day 0

This is a frightening suggestion:

Either we have never left the womb or we left our wombs to enter a bigger one.











"I open my eyes to face darkness, blood, flesh or simply to hear my cries that no one hears -- Hence, I kick."

"I'm glad I was blind or I just didn't have the cognitive ability to recognise my surroundings. If not, the womb would have been a really scary place."

"The kick, the involuntarily movement, the body moves without full organs - those are the responses to our enclosed existence."

We are yet to be born. I don't want to be born!

"Space is a scary place. I don't know where to see."




Maybe there is another suggestion implicit in the first suggestion:
We have already left Plato's cave when we are born - the fearsome place to be next is God's universe.

"I can't help but relate all my actions in this new place as a toddler's kicks and cries."

I don't dare to be born, and yet I am.

"Now I know why I cringe and look away when I stare into hundreds and hundreds of holes all in one place; I am in awe and fear when I stare into the infinite sky of millions and millions of stars, visible and invisible, twinkling regardless of their deaths."

And finally, when we die, we do not enter another womb but find ourselves in a similar situation as in a womb - in a coffin buried, as ashes in a container or simply residue floating or spread around in this world.

The difference, though, is that we do not lie await in a specific womb; but the house of our souls is another infinite darkness, waiting for our wildest dreams to seem like poor representations, and we will experience what it must have felt like to be in our mother's womb - utterly helpless, utterly safe and unaware of what is to come. Except this time sleep does not happen and we repeat infinitely the kicks and cries of an infant who cannot choose his or her birth.

I sleep that I may participate prematurely and belatedly my stay in a dark womb.

day 326

I have more to reach, if I have more to write.
No one knows what will be the last sentence, last word, or even the last syllabus one utters.
It's too perfect, that last words on tombstones and memorabilia are long and complex sentences.
Maybe, it's just a nod, an unspoken regret, a song hummed to oneself, a sedated dream or even just Ah, Ha, Mmm...or the simple and profound bye.

Maybe, I don't need to write more. And life does the writing for me. I just read. And read.
And we go on reading, reading words dead people no longer could write.

(I don't mean to privilege writing, but speech alone reminds me of loss. I can no longer hear my grandmother speak our dialect.)

We have more to read, if he has more to write.
We always know there will be a new sentence, new words, and even quoted misquotes.
It's too imperfect, that new words replace the old ones, sometimes longer than they should; sometimes shorter than they should.
Maybe, it's a newspaper article, a passage taken out of context, a word phrase read without its pun, a translated text or an essay full of citations. He wrote, "I have more reach, if I have more to write."

Maybe, we don't need to read more. And death does the reading for us. We just live on. And live on.
And we go on caring those, past caring, who live on, making a fool of themselves.


Reaching out to someone does not require the act of writing and reading. It actually involves reaching out with your bare hands.

day 314

I can't keep up with appearances. I chose, instead, to avoid and to hide.
I can't keep up with myself. I have versions, that my current perspective is but one.
And this current perspective just observes and writes the multiplicity down.
He is but helpless.
He can only reflect in retrospect. He cannot gain an advantage over the rest.
To be a lighthouse is to guide but to be too far to save if a ship should sink.
To be a tree is to stand tall but to be helpless if it is be cut down.
there is nowhere to return to;
hence I can only drag myself forward; Or onward.

The difference between for and on?
For someone, for myself, for something. tangible or intangible.
I am but myself. If there is no one, nothing, empty.

On someone, on myself, on something. Oppressive, repressive and aggressive.
I am but myself. If you should cut me down. And if you should miss my revolving light/darkness.
Perhaps, the truth is that it is both for and on.

forever on, the everest of my attempts to be someone - that is to love.
And to love demands a simplicity. I don't really have it.

I trap myself in a cave, willing only to see what I can see. I don't keep things simple, reacting too much at the slightest of expectations.
I prefer to hide in my cave. There is no one to be in relation to, except myself; except myself!
That I cannot escape. On myself; For myself. The two imperceptible conditions of my self.
I'm sorry I judge. I judge myself fiercer.
I'm sorry I scold. I scold myself more sarcastically.

There is no one more critical of myself than myself. And that is the scary thought. The scary fear of being alone.

Judge me, I can't stand the burden of my self-abuse.

instruction to reader:
take each entry, cut them up and rearrange all the pieces in your desired order.

- notes from editor; TN: author still not found.

day 111

Read
A page
from top
to bottom
from bottom
to top
It doesn't matter where,
I am left standing
,which in a matter of seconds,
I may be lying down.
a flat surface.


Really?
With two signs I can imagine an entire world.

surface, flat a
down lying; be, may I?
seconds of matter a, in which
standing, left, am I?
where? matter. Doesn't it?
top to
bottom, from
bottom to
top, from
page A
Read.

day 160

After the strange occurrence of a forgotten dream I need not wake up to imagine another day. The day will set itself up for living, and I, dreamy as usual, have to live it. Close nearby, the sources of my dreams, stacked in colourful patterns and inviting me to ignore them. My eyes are not truly seeing. I see exactly the same things, and yet not.

The toilet is nearby. There seems like a good first to have.
My day does not start in the morning. My day starts tomorrow. And so I return to bed, dreaming that it is not I who pees, brushes his teeth and eats his breakfast.

With a vague noise, the silent soundtrack in my dream stops. It is impossible for me to capture the faces, the lights, mostly the lights, and the flashes in my waking progress. It is too quick in its stillness, to swift in its quirkiness to fashion an analysis. But no matter, for soon I am busy breathing, standing, walking, peeing.

Each repetition writes a different reality or dream. The order within each repetition may be the same or it may differ. Usually, it involves some consciousness to mastermind a difference. It is somewhat similar to you being conscious to your own breathing. In this instance, I am conscious of my peeing.

In a day, when dreams end and continue as bubbles and colour burns in my closed eyes, there is always this anticipation that wells up and bursts forward to manifest itself as an experience. A few disappointments later, I often find myself asking how the seconds went, and truly it is really all about consciousness - or the lack of it. Anticipation divides me up into the before and the after. Somewhere, I go missing. Of course, now I know as I am writing this. I have gone to pee.

Writing is like peeing, if one chooses such an manner of writing about writing. It is crude repetition. But one should not detest such an analogy. Don't you enjoy the release when you must release? Of course, there are others who pee so often because their bladders are relatively smaller. It is not often a terrific experience; more of a chore I suppose.

And then there is much to say about the quality of the pee. Close to transparency or yellowish waste; sometimes bloody. I have not much else to say.

And then there is control. It takes skill to aim and much can be said about those who can and cannot. The meticulous takes an effort to be clean and precise. The lazy makes a mess. And there is also much to differentiate between those who hide behind the safety of a cubicle, and those who simply want to get out.

So much about peeing.

We should not philosophise the act of peeing. It is as close as it takes to bring us closer to our natural instincts and affinity to animals. And so, it is better left as just a description of an instinctive and natural act. However, it is still worthy to speculate that animals do write; they pee.

But frankly, there are things that keep us going within a day, if a day is to be counted as a day. They are the repetitions that we cannot avoid. They must go on. And one of them is peeing. And with that, I pee that I may sleep with ease, as a marking before a dream and a punctuation after.

day 82

Only the departure is true; only now does the very long unlearning of the self begin - before the gangling boy returns to take up his blushing glances one by one and, one by one, imperiously, his hesitations.

Giorgio Agamben

It's hard to remember my childhood. I have only photos to testify to a life I once lived -- all cheeky and always doing my best to strike the best pose. I craved for attention. I am not sure if it was a disorder.

I had almost forgotten all about the times I hid, and rejoiced in the fact that I couldn't be found. Then, as I was repeating the motion of walking the same path to take a bus from the same (and not) bus stop, I glanced briefly at a girl in a red dress who was playing catch. It occurred to me that I once was part of an ingenious child invention - block catching. This great sport involved a group of us hiding in various locations within a HDB block. The game required only a catcher, sometimes a pair, and the rest had a minute to find a place to hide. Some would ride up the stairs, some would take the elevator, and some simply had a combination of both. Eventually, as the block once again retained its quiet peace, those hidden would be found, and the searched disappeared without much of a trace. Some often cheated by returning to their homes. The catcher usually didn't know or could never control. We played this game based on honesty and trust. And I sincerely believe that the appeal of this game was that we could actually have a mastery of the cold and enclosed surroundings; that we could be really excited by the very act of hiding, uncaught, excited by the danger of being found. That few minutes of being caught between found and unfound - alone in the learning of the ideal spot for hiding, and to conceive the best way possible to be forgotten.

Whatever the expression could be for this desire to disappear, I geninuely believe that I have lost this personal side of mine, forgotten in the residue of my impersonal and unconscious clumsiness. The infinite feeling of that finite moment of disappearance, only aware of my own presence, fearing that the absent catcher would appear any moment - which was often accompanied by a loud scream and quick escape - was my anticipated event of a boring weekday afternoon.

I hestitate to be the boy again - because one by one, the most concrete of memories about my childhood will slowly fade away, replaced by the fear that I never had a childhood to begin with. But perhaps, my blushes of insecurities have a more meaningful reason for appearing as such. It is to be suddenly and acutely aware of a catcher, who is patiently and labouriously searching each level of my life to find me. As a boy, I became more and more anxious to know the result of the catch, I wondered once how it could end and I could repeat the game again. I didn't mind the end, eventually, because I was quite confident it would have another session. But I grew up, and the fellows scattered, truly disappearing.

There is something more in my hestitations that stops me from appearing. As a grown-up, if such a definition is possible, I hestitate because I didn't want to know that I am abandoned - that the game is over and everyone has gone home. I hestitate in life because I am still hiding; hestitating if I should poke my head out to find out if everyone has reassembled for the next game or to end the game because I have disappeared. Perhaps, I do want to disappear once in a while, busking in the quiet glory of being able to disappear, as long as I am never found. But there is always that underlying fear that I will never be found and soon to be forgotten.

It is fine to be clumsy, for the child in me to catch me unaware.
Perhaps, that is also when I also hestitate, not because I fear the child, but at that moment, we could both decide who is to be the catcher or the hider.

day 345

The following conversation summarises my life so far.

Nurse/Doctor: I greet you in the name of (muttered something incomprehensible). You have arrived late (but it was already 4 in the morning). There is no rush. We can settle the formalities necessary for employing you. Of course, you will have your identity papers.

I: I would very much like to be an actor (incomprehensible).

Nurse: Yes, yes. You can wear blue.

Doctor: And your name?

I: (still incomprehensible) Roland Maximaritus Enoch Lin Qong Nanthayathusam

Father: Lim.
Sister: Alvin
Brother: Yong Hui
Mother: Ah B
Grandmother: Eng Hui
Others: Alvin Lim Eng Hui

some time later...

Ah B: I know nothing about acting.

Teacher: What would you like to be?

Yong Hui: Pat(h)-olo-gis(t)! (brackets indicated missing sounds)

Teacher: What would you like to be?

Lim: I would like to be a Software Engineer.

Police Officer: What would you like to be?

Lim Eng Hui, Alvin: Maybe an officer like you.

Teacher: What would you like to be?

Alvin: I have no fucking idea.

Sergeant: What you want?

Recruit Lim: An OFFICER!

Lecturer: What would you not like to be?

Lim Eng Hui: Like anyone else.

I: What would you like to be?

Alvin Lim A director. A playwright. An academic. A lecturer. Someone...


Random stranger: Are you out of work?

I: Yes.

Random Stranger: Where were you engaged last?

I: (as if exasperated by the constant interrogation) I was an actor!

Stranger: We know that.

I: We?

Stranger: Quite so. (and falls silent)


Sometime later, it occurred to me that the precious little I had could do nothing to change the path I took to reach here. It was always going to be a single occupation I was destined to have - an actor. I think I did a pretty good job so far, considering how I have not been chased off the stage. And then...

A gentleman: What did you want to study originally? (almost a whisper I couldn't hear)

A.: I wanted to be myself.

Gentleman: Well, you can't turn into yourself all at once...but perhaps it would suit you for the
time being to to be a human being.

pause

reduced to a whisper, I did what was told. And the rest is history.



She: What do you want to be?
I: I want to be us - You and I.

day 77

(to each of the moments, spur of the moment)

we rise





rise with the mist



held by lips kissed,

is this ease peace seized?

I simply cannot resist the peace you give me.

day 149

The mock terrorist attack reveals another mocking truth:
It does not ready counter measures against terrorism but readies terrorists to counter counter-measures, given its extensive media coverage and stereotypical portrayal of racial types and cliché police and thief ending.

Oh. But wait, we do fall nicely into these dichotomies.

The virtue to come - without tautology - is the gift to come to the heart of your gifted patience.

day 366

through visions of the perpetual today, they find reasons to disturb the past.
gone are the innocent questions of mutual thanksgiving; if ever such existed.
laid to waste are the efforts of continuity. Instead, we read (and write) passages of
a remote language.

there are no signposts to lead us to heaven +
but lies and thorns to lay claim the souls of many.
have you lied today?
It does not matter, we all do.

This is not a poem, as you should soon notice,
a messy prose to describe a less than poetic world.
The limit of truth lies not in the lack of truth, but the limits of one's faith to undo the limit.
As much as we hold on to some religious beliefs or believe in some empirical immanence - otherwise more fashionably known as charisma - there is no peace in us as long as we begin to whack our tongues and prophecise the unforeseen and unrealised future.

We don't know nuts. And yet, our tongues promote bad luck and bad health.
I faint at the thought of listening to tautologies of blasphemies, or sincere grievances of the lack of wealth.
I curse, especially, at the mere mention of nation, state, race, economics, sex and the politics of the day.
All done and dusted.
All repetitions.
What is beneath these manifestations of insecurities is the poisonous tongue, of which we foolishly believe that oratory can substantiate, no, create our existence.
I,
the perfect subject in which it next demands the attention of the object, the action or whatever I needs to be I.

And yet, there is no one faithful language that can relate the agony, the pain, the sorrow of a lost innocence, that which allows us to tip-toe to reach or simply wait for the fruits of the garden to fall to the ground and onto our feet.

I rather shut up.
And bottle up all the lies, derogatory words, gossips, words, words piled up like a uncoiled pieces of shit; or simply swallow my bile, my sour and envious mixed juices of subterranean origin.
There is no word to describe loss.
There are only too many words to manifest anger.
I cannot shut up.

And so I leave this hell of a long message and warning,
evoking the memory of J. Edwards and Deuteronomy, and claiming not grace but begging the mercy of a jealous Lord:

thy foot shall slide.


and I type then the words my tongue cannot utter; and receive the curse my irony creates.
Knowing then that each word is either
a sword or a shield
left to the designs of the poor cursed human, who clouds the words of love of another poor cursed human.

which then becomes gibberish in a tapestry of repeated words.......OGHAFAONAKNDLANOHEOUQBEJQ NALKLHACNALKNA"AAKFALNNOWHROQI(@NKFJALKNALKL CLAKHSAKLDKANI L ACAOVEIO OALIA LA OIFAHNKLNALKNLCOVEO O VEO YOUN OAFOANOFAOHO
OQI(@NKFJALKNALKL CLAKHSAKLDKANI L ACAOVEIO OALIA LA OIFAHNKLNALKNL
OQI(@LA OIFAHNKLNALKNLOQI(@NKFJALKNALKL CLAKHSAKLDKANI L ACAOVEIO OALIA LA OIFAHNKLNALKNLOIHLKFHALKHFORHHNRJKKNFLAHOFLI VEO LOV EL'BAJKAAYOU OMORMEO OTHE OINKAHLNUDBKRNTEKR OAR R LKANLN
AKLNFLAKNIORNLK LNALALK LA DLKANLKA ALK LA KLARORNON3RLKNL LALKNFA'ABJKFNLAKNBOUWNRA NP NAK NKNALKD
EBFLANLA
ANLAN;LMKANLKFLKENIEMOIEMFNLAEKAN'E
ANFLEGEIONL
IANFLKALEIME9 0 NLKA NLKFA AK LKN LKN AL IO LKA L L KNLK LK NAIRJ92N


.

stop disturbing her.

day 200

One boy and one girl - you might just call them a couple -
one waiting for the hotcakes, and the other waiting to be served.
Two minutes later, she, still dreamy,
eats her hotcakes as if they are always meant to be there for her.
He, as usual, provides without a complaint.
They are sloppy, smelly, but yes, happy.
Three hotcakes each (He ate everything; She 2 and a half) later,
she clears the makings of his love and dumps them.
He, annoyed at her sloppiness (without looking at himself),
proceeds to do what he must - he sleeps. She,
four minutes after peeing, and leaving the milo un-drank,
happy that her morning continues with
five more hours of sleep, must be mistaken because it will be
6pm when they leave his room again. Are they lovers?
He could ask her repeatedly if she is getting married;
and she could ignore him and instead discuss about
unborn children and cross-breed puppies.
Seven months later, it appears that they have got to nowhere -
but that they believe is precisely where they want to be.
Tell her that there are eight more kisses to go before he lets go.
And tell him that there are nine more hugs before she decides to let go.
But most of all, while breathing in and out for ten more breaths,
they have already disguised themselves a boy and a girl -
being who previous boys and girls have been.

day 199

The children,

there must be a way to be an adult.

Are you over with your list of general rules?

smile with such cheekiness,
as if they know,

there is never a sure way, except the certainty of one's
savaging through the remains of others
usurping the other
substituting the other

what the adults are up to.

lie to them if we will
to reach somewhere else we don't belong.

Daddy? what does it mean to die?

it's always back to the age-old questions.
and the age-old lies.

A bedtime story is better.

Papa, tell me a bedtime story.

A wanderer came by to this town
And he asked a stranger,
"Are you a stranger in this town?"
And the stranger looked at the wanderer and replied:
"I don't know you, who are you?"
"A wanderer"
"I live here."
"Yah, are you a stranger in this town?"

Mornings staggered and stacked beside nights.
Anything we say becomes a bedtime story for our dreamy children.

Your story is boring!
Another one!

Do you have moments when you simply act foolishly?

I don't want to sleep!

We have our childish moments;
especially when we want to be taken care of.
Deep inside us, at least some of us, we just want to be reminded that...we just want someone to tell us...

mumble: Goodnight Daddy, Goodnight Mummy...

what to do

day 7

It proves often humbling that my personal conduct should often be compared to the likes of a dog.
To which the following attributes contribute to that notion:
1. I pee as and when (and where) I like.
2. I eat as and when I like.
3. I need someone else to prove my existence.
4. I am loyal to that someone else.
5. I snore when I sleep.
6. I stick out my tongue to act cute.
7. I shit as and when (and where) I like.

Instead of feeling humiliated, the virtue of being dog-like is its seemingly free lifestyle that one can enjoy. After all, I get to do what I like, unless my Master should prevent me from walking onto the grass. Or, based on my Master's fancies, I get to eat her leftovers and the cans of Pedigree she buys, which I don't have much of a choice.

It also pays to be cuter, because my master can choose a flashy leash to wrap around my neck. I start to wear long sleeves and branded garments. I walk more confidently and I am not afraid to shake my butt.

There is a definitely a virtue in being dog-like. You are doted on, loved and hugged as and when your Master likes. And I like her warmth, her rough and gentle touch; and how she needs to hold on to the leash to affirm herself that she is always beside me. I won't run away; why should I? I have all I need in this home. I bark when she calls me. She gives me fanciful names - Baby, Hamster, Baby, Dear, Darling, and always back to Baby.

I can't be any happier. Thank you Master. I am always your obedient dog.

Happy Anniversary Baby.

day 71

the specific requirement to forgetting something is to remember you have forgotten;
the irony of remembering is that every remembering is a forgetting.
then surely, to remember or to forget, there must be some other reason:
to smile, to cry, to overwhelm yourself with the simple faculty of human emotion.

reading day

"Today I read: 'I am alone'. Then I realise that you can't be alone. Because You are reading 'I am alone'."

day 155

Though gentle, though smiling, beneath each muscle is blood flowing with the rigour and vigour beyond your human imagination

day pending

The recent mock terrorist attack in Sentosa - a simulacrum in a tourist simulacrum - beckons us to unravel an uneasy truth about this country - she's never going to be ready for the real thing because she is too ready.

day 63

His words, bundled up in undecipherable messages; sometimes a whisper, sometimes that gap or lack of words in my mind. Are these messages the creation of my lacunae, an ancient song passed down from cords of bowels? sometimes gentle, sometimes the nightmares that thrust me up from my slumber. Sometimes the taste of my rice, sometimes the sip of my wine. sometimes silence, absolute silence, or the decadent manoeuvres of my noisy limps.

Maybe, you're not meant to be heard. You are meant to be written, erased, rewritten; or sometimes, you are meant to be read, re-read and remembered.

day 364

It so happens that we are no longer able to differentiate I from H and H from I in these loose writings. We get the impression that they came from the same hand. Or it is likely to be copied from elsewhere. These experiences might also be shared, or simply the expression of imagined circumstances. Whatever it is, we have more to look forward to, or less to refer backward to.

day menu

flip, the tension rises at the precise point of letting go - ahhhhhhhh
the other side, baked, toasted, burned and we can finish the move with a sweeping movement
we bite, and the taste overwhelms

this is how love tastes.

but how should one write about the sense of taste? I yearn for a better method to describe this rasa. But let's deal with this another time. To savour the moment, at its moment, loving the - wo and ah; surely there is no word, phrase, or sentence to express the implosion of the taste buds.
I shall narrow the tip of my tongue, seep the sweetness of your ecstasy, and marvel at the crimson touch that burns with your precious passion.

Oh. There. I just described the taste of love.

no more. no less. it's too fleeting to stay.
But I look forward to my next meal.