rising reverie

Open your eyes wide and see the world
Open your ears wide and hear the world
Open your nose wide and smell the world
Open your mouth wide and taste the world
Open your hand wide and feel the world

Open up and sense the world.

It was solid metal, sleek and greasy in my sweaty palm. I bent to press my cheek against the black surface, closing my left eye to see through the aperture.
Across the field, the trees blurred. Sweat beaded in my hair, caught and unable to escape from under my jungle cap. The air smelt burnt and the grass seemed to shrivel under my boots. I could feel my skin flushing a raw purple-pink.

"Enemy Contacted!" sent a sparrow fleeing from its perch. "Contacted!" I was surprised to hear the sound reverberating from my throat. I fell.

My face was an inch from the ground. The grass smelled so green, and I imagined I could see the earthworm in its earthy home. The rifle was hard and jutting into my shoulder hollow. I was desperately trying to keep it steady. Left, right. Left, right. My elbows and legs moved mechanically, dragging my weary body across the dead field.
Left, right. I began to rasp. My elbow left a bloody trial on the scant grass. My knees were raw from pushing. Just a metre to the shelter and I would be safe.

A second after I reached and the next command came. "Advance!" and my sore limbs hauled me up and running. "One thousand, two thousand, three thousand" I was a free target to see clearly the glinting muzzles of opposing guns in the distance, before I fell again.
It was left, right once more. And on. And on.

Tears jerked in my eyes, forced out by the violent rifle butt, and the shredded elbow. The blood was gathering in little pools now, bright red against the dark earth. I had no time to apologise to the stained grass, for
"Charrggeee!"

I felt the power rush of sound, the sudden burst of energy from my fatigued body, the terrible rain of fire, and then I felt no more.

I sit on the balcony at seven eating watermelon. The sun had set eight minutes ago and I watch as the last faint frays disappear.
As it turns dark the street lamps turn on, setting the pavements afire with yellow, artificial light. Stragglers make criss-cross patters across the streets as they hurry home, lured by the sweet smell of warm rice. Dinner is waiting.

The street is clear by eight fifteen. Fifteen to spare. Windows draw close, doors slam shut. Tap, flick. Tap, flick. Locks click into place.
I sit and watch, on the twelth floor balcony.

Eight twenty-nine. The street is still bare, lying sprawled and quiet across the bed of earth. Thirty seconds. Twenty. Ten.
One, and I look down at the slice of watermelon in my lap. The seeds crawl across the ripe, red flesh, like baby cockroaches tense in anticipation.
When I look up, the sky is ablaze.

This is my home.

The horizon boasts an expanse of smooth black rooftops, falling through a jagged margin. One side, burns bright with flame as two dancers prance from rooftop to rooftop. The other, hides shyly behind a shroud of haze, face modestly covered with the spilling gray curtain.
My balcony is in the middle, between bright and dark, above street lamps and below the dark sky.

One place, one moment, I sit. With my lovely watermelon in my lap.

There was no rain today. The sun was shining all day long.

But perhaps the rainbow was watered with tears, our tears. That's why it seemed so beautiful.
I know there are people who have the gift to make others smile. But what about the ability to make others cry?

Why there is a rainbow after the golden afternoon I can't explain.

I saw a rainbow today.

It was right outside my window. I couldn't seem to find where it ended. It faded at the tip of a crane and fell behind the block opposite.

Was it hard to catch? I don't know. When you try to focus, it seems to disappear, but when you lift your face to the sky it's clear for all to see. Clear in its transparent beauty.

The more I grow the less I know.
The more I try the less I succeed.

I'm always trying. Trying to make things better, to stop them from happening.
I say goodbye to my old way of life to try harder. And all I see is you standing there, wanting more from me. And all I can do is try.

Keep trying, although I've found no reason for me to change the way I used to be. You don't know just how it feels to be left outside alone, when it's cold out there. Do you even care? It's not okay, and I can't forgive you.

What am I to you but a mindless puppet, nodding to your wishes all day long.

"How do you measure love?"
"You measure it by the size of the hole it leaves behind."

I love many things. The general idea of life, mostly. The early morning sun peeking pink through golden clouds, the cool tranquility of the pre-dawn, the radiance of nature after rain. The feeling of sinking into my bed under the cream comforter, of lifting my head up to see the world through the gap between two blocks - the expanse of green treetops and the blue, blue sea, the occasional ship, and of seeing smiles on faces - strange or familiar, and of the experience of waking up late on Sunday mornings.
I love to fly. Land like pea soup and cotton candy clouds that serve as side-dishes to accompany in-flight meals. And the sheer sensation of being so high.

I love, my family and my friends.

My friends. There are three I shall tell you about. A,H,C. I used to have a best friend, J, but we rarely saw each other after we left Primary School, and I shifted away to the other end of the island. I loved her house, and her family's cooking. Lagsana and potatoes rich with cheese, lamb and mint jelly, sweet potatoes with toasted marshmellows. Christmas was heaven for me, at her house.

A stands for active, adriot, animated, ape. She has an impressive - ruffle - of double chins, I must say, to go with big eyes, long lashes and dark skin. The perfect portrayal of a gibbon.

The most outspoken, dominant one of the three, H is hilarious, hatty, hairy and high! Has a split personality, she has. H, Susie's mother (--an old Indian lady at a coffeeshop), Halle Berry(--with her American accent). Charisma is one thing she greatly possesses - and knows how to use to her advantage.

C is the one that never fails to bring a smile to one's face. Couch potato, chocolate and cream cake, cheese, cheerful and cute. Apparently she's been eating cheese sandwiches every school day for every break. It's been about 9 years since she started.

Three altogher, are known as PMS in real life. P prides herself with a name that starts with P and "Post" and S is enchanted with "Syndrome". Why M sulks, I shall let you deduce yourself.

""Stupid person. You got full marks for your math. I don't like you anymore."
Perhaps a simple playful comment, perhaps intentional. But that a classmate would say it in the first place, does show something.

Across the table, another girl was grimacing as a friend told her about how a chocolate bar had melted in her pocket. While yes, we are aware that across the world there are children who can only lick off empty plates, emotion is still expressed on such a petty issue.

Have we ever considered that what we feel, what we think of as "feelings": disgust, surprise, happiness, sadness, anger and fear, were real? That what the real world has developed into is one of false emotions, unable to be truly evoked due to the pampering of the modern society.
Indeed. The pampering today. How many children in my country have caught a fish with their bare hands? That have built the chairs they sit on? Yet these are the people will support the frame of the society in the near future. The leaders of tomorrow.

Students experience nothing but stress. Dwelling in the world of their own, not caring about others, all they say day in and out is how stressed one is.
"You are such a happy person." Spoken simply because I did not moan over a test just passed, that I advised not to worry too much. Bringing us back once again to the question of true happiness.

So let's talk about something more cheerful.

Happiness for me carries many meanings.
I feel happy, watching the sun set across the expanse of gray rooftops, green treetops and blue blue sky, from my balcony. I feel happy, doing things for the first time. Watching snowflakes fall and brush off my sleeve for the first time, scraping ice off the car window to toss playfully at a friend. Happy when I have accomplished something, happy watching the candy floss clouds pass below aeroplane windows. And many many more things.

Perhaps I'm simple, but I believe that it's these little things in life that bring me true delight.

and so the clouds will clear and the sun will shine again.

Had curry for dinner again. So much that it made my eyes water. Water that polishes the dark pupils and irises, greasing the black glittering eyes under the dinner lamp.
Mother said the beauty of the dish was the layer of rubied oil over the golden curry. And that the potatoes are soft but whole. But that's another story.

Curious, that with heat comes water. Watery eyes that reflect the tepidity within. And that even water cannot fully cure. Mother says a tall cold glass of soyamilk should do the trick. I decline its thickness. Father, a mouthful of rice. Oh, but my laden tummy.
For me, I turn to orange peel. Preserved orange peel. Curious too, indeed, that it is the bitter, disregarded peel that we turn to when we are in need than the honeyed luxury of the fruit we normally would prefer. Reliability? Or simply the way things are meant to be?

Whatever it is, orange peel works for me.

Add so, with the setting sun in its glory of salmon pink and splashes of gold - the closing of the curry days.
I do believe it shall be porridge tomorrow.