Steven Strait

Caleb,

I watched The Covenant just now at 3 in the morning, having no worry at all about getting stoned and sleepy tomorrow morning when I have to go to work (I don't drive. I am an avid public transport user). Finished up at 4.30 and seriously it wasn't the storyline that hooked me up. I'm not a fan of this pagan sort of thing where you have these descendants and there is something to be streamed down through the bloodline. It is not just my thing. That's why I didn't watch this movie in the first place when this movie was out back in 2006. Truth be told, I can't relate. There's something inconvenient watching this kind of genre, like Smallville or Heroes or even Spiderman. It annoys me. I feel stupid watching this kind of movie where there will be no one on earth would like to wear that stretchy webby lycra with blue and red spots on that suit. It just YUCKS!

And same thing does apply to The Covenant too. Those spooky stuff... Erk, are you kidding me that you have that kind of power (like Naruto doing his Sharingan sort of thing)? yea, I watch anime. Naruto was the starter for all this anime thing.

BUT.. as far as the stupid movie is concerned, there's something made me hooked up, till the last words, where credits started to roll. It was Caleb. His deep voice, his after shaved beard, his eyes, his hair, his Roman resemblance, his smile, his macho act to this girl, were so watering! I'm not that desperate though I know that I'm this wrinkled prune mama. Tsk. And not to forget, his dark shiny hair. It is like a bunch of Lego. You have this wheels, some shafts, some blocks, and you assemble those together to make a very hot looking toy vehicle. Caleb is that toy vehicle.

I think, he was the factor The Covenant made it big. Steven Strait is just a hunk! During my years in Uni, I'd known a lot of hunky guys named Caleb. It just like natural to have Caleb as a handsome guy, girl's walking magnet. Even in TV series, Caleb is portrayed as a cute guy, stone hard muscle, fully developed washboard abs, etc etc etc. Put every good quality over there and you'll have Caleb.

I know this post isn't really me. I'll be back. I'm having a post-caleb disorientated mind disease. I'll post more Zubaidah Arshad's type of entry later on.

Right now I wanna go to sleep because I had enough of Caleb already and I need to wake up at 7 because I have to catch my train tomorrow morning. Otherwise, I'll be dead meat.

Ahh yes, I'm just a toilet cleaner. Giving the best quality for those in need!




Good night!

Wang Saku

"Opah, atuk cakap atuk nak bawak Wawa pergi pekan. Atuk cakap atuk nak beli barang. Wawa nak ikut Atuk. Boleh tak Opah?"

"Atuk kamu nak beli apa kat pekan? Dia bukan ada duit sangat pun"

"Entah Opah. Dia ajak Wawa pergi. Boleh tak Opah?"

"Tunggu sekejap. Opah nak kirim beli tembakau"
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"Atuk boleh ke bawak motor nih? Wawa takut jatuh. Nanti Umi marah"

"Awat Umi hang nak marah? Dia anak atuk"

"Kenapa anak tak boleh marah ayah dia?"

"Nanti Tuhan kerat lidah! Nak kena kerat lidah?"

"Taknak. Takut. Nanti tak leh panggil Atuk gemuk dah. Hihihi"

"Budak nih.. aku punggai satgi"

"Atuk nak pergi pekan buat apa tok? Opah cakap Atuk bukan ada duit pun"

"Mana dia tau aku takdak duit? Hang tak tau Pak Su hang, Mak Ngah hang, Umi hang, Pak Long hang semua dok bagi duit kat aku tetiap bulan. Opah hang ja tatau"

"Atuk ni jahat la. Tak baik tau"

"Awat tak baik pulak. Pak Su, Pak Long, Umi hang pon dok bagi kat dia duit jugak. Tu Opah hang dok sakan tempah baju kurung dia tu, mana dia cekau duit? Depa la bagi"

"Hiks. Atuk gemuk yay! Atuk gemuk yay!"

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"Lamanya pergi pekan. Wawa beli apa?"

"Wawa beli cekak rambut"

"Mana tembakau Opah?"

"Kejab ek Wawa ambik"

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"Opah, nah!"

"Erm.. terima kasih. Ni apa dia ni dalam kotak tembakau ni?"

"Hiks.. Entah. Opah tengok la"

"Ish.. ada kotak. Sat Opah nak baca"

"Cepat Opah.. Wawa nak dengar jugak"

"Siah, Abang Sarip sayang Siah sampai bila bila. Terima lah cincin murah ni dari Abang Sarip"

"Opah! Siah tu siapa? Abang Sarip tu siapa?"




Opah tersenyum. Bingkai gambar lama yang sudah berdebu digilap dengan hujung lengan baju. Sarip nampak segak. Siah nampak cantik.

"Wawa, bagi tahu Atuk kamu, I LOVE YOU"

Shalt I wish thou good night?

Prior to his departure, everything seemed so bleak, the despair they had to bear, overwhelming. She sat by the chicane, pondering on the words she wanted to pull out. Blanked. She lost her temporary memory. She was contented. Indeed.

"I'm leaving"

"I know, I saw your luggage"

"I don't want to. This is what I have to do. For a better life"

"I know. You said that before"

"You seem unwell. Hit the clinic, shall we?"

"I am completely well. Great. Nothing major"

"You seem so red. Come on. I don't want to leave with you looking like this"

"I said I am okay. Don't have to be worried. You have a lot more to be stuff in your head. Stop worrying on me. I am okay. I am okay. I am okay"

"No you don't"

"Yes, I am not okay. Please don't leave. I can't breathe. All this while I thought I could stand on my own. There will be nothing to stop me from doing every single thing that I loved"

"I have to. I need to move on. Life like this"

"Why you have to when there is a better life looking forward to be reaching upon you?"

"No, I don't see anything"

"Please don't leave. I need you"

"I have to. Get some rest. Good night"

"FUCK. Don't leave me for God's sake"

"Night"

"I love you"

There was a silence. Everything seemed so quite she couldn't hear anything except her own rantings smashing over her head silently.

"All this while, I keep my own feeling covered. Better not to wish that I've fallen in love with you. You seem not so into me. I remember the day. The day you said no when I asked you out on my ride to Aldeburgh"

"I thought it was a joke. We were about to travel across the country!"

"I think I have to go. It is getting late. Soon it will be foggy"



The night stopped. Like there was nothing revolved again.

She stumbled. And cried.

There would no reason to live for. Maybe for now.

Then she heard a beep. She received a text. She read. She smiled.

"I love you. And always love you. I just want you to be sure what you want in your life. Sorry I am for being so pessimistic. I am sure what I want from my life. It is you what I really need. I will miss you.... so much"

Shalt she withdraw her contemplation. Because this was not really a good time to whisper him good night.

Little Less Worries

So he did leave me. There was no good I spent my whole days thinking over to win his confidence back again, like salvaging an old book, the page were blackened and ashed, and yet a few words remained, telling story which was incomplete and left us bewildered what was the whole book was all about. A couple of years worth of sweet and jolly, 24 months stuffed with contentment and relieving therapy, 96 weeks with little less worries, 730 days agony free and an hour of harsh words and calamity.

Sometime when I sit alone under the huge shadowy tree in front of the lake I used to fish together with him on a late Sunday evening, the memories rush onto my head, unstoppable and keeps on projecting like a set of monochromatic images playing over a designated sequence and on a time line, perfectly follows the chronology. It is like counting from 1 to 10. Not from 10 to 1 where there is always 11 to start with. Those reminiscences from my grey matter are nothing much helpful in surviving my days hereafter.

Albeit no one confessed, either me or him, neither of us entrapped in this entangling web of uncertainties. It is a game of hide-and-seek. You hide, I find you, you caught, I hide myself.

No matter how hard we try to run away, this feeling of guilty will keep on entailing us to a certain point when you'll find you are running out of breath, pulling by and inhale, running again, slowing by and inhale, running again, halting by and inhale. We try to step again but to no avail because we've been running too much, we didn't realize that we tire ourselves up, leaving every single thing behind. And it needs a whole lot more effort to gain everybody's confidence back again because when we are too involved in someone, we tend to forget that we have somebody else to care for.

A lot of them.

Trembled

Seriously, when we think that we have someone to be with, or something to control over, we usually forget how hard it was to get those precious gems. Such an occasion was so wasteful, undeniably thrown back ourselves to the couch we used to sit with our loved ones.

It was my fault. Seriously I shouldn’t do like that where love from someone I care is hard to touch let alone to be grasped. Gaining confidence is tiring and eventually we forget that it is the confidence that set us straight, it is the confidence that diminished the color of uncertainty, it is the confidence from someone we care that drives us back to the spot we used to hang on to.

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I think I need to gain your confidence back again, like the day you used to kiss me goodnight…

He crumbled and faded away - REPUBLISHED

I really wanted to be a writer, really badly, where I could write my own words without restrictions, imperforated (mind this new word) ideas – something that I thought I’d love to express. Be it a novel or a short 9-words poem, anything will do as long as it conveys the exact set of ideas what I have in mind. But it was the common ambition of the inadequate experiences of a 10-year old boy had; who resided in one remote area where folks hardly read the country’s famous tabloid let alone a classic novel from a prominent writer. I was too flaccid at that time, being exuberant and inquisitive of what outside world had to offer, I had been molded to the shape where I couldn’t fit into. There were loads of variations of thoughts I had to follow, left me blurred and somehow blinded. It was such the dish you couldn’t tell what was the ingredients – but you did know that either it was mere a plain cooking, an undoubtedly scrumptious dish or just a plate of craps. You knew it was over sweetened or being too salty but wryly you could do nothing to fix it.

Unfortunately, once I passed the age of braces and training glass, the jolt of excitements I used to have, still intact in the petite space of my mind. It didn’t go away instead it kept on freshened gradually day by day. My appetite for a rich, eclectic stew of great essays is now blossoming and though the pursuit for the name seems hollow, it doesn’t doom to irrelevance. Introspection and the search for individual identity proved to be limited, not public appeal. Never in my life had I produced a proper novel or maybe an essay to be laud neither by the public nor to myself, but I always have the proximity relationship with myself that told me so – that I will thrive either in tough or soft way, it just will happen. Somehow, intuitions were the holocausts and the deity of what I’d gone through up until now. The problem with it was you never knew whether it will be wrong or mere a good start. Whatever it is, my responsibility is to be completely rely and believe in what my spirit tells me – if it wrong, there must be a blessing somewhere inside and if it turns to be flattering, there must be something more to explore.

Time lies on an infinite invisible horizontal line. No one knows where it begins and no one knows where it going to finish. It could not be ended but it could be halted one day, if God wishes to. In my view of life, it is my total conscientiousness to utilize every minute of it (if not every second) for good deeds, for sheer self tyranny I have to counter, for delving into good parts in myself. Nevertheless, being a human with a punch-size flawed-functional brain, those qualities I’ve been seeking all these days were a plain waste of time. Those were only the words from the lips of indecent bastards who talked nothing but a scroll of clichéd philosophy. It is stupid to lean on to those cheap words as they were only the way of gaining quick popularity among the dumb. From the point of realization that I have been bluffed by myself about what the world and time had to offer, I lived the way I like from that time on – provided am still be guided by the blessed path by the Holy Allah as a Muslim.

Reminiscing the days when I was a big whiner about the insufficient foods my family had to bear, was so shameful. It was me the only one who stomped my feet on the floor – giving signs to my mother that I was so irate for the foods she had cooked, how the dishes didn’t satisfy my cravings for luscious appetite.

My mother had taught me to be grateful for everything that I had, either how small it is or as big as I cannot imagine. Be gratified. She told me not to be engulfed in self-voracious and satisfaction but rather think of what the family had to go through at that time – how did father couldn’t afford to pay for the car’s monthly installment, how did my sister fasting everyday as she couldn’t pay for the foods to save for her college fees and everything was jumbling to be settled. I was being too ignorant but on the night I went to my bed, when my mother told me all these, the sudden comprehension of the burdens my mother and my father had to swallow were so appalling and I started to be more appreciative thereafter. God knows how hard I was trying to be more understanding but I was a spoilt brat. I was so used to be accommodated with the convenience my parents had been giving, made it hard to be in the new situation in the first place where everything has to be rationed equally. I learnt a lot in my past years of life but rarely did I apply in my current living.

I had lost my motivations and I think I have regained it bit by bit. And in no time, I’ll be more prepared to paddle this frivolous crooked walk of life. It is about the time I need to be freed from the bars that incarcerates me all this while. It is the time I need to start writing an essay so that I would be more geared up prior to moving to a bigger stage of life – so that I wouldn’t be regretting on my passing days as what I am doing right now.

Regards,
Zubaidah Arshad

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The sun is glaring through the window Ed had saved whenever he wants to see the turbulent and spinning air from the comfort of his room. The bed all messed up with an evidence of a very hasty commotion - the night when he contemplated whether it was a right decision to let that thing happened or was it something he had longed to have - just to fill the empty space of his own undeniable lust. He couldn't figure it out. When he slips his torso down to the floor, he sees no one in the room like the day he saw it before, everything changes and he thinks that this would be unnecessary for everyone to let him down again after what he had gone through for the last couple of weeks where everything shambled and mournful.

This ‘magical physical interlocking exercise’ he couldn’t recall whether it is something mutual or improvising the lamented life he possessed or was it happened because he has been stopping himself all these years with this indulgence he couldn’t endure.

He thinks he fall in love with him. He stops. He rethinks. He bawls.

He doesn’t.

He pissed off. He would’ve reminded himself that this would be happened.

Somehow when he thinks about this, he sees a circle of hope, rounded and flawless, the way he wants it so badly. But as round as it can be, it is just a circle of hope. Doesn’t bring any significant reason and meaning why it supposed to be there, giving him something that might not happen, some false expectations and some immature hide-and-seek games.

He thinks and he yawns. This problem is so punching his back he couldn’t breathe somehow.

But whatever it is, he doesn’t care because he knows that his life is not being destined to be with a man. He is a lad that supposed to be married to a lass.

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Even he knows that he’ll end up suffering for the rest of his life.