This is about the government officer I met this week for a few hours' briefing on something. He looked like someone who should have a story written about him. He did.

She hears from him again today after the death of a dictator, the forced closure of a spa centre and the discovery of error in a particle physics experiment. Between now and his last text, a country was set free, a community was deprived of fish spa and Einstein’s relativity lived on; the world has changed.

Those two days. Spanned eons.

She wonders if his texting her is a compensation for his having broken the social inertia, or if he really means to reach her.

Al-fatihah.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Bila perasaan yang bukan milikku semakin jauh dari gapaian. Dan malam bergelapkan diam yang asyik dan legam. Jasad dan jejaknya tertaut dekat, tetapi aku tak buta saat melihat pandangannya. Nyata apa yang dilihatnya bukan apa dilihatku.

Khabar ini benar; bukan aku yang buta, cuma sendiri membutakan. Aku bukan tuli, tetapi aku yang mendiamkan. Aku tak bisu, namun aku yang mengkuburkan.

Tunjukilah kami jalan yang lurus; tunjukilah kami jalan yang lurus; tunjukkanlah kami jalan yang lurus.

Science tells us we've been here for at least 13.7 billion years. That's more than twice the number of human population on earth.

2 years per person.

On Studying Medicine

It’s funny how hard we are working to understand how our body works. How hard we are at trying to comprehend the complex system which is at the same time so innate in its most literal sense. It’s almost as though our conscious human mind and functioning physiological body are two separate entities. We are just our frontal + parietal lobes trying to understand the rest of us - and the thought makes one feel somewhat lonely. We are so well clothed by the dead cells that are our skin that the only thing we own that is adequately exposed to the outside world is our sense of perception - and the only thing mine wants is to explore my own innards - my insides looking in and failing - like trying to squint my eyes focusing on an object placed within too close a distance

Q

His manners, though not outrightly rude, were still at moments glaringly unpolished. It was not this, however that hindered her regard - it was those fleeting but not insignificant instances when she caught his gaze - itself darkened like a mixture of affection with something more sinister, insatiable and perhaps even voracious - that made her uncomfortable. Sometimes she feels too the radiating hatred that accompanies this gaze prickling the back of her neck - as if he blames her for his unrequited attachment.

Once I had a bestfriend who loved me too much, and while since then he was most envious of my indifference, I was the one who should be more jealous of him.

To love (almost) unconditionally, and to know. To accept.

On our current predicament

I have friends and relatives in Egypt.

& I know I’m being ungrateful, or even selfish, but there’s this part of me that’s (perhaps inappropriately) envious. Especially given the current circumstance.

I wanna live on the edge. Where you risk losing everything and nothing at the same time. I want to soak in the exhilaration. Flirt with death and relish the temporary self-proclaimed anarchy. To scream along to burning vehicles. To feel nothing and everything. To hold hands in protest. To see things people sing about taking place right in front of me. To be part of history.

Save lives. Be saved myself.

I need to believe there is still hope and where else is best to find it but the very place where all hope is seemingly lost?

I want to go to a place at war.

(I must be going mental)

I want to contribute a voice, a service. I just, want to be there.

Most of all, I need a feeling. I need something to fight for.

Kosong.

dalam kekosongan juga ada kata?

ada makna?

ada rasa.

tolong cari lagi.

tolong cari aku dalam kekosongan ini.

If my fifteen year old self were to see me like this, she would click her tongue and save me from this neck-deep mess. She would clean me up and tell me to pull myself together, that the world is my oyster, that one day I'll win the Nobel and marry a handsome lord. If my fifteen year old self were to be here, you'd probably fall in love with her and she would ignore you.

If she knew this is what was going to happen, she wouldn't have readily given herself to the world and turned into me.

You can never survive this unscathed.

Once there was a village located next to a long stretch of train tracks. The village was old, the faces there were stale and bored minds longed for the outside world, to jump on the train and lose themselves in the infinite possibilities that lie somewhere at the end of the tracks. The desire was strong in each of them, choking their hearts and whispering night and day night and day and night; especially at night when sounds were loudest. The whisper went slow at first "I wish I can go away I wish I can go away" and then it slowly picked its pace like a train leaving its station "IwishIcangoawayIwishIcangoawaygoawaygoaway" and the momentum consumed them.

But no one ever got on the train, because as much as they'd like to, they could never leave.

R

You told me to write a letter to you, and I asked you why. You shrugged and looked away and the subject was dropped.

I cannot write a letter to you because there was too much to say and there were too little words. What would you have me write? That I look for excuses to talk to you longer on the phone, or if we were in the car? That I get annoyed if you ask me to rest instead of seeing you because I prefer the latter? That I replay the conversations we've had in my head and smile? That I look for your car whenever we drive past its usual parking space? (Or the fact that I feel sad and a little lonely now that it's vacant?) That I look for you at all?

In my head I did exactly that, I wrote many letters to you.

I kept them in my eyes, I locked them behind pursed lips. But if you listen; you'll find them screaming between skipped heartbeats, in every impulse, as loud as the ocean.

Of saying goodbye.

I remember you, that day, at the airport. I kept counting the steps to you, to your face. Of whose countenace I had not behold for years; but there I was, clutching my nerves, walking to you just to say goodbye. I remember your surprise. I remember leaving you to your friends that night. And then I remember your eyes searching mine as you said thank you for coming to see me off. I remember the past coming back to choke me; of writing cryptic poems to each other, of nervous attempts to wear our hearts on our sleeves. I remember the things we left unsaid.
Then I remember you turning around and walking off and never looking back. I remember wondering if you ever would.

I remember running, that night. Looking for something I was not sure of.

In the palm of your hand

You got me like an oscilloscope reading of voices. Voices in my head, we go up and down like a rollercoaster. You got me like a turbulent plane ride on the way to nowhere and everywhere in particular. You got me like a crippled gymnast balancing on needles.

You got me.

If it’s true that we’re continuously changing, I don’t want you to miss the persons I’ve been in even one milisecond.

..and we have been reduced to making friends with a snail under the streetlight by the lake with neon echoing from the other side; resounding. Superficial life and artificial constellations hey!
(What are we chasing, really?)

The cloud looked like naked eye leukocytes trying to heal the wounds of a scratch the sky just acquired. (Gold dust was smeared instead of iodine I should think, given the flirtatious stars that winked in and out of observation)

Then we went to sleep because of our REM debts, because we are young, because we are restless.

& this morning sees my hand on my face, supporting the weight of the burden my head had decided to carry. My watch on my cheek, inches from my ear but the tick tick tick tick tick of the seconds cry like a countdown from each breath that is held as I wait for your reply on the phone.

Opah (grandmother)

When she smiles her crows' feet spread; deepen. Her face is unevenly patched with talcum sometimes, old with her age's worth of experience, mapped out like the sky. The lines are words, hinting the existence of secrets behind them. She speaks with her voice so slow, her walk so deliberate, her expressions so knowing. She touches your hand and your heart with her stories. And sometimes I don't understand her; but her conversation is like a dance; a waltz; she leads you with her eyes to smile back as she relates the story of a friend she used to know. Whose face she has forgotten.

And as she asks you if you have ever had any friend whose name you know but not her face; you guiltily nod. After a while you wonder if she wonders if you'll ever forget her. Because you wouldn't. Not her face with the uneven talcum patches. Not her voice so slow. Not her walk so deliberate. Not her expressions so knowing.

I have run out of stories to tell. & it has been going on for some time.

I don't know if I should feel worried.

And when the tears come pouring down, I can feel it - Allah in every breath.