ALIEN LANDSCAPE
Author : NHJ
MSN: crescent_cage@hotmail.com
email : spherickey@gmail.com
Other Blogsites
MRH
Yeoks
Airina
Iskandar
PostSecret
echoncyllan
Before Gargoyle
One Million Footnotes
Read My Poetry.
Playing:
Between the Bars (Elliott Smith Cover) by Metric
Friday, December 30, 2005
the Brown Cat's cruel tutelage.
even growing up watching the Bosnian war on television, basic things like people killing other people did not register in the slightest when i was a kid.
a kid. staring at a television screen as people die in the light of her eyes while she just stared on, uncomprehending, uncaring. crying for it all only when the death was of one of her kin.
i was eleven and bored. it was a cool afternoon, at my aunt's terrace in Malaysia when i found a striped brown pregnant tabby wandering around in patches of grass at the frontyard beside a stained white wall. for the day, the cat was a playmate and a friend.
there were conversations, kisses, strokes, imagination. my small world of petty cruelty made up of bullies named Daniel and Zhi Wei faded away. i felt happiness bursting seams when i laid my head on her brown bloated belly as she basked under a gentle sun. the world could not have been more perfect. til the sun decided to go out and my mother called me back in. i waved goodbye to the wise brown figure that was my cat friend. she watched intently, golden eyes glinting, whiskers twitching as i walked solemnly home, pondering on the hissing dying sun.
the next sun came up the next day on a still brown heap of fur. solemnly still in the fresh air of morning, i tiptoed over and found my friend, dead. there was a white stillness to everything and my mind blanked out as i mutedly squatted by her body. i could not understand her frightening stiffness as i touched her with my fingertips. kitty. kitty catty. ni Yaya. ingat tak?
after about half an hour sitting on the grass, staring at a dead cat, touching it occasionally and recoiling at the chill, feeling uncomfortable and confused at the suddenness of everything, i finally started crying with my dirty hand on her bloated, flea ridden belly. discreetly. in case people heard. hard sniffs, hiccups and hot tears. my perfect world was gone.
bowing my leaking head under a warming blue sky, i cupped my hands and recited the Al-Fatihah for the brown cat, my concentration intense. that was when i heard suppressed laughter.
i turned, my face wet and embarrassed and saw my aunts and mother at the door of the terrace laughing at me and shaking their heads. humiliated by the laughter, i wiped my face and walked slowly away from my dead friend towards a nearby playground to join my cousins on their dusty bicycles.
the suddenness of Brown Cat's death taught me that humanity did not run the world as i had always thought they did, with weapons and science. death is not something of choice or reason. death comes to the young, to the happy, to new mothers and to the old. and it comes without warning. never can matter to death if you were happy or had a friend who will miss you when you go. and at a late age of eleven, my imagination broadened to the darker realms as i realised bombs did not just leave blackened faces and disheveled hair. lastly, the laughter taught me that that the world won't weep with you and that ultimately, you are always, always alone.
so there was much fear when i when through my teen age. always unconsciously recalling the cat's lesson.
i accepted that as a child. i accepted it by zooming downhill on a bicycle with the wind blowing hard through my hair, trying to forget everything, with the laughter of my younger cousins all around me, racing side by side. a group of innocent children with no idea of death and nature. that was the day i grew up without losing my innocence.
and the big surprise was televised on a crowded couch
our eyes grew wide and wet
oh was it really such a sad event?
Posted by NHJ 12/30/2005 12:03:00 pm
Saturday, December 24, 2005
the day i drew many many.
i drew me and i drew you. then i drew the ocean.
in my mind, i threw you in. all the thousand coloured fishes ate you up, chewed you to bits. then they jumped out of the water, they broke the surface into a million drops that catch the sunlight and glinted with that something i saw in your eyes when you look at me and say you love me. they become a rainbow where i climbed to the top, to the bow and met you there. you told me to jump so i did and we fell. together. like rain.
with the wind rushing into our ears and with the world tunnelling into our eyes, i made my confession. i shouted Fir, i've forgotten how to love you!
with that look, with those tears that made the rain retreat into clouds, that look that broke my heart only that it isn't mine, that it is yours and i couldn't find mine because i seemed to have lost it.
you said ok. and we landed.
softly on our bare feet. onto grass where there are no worms because i don't like worms. with lots of pretty flying insects and hard armoured beetles because we like those. the sky was blue because it is your favourite colour and your eyes were brown and sad, just like they should be. just like they should be.
i fell asleep on my drawing block, right beside a tiny drawn figure of you. you were smiling at me with that look in your eyes, the one which makes me feel like the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world. when i woke up, my sleepy tears and dream drool smudged everything. the sky the grass the stars the fishes the ocean. everything except you and me. it was like a fairytale. a predictable one which many will scoff at, i'm sure.
you taught me not to care about them. you taught me to wonder and to marvel and to never get used to things. from the green of the grass to the black of souls. i told you no no darling, i would never forget. or stop wondering and marvelling and smiling and dreaming. i would never do that. i remember now. i remember i remember i remember. i remember now how to love you.
so i placed my pencil down, blew all the stray graphite away. there were fishes, beetles and falling lovers. there was forever and there was you. though i never wanted to be there, in pencil for all to see and laugh at, you held me in place tightly and whispered a secret all the world knew but i would never tell, to which i replied me too. me too.
goodnight young lovers.
and a rustle of paper, and a click of a worn pencil and the sigh of a dreamer's dream.
Posted by NHJ 12/24/2005 10:54:00 pm
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
it's ok. it's Tuesday.
in nights i sang,
i'm sorry about the phonecall
and needing you. some decisions, you don't make. i guess it's like breathing but not wanting to. some things you just can't fake.
i'm sorry about the phonecall and waking you. i know that it is late. but thank you for talking cos i needed to.
some things just can't wait.
a pen trembled in my hand as red pages lie empty. but in the end, still frightened from noises and sudden silences and the absence in my heart, i dialled a random number and fell asleep at the sound of frustration and defensive curiosity.
shh...
Seasky, you returned proudly to the women who wear their hair flying like meteor showers. smothered by your grandeur, i stayed brave as i saw you the second time on this telltale Tuesday. if it weren't for Tuesday having such a beautiful name (even more beautiful than you), i would name it after you. your gaze was as cold as space yet my determination burned like suns.
did i not make you turn back to look at me even as you walked away haughtily? did you not wonder at the words that i uttered as you swept by in all your authority? did i not walk away from you, proud and clever as you looked after me, curiously?
did my empty words not tear your delicate attention from your large life of echoes? Seasky, tell me this. did i not make you feel?
Posted by NHJ 12/06/2005 09:41:00 pm
Friday, December 02, 2005
oh confound you, woman. you, your heart stopping smiles and stupid silver car.
Posted by NHJ 12/02/2005 02:28:00 pm