Masquerade - The Last Chorus

A thousand fallacies

attached onto their faces

which are now ours,

and became their disgraces.

A thousand ironies,

attached to a thousand agonies;

and our inner selves

became part of themselves.

Only after a thousand identities,

witnessing a thousand identities,

will we put on a display.

No more fakes or lies,

and a thousand cries;

thus ending the play;

thus scattering the masquerade.

Masquerade

Fervent servants serve as pallbearers
at the parade;
servants of mine, bear with me;
I have a greedy facade.
A lonely parade,
with none but creeps for decades.
A phony parade,
marchers are weeping to be made.
It was a graveyard,
a desperate attempt to shine hard;
all failed to be heard
by the ears of the dying shepherd,
who was also a servant of mine.
All his sheep are dead,
and yet he sleeps without dread;
because a book of me, he read,
and no tears were shed.
All fears are fear of me;
yet I fear everyone,
because right in front of me,
I see a broken gun.

An empty queue;
I see no queue.
It was a corrupted form
of my memories.
It was a repressed form
of my enemies.
A darkness that I can see through,
I can't see through;
now it's just me and a few
of my servants anew.

Hiding in my own burning, dried out land;
and being incinerated myself,
by my servant's own hand;
it set fire onto itself,
because it doesn't know myself.
Because it didn't know itself.
Because it never knew oneself.
Because it hid its own self.
I'm repeating myself,
because I can never repeat myself
in front of all my servants' selves
as all our faces are shelved.

Chimera and Me

You
fortified brilliance, magnificence;
forsaking marvellous diligence;
overarching far from us--intelligence.
Overloading chimera's fool.
Suffocating a zephyr's pool.
Suffocating a tornado's pool.
Suffocating a hurricane's pool.
Suffocating me.

Rusty, forlorn brakes.
Dusty, sorrow stakes.
I give out all I take.
I take none that I give out.
I blackout.
I'll find peace in a shout.
I found death in a bout.

Heart hides all lies
just like an aimless dart,
useless till I die.
No longer me, a heart.
I am not me, heart.
Shadowing me is still me;
tolerance and me, still me.
The chimera's fool is me.
All fools are me.
The chimera is smart,
the chimera changes its heart;
no, I was lying,
all except me are smart.

Blackout

Written this story last year for SPM English Paper 1. I wrote this off my memory, so it'll definitely be different from the original version. Even so, I decided not to alter any plot points, no matter how rushed it may seem (I only had 70 minutes to plan, write and recheck the entire story during the examination.)

-----------------

The teacher walked into the classroom. It was the first period, which just had to be Mathematics. During that rather insipid day, our Maths teacher, Mr. Slitzh Manseus, absented himself. This simple fact didn't pique our curiosity, as it was all too usual. Normally, Madam White would take his place, but she was down with a fever. We were sad, well not really. We simply wrecked havoc around the class. It was fun.

At that very moment, a walking bamboo entered the spacious classroom. The bespectacled figure, armed with two rather thick books and a smile of disgrace, made his presence a little too obvious. Forty pairs of enlarged eyes fixated their gaze onto this man, observing his rather unorthodox appearance. A lump of brown hair hibernated on the top of his head; he was uncomfortably tall, but that smile of his was what penetrated our minds.

Such a wide, lip-tearing smile wouldn't kill, but it was some other issue that terrorized us. We didn't know why, but the whole class feared that teacher. He was a demon.

"Hello, students. I am Mr. Rammer Strobe. I feel excited to see all of you. I love you."

What did he just say?

Just at that particular second, a prefect stormed into the classroom. He informed us that the school will be organizing an emergency assembly; and yes, we were all required to gather in the school hall. 

No big deal.


So in ten minutes, the aforementioned area was inundated with hordes of students, none of them anxious to know what happened. The principal stood on top of the stage, clenching a microphone in his right hand. He seemed to shiver a little.

"I am very sorry to announce that Mr. Slitzh Manseus, teacher of Mathematics for twenty years, was brutally murdered last night."

In fact, nothing much really happened; just the death of one of the teachers.

Or not.

The whole school went into uncontrollable panic; Mr. Manseus was a highly respected man. How could such products of immorality fall upon one innocent man?

Mr. Strobe simply grinned; his sorrow was null. He was a happy man.

Nobody noticed that.

After (a sad day of) school ended, I limped past the empty corridors towards the school gate, still heartbroken about the tragedy. I miss Mr. Manseus; to recall that I treated him rather badly the last week due to my pet dog's death, I couldn't help but feel like the guiltiest man on Earth.

I saw him.

"Ah, why so sad? Sadness brings nothing positive. He's dead. Dead. There's nothing we can do about it."

Mr. Strobe's acting was too suspicious. It didn't help that he looked like a serial killer; wait, maybe he's the killer? I didn't know. I'd never dare to make major assumptions like that. Maybe he really was the happiest man on Earth, however stupid that might sound.

"Cheer up, my love. Just smile. You don't see me sad, do you?"

I hastened my pace. After passing through the school gate, I turned around and looked backwards; Mr. Strobe was there, standing completely still, like a statue; his teeth reflecting a gratuitous amount of light. How creepy.

The bus stop was never further than three-hundred meters from schooling grounds; but I was a weak little boy. It didn't help that the heat was excruciating. My already sour mood reached its pinnacle.

"For heaven's sake, how could Mr. Manseus die?"

And I remembered something.

The night before, I had a terrible nightmare; a dream so disgustingly cruel that I immediately frowned upon recalling it.

I saw him. No, not Mr. Rammer Strobe, but Mr. Slitzh Manseus. His face was fearful, anguished; he was shrieking in agony. I didn't remember it with extreme clarity though, but I did remember the weird, chaotic surroundings; it was nothing but a crimson world, some sort of hell, maybe? I forgot most of the details.

Wait, did I just predict Mr. Manseus' eventual demise? Was I a prophet?

I simply thought too much, that was all I could conclude.

As I was this close to napping on the dreadfully slow school bus, my gaze was automatically fixated onto a house; a terrace house. Nothing special, other than the fact that Mr. Rammer Strobe was there, showing his gleeful self in broad daylight. I naturally understood that the house belonged to him.

"Why is he smiling the whole day?"

My hatred towards him intensified to the point where I felt like punching him in the face. I couldn't handle his smile, his broad, stupid, reckless smile. A man died and he displayed no tears, that was enough to prove he was not human; or at least, didn't have a human heart.

Or maybe he was the murderer.

"Oh no, my teacher is a psychopathic killer."

I didn't sleep well that night.

Time flies. It was the next morning already.

We were required to attend another boring session of emergency assembly. Again, the students showed no apathy.

"Students..."

The principal's words were cut off by his own tears; not tears of grief or regret, but tears of undeniable fear. He was quivering in his place, as if he was an earthquake machine.

But the news broke long before he took the stage; it came from a friend of mine.

Mr. Rammer Strobe was killed on the previous night.

At that very moment, a group of ten uniformed men barged into the hall with guns in their hands. They were not ordinary people, but policemen. My worst fear was somehow confirmed; there was a murderer in our school.

I didn't believe myself when they aimed their weapons at none other than me.

"Shadow Vegas, raise your hands and don't move! You've been arrested for the homicide of Rammer Strobe and Slitzh Manseus!"

My body became numb almost instantly, as my mind was flooded with mixed emotions; I wanted to cry, yet I just felt like laughing at their faces. I knew I wasn't wrong; I would never kill. Killing is immoral and I didn't, and will never condone such acts.

Something flashed past my thoughts.

It was an environment of pure darkness. Without doubt, I was exploring my dream world again, but I didn't realize it. There, I saw Mr. Rammer Strobe. His grin remained intact.

"Ah, paying me a nice visit in the middle of the night, eh, Shadow?"

My vision was blurred to the point that I could only see his scintillating white teeth, a usual occurrence while dreaming. But I was certain of one rather chilling discovery I've made; I witnessed his ordinary face. He was no longer smiling. He was screaming. He was shrouded in the clouds of fear and hate.

He was not happy.

As I tried to accept the fact that the security forces were charging straight towards me, I tried to piece the unsolvable puzzle together. It wasn't an obvious conclusion; to be honest it was as stupid as accusing Mr. Strobe of killing Mr. Manseus. One of those was true.

I wasn't dreaming. I was awake. I was a killer. I wasn't human, I killed my own race.

I couldn't see a thing. No policemen, no teachers, no students, no school hall, nothing.

I didn't want to live anymore...

Tell me a story.

“Hey… We’ll always be there for one another, right?”

***

Wonderful life I’ve had when I was childish. My mind was sophomoric enough to fall for a girl whose heart belonged to another. Such stupidity, immaturity, conquered my will. Yet, I don’t give a damn or two, because I wasn’t me. No, I was me, and now I’m not me. This constant denial of who I am, or was, is drowning my soulful spirit.

My first impression of her was unforgettable in the most remorseful sense. I was kidding. I don’t remember it, which made it sorrowful. She was too kind. I’ve never met such a benevolent soul other than my parents, or myself. No, I wasn’t benevolent before I met her. I was evil; I didn’t care about friends. See? Everlasting conflicts between two irrelevant issues. How unsatisfying.

She is a girl. I’m just restating the obvious. I’ve never been close to females; she was the first. I will always keep that in mind, which made her important to me. Note the past tense. I’ve never loved her until she loved me; as a friend, as a sibling, as that special one, whatever it was, I will never know. It’s killing me that it had to end so quickly, yet so slowly. I wanted to stay away from her, yet part of me still clung onto her forgotten side, or was it her forgetful side? Did she forget how much I sacrificed for her? Again, I will never know.

I’ve never experienced heartbreak, but in its most fundamental definition, what is heartbreak? Does the act of loving someone who doesn’t reciprocate counts as heartbreak? No? Yes? But my emotional strength was null; I didn’t understand emotions, or feelings, or love. What is love? Can we feel love? Is love tangible? She taught me love, but at the same time she unknowingly led me to loathe love. Can I love everyone? No. People sin, people lie, people deny and I am part of it. Love too much and we’ll never survive this cruel world. Love too little, and we’ll be trapped in our own depressing fantasy.

Shit.

I’ve had enough. Holding onto a loosely crafted rope that may just break anytime isn’t worth it; I can never reach the top. So I let go. I fell all the way into the abyss. The abyss is unconventional; I actually pummelled onto the rock solid ground. I’ve been given a second chance.

But the rope is gone, not even a trace.

No, I’ve been given a second chance in living my own life; that was when college started. Everything changed; I changed, not due to other people, but because I’ve given up on my past self. I will no longer be a shy, doleful kid. I’m no longer a kid.

I was panicking. I’ve screwed up my first driving test. I’d never fallen that hard before in life. I’m sensitive to three things: love, friendship and failure. I laughed it off, but it’ll be exactly two days before the retest that I’ll be all too nervous. I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t nap well. Sleep paralyses. I became moody; unable to control my own emotions.

Oh look. There’s a girl. She seemed overfamiliar. Who is she? I refused to believe my own eyes; they were always cheating little bastards. But no, they were honest, and yet I still couldn’t accept what I’ve just witnessed.

Her.

I didn’t know what to do.

We were like strangers. No, we were strangers. My mouth muted itself; my gaze floating off at a direction that wasn’t towards her.

At that very moment, my mindset was not about the retest but about her. My heart skipped a beat.

I don’t know if it’s some kind of panic attack, or just me entering my dream-like state again, but my mind was completely void of thoughts when my name was called. I opened the car door and entered the vehicle naturally, and I knew that something was wrong.

Another wrong sequence of events? Damn this shit.

I would’ve flunked it worse if not for her on my mind. But in the end, it was to no avail. I just wasn’t myself.

I’m never myself.

***

“Yes, we’ll be there for each other, until we die, until we touch the skies.” 

- End

Prisoner.

I couldn't sleep well these days.

No, it ain't due to emotional stuffs, or life's various troubles or shit. I ain't facing those shit nowadays; it's just, well, I don't know, psychological problems? The hell is wrong with me.

For the past two nights, I've been sleeping for less than six hours. That sucks. Yeah, people might say they've slept much lesser, but I'm me, not them, and I couldn't handle it.

The simplest solution? Napping.

Yeah. Simple.

Sleep paralyses. Random occurrences of waking up and falling back to sleep. Fatigue. Anxiety. Lucid dreams. Well, the last one's a good thing, but the others aren't and never will be. Well, not really; I actually kinda like sleep paralysis, but it kinda ruined my past two afternoon naps.

For those who aren't sure what in the world is sleep paralysis, it's basically some kind of instance when your brain shuts off all your physical body functions (moving of limbs or head, talking, and in some cases, limited sight) before your mind actually enters "sleep mode". What happens when you're aware of your own surroundings, yet you no longer could move a finger? You're trapped inside your own body, and that in itself will result in extreme fear or panic to most people. You're a prisoner inside your own body, a criminal restrained by unbreakable chains who is forced to witness his worst nightmares materialize right in front of his bloodshot eyes.

No. I ain't exaggerating; it's pointless to hide the truth.

I no longer treat sleep paralysis as some kind of "scary nightmare ghost monster thingy", like what some people do. In fact I find it rather intriguing; sometimes I actually wanted the paralysis to continue just so that I could explore my subconscious a little more, maybe try to understand what's going on in my inner world, but it's freaking tiring.

Like seriously, it's more exhausting than sprinting across a 300m field, thrice.

When I got paralyzed for the first time, I was in so much shock that I actually wanted to scream (or cry). I loathed it. Why are our brains stupid enough to block the control of our limbs before we actually fall asleep? Why do our minds fall asleep much later than our physical body? Why is sleep paralysis such a frightening experience?

How ironic it is that I've came to fancy it nowadays.

One common occurrence during the paralysis (at least for me) is the presence of loud, sharp, high-pitched noises that are often disturbing. They're really mild compared to the other happenings; I don't give two shits about them.

Then there's the part which piques my interest; the complete alteration of the real world. With our minds still awake, we could perceive our surroundings with ease. Alright, I was kidding; it's never easy when you realize that you can see through your blankets, or when there's an extra window on your wall, or that your room fan's rotating when the power's off, or that your room's door suddenly opened by itself.

Merging your stupidly random dream world with cold hard reality, that's the true nature of sleep paralysis.

Oh, and sometimes it's near impossible to breathe, which is one of the main reasons for my exhaustion.

While exploring my subconscious, I might come to a point where I'll be too tired to continue. For some reason, I could snap out of the paralysis much easier than most people could.

And I'll experience a severe mood fluctuation almost immediately after it.

Hmm. Interesting.

Impact

Spiked raging fetuses for
never aging serene gore.
Fetid forecast of thorny floor;
rapid shrieks, cheered forlorn four.
Mightiest freak, smiled so sore;
and gore, more piles of gore;
so gorgeous, gore?

There is nothing to be ashamed of,
all are things to be famed of.
Berated for speaking the unspoken;
as the unspoken are words so broken.
Scars on your heart, false yet woven;
humans' treacherous minds are unwoven.
You've lied, you've hated, you're mistaken;
you sin and people sin, sins are unshaken.

Pride.
It is everything to be ashamed of.

Death by Irony

Surrender to the curse of a forbidden word;
render the verse sullen of being slurred.
Slender spirit tested the first of the third;
gender used to being disgraced, I've heard.
Forever never feared to hear such words,
yet right here, near me, I've heard a herd.

Feverishly marooned by a soul I'd love;
a believer so soon, coming from above.
Shackles are lies, a heart-tormenting lie!
Tackled in the eye, a wretched deny;
why couldn't I cry without a sigh?
A sigh I've had, neither lies nor goodbyes;
but being cornered, battered till I died
by a sly guy, by she who has tried.

Transitions.

I'll start off with a warning though. This post will most likely make absolutely zero sense, but trust me, it's real.

Most of the time, I try to live a normal life.

Not always. (Okay this is just stupid.)

I don't experience this often, but there are times when I felt that I've drifted into a dreamlike state, in real life.

Schizophrenia? PTSD? Nah, my mind is just some very haphazard, irregular, morphed fantasy.

There may not be many people out there who remember their dreams, or even give a shit about them, but I do. In fact, this weird imagination of mine plays a significant role in my life.

Yes, I'm a dream person. I love dreams, I also like to "fix" my nightmares into happy dreams, which explains why I seldom have nightmares. I love lucid dreaming (happens very rarely though), and sleep paralysis used to frighten me, but now the very event actually piqued my interest. There was a time when I actually attempt to transition into a lucid dream from a sleep paralysis.

Dreams allow me to explore my own world; the universe that I've created by myself, and all the weird people inside it. But it's not always a good thing though...

I unconsciously shifted into dream mode too many times to the point where I myself am in for a shock; what happened during that state? Well, for some of them, I can recall with utmost clarity as if it happened seconds ago; some of them however, are basically just a huge dark cloud, waiting for the day it will (never) be uncovered.

Most of these "transitions" usually happens after a wrong sequence of events (whether positive or negative) commenced at the wrong time, in the wrong place. As I said, it may be a combination of both happy and sorrowful events.

A perfect example? My whole form four life is a dream.

Somehow, this "transition" from my more childish, innocent self to a more mature, thoughtful self caused me to blur the lines between reality and imagination.

That sounds like something out of a low-budget fantasy novel.

Frankly speaking, I don't remember my 2011 chapter well. It seems so... out of place. It's like, oh so I've entered a new class and retained my shy old self, and suddenly time kinda skipped back and forth between her and... her alone? Damn. Did I fell for a girl that much?

Well, her presence changed me, and things happened too fast; I unknowingly threw reality aside and somehow, I don't feel like myself; or that's just because the current me is just a different person.

Sometimes, I even wonder if my entire form four life was just a dream, or reality, or both mixed together to form a mishmash of bullshit.

During my 2011 Japan trip, there was one night when I was in Disneyland with my family. After the fireworks show, when people were casually walking out of the park, I felt as if I was no longer living in the real world.

The atmosphere was noisy, but it seemed as if I had all sound filtered out. I kept looking down, watching my own legs walk by itself, similar to that of an out-of-body experience. I became depressed for absolutely no reason, as if Disneyland is a huge showcase of my worst nightmares.

Somewhere outside the park, I "floated" (actually walked, but I don't feel it) past the shadows of some lampposts? (Not sure, my head was still down) I immediately pondered on whether or not I was dreaming. It certainly felt like a dream. My vision was blurry, I didn't sense anything other than my own misery, and for a split second there, I actually believed that I will wake up from all that soon enough.

I've thought of suicide like it's the most ordinary thing to do, and even considered just walking to some far, far place and hide myself there for no reason.

During one moment (I think it was inside an elevator), my eyes flooded; maybe it's because my sanity could not cope up with this extremely horrifying state of mine? I don't know, I pretended to rub my eyes to get rid of those tears.

I totally forgot what happened all the way until I've entered the train, then I made a conclusion.

"I'm dreaming."

But part of me stressed that I'm in reality all along, so I didn't know what to do. I'm like, stuck in between both worlds.

I took out my iPhone and listened to Lady Gaga's The Edge of Glory. While the song was playing, something came to mind.

I don't know if it's just for me, but while dreaming, songs never complete themselves, they'll be distorted at some point, or never play at all, or turn into some nightmare.

The song ended after five minutes, without anything unnatural happening.

My mood lightened up almost instantaneously. Soon I began to start chatting with my parents (as usual), playing games on my iPhone, do normal stuffs.

It's like I've awakened from an actual dream.

This very event, along with another similar event still haunts me till the present. How could something as... abnormal as that possibly happen?

Guess I will never know.

A different story.

Woops, so it's March already? Damn, that's a lot faster than I thought.

Life's been easy on me these days; met some really nice people and some rather "unfriendly" ones, but most of them are pretty outgoing, or maybe that's just me. Bleh.

Guess when they said CPU is very assignment/project-orientated, they weren't lying. Managed to complete my various Chemistry assignments, my first English "Reader Response Essay" and also my "Media Presentation", and also the crazy (Lady Gaga) poster I did for Advanced Functions. Yes, Lady Gaga.

Reader response essay is some interesting shit, and this is exactly what I need at the moment; some form of practice to hone in my argumentative skills, which falls far behind my story writing ability. I'll never look at any lyrics the same way again (Well, except lyrics about sex and drugs, because their "hidden meanings" are usually just more sex, and more drugs.)

And English media presentation was awesome. I did an analysis of the music video "Breaking the Habit" by Linkin Park, which was an undeniably splendid choice. Somehow, I've felt that my stage fright kinda wore off (or not?); at least I didn't stutter much, or begin sentences with random occurrences of "uhh", "ahh", "ehh".

Last Friday was the day I took my first Chemistry exam (unit test? Whatever). Freaking cool; I never knew that the 7th floor was in fact an examination hall. LOL. Some people claimed it was an office floor, meh, it only proves how rarely people actually go there.

Oh and the 8th floor is the prayers floor? Cool.

College life is extremely exhausting, seriously. I got through nearly 6-8 hours of schooling/tuition per day during high school without feeling shit, and a daily six hour dose of college saps all of my vigor away.

That's not a bad thing though. 

While writing this post, I'm kinda assigned (on Facebook) to some random English group project thingy. What used to be a simple task kinda went nuts for me as I might have to skip Monday's group discussion due to my driving test. Oh, and some other issues which I prefer not to mention about. Damn.

Oh well, time to buck up for even more challenges. CPU is not just an interesting, engaging, satisfying chapter; no, never from the beginning. It's a chapter that strengthens me, that allows me to see the world from a different perspective, and also learn how to deal with all kinds of people. However, I don't know how to deal with pushy people yet though. Guess this is the perfect opportunity to learn.

My first real challenge in college life? Kinda. I'm glad it ain't about stupid love stories or friendship issues anymore though. Yet, I fully comprehend that this is merely a small bump on the road before a torrent of landslides and mountainous hills ahead (I hope not). May God bless me along my path, and grant me the strength, courage and willpower to overcome them.

Let's rock.