hey! this is kaiyuit (: YES goodbye math! and chinese! and physics! tralala.
some pieces of fifty-five fiction(: enjoy.
Your food, your foe.
My skin is ripped apart.
My innards ooze out onto sizzling metal, like yellow goo.
I feel the scorching heat; my time is up.
But, I thought, as my comrades joined me in my cruel fate, we’ll never surrender meekly!
Hear the war cries of the scrambled eggs, as we bring you humans, FOOD POISONING.
By the Vanity Pond
A girl sits by the lake. The water is glossy and smooth; it entices her.
She leans forward; her reflection stares back in surprise.
She bends down to kiss it; she loves her reflection with intense passion.
It whispers to her to join it: her other self, beneath the glassy surface.
And intoxicated, she follows.
A foolish clown
He slips back into the dressing room, amidst the audience’s laughs. Another successful act. He reapplies his thick, red and white makeup and twists his polka-dotted tie briskly. He glances at the cracked mirror, and wonders, for the first time in thirty-five years, if he was nothing but a sad play-thing for others to ridicule.
horror
At midnight, the girl shuffles into the dark, unlit kitchen. She picks up and fills a mug with milk, then drinks sleepily from it. But something’s not right: what is it? She switches the light on. She screams. Her cup falls and shatters with a resounding crash. For inside the cup, was a live cockroach.
(this DID happen to me. except that it wasn't a cockcroach x/EWWW~)
Clockwork
The two figures whirl in time to the intense music, their bodies flying, connecting, and separating in a mad tempo. Dance. Their feet move in a drunken blur. Crazy, senseless, frenzied, intoxicating passion. A fiery fervor that'll never be extinguished; a dance that will go on forever. Or at least, until their clockwork winds down.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
55 fiction/why write?
Hey, here’s my (weiqing’s) stuff, hope it’ll be a good read for you!
Life
With an unsteady hand, she etches the first strokes on the blank white canvas. Then come the bright splashes of vivid colour, before a surge of mottled black drowns out everything. Desperate, she rains a bucketful of tears upon it, but the stains refuse to go away. Indeed, life’s canvas never offers a second chance.
This is his last meeting with her. Much has changed since they first met. Once, she was fresh and full of life, and he had just begun to experience the heady joys of being with her. Now she was old and spent, and so Man bid goodbye to Earth and boarded the spaceship to Mars.
The bright sparkle of the thread of sunshine that sneaks in through the crack in the wooden doors catches her breath. She leans towards it, and is gratified when the cool morning breeze gently caresses the back of her eyelids. Then you slam the closet doors shut again on that hideous shirt you’ll never wear.
Writing is often exalted as the truest and purest form of expression; the most effective way to crystallize the swirl of emotions inside each and every one of us. But is it, really?
For the tired, jaded souls trudging through the rhetoric of everyday life, writing ceases to be a beautiful, emotional exercise. Their writing comes straight from their hearts, and possessing hearts long dulled by the slow pounding rhythm of boredom and fatigue, the glimmer of inspiration and hope that one oft sees in the writing of youth is shrouded in an oppressive fog of ennui. The best pieces of writing can only be produced when the writer herself is in her best state of mind; consequently, a writer whose senses have been blunted by years of disillusionment cannot hope to craft a masterpiece.
Or, perhaps there exist a few people whose innate talent for writing is so strong that no matter what their frame of mind, once a pen is put in their hand, the sheets of blank paper in front of them have no chance of protecting themselves from the barrage of words soon to drown them.
At the end of the day, I guess, a piece of writing does hold up a mirror to the churning feelings of its writer as she was writing it. A piece of writing can very well allow a reader to asses the writer’s mood, personal opinion and maybe even her beliefs and values. It reflects its writer’s subconscious thoughts and emotions, and the subtle shades of meanings detected in the various words employed can all paint a good picture of the writer’s psycho-emotional thought processes.
55 fiction (:
Here goes...
1. Answers
I took a slow, meaningful promenade in the park, trying desperately to clear my head. Questions zipped pas me in a flurry, and I wanted answers immediately. Suddenly, I looked up, only to hear the senile old hag shriek loudly, "Noo!". Content, I went home. After all, they say a man of few words is wise.
2. Hunt
Aclump of brown fur whizzed past the tall grass, and the hunter perked up at the sight. He edged closer, gripping his weapon tightly in his calloused palm, ready to make the perfect shot. He positioned himself stealthily and waited, the silence only growing gradually louder. Suddenly a loud roar behind him. The end.
3. World
Millions of years.
Billions of years.
The same motion.
The constant dizziness and nausea, causing my occasional outbursts at various peaks, and the continuous, ceaseless journey through eternity- I needed no assurance that I'd never view anything elso in alternate perspective. A revolution was very regular, for gravity did believe: One good turn deserves another.
(: japna.
1. Answers
I took a slow, meaningful promenade in the park, trying desperately to clear my head. Questions zipped pas me in a flurry, and I wanted answers immediately. Suddenly, I looked up, only to hear the senile old hag shriek loudly, "Noo!". Content, I went home. After all, they say a man of few words is wise.
2. Hunt
Aclump of brown fur whizzed past the tall grass, and the hunter perked up at the sight. He edged closer, gripping his weapon tightly in his calloused palm, ready to make the perfect shot. He positioned himself stealthily and waited, the silence only growing gradually louder. Suddenly a loud roar behind him. The end.
3. World
Millions of years.
Billions of years.
The same motion.
The constant dizziness and nausea, causing my occasional outbursts at various peaks, and the continuous, ceaseless journey through eternity- I needed no assurance that I'd never view anything elso in alternate perspective. A revolution was very regular, for gravity did believe: One good turn deserves another.
(: japna.
Monday, August 11, 2008
very discerning
A quick one.
-----------------------------------
She looks sideways at you. “Well, is she pretty?”
“Some. Mm, she’s beautiful sometimes. When she ties her hair a certain way. When she has a genuine smile.”
“You really like her, don’t you!”
“But she’s such a bitch!”
“But you like her anyway.”
Silence.
She grins. “You’re blushing. I’ll get you an ice cube.”
-----------------------------------
Based on a real conversation. I couldn't resist. [:
-----------------------------------
She looks sideways at you. “Well, is she pretty?”
“Some. Mm, she’s beautiful sometimes. When she ties her hair a certain way. When she has a genuine smile.”
“You really like her, don’t you!”
“But she’s such a bitch!”
“But you like her anyway.”
Silence.
She grins. “You’re blushing. I’ll get you an ice cube.”
-----------------------------------
Based on a real conversation. I couldn't resist. [:
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
I hope you guys enjoy this, and thank you if you comment (:
- Kar Min
FIFTY-FIVE FICTION
Shelley
Today the ocean is a mourning murderer. A half-dressed skeleton reclines on a wooden pedestal. He is haloed by fire in the salt-spiked air, surrendering to the blind music of the sea as red night descends. You crane your neck as you circle overhead and see only those loving waters pooling round an empty shell.
Fat Hope
That day I gave you a fat bag of hopes. You looked in and found Heart, which was slightly squashed by Affection. Later you returned me everything, saying that you couldn’t own my Dreams. You thought I wasn’t looking when you slipped my red globe into your breast pocket and exchanged it for your own.
Her pen draws ragged circles. She scouts the table top for invisible ink she might have left before the invigilator’s harsh “remove all notes and materials from the examination hall”. Panic is an old friend. Questions glare at her, marring the innocence of fresh white paper, still hot from the photocopier. Her mind fires blanks.
Angel
I remember when you and I sat on the beach as the sea threw its blankets over us. You kissed the salt on my eyelids and said you tasted honey. I asked why you desecrated your wings with this raw, jagged soul – you simply replied that every sand grain was the crumb of a star.
WRITING ABOUT WRITING
Who is a writer?
Last Wednesday there was a commotion out in the corridor of our apartment, the sound of muffled boxes and cartons on roller skates. I tiptoed to look through the peephole and listened to the distorted voices rebounding against the front door. With a squint I distinguished the figure of a thin man in a black suit standing directly outside. My neck cramped and uncramped as he pointed directions to the brawny, faceless men who were dragging big brown slabs of cardboard down the hallway. The boxes sailed down the dirty carpet and disappeared from my view on the right. By this time my feet hurt and my brother had crept up and poked me in the back.
"New neighbour," I explained, my lips almost brushing the door. I heard his grunt and subsequent retreat to the computer. The familiar video-game gunshots began.
Outside, the thin man jumped, startled.
I tried another angle and understood why. A box had fallen on its side – there was a gash in its brown sealing tape and what looked like smaller boxes were bleeding from it. The small boxes began doing splits face-down on the carpet and I realised that they were all identically gaudy little books! The thin man was making violent hand actions and shaking his head as he shooed away the brawny ones. No-one was allowed in his protective radius as he knelt down, pushed the box upright (wincing as the remaining contents tumbled and gurgled), began picking up the little books on the floor and gently, gently refilled the void in the injured box.
I could almost hear the forlorn shuffle of the box on the floor as he pushed it out of my sight, into the apartment next door.
There was no one left outside but the carpet. Gingerly I unlatched the door, pushed down the handle and pushed it just the tiniest fraction open. My nose fit the gap perfectly. My eyes must have crossed themselves as the narrow sliver of light showed me: a lonely hallway, a floor of footprints in transit, and a little book lying curled up like a child after a fall. It looked so dejected that I had to run out and pick it up.
It was a notebook. It was lined, perhaps with worry, and filled with more (squiggly) lines which told the story of another world. I sat in the hallway and read of laughter, bloodshed and the clashing of souls. After the final full stop I felt a horrible emptiness and a need to return to the obvious and the insincere – so I observed that dust was attacking the cover, its corners were bent at a strange angle, and half the book was mutilated by an angry crease. The handwriting resembled barbed wire. But I thought it was beautiful, a bird with a broken wing. I thought I would nurse it back to health and set it free.
In a sudden the Next Door opened and there was the thin man, standing sideways in the doorway, pretending to usher the brawny men out while making shooing motions with his hands. I was right opposite him, crouched on the floor with the black book hanging from my palms. For a moment I shut my eyes and listened to the clumpy bootsteps of the men as they marched down and away, their low, disgruntled mumbles about "bloody sensitive artist types" and "I need a donut now". The sounds faded into the distance as the carpet began to make my nose itch.
After I sneezed, I opened my eyes. He was still standing there, but now he was looking at me and the book in my hands. Just then I realised how tacky it was, how its blue spirals clashed with its burgundy plastic coat and how the dreadful logo proclaiming REDTYPE INC: communicable solutions for The Future was a violent stain on the spine. Yet I didn’t want to let go of it. As I glanced down at the open face of the book, the spidery handwriting spun a web for my heart. I knew I was holding life in my hands.
One, two, three. That was all it took for him to cross the hallway. I didn’t want to have a conversation with his knees so I stood up, very slowly, keeping the breathing book in my arms. My eyes were level with his shoulders but I thought it strange how his voice seemed to be right in my ear as he said,
"Sorry, is that notebook mine?"
My gaze flickered up to his face, which was angular and slightly ill-looking. His eyes were like fog. Were these the windows out of which he was looking when he sketched a world to life in his notebook, using no more than words, the rough tools available to every commoner on the street? Those eyes frightened me. I dropped my stare.
"Come, return it to me." I think he meant to sound coaxing but I would not be coaxed. His hand stretched out, and I saw blueish stains on his fingertips. Was that the ink of the sky in his creation? Was that the hand with which he spun an epic on a garish company notebook? It was too much to believe. I took a step back, stumbling against the wall.
"Who are you?" My voice wobbled on a tightrope. He lowered his eyes to meet mine, head tilted at a slightly amused angle, and his voice was quiet laughter.
"I’m a writer." He smiled.
I crumbled and placed the book in his open palm.
- Kar Min
FIFTY-FIVE FICTION
Shelley
Today the ocean is a mourning murderer. A half-dressed skeleton reclines on a wooden pedestal. He is haloed by fire in the salt-spiked air, surrendering to the blind music of the sea as red night descends. You crane your neck as you circle overhead and see only those loving waters pooling round an empty shell.
Fat Hope
That day I gave you a fat bag of hopes. You looked in and found Heart, which was slightly squashed by Affection. Later you returned me everything, saying that you couldn’t own my Dreams. You thought I wasn’t looking when you slipped my red globe into your breast pocket and exchanged it for your own.
Her pen draws ragged circles. She scouts the table top for invisible ink she might have left before the invigilator’s harsh “remove all notes and materials from the examination hall”. Panic is an old friend. Questions glare at her, marring the innocence of fresh white paper, still hot from the photocopier. Her mind fires blanks.
Angel
I remember when you and I sat on the beach as the sea threw its blankets over us. You kissed the salt on my eyelids and said you tasted honey. I asked why you desecrated your wings with this raw, jagged soul – you simply replied that every sand grain was the crumb of a star.
WRITING ABOUT WRITING
Who is a writer?
Last Wednesday there was a commotion out in the corridor of our apartment, the sound of muffled boxes and cartons on roller skates. I tiptoed to look through the peephole and listened to the distorted voices rebounding against the front door. With a squint I distinguished the figure of a thin man in a black suit standing directly outside. My neck cramped and uncramped as he pointed directions to the brawny, faceless men who were dragging big brown slabs of cardboard down the hallway. The boxes sailed down the dirty carpet and disappeared from my view on the right. By this time my feet hurt and my brother had crept up and poked me in the back.
"New neighbour," I explained, my lips almost brushing the door. I heard his grunt and subsequent retreat to the computer. The familiar video-game gunshots began.
Outside, the thin man jumped, startled.
I tried another angle and understood why. A box had fallen on its side – there was a gash in its brown sealing tape and what looked like smaller boxes were bleeding from it. The small boxes began doing splits face-down on the carpet and I realised that they were all identically gaudy little books! The thin man was making violent hand actions and shaking his head as he shooed away the brawny ones. No-one was allowed in his protective radius as he knelt down, pushed the box upright (wincing as the remaining contents tumbled and gurgled), began picking up the little books on the floor and gently, gently refilled the void in the injured box.
I could almost hear the forlorn shuffle of the box on the floor as he pushed it out of my sight, into the apartment next door.
There was no one left outside but the carpet. Gingerly I unlatched the door, pushed down the handle and pushed it just the tiniest fraction open. My nose fit the gap perfectly. My eyes must have crossed themselves as the narrow sliver of light showed me: a lonely hallway, a floor of footprints in transit, and a little book lying curled up like a child after a fall. It looked so dejected that I had to run out and pick it up.
It was a notebook. It was lined, perhaps with worry, and filled with more (squiggly) lines which told the story of another world. I sat in the hallway and read of laughter, bloodshed and the clashing of souls. After the final full stop I felt a horrible emptiness and a need to return to the obvious and the insincere – so I observed that dust was attacking the cover, its corners were bent at a strange angle, and half the book was mutilated by an angry crease. The handwriting resembled barbed wire. But I thought it was beautiful, a bird with a broken wing. I thought I would nurse it back to health and set it free.
In a sudden the Next Door opened and there was the thin man, standing sideways in the doorway, pretending to usher the brawny men out while making shooing motions with his hands. I was right opposite him, crouched on the floor with the black book hanging from my palms. For a moment I shut my eyes and listened to the clumpy bootsteps of the men as they marched down and away, their low, disgruntled mumbles about "bloody sensitive artist types" and "I need a donut now". The sounds faded into the distance as the carpet began to make my nose itch.
After I sneezed, I opened my eyes. He was still standing there, but now he was looking at me and the book in my hands. Just then I realised how tacky it was, how its blue spirals clashed with its burgundy plastic coat and how the dreadful logo proclaiming REDTYPE INC: communicable solutions for The Future was a violent stain on the spine. Yet I didn’t want to let go of it. As I glanced down at the open face of the book, the spidery handwriting spun a web for my heart. I knew I was holding life in my hands.
One, two, three. That was all it took for him to cross the hallway. I didn’t want to have a conversation with his knees so I stood up, very slowly, keeping the breathing book in my arms. My eyes were level with his shoulders but I thought it strange how his voice seemed to be right in my ear as he said,
"Sorry, is that notebook mine?"
My gaze flickered up to his face, which was angular and slightly ill-looking. His eyes were like fog. Were these the windows out of which he was looking when he sketched a world to life in his notebook, using no more than words, the rough tools available to every commoner on the street? Those eyes frightened me. I dropped my stare.
"Come, return it to me." I think he meant to sound coaxing but I would not be coaxed. His hand stretched out, and I saw blueish stains on his fingertips. Was that the ink of the sky in his creation? Was that the hand with which he spun an epic on a garish company notebook? It was too much to believe. I took a step back, stumbling against the wall.
"Who are you?" My voice wobbled on a tightrope. He lowered his eyes to meet mine, head tilted at a slightly amused angle, and his voice was quiet laughter.
"I’m a writer." He smiled.
I crumbled and placed the book in his open palm.
For those who understand, appreciate and relish in the power of words, and cannot live without them (perhaps because you love to read, perhaps because you love to write or/and perhaps because words define who and what you are), this poem is for you.
I Leave Bits of Me Everywhere- Karen Swank-Fitch
poem-words are my clothing, stripped late at night
a trail from the threshold to the foot of bed
along the stairs lay verbs
the actions i need to climb twelve steps at 2am
a vowel left adjacent to toothbrush
i get sloppy with tartar and allusions
over the cornice of mirror, hangs a strand of pearly metaphors
a simile in my sink
a limerick needing to be laundered
the clothes hamper is full of rimes and meters in want of mending
kick off the shoes,
make a pile of cacophony
wrap myself in the plum flannel of sonnet
hair up-tied with haiku
finding the resting place for naked poet...
in ambiance i light a candle
a sestina goes up in flames.
- ms ng :)
For those of you mentioned that you "can't write on demand" or "this writing task is meaningless", I'm sure you can empathise with the ape in the poem below.
Teaching the Poem to Write Poems-John Tate
teaching the ape to write poems:
first they strapped him into the chair,
then tied the pencil around his hand
(the paper had already been nailed down).
Then Dr. Bluespire leaned over his should
and whispered into his ear:
"You look like a god sitting there.
Why don't you try writing something?"
- ms ng :)
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