#I also forgot to draw the knife on the trace sketch so there's a second piece of trace paper cut out and taped on top for that lol :)

[keeps-ache]

dearest persecutor

[sketches below]

[nickmaextension]

PUKE NOVEL

Tran Li sits inside a pub, being alone. He didn't choose to sit to the bar where stands a waiter, it's noon so there's always only few customers spreaded here and there, so he decided to sit in a booth near the toilet, only because of the pile of small skinny palm trees next to it.

"Seems nice to write sitting here."

A sound distracted Tran from his thoughts, when he wake from his mind, a line of a familiar words appears in front of his view.

Michael P.

Salesman of Sei Tong Techno

"You forgot the name card last time." a tranquil voice, stiff even. Tran takes away the card and sees a man with a casual outfit sitting in front, yet no related memory to this face.

"You are looking for the wrong person here."

When Tran got back to his rational stage to work, hoping him to fade out like his calming voice, yet this Mr.P chose to sit opposite to him in the booth, waiting for his reaction.

It's the middle of a summer noon, this man clearly just walked in the restaurant, a thin layer of sweat on the point of his nose has not dried by the AC.

"Do I know you?" Tran puts away the paper and pens from the desk, took a sip of the iced milk tea.

The sweat from the cup slowly warming up in his palm.

"This is the contract you told to bring last time, along with the free in-voice ringtone and voice mailing service, the service has free trail that lasts for three months, all you need to do is to call for the company to cancel it later," This Mr.P draws a pen from nowhere, rapidly marking circles and stars next to all the numbers, his eyes are fixed to the contract while his mouth are constantly pouring out informations.

"... the monthly fees would be 150 with an unlimited 3G mobile network without pre-pay, just sign here and.. here, you can start paying the fees on the 7th of next month, at any branch company and also the convenience stores we have relation with."

Mr.P finally stoped his hands, and his mouth, with the sight finally match up to Tran's eyes. He hand over the pen waiting for reply.

Tran took over the pen and reassured it is indeed his name, ID number and phone number, and his data plan indeed ends in this month, a foggy memory of him talking to P before somehow appeared, along with the memories he signed his name on the contract.

Tran Li.

The contract had pulled back in a blinking second.

"Thank you sir, please call the numbers and say my name if you have any questions, you can call me Fai."

Tran Li is watching the closing auto-door, with the beat flow of the background music in the bar, making him lost the eager to write anything, so he put the name card inside his pocket and choose to stare at the emptiness.

The position Tran took was not chosen in random, this is a conceal yet a sight-open space, with the booth facing the front door but blocked by sight of the new-comers because of the common decorative plants, the height of the booth can also block Tran's body from the shoulder down, except when the waiter come close intentionally, even for the people who are going to the toilet, their figure is blocked by the group of confusing palm trees.

"Dialogues is the best way to extend a novel as I expected." scene description is always difficult for Tran, detail is written without a flow of geographical placement, making the focus point jumping everywhere creating a mess; and it's been commented to be too rational for him to carefully portraying objects,although all the comments were just made up inside his head,  with imaginary foggy figures, the contemporary attempt to link to the public has become an encouragement of his own ego, a tone from an outsider is used to comfort himself, convinced that his talent is still buried underneath. But Tran had also decided that all of those sayings are from those figures but not from himself.

Tran changed his sitting position, and realise he had forgotten the last position he changed from, his mind had wandered off his seat. He also thought of going out the bar, to see the possibilities that worth being curious again, he always feels like an outcast under the sun, although he's wearing the most common combinations of clothes.

Living in the current time, it's the most uncomfortable when you dazed in the dazing mood, thus he picked up the phone. The gesture of drawing out the phone had created a chance for him to changed his mood from bitter bored to the current again, the palm trees had once again in his sight.

Here you can always see some people using their phones, at first Tran attempted to portray one of them, but none of them can excite him, silhouettes of them had cut off, leaving a background with some uneven holes.

The fact is that Tran had once again trapped in the delimma of portraying objects, staring on the shelved blank pages, an image of a white american housewife suddenly emerged on top of it, making him shivered and wanted to leave the place.

He called the waiter for two whiskeys.

…

“Can you stop doing this to yourself?” a voice playing inside his head, yet a human figure is indeed speaking in front of him.

Trand’s left cheek had left the table, which is a tall, small, rounded table with a single leg, a very thin storey of oil is marked on the muddy pattern of marble surface, which was the buffer from the cooling marble. He now lost the ability and patience to distinguish things, but as a normal human being, he still managed to give a basic respond:

“Isn't suffering the answer to art?”

The man paused in a still position for a while, then bursted out laughter, couldn’t tell whether it’s laughter of despise.

Trand looks at the clock in the pub, feels like half an hour with a gesture of looking at the it then head up and left.

Recently Tran had been constantly bothered by an image of a murderer, mostly in dreams , even if just staring at the wall, shadow of the guy just slowly appeared.

He wears a fitting light wind jacket, and a beige casual pants, clean cut and suits his legs,

Tran can almost be sured that he didn't meet him in the reality, it is just a default label in his dream, as a murderer. Except these descriptions, he can only remember the fear under his stare, that fear that seep through the tiny holes hidden deeply in his body.

He just stood there, sometimes with a knife, sometimes a gun, recalled when he was slacken.

It's just a ordinary afternoon, the sun lies on the subtropical streets, Tran had lost track of the dates because of the heat. From the gap of his eyes, he can see people are being burnt down to silhouettes, he suddenly notice that he was looking for traces of wind jacket. He walks slowly and with hesitant, thinking the reason that he couldn't bring up, which is seizing his brain. The glare concrete floor makes him dizzy, streams of people had passed through, with a sharp edged shadow and the body of yellow sands, disappeared in to the blind spot, exits sight with foots, yet still no sights of a perfect cut wind jacket.

When this predicament of status had no longer stayed in only one organ, but turned into a concept, laying switches all around but unseen, which could go as bad as one month being tied to one thought.

He lift his head, laying flat on the floor, patterns of the concrete floor stays on the back of his head, making a itchy feeling. The strong echoes from the dream seemed to hurt his ears, so he looks around with exaggerated movement, to fling out his ears a bit more.

"Please adjust your clock."

The gravel on the concrete ground as soft as the foam of the waves, blasting on his arms, his back, behind his brain, then he got up, finally decided to leave,carrying the humidity of the city with him.

* * * * * * *

Four walls rounds his room, the east window couldn't let the eternal setting sun shine in, so that he put a plant to welcome the sun, he bought it because its reversal breathing logic, the daily watering that he always forgets is

He thinks of that interviewer, as he did before 5 minutes and 10 minutes ago, as he did on the way back home yesterday, a routine to mess up his brain. In fact the plant in his room is the last checkpoint of his thinking of the day, after watering it and staring at it, nonsense mumbles and sinister hopes start to emerge from the stomach, times like this he usually hides the mirror , not doing anything, otherwise his existence will be greater than this room, making him homeless again.

So he decided to sleep, living in a rhythm of dreaming, making his brain became gooey, thus the dreamless nights. Those time of sleeping deliberately had became the sweat that accumulated in his bed sheet, re-accumulating after being washed, the thought of not going out of bed is the only memory left about being on the bed , the rest is the whiteness of the ceiling, and the setting sun which leaps over the shadow of the house.

We died on the bed every night, reborn on it the next day. A sleep without dreams had brought Tran back to the same world, a new day indeed an eternal new day,same texture of the passing time. The opposite house's windows reflects a ray of furry white light,  softly lay on his left ankle, balancing the temperature different from inside the blanket. He lifted up all his limbs, unfamiliar cold air awakes him, so he had to go out.

He walked very fast, head pointing towards the ground, the moving patterns form raindrops, falling to him sometimes he steps on them, feeling like a feather, he walked in to the pub, sitting on the usual place.

Today is quite a inspiring day, maybe is the weather, or the absent crowd on the street, or the abnormal dry air, yet same route, the same pub, same trees and road pattern, so how would a fool like Tran can consciously realise these differences? He do feel the need to write down something, so he pull out the little book he has, with a brown paper covering the almost torn pages, they are thin beige papers with all of his word sketches, he hates many of them, the unskillful words are isolating him further from the world, making the opposite of expression, but he couldn't argue to most of them, so he rarely read them when he don't feel like hating himself.

He bows low, almost kissing the paper:

<Crony life>

I am writing garbage again, it's a start of me becoming garbage

I will be eating garbage, reeks of garbage, smoking garbage cigarettes, reading garbage books, listening to garbage songs, making garbage drawings, watching garbage movies, garbage of the room, room of garbage, until the mirror can't see me, until there's no room for new smell, until no place for me to step on, until experiencing dizziness in the room, release my body to the street, bouncing back and forth like a helium ballon, frozen space tardy movement annoyingly slow,until recognising myself as the clot of air, being wrapped inside the translucent plastic membrane, defining me to the outside air with fragility, then it breaks a sad plastic cloth, covered by a layer of dust, dimming the neon colours.