YOUR NEW FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURS

There comes a point in every English graduate’s life when they realise that reality is unlike any books that they’ve read (unless they are reading tragedies).

Of course, there are bills to pay, hours to commute and social ladders to climb. But when three good friends come together for a round of a birthday celebration but with not much to celebrate - we just have to stop and think, “Is this it?”

So, consider this our personal revolution. We want to repaint our lives that has gone grayscale since we entered this so-called ‘real’ world. No riots, no Tea Parties, we want to share this with you with our stories, drabbles and poems.

Who are we?

snow white

she’s an old woman

her wrinkled smile reflected

grandmothers, mothers, aunts

she never knew.

fingers branching out

inviting her to pluck it off.

        

don’t accept anything from strangers.

she’s just an old woman

in her voice she could hear

the gentle counsel of

grandmothers, mothers, aunts

an authority she cannot easily deny.

she’s looking after me.

she’s only an old woman

with kind words as a shelter.

an unwanted is now wanted

she takes the apple

and hands over her trust.

The Beginning

Certain people wear their sorrows like the pieces of clothing they choose in the morning.

But before then, while sleep is still fastened onto their eyelids, they momentarily forget who they are and what they should feel. Then, awareness clambers onto them like a faithful lover. Their tired hands feeling the surface of their beds as they steady their minds. It’s that first blink of clarity that brings them whole again. Like a shirt unraveling down their chest, they remember. 

Arif wakes up every day with a single reminder: I no longer have a wife. 

Everything else is happenstance.

Stuck in a Candy Crush

“Traffic is at a crawl from Jalan Tun Razak heading towards Ampang due to an accident. On MRR2, expect delays from both directions between the Kuari Flyover and Pandan Indah.”

An ambulance passed them some twenty minutes ago and the same traffic update had been reported forty minutes ago. In one modest red Viva, a woman was staring balefully at her radio, listening to the endless ads that followed which had no relevance in her life. She needed a song to get through the traffic jam.

In a black Honda behind her, a man was playing Candy Crush on his phone for the past ten minutes since he had set his car to Neutral because the long stretch of road was a parking lot. He had three moves left and he still hadn’t been able to finish breaking all the jellies. Soon (or maybe very much later), he would return home to a nephew who insisted he was a failure of an adult for being beaten by a fifteen-year-old.

The woman inspected her reflection on her rearview mirror; the make up she had carefully put on in the morning to make her not look like a zombie was almost completely gone, revealing the tired lines on her face. She looked over at the car next to her, with children being restless in the backseat. A little girl was midway through climbing the back of the driver’s seat, mussing her father’s hair.

Asian Festival for Children's Content 2013 aka the Great Escape to Singapore!

There is this feeling that the world is closing in on me sometimes when I’m sitting at my desk, typing away on my laptop. Especially when I’m done with the day, and I realize how many hours had passed of me doing the routine thing I’ve done for more than a year now. Isn’t it scary, when you pause for a moment, when you let yourself think of the things you wanted to do, things you’re passionate about – only to realize that, here you are --

On a path you don’t really want after all.

(Dramatic, much?)   

People say that you need to forget about ‘pausing’. Don’t think, just keep doing your work. But I need that pause. Everyone does. And that pause made me write a paragraph; it made me feel connected to the words I write, because these are words that make me myself. I am me when I write, and no one can take that away. I hold those words tightly to my heart because it’s leaves a trace of who I am.  

So I approached my friend Cate, who’s a SCBWI member and she was the one who recommended me to go for Asian Festival for Children’s Content (AFCC). It was a little pricey to go, but at that point of my life I was just like, “Screw it, I’m going to go to this thing, I’m going to learn stuff and meet new people and take a step forward :|”

Warning: Word vomit and #writerfeels ahead. 

Warning: Slippery Surface

author's note: the continuation of 'warning: fire hazard'

___________________________

People only pay attention to those who are special.

I was used to being unnoticed. Passing by people and have them barely look at me. Why would they? I had no part to play in their lives. And to be honest, I was happy that way. I had my own friends, minded my own business.

When things happen and you're too young to understand them, you tend to be carried away with what's visible to you instead of fully understanding the deeper layers behind them.

I wish I knew it then, back when I wasn't special.

* * *

'Disease-spreading Defunct Caught’.

Imran was too lazy to read newspapers, except for when Anthony forced him to just because he managed to sneak his way into an article which praised the government’s efforts to support them. But his eyes caught the headline of today’s front page.

“Finally."

“It’s getting scarier! So glad we live here where everything’s more contained--”

“They need to weed out the bad ones first to keep us safe.”

“Did you hear about them re-opening the train stops to enter the city? That’ll make it even worse.”  

Love Me Extra

   

They had been on the road for a couple of hours now. Driving without a specific endpoint in mind. His eyes concentrated on the cars on the highway by mentally adding the numbers of the front cars’ license plates together to escape the silence, while hers bored into passing cars and buildings with no reason of contempt.

The eerie whispers of ‘The Dark Side Of The Moon' resonating in the car came from the well-worn cassette that the guy discreetly slipped into the deck when they started driving. She scoffed knowing that the driver honestly believed the philosophical sound of Pink Floyd would calm her down.

“Such naivety”, she thought bitterly. The haunting sound actually added more misery to her sullen mood.

 
But then again, perhaps that’s what she needed at the moment. She glanced at him from the corner of her eyes before she caught herself and immediately looked away.