time for some yummy tummy

what am i doing at 2.38pm on a thursday afternoon?

supervising my workforce of 5 employees who are carrying out their respective duties in my restaurant, which i call yummy tummy. catchy name, huh? easy to remember, cute and straight to the point. it's doing quite good at the moment, from what i can tell. customers are continuously walking through the door and the till is ringing up its collection every few minutes. business being so good, i've been able to do a little renovation here and there since opening day; a very cute giant octopus by the entrance, pink floor tiles, pink walls, change of uniform for my staff (well, i've only been able to afford a change of uniform for one staff so far). if business continues to prosper, i've been thinking of getting a bigger place, more cute uniforms for the staffs and more decoration for the facade.

it's no easy job, supervising the restaurant, but as far as running business goes, i think i'm having it easy. don't have to go down on hand and foot to do any menial work, other than re-allocating jobs when the situation calls for it. a little redecoration here and there to ease the flow of traffic and put more tables into the place, making sure the toilets are clean and the ingredients fresh, working out the shifts of the employees. sometimes, when the crowd gets too much to handle, i have to ask the cute chef to moonlight as the waitress as well, to clear the tables so that new customers can dine. not so much as a whimper from her, can you believe it? no politics in the restaurant, no gossiping, no bitching, no shifting the blame or workload, no goofing off, no scheming and plottings. everybody goes about their duties like mindless characters in computer games. all in return for an apple, a banana, a sandwich or just a glass of water.

i've got to get my head out of the restaurant city game in facebook. sigh. if only things are that simple in real life.

rain, won't you wash my sadness away?

it's finally raining.

the days have been very hot, oppressive, depressing even. looking out the window, all you can see is a very thick cloud of haze, glaring in its emptiness, stiffling in its desolation. my head feels tight, my heart despondent. no breath of fresh air, no carefree breeze blowing, the distant is an empty white wall. can't see what lies in the future. feels like the world as we know it.

there have too many deaths recently. too many taken before their prime. so helpless in stopping the ugliness of the world, so impossible in turning back the clock of time.

what do you do with all the sadness that is weighing down your heart? that is like a million tons on your soul, making the days gloomy and the world dull in lustre. their stories call to me, beckons me with a cold clamy hand.

the famous music artiste, the legend of his times, the king of pop. people are already forgetting as we speak, moving on with their lives. how many did he touch during his journey? how many lives did he change? who mourns for him still? he shouldn't have died, but then what was he living for? for whom, for what, for why? another music concert? another performance? or another day in that huge luxurious prison of his?

a young man, barely into his thirties, with one step hovering over a different chapter of his life, never again to know what life has in store for him. i'm not politically inclined and i don't care how this story is or will be twisted into a political weapon, but his demise seem so inopportune, so sad, so tragic. i don't know him, never knew of his existence before his death, and it seems so cold that our paths cross upon his death. a man so simple, being tragically raised from his death to serve the political purpose of others. a life so short, snuffed before he could do many of the things you and i take for granted. a family cries mournfully. a story without an ending.

a few days before his tragic demise, another man, in his early 20s, perished in an unforgiving fire. the only question that stucked in my mind was why. why. why. why. i heard the siren, but being so close to the highway, i didn't give it a second thought. hours later, when all has been said and done, i came down to the aftermath of a very sad scene. a black gaping hole, so black in its emptiness, is all that greets me everytime i leave my apartment.

the thunder just roared. it has been a very long time since i have heard the sky tremble. what was once frightening and intimidating is now comforting, beautiful even. the rain is cleaning everything. yet, there are so many nooks and cranies that it can't reach.

the rain has stopped. so fast it is a memory of the past. the sky is clear again, but for how long. the pitter patter of little drops falling from the corners of the rooftop is a comforting lullaby to my ears.

like father like daughter

met her for the very first time last night. i don't like people in the political arena but she seems to be a nice lady. her first reaction though, after she found out who i was, was to pull me towards her husband. apparently, i bear a very striking resemblance to my father. NOT something that i am ecstatic over, my father being rather handsome when he was much younger but still a distinctly male figure with very male features. she looks more like her father, i get that all the time. mum has the double-eyelids, the mesmerising eyes, the sharp pointy chin and the slender thighs, so i don't take it as a compliment at all; more like an observation.

so, there i stood, infront of him. he looked as lost as i was. before his wife can speak, i brazen as ever, asked "do you know who i am?". that didn't sound right. probably sounded like something right out of the godfather movie. "do you know who is my father?". sigh. i'm not getting it right. now i sound like a lost 38 year old with severe learning handicap trying to locate my parent. "apparently i look like my father". sheesh. i talk too much. before anyone can speak, i'm blowing off a mile a minute like a steam engine. he looked really flabbergasted. there were 100 people in that room and i could be anyone's daughter. there were 6 billion people on this world, and i could be anyone's daughter. i don't play fair.

we finally put him out of his misery. oh yes, yes, you do look like your father. i just never thought of him. so tell me something new. i look like my father, everybody tells me. some console me by telling me that it's good fortune. i just hope i don't have his quadruple-turtle-eyelids when i grow older.

when i was out of earshot, she commented to my mother on my looks. translated directly, it will mean something like can see for a long time. i feel like a very thick boring novel. war and peace perhaps? this is the first time i've had that adjective used on me. you know what that means, don't you? it's a very polite simile for you don't look very beautiful, darling. me, i take it to mean classic beauty, like audrey hepburn. haha, how we console ourselves. classic or not, i don't mind looking like my father.

a murder most foul

the moment we stepped into the house, we know something was not right. the air was stiffling still. there was nary a sound, and eventhough it was all dark, something felt terribly wrong. gingerly, we stepped further into the house and turned on the light. the bright light flickered on and blinded us for a second. surprisingly, the house was neat and clean. nothing was out of place. strange.

still, we can't shake the strange apprehensive feeling that has come over us. slowly, we walked towards the playroom. a cold invisible hand slowly griped our hearts as we took each step, making breathing laborious and hard. when we looked down on the floor of the playroom, we understood why. there he lay, still on the floor, like a dead rat.

for a second, everything stood still. we didn't know whether to rush over and perform cpr, or to run out from the room screaming. fear kept us frozen in place. slowly, the brain digested the scene right infront of our eyes. so, he has died. looking from the condition of the body, he has died for quite a few hours. taking a deep breath to calm our frenzied mind, we approached the body. a quick check confirm our initial observation. he has been dead for a few hours, rigor mortis has set in. a horrible sight for his family members definitely. we must remove him immediately. however, the position of his body is most strange, sinister even. do we dare to contaminate what could be a crime scene? a large ball was lying on his body. the ball that we have seen him playing with from time to time. how could that be his cause of death? or could that be a murder weapon? surely a rubber bouncing ball could hardly be used as something so sinister. or could it?

trying not to leave any prints on the evidence, we took a stick to push away the ball from his body. how strange! his chest was curved downwards, almost as if the seemingly harmless ball had caused a major indentation on his body. impossible. the ball could not possibly be that heavy. or did we overestimate his body weight? underneath all the puffy exterior, he was a frail thin small one. still, it was hard to believe that the cause of death was the rubber ball.

there wasn't much left that we can do. we removed him from the scene and proceeded to make arrangements for the funeral. up till this day, we do not know what had killed him. perhaps it is best left to crime scene experts to analyse the evidence. the family members are devastated, to say the least. after all, blacky the hamster has been with us for a few months now.

kudos

a big hand of applause everybody. claps all round. bring your horns and a bottle of champagne. we are celebrating. to what, you may ask? our government, what else. which other organisation deserves as much praise as our dear ruling body? which other organisations can manage to exercise your body systems, get your blood pumping and your adrenalin running by merely uttering a few sentences? it's healthy exercise for your body, i tell you, and they make all this stupid legislation, and keep changing it, so that your body gets a good workout; fitness and lack of exercise being a real problem in our society, you know.

thanks to the government i now have to look for a new school for my children. with their greatly appreciated help, my children can now leave a familiar and stable environment and be placed in a fresh, foreign and frighteningly new educational condition. Ahhhh, all adjectives beginning with the letter 'f'. i can think of a couple more..but it's not very polite, so let's move on.

with vision 2020 around the corner, and no other vision to replace it, the government has come up with an ingenious plan to regress us for a few (hundred) years. the underlying rationale being that the further we are from our goal of a developed, intelligent society, the harder we can all work to achieve it. very clever, don't you think? maths and science will have to be taught in the native tongue once again, soon. but not soon enough. the rest of the citizens await with baited breath for this moment to arrive, for our kids to learn things that are not fresh-from-the-latest-top-bill-research but rather the more important studies-that-have-been-time-tested-through-translation,-censoreship-and-bureaucracy-into-our-native-tongue. ahhhh, how precious is the value of our language. we are useless in the international competitive world if we are not armed with knowledge of the words from our (rather, their) ancestors' mouth. we will look like fools when we are debating with our foreign counterparts if we have a strong command of the english language and speak to them in a tongue that everybody condones and understand. oui oui, like the french, insist on speaking your own language and close off the doors to the world. we don't need them.

the entire nation needs to be pulled back to match the snail crawling pace of the rural students. it is imperative. we cannot progress too fast or too much and leave those incapable ones behind. spend the time and effort instead to boost them so that they are able to catch up??!! gasp, banish those thoughts!!! how selfish and arrogant that would be. like running a race with disabled individuals, forget that you are running the 100m dash and slow down so that everybody can reach the finish line hand-in-hand, harmoniously. that is, if they reach the finish line.

so, a big kudos is due to our big-hearted government. for looking out for all the citizens and their future. for giving so much thought and electing morons intelligent people to head the relevant departments.

p/s: there is something wrong with the auto-correct software on the post. it keeps coming up with inappropriate words when i was trying to look for the correct description and the delete button is jammed, so you see all these cancelled words in the post which in no way reflects my opinion on the matter.

mj thru my eyes

a friend asked, what would i do if i had super powers.

a few days ago, i suddenly had a longing so bad i could taste it on my tongue. if i had super powers, i wish i can save michael jackson.

huh?

i can't shake this feeling of sadness, of empathy when news of his lifestyle, his universe, his legacy was shared with the world. for all the glamour, for all the trappings of his material wealth and fame, he was not a happy man. victimised or truly perverted, i cannot judge, we cannot judge, for we will never really know. i believe though that every man is a product of his environment. he is what he is because of what society, the media, the world has made him. for someone of his stature, of his fame, i would have thought that people stand in line that rounds the blocks a couple of times to tell him how wonderful he is, how captivating, how entertaining, how all-the-wonderful-superlative-adjectives-you-can-think-of he is, to lick his boots and polish all his apples. instead, there are reports that he was told he was ugly, that he was scorned and teased. i can never understand or even begin to imagine what it must feel like to be trapped within your own house, as beautiful or as lavish as it could be, to see the outside world but never to go out without raising what comes close to chaos with a mere appearance. i can never understand the scars that were formed from this unnatural environment. true reports or conjured for selling more papers, again we have no way of telling. all i do know is he gave us some very beautiful music.

i remember growing up with his songs in the 80s, having his moonwalk and music accompany me when i was alone in singapore. i remember scrimping to buy his poster as a gift for my first crush, who was idolising him then. i remember my daughter singing we are the world in her school concert and i am glad that her generation managed to enjoy his music and know of him when he was still alive.

only upon his death do we hear how precious he was, how wonderful he was, how special he was. where were all these people that were singing his praises now when he was summoned by court? who stood up for him when he was ridiculed? who came out to speak for him when he was misunderstood? nobody wanted anything to do with him. for that i regard with disdain all those that shed crocodile tears during his funeral, for all those hypocrisy surrounding him, for all those who wanted to look "appropriate" when saying their final goodbyes. for all his friends and family, ask yourself, where were you when he was alive.

as for me, i do not know him. not even one tiny inkling. for all that was reported on him, i have no way of verifying and i do not want to accept as truth that which i do not know. but i do know he was a sad man. and i know he was a man of unusual circumstances. for that i sympathise with him. for that, i wished i had known him and could have saved him. however, the story is written and the ending penned. for michael jackson, his beautiful songs and the wonderful memories he has given me, thank you. it was our privilege.

haunted house

everyday, after lunch, when all is quiet in the house, and nary a thing is moving, the maid starts wailing singing in the back staircase. it starts off softly, and when she is comfortable that no one is running towards her with rotten tomatoes and eggs, her voice gets a tone louder. it is not so bad if her singing was akin to celine dion, which it isn't, or if she's singing any place other than the back staircase. with the hollow echoing sound, her attempts at american idol audition passes off as the mournful cries from the beheaded mary queen of scots in her palace tower. goosebumps are raised as the sound of the wailings drift towards my room. i remind myself that it is the maid, and not some supernatural beings wandering around. still, i will much prefer if she was singing some hot pop songs with a catchy beat, rather than impersonating a restless ghoul searching for victims to keep her company. what's worse, i've got the superactive imagination to match and i can just imagine her with long black hair covering her face, her head swaying from side to side, as she beckons victims with her soulful cries.

*shiver*