looking about her.

The hospital room was as neat and tidy as it possibly could, with the two rows of bed lining along each wall of the standalone single-storey building. Curtains were drawn, and the full force of the early morning light cast beams of unrestrained brightness through the east-facing windows. The room wasn't at full capacity; only six of the total of twelve beds were occupied. Every occupied one had its own equivalent of Yulia, a young girl who was there because of one ailment or another.

In Yulia's case, it was a broken femur. She could hardly remember how exactly she was afflicted by it, but for the things that she did remember, she wished she could forget. Her father and mother were fleeing from Crimea after the Russian troops had taken over the region declaring it a part of the the Russian sovereign soil. Both her parents were staunch supporters of the government in Kiev and knew that had they stayed, their lives and eventually Yulia's would be forfeit, given the rapidly deteriorating levels of tolerance of those who did not speak the Russian language. They made it through Crimea up north, escaping towards Kiev, en route through Kherson. But Russian sympathisers had started catching up to them, and there was a need to take a risky east-ward diversion along the Dnieper river to get to Kiev where they had relatives there. They had been travelling for days, and Yulia did not really pay much attention. All she could remember after that was that her parents were involved in some kind of scuffle with armed men, there were some violent confrontations, and the next thing she knew, she found herself in the hospital thus.

She had no idea where her parents were, or even what hospital she was in, or who was the kind soul, should that person be kind, who brought her to the hospital to have her injury looked at. All she knew, was that she wanted to go home.

Caldera Lake Mistake

Wai-ling lay there, calm and quiet. Surrounding her were friends and what was left of her little family. Her little brother was sobbing quietly to himself on one side of the coffin while her husband stood stoically on the other side, trying to instill a sense of gravity to her two little children who were old enough to know something sombre was going on yet weren't old enough to realise what exactly had gone wrong.

Laid atop her casket was the framed photograph of a glorious caldera lake taken from the top of a hitherto inaccessible extinct volcano in Indonesia. This photograph, and this alone, was the reason why Wai-ling was lying in state instead of enjoying her time with her family.

It all started about two months ago. Wai-ling was a professional photographer specialising in taking landscape photographs. Based in Singapore, she made frequent trips to the nearby south-east asian countries to take commissioned photographs of their natural scenery and historical sites. Among the more common countries that she would visit were the Philippines and Indonesia for their distinctive volcanoes.

Wai-ling loved volcanoes. There was something exciting about them, perhaps the entire primeval force that humanity hasn't actually managed to tame, despite spending years of study in seismology. Storms could be mitigated through careful cloud seeding, earthquakes were nullified with stringent building codes, but volcanoes were never controlled---everyone still had to evacuate whenever a volcano had been predicted to be erupting.

National Geographic had approached her about the caldera. They had known about it for years, having done aerial surveys of the region, but they never really had any means of getting there to get a good photograph. The locals treated the caldera as a sacred place, and would therefore actively hinder anyone who tried to ask them for guides up the spot, and the edges of the caldera were high enough that it made a helicopter dropping risky. The approach had to be by land, and Wai-ling was among the foremost who were familiar with the types of terrain that the Indonesian islands would bring up. She had heard of the caldera lake and how beautiful it was, and had always wanted to make a trip out there just for the chance to take a photograph of it, and mostly because no one had actually taken any before.

But it was a tragedy. She managed to hike her way up there based on the topographical maps she had on Indonesia, and take the photographs she wanted. What she didn't count on was a hidden hydrogen sulphide bubble. She was ready to leave when she accidentally caused that bubble to explode, releasing enough hydrogen sulphide to asphyxiate and poison her. It would be a month later when the locals were visiting the caldera to offer their monthly offerings to the mountain gods that the found her body and gear. They knew who she was, and took her back down the caldera lake and arranged for her body to be reclaimed by her husband and family.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 07-May-2014 01:00:49)

Carjack

Lucas looked about him furtively. The carpark was quiet, deserted actually, and this was among a few of the cars that were parked at this deck. It was little wonder---that deck was the second deck above all the season parking lots, and was therefore used mostly by visitors and acted as the overflow area for the season ticket holders. But that suited him fine. It was less suspicious to be near a car among three or four than to be found near a single solitary vehicle all on its own.

Seeing no one nearby and making sure that there were no surveillance cameras (for some reason those were targetted only at the walkways, which meant that Lucas just had to walk through the car barriers to avoid being seen), he quickly pulled out a jammer from his pocket and switched it to detection mode. The device quietly displayed the power spectrum of the current radio frequencies and Lucas slowly tuned it along to discover the call back frequency of the key fob for the car. There was a quiet flashing of the red light on the device when the appropriate frequency was found. Delighted, Lucas quickly pressed the ``deactivate'' button. A series of silent pulses were sent along the carrier frequency and the next thing he knew, the car had responded as though a normal key fob had been used.

Smiling to himself, Lucas quickly removed his cap and shirt, swapping them out for another T-shirt from within his backpack. Then, removing the new cover backpack, he stuffed everything else into it, including the original backpack. That was his way of defeating the surveillance system.

He got into the car and looked at the dashboard. It was as he had expected, an ignition button system as opposed to a key-based one. It was starting to get easy and for once Lucas was glad of the prevalence of new technology for cars---they made his work so much easier once the initial technological costs were paid for.

He pressed the ignition button, and the engine woke up with a roar. Lucas smiled to himself again. He closed the door to the driver's seat and put on his seat belt before taxi-ing the car out of the lot and across the deck and down the ramps to the exit.

Yet another haul for him.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 07-May-2014 00:46:53)

Ticket

It started out like any ordinary day at the line to the booth that sold the tickets to the home game for the local football club. It wasn't supposed to be anything spectacular or anything, just a regular line to a regular booth for a regular ticket for a regular football game by a regular football club.

The ticketing booth hadn't opened yet -- it opened at ten -- so the fifty or so people who were there were just lining up quietly, some having their coffee and doughnuts, others reading the newspaper that they had brought out with them, while the more tech-savvy ones were checking out things on their smart phones.

That restive period did not last long though. Across the street where the booth was, a small group of people had started to gather. First in twos and threes, then in fives and tens, till the originally innocuous group had swollen to nearly two hundred people. The road wasn't that wide, and that throng of people was quickly noticed by the original ones who were in the queue. Most didn't really see an issue per se, or rather, it was wholly possible that they had ignored the development given that they were lost in their world while waiting for something as banal as the opening of a ticketing booth.

What happened next was quite unthinkable.

Without any provocation, the two hundred strong crowd charged the line en masse, wielding the old newspaper club, a contraption made by rolling two widespread newspapers tightly before folding it into half, and started to hit at everyone who was in the line or didn't hold any of the makeshift weapon. Those who had been paying attention to the increasing crowd managed to sneak off before the assault fell upon them; they were the lucky ones. In less than a minute, the queuers were badly battered by the attack. Many suffered some form of head injury, with bleeding noses and mild concussion being the norm, but they will not find out about the concussion till the aftermath.

Once the lined up people realised what was going on, they started fighting back. Newspapers were thrown, phones were used as primitive battering rocks, hot coffee thrown all about like a chemical weapon, good old fisticuffs were thrown here and there. The assaulting crew suffered some damage, but what was the defenceless crowd of less than fifty mean to a throng of two hundred?

Some of the escapees had the sense to call in the police once their own safety was assured, and it was likely due to the efforts of them that the situation did not escalate to more than what it already had. The police charged in from the police station that was about a block away. Armed with truncheons, they entered the fray mercilessly, attacking anyone that did anything more than raise their arms in defense. Those who tried to run away were quickly rounded up by the supplementary force encircling the melee.

In the end, there was no ticket to be bought.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 06-May-2014 02:45:42)

Ivan

``Who the HELL did this?'' Ivan bellowed, shocking everyone who happened to be in the gym. It was a fearful sight. Ivan weighed a good three hundred pounds, most of it was in the form of muscles, coupled with his bushy eyebrows and beard and reflective balding head, he was like a giant who stepped on burning coals with his bear foot.

Those who were no where near where Ivan was quietly went back to twhatever they were doing. This included the free weights exercising people or the step-meter or even the stationary cyclists. There was no real need to get involved with Ivan when he was upset like this. The last time someone who was trying to be nice and placate Ivan had been shouted and assaulted verbally, which nearly came to blows before that person's girlfriend came in to drag him out, preying upon Ivan's only weakness of never voluntarily hitting a girl.

Ivan glared at the two gym rats closest to him. One was working on the bench press machine, while the other was working on some of the extension machines for the arms.

``Which of you TWO took away the key to the weight setting? Was it you Harold, or was it you, Leroy?'' Ivan's terrible eyes glared at one man and then the other in turn.

``Ivan, chill the fuck down,'' Leroy said sitting up from the benchpress machine. ``Just look around for it. Perhaps it fell out and landed somewhere.''

``Did you think I was stupid enough to not try?'' Bellowed Ivan. ``Own up already!''

Harold stood away from the extension machines and stood directly in front of Ivan. There was an uncontrollable tension that electrified the air in the gym. For some reason, everyone who was within eyeshot of the pair felt that something terrible was about to happen.

Ivan took a step backward involuntarily before gathering his wits and shouted straight at Harold ``Was it you, you jackass?''

Harold did not flinch. He stood there and looked straight up at Ivan before saying ``Ivan, no one likes your stupid shenanigans. Just find the stupid key and then get on with your training. If you can't find it, just talk to the attendant and they'll do something for you. Stop being such a cry baby.''

``CRY BABY?! You DARE call me a cry baby?! I will fucking end you!'' Ivan roared before slamming a fist in the direction of Harold.

The next thing he knew, Ivan found himself lying on his back in tremendous pain, staring at the ceiling.

``Don't move, I think you hit your back hard. And by the way, I suspect you have a dislocated wrist. You should have taken my advice and just be quiet about it,'' Harold said before walking to the attendant's counter to inform him of what had happened and to suggest getting an ambulance for Ivan. All about him the other gym rats were initially stunned, not believing what they had witnessed, before clapping in unison over someone who stood up against the bully of the gym.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 05-May-2014 21:29:39)

The System

Eunice looked about her, her eyes like slits. It was the reading period, where everyone was supposed to be studying or doing their homework under the watchful eyes of the duty teacher. But Eunice didn't care a bit about her homework nor her studying; she had already done those before hand.

Actually that was a lie. Eunice cared a lot about studying, it's just that it was the studying of The System as described in the horse betting pamphlet ``Winning Ways''. It was a habit that she had picked up from Keith, the notorious senior student who spent most of his time and money on the races every weekend. He was the one who recommended Eunice to read ``Winning Ways'' to learn of The System one day when he learnt that Eunice was as avid of a gambler as he was.

Of course gambling was disallowed. In fact, if anyone caught Eunice with ``Winning Ways'', she had a high chance of meeting the head teacher and a pretty good chance of severe penalties. Gambling was just one of the many vices explicitly banned by the school board. Keith was special. In addition to the power of The System (or so he claimed), his father was also a prominent contributor to the school itself. All this just meant that for all purposes, Keith was untouchable.

Eunice started over from the first page. It was going to be the third read through of the book since the time she got it from Keith. Much of The System had been committed to memory, but Eunice wanted to increase the chances of winning from less than unlikely to the elevated level of near imminent. The System had charts and betting suggestions depending on the odds offered by the bookies that, according to The System, could be gamed relatively easily should the reasoning behind odds were learnt before hand.

But one section stood out strongly. The System relied on the infusion of heavy capital, and it was something that Keith had ready access to. Eunice was, unfortunately, not as well off to begin with. She silently cussed, which incurred the curious glance of the duty teacher. Feigning ignorance, Eunice continued to mouth random words, as though reading the textbook in front of her under her breath.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 05-May-2014 21:17:27)

Clubbing: Part II

(Story begins here.)

``Hey Moe, what the hell do you mean?''

``You mean you can't fucking remember? Jesus... look, can you get to my club as soon as you can? I want to get hold of you before the cops do.''

``Cops?'' Isaac repeated dumbly, his body suddenly turning cold.

``Yeah, cops. Jesus, I can't believe you can't remember a thing. Just get your ass here as soon as you can, okay? For now, you are not in any danger, but who the hell knows how long it is going to stay that way.''

``Okay Moe. I owe you one.''

``Damn right you do.'' The line went dead and Isaac slammed the phone down. He tried remembering more of what happened last night as he put his clothes on to get to Moe's, but was drawing nothing but a blank and a migraine.

Five minutes and an aspirin later, Isaac was out on the sidewalk flagging a cav. He was lucky to catch one almost immediately after flagging and got in mouthing ``Prancing Princess Club'' before teh driver even had the chance to say hello and good morning. Sensing the urgency from his charge, the driver tipped his hat and sped off towards Moe's club.

As the taxi weaved through the heavy traffic, Isaac tried wracking his brains to remember what had happened. Like his previous efforts, it drew only a blank, other than the loud thumping music, the free flow of booze, and the hot gyrating women.

`Come on man, think. Moe said it might end up with the cops, and the sooner you can remember, the easier to plan for that eventuality.' Isaac thought to himself. It was still like beofre, to no avail. He gave up trying and just looked out of the window to take in the sights. He had taken the taxicab before, of course, but he was never in the position where he could just sit to look at the sights. To be had, he didn't have the time here as well, but seeing as his memory was still failing at the recall, he might as well take in the scenery that was present.

Half an hour later, the taxicab pulled out at the ``Prancing Princess Club''. Isaac snapped out of his ennui and hurriedly tossed a fifty to the driver and told him to keep the change before bounding up the stairs of the club.

Moe opened the door hastily and beckoned him to hurry up.

(Story continues here.)

Clubbing: Part I

The day had come early. Too early as far as Isaac can tell. He groaned as he opened up his bloodshot eyes against the early morning sun filtering through the blinds of his window. He cursed under his breath as he tried turning away while rubbing his temples in a bid to rid himself of the hangover.

It had been a wild night at the club. The music boomed, the booze flowed freely and the beautiful women gyrating their hips all night long. Isaac was there, absorbing the music, guzzling the booze, and grinding the women, only he wasn't known as Isaac, leastways not at the club. John, a regular and more manly sounding name than Isaac. Under his breath, he cursed his now dead parents for deciding to call him by the most useless-sounding name ever.

The sun's omnipotent rays penetrated through his cover, warming him up considerably---that did not help his hangover headache much. Swearing loudly, Isaac suddenly sat upright and felt his head throbbing uncontrollably. He looked about him, his mind still in a stupor. He was glad that there was no strange woman in his bed, something that had happened before that was particularly embarassing because he handd't remembered her name, causing her to slap him once before stomping off in a huff.

Gathering whatever thoughts he had (and could) Isaac finally got out of bed. By then the sun had already permeated through his entire room, and there was nothing else that he could do. He could have shuttered the blinds, but they still allowed the orange glow in, which was as bad as having bright sunlight in. He had been thinking of getting better curtains, but could never bring himself to do so.

Isaac made his way slowly to his bathroom, his headache slowly ebbing away. He turned on the tap and just let the running water flow from the tap and through his outstretched palms for a while. The cool water was refreshing, but he was waiting for the freezing water instead. When that came along, he splashed it liberally all over his face. Instantly, he was awake as the freezing water constricted the fiery blood vessels in his eye and cooled off the flush he was feeling. He lingered on a bit before retrieving his toothbrush and toothpaste from the mirror cabinet and proceeded to brush his teeth.

Just as he got to the final rinse, he could hear the phone ringing incessantly. Cursing once again, he quickly rinsed off and dried his face with the towel before grabbing the phone on the table.

``Jesus Isaac, where the hell were you? You sure fucked it up bad this time.'' It was Moe, Isaac's friend at the club. The owner, really.

Wait, did Moe said he fucked it up bad this time? Whatever could he mean?

(Story continues here.)

Street Art

Wing-lun beamed as the cameras clicked about him. While it was no Nobel award or Fields Medal or anything super prestigious like that, the National Cutlture Medallion was stlil a strong affirmation of his contribution to the nascent street art scene.

Graffiti was not one of the things that would come to mind when ``art'' is mentioned. Yet Wing-lun was the first graffiti artist to be recognised by the city-state instead of being fined and thrown into prison.

The Culture Medallion came at a timely moment. There was a drive to enhance the urban landscape, giving it even more character than the mere epithet ofa ``green city''. Wing-lun lobbied for the use of tasteful urban graffiti as a means of bringing out a unique urban element, the kind of quirkiness that is peculiar to each city. He had been quickly shot down by the anti-graffiti law, but he spent nearly half his life to form a registered graffiti artist organisation that recognised and licensed graffiti artists to do street art, while at the same time negotitating with the governmnet and tourism board to gazette certain public places as being street art friendly, even up to the point of providing guidelines to tastefulness.

Many graffiti artists already in the original underground movement lampooned him, saying that such institutionalisation was against the very nature and essense of street art. But Wing-lun and poignantly pointed out that the sheer illicit nature in which current street art was done made it impossible to be accepted by the mainstream, and that having all their members, spaces and guidelines in the open made it easier for them to expand legally and quickly, and was the surest way of ensuring that their chosen art form would flourish.

Some finally took to his reasoning, while others kept decrying him as a sell out, but Wing-ln did not care. He had did his bit for his art, and the greater population has accepted it. To him, that was good enough.

A Missed Connection: Part VI

(Story begins here.)

Eventually though Eric's reticence gave way once more.

``It took me nearly a month after I graduated to finally confess to Julia about my feelings. She expressed shock at first, but that quickly turned to pity as she kept saying `you should've said so earlier and perhaps it might be different'. We kept in touch from that point on, using the chat programs to transmit text messages across the Pacific.

``At first, we were very enthusiastic, chatting with each other at all hours of the day. Slowly things started to change. The messages started to cool off in frequency, the contents started to be more generic. She soon started on a new fan fiction project thing, and that became the second time sapper, the first being her graduate studies of course.

``All through this I tried my best to keep in contact with her. But slowly tihngs seemed to be falling apart. She was starting to talk about the opinions of a new guy, and when I read about that my heart sank. I kept imagining her going out with him, especially when she said that they would check out the concerts that were nearby and what-not. When I couldn't stand it any more and asked her about him, she said he was a friend, and that he already had a girlfriend.

``What went through my mind was that perhaps she was his girlfriend.''

``Now hold on right there,'' Joe interjected. ``I think you are over thinking things. Why would you think that she was lying given those particularly chosen words? Are you being a little jealous of someone that you obviously don't know a lot of?''

Eric fell silent once more, the weight of Joe's words hanging on him severely. Joe had a very good point, something that the alcohol didn't manage to warp with its reality-distortion powers. He thought of the things he knew and remembered about Julia, and found them to be superficial things, the kind of things that one hears from another who was showing the world one's public face. That sudden realisation made Eric feel a sudden bout of inexplicable sadness coursing through him.

``Uh-oh Joe, I think you broke him,'' Roger said when he saw Eric suddenly quietening down with his eyes staring nearly dead ahead, still against the stimuli around him.

``Hush Roger. Kid needs to process what I just said.'' Turning to Eric, Joe continued. ``Kid, I know your thought process now. Don't take it too hard. You might have a missed connection, but at least she didn't say an outright no. Talk to her more, kid, figure out more commanlities. And more importantly, cut loose if the ship is sinking, and don't hesitate.

``Now if you'd excuse me, I hear a rowdy crowd coming in that I need to tame.''

A Missed Connection: Part V

(Story begins here.)

When Joe finally made his way back to where Roger and Eric were, Roger's glass was empty. Without hesitation, Joe quickly filled another glass of Yuenling andd placed it in front of Roger.

``So up to that point,'' Eric continued as though there had been no interruptions, ``I just carried a torch for her. We talked here and there, nothing of consequence really, mostly about current affairs and public policy. Then it was time for me to graduate, and I tried to play some video games with her, which worked out well.''

``Hold on a second, son,'' Roger started, agitated. ``You spent a good one-and-a-half years with her and all you talked about was current affairs? Lord... just what's wrong with you? Couldn't you have just asked her out proper once you figured out that she likes the club enough and is sufficiently matured to not act stupid to your advances? And video games? Son, you are seriously clueless on things like this huh...''

Joe was still pretending to be uninterested, but Roger caught him nodding slowly in agreement. Eric just sat there, moody as before, his face revealing that sudden realisation of the manner in which he had screwed things up.

``And that's your woman troubles, right? Wait, hold on... you graduated a year ago. Oh lord... please don't tell me there's more?'' Roger said, his eyes suddenly widening.

``Yes.'' Eric mumbled quietly.

``Jesus Christ...'' Roger ejaculated. ``Hey Joe, you might as well drop the act and just listen in all proper and spaek your mind. I've a funny feeling I might break character and start laughing Eric here out of town as his comedic tragedy continues.''

``Awww shush Roger,'' Joe boomed with his rich baritone voice. ``Let the kid state his piece and then we say stuff for him to hear. No point laughing at things now---we were young once and didn't know better then.''

``Thanks Joe,'' Eric said in a quiet voice. It seemed that Roger's ribbing had finally gotten to him and had taken a lot of the initial enthusiasm he had in sharing his tale.

Roger fidgetted with his new glass of Yuenling and took a tentative gulp from it. Eric just stared at his, morose, while Joe kept himself busy with drying the washed glasses and keeping an eye out on the other side of the bar where things were starting to get a little loud.

(Story continues here.)

A Missed Connection: Part IV

(Story begins here.)

``Oh lord, please don't tell me you fell in love with a girl you just met? If that were true son, I think you are hopeless,'' Roger pronounced as he took a few mouthfuls of his beer.

``No, no, no...'' Eric replied quickly. ``I wasn't immediately falling head-over-heels for her. It's just that as we kept training together, I started to find her more and more attractive.

``But I never really told her how I felt. I mean, she was introduced to the club by a guy, and I thought...''

``...that they were lovers, and you had no balls to ask her out? God son, you are dense!'' Roger exclaimed.

``No, no, no... not no balls. Didn't want to make things awkward. The club was small, and if she or both of them left due to my faux pas, I could never live with myself.''

``Alright, I get your point,'' Roger replied gruffly. ``But none of that French thing please---it gives me an indigestion.'' Eric finished the rest of his drink and sat there for a while. Wordlessly, Joe filled up a clean glass with more Yuenling and placed it on another coaster next to the empty glass. Eric did not seem to notice nore care except to just pick up the non-empty glass to take another gulp.

The bar was starting to see the first wave of college kids entering. They were of little concern to Joe---the early stragglers in to the bar were the second well-behaved group, with the first of course being the regulars. The newcomers took up a position on the other end of the bar, and one of them motioned to Joe that they wanted him to take their orders. Joe shrugged and sauntered off to his new customers as Eric and Roger sat there quietly, each drinking from his own beer at near consistent intervals. At that point Roger suddenly realised that Eric had been aware that Joe had been listening in, and was even approving of it as he stopped his tale there and then.

Joe took the orders from the newcomers and laid out their drinks on coasters in front of them, taking in the ones and fives they handed to him to put into the cash register. His business on that end done, he tried to find an excuse to make his way back to the side where Roger and Eric were, only to see Roger waving and gesticulating to him to just get the hell over.

Joe put aside the dispenser and grabbed his towel and cleaned the bar top as he made his way back to the other side of the bar.

(Story continues here.)

A Missed Connection: Part III

(Story begins here.)

``There was this Japanese martial art called `aikido' that seemed interesting,'' Eric continued.

``Interesting?'' Roger interjected as Joe watched on. Around them, the bar was still relatively serene. The Friday college madness had not descended upon them yet.

``Yes, interesting. It said that it could be used for self-defense, and was highly effective if one were less physically imposing than the opponent. I thought it was interesting, and went to one of their club meets or training sessions. The teacher was a professor on campus, and he was friendly and good at the art. I saw a lot of cool joint locks and pins and throws and he made it all look so easy. Mind you, he was nearly seventy and yet he was casually tossing spry twenty-somethings all over the training mats. I knew I wasn't super fit for any of the more `usual' martial arts, and if a seventy-year-old man can do it easily, I should be able to as well without hurting myself.''

``Wait, wait, Eric. I don't mean to interrupt you as you regale us'' Roger broke off momentarily glancing at Joe ``with your tale, but how has this got to do with your woman trouble?''

Eric sighed and picked up his glass of beer and chugged the rest of it at one go. Roger and Joe stared at him in disbelief and waited impatiently for him to continue.

``I was getting to that,'' Eric finally found his voice to reply. ``I only told you all that to set up the background. Otherwise you won't have enough to give me advice.''

Roger nearly laughed again, but he caught a quick disapproving glare from Joe and managed to halt himself in time. ``I'm sorry, please do continue.''

``So for a year after that, I took part in the aikido training. It was deceptively hard---I always went home sore all over, but that was due to my lack of fitness rather than an error in instruction. At around teh ninth month mark of starting the aikido training, a new girl joined us.

``Her name was Julia. She was a graudate student working on her PhD and was introduced by a friend of hers to the club who was already a member. I cannot forget the first time I saw her when she came to training.

``She was fit-looking, but was paradoxically stiff everywhere, making it mildly comical to see her pineed and her joints locked with relative ease. Throwing her was quite funny, because the stiffness made it super easy to do so.

``At first, I didn't realise what was going on, but now as I looked back, I had started to be smitten by her.''

(Story continues here.)

A Missed Connection: Part II

(Story begins here.)

``So, you wanna talk about it or something?'' Roger asked.

Eric went mum for a while. For a moment, Roger thought that he had once again hidden back into his shell, but really Eric was just considering the offer seriously. He weighted the pros and cons for telling Roger, and tried to figure out how the whole embarassment factored in. Roger stared intently into Eric's unblinking eyes for a few seconds before motioning to Joe for a glass of beer. Taking the opportunity that presented itself, Joe grabbed a glass and dispensed beer into it before walking to where Eric and Roger were and placed the glass on a coaster in front of Roger.

``Well?''

``Sure, why not. Maybe you may have some advice for me or something.''

Roger guffawed uncontrollably at that last remark before checking himself hastily. ``Son, I'm not sure if I am qualified to give you advice on women, seeing that I am already divorced three times at this point.'' Roger paused, saw Eric's disappointed face, and attempted to soften his words a little. ``But of course perhaps I may have sometihng to say after all. But I can't say anything till you've told your story, right?''

Eric took another big gulp of Yuenling. It really wasn't potent enough to make him tipsy or give him the well-known ``liquid courage'', but the act of chugging a little beer itself seemed cathartic. At this point, Joe was standing right in front of Roger quietly, and appeared disinterested as he started wiping dry some of his glasses and mugs with a towel. Roger knew Joe was trying to look busy while listening in, but it didn't seem that Eric realised nor cared if Joe was eavesdropping albeit in an overt fashion.

``You know I went to the US to study, right?''

``Yeah, I remembered you saying something like that and disappearing for around two years.''

``Right. So I was studying in the US for my masters' degree. I worked hard, spent lots of time in the lab I was assigned to, designing and running experiments for my master thesis. There was nothing else that I did there other than what I had described. Until roughly six months into the programme.

``I was starting to run a little nuts. Worked too hard, felt burnt out. Losing trains of thought, got depressed, you know the usual things that come with burn out. I went to the school counsellor for advice and he suggested I join some of the activity groups on campus. I've always wanted to mess with martial arts, but opportunity never showed itself, till then.''

(Story continues here.)

A Missed Connection: Part I

Eric sat at the bar, pensieve. It was quite empty, only a couple of regulars and Joe, the bartender. It was a Friday, traditional happy hour time for the college kids in the university nearby, but it was, as noted before, still early.

``You gonna keep staring at that Yuenling or are you going to drink it?'' A bellicose Roger asked, his speech slurring ever so slightly. Roger was a regular at Joe's bar---he was always there within the hour of completing dinner and would always begin with the Three Wise Men before chasing it with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse followed by copious amounts of beer. Joe could never understand why roger did that since the two mixers were very similar to begin with, and would cost a pretty penny each. But Roger never got drunk. He was probably the most sober of all who drank at Joe's bar. Joe didn't drink, of course. It would be stupid to be nothing short of being stone-cold sober when one was the barkeep.

Eric stared at the untouched glass of beer in front of him, seemingly oblivious to Roger's exclamation. The latter waited a bit to give time for Eric to process what he said and seeing that no response was coming, got annoyed and repeated himself.

``You gonna keep staring at that Yuenling or are you going to drink it?'' Roger waited. Joe, on the other side of the bar, watched the encounter from the corner of his eyes. Roger and Eric were generally harmless, but it never did bode well when Roger's questions were unanswered.

A low whine started to come from Eric.

``All gone... all gone...''

``No,'' Roger started, excited at finally eliciting a response but still annoyed at its inanity. ``Your damn Yuenlin's still there.''

``It's not the Yuenling.'' Eric replied slowly before pausing. Roger was suddenly aware that Eric was about to unload something heavy. It was always the same with the depressed drinkers---they come in, order something to drink, maybe drink it (or not), but they always kept very quiet, until someone came up to them and started showing some attention. Joe's ears perked up from the other side of the bar, and inched his way closer. As barkeep, it was normal for him to hear grouses, especially from the regulars, but since Roger started it this time, it was wiser to just observe.

``Oh? If not the Yuenling, then what? Women?''

Eric stayed silent for a while more before taking a sip from the glass.

``Yes.''

``Oh lord...'' muttered Roger under his breath, not unkindly.

(Story continues here.)

Train Ride

The silence of the night was exceptionally beautiful. There was a certain loveliness behind all the darkness softly punctuated by the orange glow of the street lamps. The world was winding down around him, but for Mike, the night had its own invigorating aspect. He was on the late night train that took him from Chicago to Champaign, a stomping ground back in the day wihle he was still an undergraduate of the engineering school.

The train taxied out of the station ever so gently that it was a while before he realised that it was moving -- he had thought that the lights outside were somehow moving and scanning the train as though it were a part of some massive scanner. He laughted lightlyt to himself when he realised the ridiculous notion that he had come up with.

Beside him sat Aileen. She had met up with him out in Chicago, after he had flown there from his embarkation at Narita, having spent the last three months in Tokyo for work. They had fallen in love a year back, and this was their big reunion. She sat next to him on the train, window seat, her aquiline nose and high eyebrows set distinctly against the Chicago night skyline. On the opposite side of the aisle, an engineering student was chatting up the young high school girl who was visiting her sister at the university at Champaign.

Mike felt annoyed. The beauty of the darkness and his girlfriend were marred ever so slightly by the amourous advances of the poor engineering student who probably had a severe lack of female attention. Mike knew -- he was an engineering student once after all.

``What is it?'' Aileen asked.

``Oh nothing. Just thinking about things, that's all.''

``I see. Don't need to feel annoyed -- am I not here with you?''

Mike sighed. He was still as easy to read as ever to her, and like each time, he was grateful. There was just something satisfying to have one's intention clearly interpreted with the minimal amount of words used. But there was always that fear, the fear that one day all those non-communicating communication would break down due to the contempt that comes from familiarity. He never told Aileen about his fear of this, but somehow, he knew that she would have known already.

Mike ignored the banter occurring opposite him and contented himself with looking ouf of the window through Aileen's face.

Unintentional Spelunking

I opened my eyes and looked about me and saw nothing but inky darkness. I cursed under my breath for even attempting to enter the cave with a single working torchlight. It was one of the dumber things that I had allowed myself to do, the other which was to even agree to the stupid dare in the first place.

I could hear the steady dripping of water some where within the darkness. I thought I heard it moving to the front of me, but suddenly remembered that caves often had strange acoustic properties, including teh ``wave guide'' effect that allowed sounds from some where far and deep in the cave to sound as though they were closer than they really are.

A thought came to my mind. Was there any dripping thing I had seen while entering the cave earlier? I knew that limestone caves often had stalactite and stalagmite formations that are from such dripping systems, but I didn't remember seeing them no the way in. Of course, that was a good hour or so ago when I still had a working torchlight and when my sense of hearing was less keen, deferring instead to my sense of sight.

I had some time. I sat on the ground I was standing on and started pondering about the possibilities. The mounting fear was slowly giving way to a cold hard rational look at what I was facing right now. Besides, even if I didn't make any move, I was certain that my friends who came to witness me do the dare would have gone for help since I hadn't come out yet after so long.

The dripping sound continued as though it were mocking me for the indecisive state I was in. The more I reasoned with myself, the more it seemed that trying to find that dripping source would actually lead me deeper into the cave that out of it. With that thought in mind, I decided to walk as far away from the dripping sound instead. but since I was in a cave of darkness with no torchlight, I ended up crawling slowly away instead.

The progress was mind-numbingly slow. I had no more sense of time, and allI hoped was that I hadn't inadvertently make the wrong choice, or fall into some unseen crevice unexpectedly. As I moved along, I thought I saw some moving lights in the distance. I stopped, blinked my eyes hard and looked again.

I saw the unmistakeable cone of light from a powerful torch. I shouted as loud as I could, and was greeted with a replying shout and a general aiming of the torch in my direction.

That was when I realised I was only a hand's width away from falling six feet down a crevice.

Abuse

``Hurry up!'' Tania said as she scrambled up the rocky slope. Behind her, Albert panted heavily as he tried his best to match her speed while carrying all their supplies in the big haversack on this back. Albert wasn't as unfit as it sounded, but when one was loaded down with as much stuff as he had, the work was really cut out for one.

But Tania either didn't know or didn't care. A lithe five-foot tall woman, she happily charged up slopes, scrambled up hills and sprinted down gullies willy-nilly, each time berating Albert for being slow. This time, however, he had just about enough of her shenanigans.

Furious, Albert stopped and removed the haversack, groaning under its weight, before dumping it straight down at the small goats' path midway of the rocky slope. The haversack landed with a dull thud just loud enough for Tania to glance back and look at Albert. He returned teh look with a cold stare full of daggers. Then, Tania made her first mistake.

``Come on! Quit stalling! We need to get to the base camp!''

``Stalling?'' Albert roared back, unable to contain the displeasure in his voice. ``Look at you, you stupid bitch! You made me carry all of our supplies while you traipse about like you were a princess walking through your royal garden and you pick the most fucked up route to get to the top and hurry me and now when I can't take it anymore and need a rest you tell me to quit stalling?''

``But honey, you know I'm not good at carrying these loads...''

``Shut the fuck up! You're a five-foot tall woman. You can at least carry your junk. Stupid things like your own sleeping bag, some of the food and water supplies, anything really. That would have made this easier. But nooooo... you had to dump EVERYTHING on to me like I'm your pack mule or something.''

``But you're very strong...''

``ALRIGHT! That's enough!'' Albert replied with an air of finality. He picked up the haversack and slung it back on his back.

``Yay! I know you'd be alright! Come, let's go!'' Tania replied cheerily.

``No.'' Albert said, the coldness of his voice slicing deep into Tania's ears.

``I'm heading back. If you want to go on, carry your own shit. I'm not going to give a damn about you anymore. I tried to please you, to protect you, but you kept being your damn wilful self, never actually giving a rat's ass concern for me. You could have just shown one little ounce of care but you never did.

``Go away. I don't care about you any more.''

Flight

Jeremy paced up and down in the departure hall near the gates, anxious to leave on the plane back to the US and annoyed that there were many people who felt the same way fro the flight. He had spent summer earlier in Singapore, enjoying the sights and sounds of the famous Gardens by the Bay, Sentosa island and even the zoological and bird parks, but they felt tiresome after a while. All the places had ranked well in a guide book to the region, but in his opinion, the novelty wears out the moment one actually visits the place. He couldn't believe that he had spent nearly two thousand dollars, and a whole day of travel just to partake in such local and petty attractions.

But he had to admit one thing -- for all the boringness of it all, things were run almost to clockwork precision as much as they could. Not at the level of sophistication of course. no one could do that expect for the Japanese -- but at a level high enough that made him grudgingly accept that efficiency was a worthy title for the city-state to hold.

But efficiency and holidays don't mix well, he decided.

Jeremy tried to take his mind off the terrible holiday by distracting himself with observing the people around him. Like always, all the passengers were of a varied and motley lot. There were the backpacker adventurers who went everywhere with their towering frame-enhanced backpack that they always checked-in place-side. There were the soldier types, these often looked like they were just released from camp, with their close-cropped hair and searing love for all things in the camouflage motif.

And there were the families. Jeremy recoiled instinctively from the visceral horror that was the travelling family. They were the worst form of passengers, especially if they had young children or god forbid, toddlers on tow. Absolute nightmare to be riding a plane with them. Often, it take longer to get them settled down on the plane, what with their griping about who sits where. Sometimes their own stupidity in picking seats meant that he got propositioned to swap places with them so that they could sit together, an altogether ugly proposition considering Jeremy always hand-picked his own seats. And those with children were the worst of all, what with the consistent high-pitched shrieks and cries and the monopolising of the stewards' time. Absolutely dreadful.

At long last the officer at the gate opened it up for boarding.

Roan

The Reticulated Ramparts of Roan had none of the alliterative feel that its name suggests. The poetic title was thought of by the seventeenth century mystic Al-Bahr as a part of an exchange programme with the British of the time. Despite the lack of the mysticism behind the frivolous-sounding name, the Reticulated Ramparts of Roan played a much more important role by its existence than it would seem to be indicated.

Roan was an old city from back in the day. Founded by the leader of a troupe of renegade knights who left their respective feudal lords, they cam across a small village and staked a claim, renaming it to Roan, and managed to expand its population and amenities to the point that it became a small-sized city on its own.

At first, there were no ramparts of any sort, reticulated or otherwise, but as time went by, Roan became a victim of its own success. Simply put, as Roan prospered, it started to draw hostile attention from the feudal lords, princes, and kings. They saw Roan as a threat from three perspectives. As a rising city, Roan threatened to siphon off trade that was traditionally held in a few more prominent towns. As Roan was founded by rogue knights, there was fear of the martial abilities of the city should it get to that point. And finally, Roan was starting to be the magnet of all knights who were fed-up of serving their feudal lords and wanted something a little more democratic. These fears accumulated into various attempts at taking the city by force.

Initially, the knights of Roan shrugged it off as they fended off the attackers easily. But they got weary once they realised that each day would provide a new feudal lord trying his luck. Defending the city meant that all the knights had to be involved -- there were city limits but the physical barriers were few and weak, which meant needing more manpower. So after deliberation, they built ramparts around Roan.

But these ramparts weren't just massive earth works. They were reticulated, made of many smaller modules that can be easily pre-fabricated and then assembled with mortar. This made it very easy to adjust and vary the defense perimeter, and more importantly, reduce the manpower needed to repel all attacks.

It took the feudal lords a little while to figure out what had been done, and once they did, realised the futility of taking the city by force, and learnt to work with it instead.

Choices

By this point, it would seem that it was a futile attempt for Tim. It wasn't for a lack of trying -- he was good at that sort of thing, the trying I mean -- but that at some point it becomes startlingly clear when, despite one's attempts, it would go to show that nothing good can ever come out of it.

Tim sighed. Yet another failed attempt. It was starting to get insufferable, all these failures upon failures upon failures. It was almost as though there were some sick countervailing force that was always acting up to ensure that no matter what it was that he attempted, it would fail. Tim didn't like that kind of preferential treatment. He found it ludicrous that in the grand scheme of things, there was actually a singular force designed solely to keep him from succeeding.

The phone rang. It startled Tim each time it did that, and only because it was one of those rare things . It wasn't that he failed to remember its existence, but that as the lab phone, there was literally no reason for it to ring at all.

Tim let the phone ring a couple times more, hoping that whoever was on that end would be bored eventually and hang up prematurely. After the eighth consecutive ring, it was clear that was never going to happen. Reluctantly, he picked the phone up.

``Finally! Tim, is that you?'' An irate voice came through.

``Sir? Yes it's me. I'm here. What is the matter?''

``The matter is,'' the belligerent voice continued, ``you were supposed to be in my office fifteen minutes ago to discuss about your research!''

Tim cursed quietly to himself. Time had slipped past him yet again, and once more he had nothing substantial to show for it. And there wasn't enough time to make things up.

``Well?'' The voice sneered through the phone. ``It's your PhD, and if you aren't interested in your work, we can always cancel this meeting and just stop here.''

A thousand thoughts sped through Tim's mind. The proposed resolution was tempting, but was akin to committing career suicide. He wasn't sure if he was ready to take such a drastic step yet.

``Sir, I'm sorry. I don't have any useful results there that we can discuss. Can we cancel this meeting and continue again next week?'' He hoped that he sounded sufficiently placating.

``Okay fine, bye.'' The line went dead.

Tim slumped back on his chair, relieved that he had averted the immediate crisis. But a thought had stuck itself at the back of his mind -- to quit the PhD programme, or not.

Michael, Michelle and Mika: Part I

``Mmm... that feels good. Oh yes... right there... mmm...'' Michelle purred as Michael gently massaged her bare back with his strong arms.

``Oh, you like it like this, right?''

``Mmm... yes!'' Michelle said drowsily. ``Just a little lower. I think my lower back feels a little sore.''

Michael adjusted his massage stroke and slowly brought his kneading fists lower along her back till he was consistently massaging the small of the back. Michelle responded to the change positively by purring.

Michael sat straddling Michelle to get good leverage for the kneading strokes, and he felt himself getting more aroused the more he looked at Michelle's perfectly toned back.

From around the rear, the shower suddenly stopped, and the door slid open. Mika stood there, a rough towel wrapped around her breasts, her long brown hair dripping with water. She pouted as she looked on at Michael and Michelle.

``Told you guys to wait for me!'' Mika said as she stomped a few times daintily on the rug to dry her feet before whipping the towel from around her to rub through her tresses. Her soft white breasts bounced a couple of times before gyrating ever so sensually as her raised arms massaged her scalp through the towel in a bid to dry it all.

``Mika-chan,'' Michelle said, her eyes half closed. ``We haven't started aaanything yet. Michael is just giving me a nice back massage. How could we start anything without you?'' Michael just grunted in acknowledgement, his eyes focusing on the massage.

Mika paused and looked at the two figures on the king-sized bed. She deftly tossed aside the towel and leapt on to the bed, knocking Michael off Michelle and collapsing on top of them in a heap. Michelle shrieked in surprise and Michael was mildly dazed, but they both quickly recovered and the trio were soon engaged in a very sloppy and rambunctious kissing and cuddling spree.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 15-Apr-2014 21:06:48)

Poor Planning

Eli and Jasper sat across each other, cross-legged on a rock each, the campfire between them. Eli stared at Jasper crossly for a good long while until the latter started to get annoyed and snap back.

``Why are you staring at me so hard for? Can't wait for your eye to dry up, shrivel and fall off?''

``Shut up you,'' Eli replied, irritated by the mosquitoes that had decided to flit by the light in the dark. ``We shouldn't even be here in the first place---I have no bloody idea WHY I decided to take up your suggestion to go on that kayaking trip.''

``Oh, come on!'' Jasper replied, grinning sardonically. ``You had a part to play as well. Do you think that it is actually physically possible to convince you of a viewpoint that you hadn't already thought of before hand? Besides we were supposed to leave three hours earlier, but you took your own damn time and didn't move till it was already getting late, and you were the one who didn't want to wait for another day.''

Eli sat there and stared at Jasper sullenly. Jasper was right, of course, But Eli wasn't going to take it like that. They were supposed to leave the island earlier, but they had mis-timed the duration it takes to get from the shore to the interior and back again. By the time they reached the beach, day light was fast fading, and it was suicidal to attempt to navigate the open waters at night in a kayak, even though it was only a kilometre out from the mainland. So they were now at the beach, enjoying the impromptu camp fire.

A sudden sea breeze swept through and blew out the frail flames of the camp fire. Both boys panicked for a moment at the prospect of spending the night completely in the dark, but the fire proved resilient and did not die out on them. Or it could be the sudden abatement of the wind, but it wasn't important.

``You sleep first,'' Jasper said finally after what felt like a few hours of incessant staring. ``I'll take the first shift.''

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 14-Apr-2014 21:27:08)

The Dominator

``Generals,'' Stanford began with his eyes confidently scanning the row of aged military leaders in front of him, ``I present to you the latest in automated warfare: the Dominator.''

``The Dominator is unlike our previous Hawk-class UAV. The wingspan is much larger, forty feet from the Hawk's twenty feet but this is not a liability, because the Dominator has a top speed more than double than that of the Hawk, while having components weight less than seventy-five percent of what the Hawk carries, thanks to the micro fusion power plant and hybrid air-ion engine.

``Operationally, this means that the Dominator can carry a payload twice as much as the Hawk, and can fly as high as low earth orbital altitudes to evade capture, and can stay in orbit at that altitude for up to two hundred hours.''

There was faint murmuring among the generals. Flying at that altitude with double the payload meant that tactical nuclear strikes from ultra-high altitudes via drone technology was now a capability. The long flight time also meant that it was possible to keep a round-the-clock presence. It was a capability that they had long since dreamed of but had never seen it come to fruition.

``What about controls? How do you control the Dominator?'' A general asked.

``We provide four different ways of controlling the Dominator. There is the all-manual control, where both flight and weapon systems are controlled either by direct radio or by satellite link, flight mission control where the flight parameters are pre-specified and manual control over the weapon systems are provided (you can override the flight parameters), again by either direct radio or by satellite link. There is of course the fully automated control mechanism, where the Dominator is hooked up to the constellation of drone `swarms', and is controlled by a central computer that dispatches precise manoeuvring and firing sequences to each drone in the swarm to achieve user-specified tactical objectives.''

``What's the fourth way?''

``Oh that is still currently under development,'' Stanford said, with a glint in his eye.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 13-Apr-2014 11:53:43)

Dream

``Just... a... little bit... more...'' Edwin gritted his teeth and crawled as fast as he could through the undergrowth as gun and artillery fire surrounded him on both sides.

It wasn't his idea of a good time, but Edwin knew that he had to serve. There was nothing else that he could do other than serve. The country was under siege, and his big dream of running an import/export business would never come to fruition had the country been overrun. For the sake of that dream, he had to serve in the military.

He blamed the politicians' ineptness and the trigger happy nature of the military. The conflict could have been minimised had they agreed to promote trade, but the lobbyists had managed to get the politicians to spurn the deal and instead declare war upon the smaller country in the bid to annex it. That triggered the military into action, and everyone got pulled into the mess of total war, under the strong condemnation of the United Nations.

Edwin sighed as he kept crawling through the tall grass. He was the fall-back signaller. When the wired signal systems went down, he had to be the one to manually bring intelligence across the field until it was safe enough to lay out the signal cables again. It was a thankless job, but he knew he had the highest chance of surviving this in the current role, and hopefully they would manage to end the hostilities soon enough that rebuilding can take place.

And when that began, he could finally start that business he had in mind. For a wise man once said, enterprises thrive at the destruction and reconstruction of a society.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 12-Apr-2014 10:58:13)

Waiting for the Dawn

The night had been harrowing. Allison sat upright on the branch of the tree, trying her hardest to not move. It wasn't a particularly tall part of the tree -- just three metres or so off the ground -- but when the night was pitch black to the point that one couldn't even count the fingers on the hand put out at arm's length, that three metres is a long way to fall.

Sitting in the bough of a tree in the middle of the night wasn't Allison's idea of fun. But she had no choice. Originally a part of a hiking group through the park reserves, she had been accidentally left behind by the group after she had to excuse herself to relieve herself. By the time she was done, she found that they had moved on already, leaving behind only the rucksack that she had placed at the root of a tree before heading off into the bushes to urinate.

It wasn't her usual hiking group. They were a last minute replacement for her since her original team couldn't make it out due to some problems with their station wagon. But Allison had already made her way to the park reserve, and was unwilling to head back without actually having a chance to hike through. And so she joined the friendly group of hikers who were also intending to go through the park reserves.

Except they left her behind.

She had a map and a compass, but she hadn't been taking notes on it to track her movement since she assumed that she would always be following the hiking group -- why duplicate the effort? The only GPS receiver she had was the TomTom in her car, safely stowed away in the glove compartment.

It also didn't help that she was left behind after they had spent nearly half the afternoon in the park reserve. That made back-tracking difficult, and since nightfall came swiftly, it was hard to determine her bearings. Lacking a tent, the only safe thing she could do was to climb up a tree and wait for dawn to arrive before she tried to navigate back to civilisation.

That wouldn't happen for another hour or two.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 11-Apr-2014 21:26:43)

Valley

In the depths of the darkness, Eileen felt a certain sense of dread that was just hard to dismiss like that. It wasn't that she was afraid of the darkness---she was used to losing light in the middle of spelunking expeditions---but it was more than just the darkness. There was an unspeakable sort of terror that she could feel within her bones, the kind of feeling that one would normally determine as ``making one's skin crawl''.

It wasn't completely dark, of course. It was not a cave, but a very deep valley, where the ends of hundred-metre path opened out to the bright world outside, while the centre had the most quiet and discomforting feeling that one could get. Eileen knew the theory of the feeling of dread---it was the infra-sonic waves from the barely-there breeze wafting and oscillating through the narrow valley that was causing the discomfort. The theory was that while her ears couldn't actually hear the infra-sonic sound, her body and more specifically her bones could still register the very low frequencies that are present. But all the theories in the world cannot undo the millenia of raw instincts built from evolution, and Eileen shivered a little.

She took a few more tentative steps forward towards the light. She was roughly a third through the valley. It was just broad enough for her small frame. Mario was supposed to follow her through the valley, but after only twenty metres in, he swore that there was something `unclean' about the place and that he couldn't stand it, and wanted out. He'd rather take the long circumnavigation route than to cut through the valley. He had gone with Gonzales, the third team member whose large size already precluded him from using the short cut.

Eileen should have joined them. But the valley itself was not very well-explored, and it would be a waste to just leave it alone like that because two of her team mates were unable or unwilling to go through with it. Gonzales had expressed his disapproval of her foolhardiness, but she was his boss, and all he could do was just frown at her, passing her a high-powered portable short-wave radio and told her to keep in contact with them at all times. She shrugged and took the radio, angry that her team mates were unwilling to join her, but glad that they still cared enough for her to remind her of the safety procedures.

Eileen continued her way through the darkness, feeling about. The walls were covered by a kind of moss, soft to the touch and had a strange dewy feel about it. There was this dampness that clinged about that Eileen was starting to feel as she made her way through carefully, using her hiking pole before each step to determine if the ground in front of her was true.

The radio suddenly cackled to life.

``Eileen, Gonzales here. How are you doing?'' Eileen paused her advance and pulled radio from the casing on her belt.

``So far so good. I'm reaching the halfway mark of the valley. Are you guys over yet?''

``Ha!'' Gonzales replied, seemingly laughing. ``I wish! Mario has been such a bitch about walking along the edge of the goat paths, complaining about the sun and the wind and what-not.'' Eileen smiled as she heard the faint protestations of Mario in the background.

``It's getting damp in here though,'' Eileen replied. ``Not sure what to make of it. There's also this weird moss thing about.''

``Are you using the torch yet?'' Gonzales asked over the radio.

``No... I don't want to destroy my night vision.''

``Okay Eileen,'' Gonzales replied, caution weighing in strongly. ``Don't do anything stupid. We may not have a good way of rescuing you if you did so. And go slow. You're likely to reach the other side faster than us no matter how slow you get, so take your time and be safe.''

``Gotcha, Gonzales. Thanks!''

``Don't mention it,'' Gonzales replied. ``Though I still think you are doing a stupid thing by just going through the valley like that.''

Gentlemen...

``Gentlemen and ladies,'' Alfred began as he stood behind the rostrum under the intense spot light. It was his moment, his hour of triumph. The outline of the company's strategic initiatives, the cumulation of almost a full year of brain-storming and working with his department heads, the fruition of which was this presentaion that he was about to give.

``Gentlemen and ladies, I will being by first congratulating you for the best financial results that we have had in the last five years in which we were in existence as a whole company.'' There was a large applause all round in the auditorium that they had hired for the seminar. Alfred beamed as he eyed the audience, his people, the ones who made the hard achieveable, and the impossible merely difficult.

``These five years have been tough on us all. We survived two major global financial meltdowns, a couple of disruptive technology incursions, and the sudden tightening of the auditing and reporting processes that were put in place to stem the types of collapse that occurred. Despite it all, we have done very well.

``We will not rest on our laurels, however, and it is with great anticipation that I reveal the new five-year workplan that the management team has put together to help steer us through these tumultous times while maintaining our leading edge.''

Thunderous applause flooded the auditorium once more. Alfred was proud of the moment, even though he hadn't actually revealed the plan. He stood there and basked in the joy and enthusiasm, waiting for it to die down before he continued.

``Gentlemen and ladies, do not think of me as being a downer when I say that the greatest challenge that we have to deal with hasn't arrived yet. Do not think of me as being a naysayer when I say that the two financial collapses of the world financial systems and the incursion of the disruptive technologies are merely the tip of the ice-berg. I am merely being pragmatic and speaking enough of the truth so that you will be prepared for the upcoming challenges.

``Times are hard. As a technological company, the easy times are all but over. We need innovation; our craft demands it, our customers require it. This is not like the days of old where we can keep performing incremental adjustments to our software offerings and ship it out to a hungry crowd. Disruptive technology abounds, especially since there is a large increase in the availability of common platforms from which new software may be developed upon. Never forget that five years ago, there was no such thing as the iOS, the Android and everything else in between. We had to write our own platform, provide our own tools, and that was how we became what we are today.

``But the open platforms have disrupted our old workflow. No one is willing to put in money on a platform such as ours---most of the revenue we are getting from that particular aspect of our enterprise comes from the old customers who have already been on our system for so long that it makes almost no sense to try to rewrite all the old code to make them work on the newer and more open platforms. This model can sustain us for perhaps another two to three years, but it is not tenable in the long run. We must innovate.

``But innovation here doesn't mean reinventing the wheel. I don't mean that we have to rewrite everything that we had to use the newer platforms---that is both a waste of resources and a pain in maintenance. Innovation means that we take the open platforms, embrace it, and extend it to beyond what the new user base is even willing to start seeing. In other words, exposing them to an even more vibrant world than what their new platforms can support.''

Alfred paused for a while and looked about him. In the shadow of the darkness, he could see the hundres of faces looking up at him attentively. He smiled to himself; having an attentive audience was already half the battle won.

``If we are not going to rewrite things in the new platform, what does it mean to expose an extended perspective of the new platform to the new users? Simply put, we will adjust our existing platform to make it even more familiar for the new users who are more used to the new platforms, while maintaining good backwards compatibility with our existing client base.

``Which, of course, brings me to the first big change that I would want to introduce. From now on, each department has a specific `extension' group that has one mandate---to take the relevant parts of the open platform and create an emulation layer between that and our own platform's way of doing things. It may sound a little cruel, but the necessity of assimilating disruptive technologies into the folds of our platform is exceedingly important.''

The audience clapped once again, with even more fervour than before. Alfred was glad that it was a welcomed piece of news for the audience; already there has been rumours about how to deal with the disruptive technology, with some going as far as saying that the company was going to go under and be unable to recover. The release of the official word seemed to have abated that resentment, and Alfred could tell that his team was going to achieve even better results in the face of even more adversity.

Silent Strike

Lana tiptoed quietly along the hallway, staying to the edge of the wooden floot as much as she could to avoid the creaks that would come naturally from the long wooden planks. She was in her pajamas, and was sneaking about in the dark. In her hands was a pillow, not hers, but something that she got from the guest room.

The hallway was dark, save for a couple of dimly lit lights that were there for safety purposes. Lana shivered slightly as a quiet breeze wafted through. She felt her hair stand on end for some reason, but she brushed off any fear, knowing that it was a natural reaction from the ultra-low frequency that her body felt when the wind blew through.

She continued creeping along, holding the pillow close to her. It was going to be an ambush on Clara, her sister, whose bed room was on the other end of the hallway. They had been at this on and off for a year now, and the last time they were at it, it had been a few months ago. There was a truce of some sort that they agreed upon, but since time had passed, it felt right to restart the friendly wars again.

Lana continued creeping forward, gaining more ground quietly. Soon she was at the door, and she quietly turned the knob and pushed the door open. It creaked slightly, and she held her breath---there was no reaction. Pleased with the element of surprise she had, Lana quietly tiptoed into the room.

A soft pillow thwacked at her straight in her face, stunning her and lifting her off her feet, dropping her on to her butt on the ground. Stunned, Lana blinked her eyes in discomfort as the lights came on in the room, and Clara grinned at her impishly.

``Thought you could get the upper hand, eh?''

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 08-Apr-2014 21:53:56)

Suitcase

``Sir! Stand down! Put your hands in the air slowly!'' The police officer ordered as he trained his service pistol at Emmanuel, who looked on at him quizzically.

``Officer, what is going on?''

``I SAID, sir, stand down NOW!'' The police officer shouted back. This time, the back-up police officers from behind him had already advanced as well, their firearms drawn. Three of them were holding pistols, while two of them were holding combat shotguns. All around them, many had already sneaked away from the scene, and those who were still around were ducking to the ground as low as they can to avoid the attention of the law enforcement officers.

Reluctantly, Emmanuel slowly raised his hands high into the air, his suitcase right in front of him.

``Step BACK from the suitcase sir!''

``Why would I--''

``I SAID step BACK from the SUITCASE SIR!'' The officer leading the advance was clearly getting annoyed, was armed and was very very dangerous.

Emmanuel had no idea what was going on. He had been at the airport's lounge area, waiting as usual for his flight out of the United States to Abu Dhabi. He was literally minding his own business when he was suddenly yelled at by the airport police officer, which quickly escalated to the current showdown. It seemed surreal to be treated like some kind of criminal, and his fear of the sudden police incursion was countervailed by his indignation of not being in the wrong no matter how he looked at it.

``Look, officer, there has to be some kind of mistake,'' Emmanuel said, trying to reason as he complied with the police officer's demands of stepping backwards from his suitcase.

``Shut UP SIR!'' The police officer shouted as the team advanced cautiously forward. ``Keep your hands where we can see them!''

Emmanuel sighed. Since he wasn't told to stop, he kept taking small steps backwards, all the while staring at the lead officer, while simultaneously eyeing the business end of the pistol that was aimed at him, and trying his hardest to ignore all the other firearms' aim.

``Stop right THERE sir!'' The police officer barked. ``And keep your hands up where we can see it!''

Emmanuel stopped and kept his hands raised up high. He was suddenly swarmed and subdued by the three pistol-wielding police officers, while the two shotgun-wielding ones trained their firearm at his face. Emmanuel's face was pressed into the ground as his arms were forcibly hand-cuffed behind him.

Further back, the lead police officer radioed to the operations room. ``Suspect apprehended. Requesting bomb squad to verify suspected suitcase bomb.''

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis – 07-Apr-2014 20:35:29)

Wronged

Richard paced up and down behind his desk, his right hand holding on to the rattan cane. In front of him stood the two boys, one from the primary three class, the other from the primary five class. It was a distraction he didn't really want, considering that it was the time of the year to review the school's budget and workplan for the upcoming year before presenting it back at the education ministry's headquarters. But he had been highlighted by a couple of teachers of a potential hacking incident, and that the students involved refused to admit to their guilt, and that his teachers were at their wits' end and---Richard sighed. He didn't really have time for this right now.

``Well?'' Richard said with a cold voice towards the two boys who stood there in front of him. ``When will you stop telling lies and tell the truth and admit that you were hacking the computers?''

``But Mr Chang, I didn't hack the computers! There was this typing game that I wanted to play, but the computer, it didn't work, so I tried ways to fix it, that's all. I didn't try to hack the computer...''

``Still lying?'' Richard shouted, brandishing the rattan cane in front of him, and directing his wrath at the primary five student who spoke up. ``When will you stop lying! The teachers are telling me they caught you hacking the computers, are you trying to say that my teachers are lying?''

``No, but I really didn't...'' the poor primary five student replied, trying once more to defend himself.

``DO YOU WANT ME TO CANE YOU UNTIL YOU TELL THE TRUTH?!'' Richard roared in his office. He was getting increasingly annoyed---how was it that children in the age of seven to twelve can be so wilful and adamant that they were right?

But a thought did cross his mind. Was it possible that his teachers made a mistake in saying that these two boys were indeed hackers? He didn't doubt his teachers' judgement, but something about the boy still wanting to stand up in the case of adversity didn't sit quite right in his mind. Could it be that the boy was telling the truth, and that his teachers were misleading him?

``No... no... please don't cane me...'' the primary five boy looked up in terror at the quarter-inch thick rattan cane wielded by the large-sized principal. ``I'll admit it, I'll admit it. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! Just don't cane me! Please don't cane me...!''

The primary three boy was silent, deferring to his elder counterpart. He was too shocked for words to say anything.

Richard sat down, his mind set at ease. So the two boys were guilty after all, and that his earlier thoughts of them being wronged were incorrect as well. Maybe he could settle this case quickly and get back to the real pressing work. Disciplining students didn't count towards the key performance indicators for the school, and the less of it he had to do, the more time he could focus on the things that mattered.

``Good, you have finally come to your senses. As punishment, you two will be in charge of staying near the computers during recess for the rest of the year to make sure that no one tries to hack the computers. If you fail to do this satisfactorily, I will have to cane you and inform your parents as well.''

The two boys looked up and nodded their heads in understanding, glad that their alleged transgressions were not conveyed to their parents.

``Now, get out of my office.''

Hurriedly, they left the principal's office as Richard continued to stare at the proposed budget that was put together by the heads of departments, glad that the distraction was finally over.

Long Night

The night, it was dark and cold. Lonely too I might add. It wasn't really that normal a night, as far I was concerned. Too many things to think about, too many things to worry about. Ordinarily, this wouldn't really bother me much, but it has been a while since I was able to get used to the fact that life has never been the same since they all left.

I didn't use to be so worrisome. Life was simple. Study hard, get good grades, eat enough food, have plenty of rest and exercise and things were good. But as time went by, all these goals started to become meaningless drivel---their very mundaneness have made them into things that I wouldn't associate much value to any more.

I sighed as I lay on my bed, alone and under the sole light that I had jerry-rigged to hand slightly over head for better illumination.

Life used to be simple. What happened in between? Has becoming an adult effectively doomed me to a lifestyle where nothing was certain and happiness was merely something that was hinted at and only dreamt about? I know not how to answer this.

I looked out of the window in contemplation of my lot in life. The featureless night sky was abyssal, glowering back at me as though I were making some terrible mistake of some sort. I shuddered a little as a cold breeze wafted through the open windows.

There was little doubt that it was going to be a long night.

------

It was never meant to be that way, of course. Things were rosier in the day, partly because of the tinting of the world by the daylight star, partly because there were actually things to do rather than just to sit around and let the mind wander. But for that day, the day that led to that night, it wasn't actually the rosiest of things.

Irene broke up with me.

We went out for quite a while, and for those moments, I felt like an adult. More importantly, I felt as though I was in control of my life. And then of course she broke up with me, making everything that I had once thought of as being stable turning into the exact opposite.

Roughly an hour after she told me to take a hike for good, my boss came up to me and told me that when my contract was up in three months' time, the company would not be extending it. And so, my source of income was suddenly affected negatively as well.

I had drunk some hard liquor, the precious few bottles that I had saved from during my college days. It helped keep me in the mood that I wanted; sombre, alone, yet fiery in a defiant way. And I had been lying in bed since dinner.

I continued to stare at the ceiling, allowing my mind to travel far and wide through my consciousness, hoping to find an elusive answer to the vague question that I have in my head. A fruitless endeavour, really, because all it did was to keep me even more awake than before, despite the cold breeze through the open windows.

I wished that Irene was back. I debated giving her a call, but quickly realised that it was almost one in the morning---making that call would probably seal things with an air of finality that would make the earlier brush-off seem like a joke.

But Irene had a mercurial disposition. Even though I had gone out with her for so long, I never could figure out how long it takes for her anger to simmer, or from any other non-happy state back to the neutral or happy woman I know. Maybe that ship hasn't sailed off yet, but there was no easy way to find out.

I stared at the ceiling more, letting the cold breeze that wafted through seep into my bones, triggering the familiar arthritic pain at the part where I had once broken the bone. That old familiar pain was strangely satisfying; it conveyed one of the few vestiges of control and understanding that was left that night.

My eyes were wide open, despite the lateness of the night. There was no way to sleep, even if I were completely exhausted. The vague worries and thoughts intermingled with the raw stimuli of the cold night and drove my mind into an odd mix of being tired and euphoric at the same time.

It was near dawn when my eyes finally fealt weary enough to droop down and allow me some rest finally. Perhaps there will be a better tomorrow after all.