the-kindle-pile

[the-kindle-pile]

[Short Romance Story] The Moon

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, real people are used as reference but not in anyway representative of anyone or my relations with them.

The song of romance has been well written across time and culture. Lyrical and enchanting, full of melody and melancholia. I've never been able to well experience it. One of the joys and sorrows I've been unceremoniously excluded from. But I will try to explain it from my meager experience. It wasn't much of anything but it wasn't nothing.

If you would know anything of romance, you would know it is not grounded in reality. It is a fleeting charm and beauty, that comes and go. She wasn't as beautiful as you thought she was. He wasn't as handsome and amazing as you thought he was. It is just an illusion but it is the illusion we cling onto. Well-maintained physique will help you keep the illusion, reminding you of the roaring years of your youth. Which is also why love grounded in the physical will erode away. Yet we cannot deny it is the physical that will trigger our neurons. We can call it spiritual, we can call it fate but we cannot deny ourselves that the partial core truth of love is physical.

Yet if love was only purely physical, it would not have permeated through all of media and persisted through time and culture, poems, lyrics and prose. It would not have meaning in art and roses, in gems and stones. It would not exist in other symbols if it was just carnal.

And so, I shall attempt to write it, a story. A story that is just a little bit off the tone of reason. A nostalagia for the disaster that is my unrequited love.

My experience with the opposite sex during my youthful days were limited. I came from a boy school and did not interact with girls until I was in my late teens in Polytechnic. When I first spoke to her it was for a project, yet I did not feel the nervousness that a young boy teen would when he speaks with an attractive counterpart. But rather, I was above all, confused.

You see, even at a young age, I was full of self-doubt and low self-esteem. A clearly attractive girl talking to me with respect and without disgust, surprised me. I didn't have my hair done, I did not dress well, my skin complexion was awful (and still is). To watch and sit right next to her partaking complete, deep conversations with her, felt so satisfying. She was a natural academic. We both studied sociology as our elective but she was in a different field, food science. I wonder how far she got with that.

We had many conversations but she was mainly the one doing the talking, which I loved. She can go on and on about sociology and random little things. About how cute the way hair buns sat upon our classmates heads, about how qauntities of our daily energy was burnt by our brains during studies. And I would just sit there and listen, throwing in a joke or two and she would laugh. Those were simpler days.

Unfortunately for me, she was already with someone else. She never talked about him but not for the lack of love. But simply because they had spent so much time together that they were comfortable with each other. She had something precious and it was something she cherished dearly.

I knew I couldn't give her a better life. I knew I couldn't promise to make her happier. I knew myself too well, to believe that I could treat her better. I knew it wasn't possible.

But I did love her.

I knew the words that would cheer her up when she was sad. I knew the gifts to buy when she was feeling down. I knew the songs she would love when we were just relaxing. Every gift I bought, I took considerations. I care to be thoughtful but not romantic. What she treasured most, I treasured too. I do not dare to say we shared something. But there was something that was drawing us together, our love of the same intangible little things and value of what we considered good in ourselves that were not superficial. She drew me in, like tides to the Moon.

There was a day we were out on an assignment that required us to be out in the field, filling surveys with the public. We were paired up as a team and had to go door to door to have our surveys filled. Me being an extreme introvert, hated the acitivity. I was extremely nervous because I had to interact with strangers and moreover, she was dressed in a basic formal work attire with make up on. And that somehow, was extremely attractive to me. By the end of the day I was wrecked, distracted, tired and barely got anything done.

By the last hour, I was ready to give up. And she said, why not do one last block? But this time as a game between us both. To see which one of us could finish knocking all the doors whether answered or not. And as if the universe was responding to the call, there was unexpectedly another pair of surveyors from another team in the same block. Knowing this, we both sprinted, to race each other and the other team to knock as many doors as we could. We could hear each other talking to the residents as we went down the blocks, gauging each other's progress. Her sweet chiming voice gave me more motivation to move along through doors faster. With a simple suggestion she changed my tone towards the assigment. We had more surveys filled in that apartment block, than any other blocks that day. At the end of the night, we were exhausted but we were happy. We had so much fun and I wonder if it could stay that way. But I knew it couldn't.

At the end, the course didn't worked out for me. She excelled in her's while I struggled in mine. The studies were about people and I do not work well with them. No matter how hard I worked, changed or adapted. I could not achieve what I needed to achieve to follow where she went. Besides, having your significant other work in the same field as you is a terrible idea ( at least that was what I told myself ).

She eventually caught on and had a inkling about my feelings for her. Things became awkward and I withdrew. But we did not drift apart in bad faith. And she did not cut me out of her circle. I could still see her holiday photos of her and her partner and their families on social media. Which is all fine with me, I feel no sorrow, I am happy that she is happy. I feel no regret because I had given what I could give.

She was like the Moon to me and I am the man in the valley. Gazing up at her in the field of many stars. She was the one I felt closest to, despite being so far. She was not my first love and probably not my last. But she might have been the one that is the most enchanting and more radiant than a star.

[the-kindle-pile]

[Short Horror Story] The Lone Eye

An intense pounding sounded across the room. Or was in it in my ear? A loud beat like someone is hammering. A hammering from within my chest. My heart was pounding out of my chest. It was so painful, so loud.

What have I done?

It felt so surreal. I felt cold sweat rolled down my neck and dripping off the tip off my chin. Blood slowly oozing to the tip of my fingers. A pool of inky red mess on the soft, soggy bed.

Was this all mine?

Then, I felt an dull ache across my face, no pain! Just an tired old ache. I reached up with my left hand and touched it. Nothing hurt! Nothing but a bunched up cheek and a grin across my face.

It was then I finally realized! I did it! I finally did it! After all the months and years i've endured. The feelings I've buried deep inside, the desire, the fear ,the anger!

All of it! It's all out! ELATION.

The old man was finally done for, you see. I had made painstaking efforts to get here. It wasn't easy! Oh no! It was hard! He never once took his eye off me. His decrepit old sick eye. That sickening dark pit of an eye. Everytime I walked outside, everytime I cleaned something, ate something, walked somewhere. He kept staring me with his one eye, his one lone disgusting eye.

But you see I only will be called mad if I had gone and end it there. Had I picked up a knife and and ended it right where he stood. But no, I couldn't. I'm not mad, insane or crazy. I had a method, a way of doing things. Would a mad man think things through? Would he know how to feed the old man his own dose of drowsy medicine? Would he know how to carve each limb from each joint and know all the soft conjoining sinew of the old bone bag man that he was? No, everytime that I had to butcher meat for his rotted teeth, I learnt and I waited.

I waited and I knew that when the night comes, it would be his turn. It would be his bones , his limbs that will be seperated from his body neatly, into pieces packed tidily into a box. Neatly tucked into an airtight coffin buried below the earth. Below the floor boards. Then I would resume my duties and clean, clean and clean! Until there will not be a trace of anything that had happened that night. That was what I did. Would a madman clean!? He would not! But I did! How am I, mad? What you're saying is insanity! I did my duty!

Everything would have stayed cleaned if it wasn't for that wretched Miss Baker. She comes every now and then bringing disgusting sweet biscuits and tiresome long conversations with the old man. When she came to visit after the deed was done, I told her the oldman went overseas to visit some distant relatives. But she kept asking more questions after that. More and more, again and again. I had enough, so I shut the door on her. And that thumping, that thumping won't stop. Ever since that night I kept hearing a loud thumping sound. It wasn't the front door, it wasn't in the walls, it wasn't from the neighbours, where was it coming from!?

Two days later the officers came, I knew they were trouble. But of anyone that would visit, surely this two would know the value of order and cleanliness. I gave them them my most sincere smile and welcomed them in. I allowed them to search all the rooms and closets. It's all clean and tidy. Nothing out of order. Everything was as it should be. I wouldn't miss a thing and neither would they. After which, they wanted to ask questions, so many questions about the oldman. At this point, the thumping became louder and louder. The officers didn't seem to be bothered by it. Don't you hear that? I asked them. They just shooked their heads. They said something but I couldn't hear them, the sound became too loud and my head felt like imploding. I stared at them, eyes wide open trying to catch whatever is making that sound, I cradle my head with my hands trying to block but it didn't stop. I need to find it, the house is flawless, this area had no animals! I made sure of it! WHERE IS THAT SOUND COMING FROM?

It was then I realised, it was the old man! His heart was still beating in his dead body underground! I couldn't stand it! So I ran to the storeroom brought out the wood axe and smashed the floorboards open. Take him! Just take him! I can't stand him! I said.

They took me, then they took him. And at last there was peace. Time passed and I finally felt a serenity I thought I would never have.

That is why doctor, I must thank you. For this ward is the quietest , cleanliest room I've ever been. Now that I've answered your questions, I hope you are satisfied. And I hope you can leave me in peace.