Mr. Darcy: So this is your opinion of me. Thank you for explaining so fully. Perhaps these offences might have been overlooked had not your pride been hurt by my honesty…
Elizabeth Bennet: My pride?
Mr. Darcy: …in admitting scruples about our relationship. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your circumstances?
Elizabeth Bennet: And those are the words of a gentleman. From the first moment I met you, your arrogance and conceit, your selfish disdain for the feelings of others made me realize that you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry.
[they look at each other for a long time as though about to kiss]
Mr. Darcy: Forgive me, madam, for taking up so much of your time.

Nope, in case you’re wondering, I’ve never read Pride and Prejudice. Which I should.

But that’s not the point. The point is, lately I’ve been rejecting the advances of a self-acclaimed multimillionaire casanova on Facebook. I would usually relish in any form of attention given to me, opposite sex or otherwise, but this prick happened to get on my nerves. He changes his women like toilet paper: take a dump with a whole roll of them, and flush them down the toilet bowl after wiping his ass with it. To be seen together with him? I’d rather die.

But then, he started offering money. Plain, hard, cold, cash; in return for a date. And ever since I had to extend my studies by another semester, no thanks to killjoy MMU, coupled with the fact that my loan has expired, I’m pretty short on money, as of now. Which got me thinking, what will it take to set aside your wounded pride and just take the money?

Pride? You have none. You’re the black sheep of the family; the sooner you graduate, the better. All of your friends are working already.

Your parents? They won’t have to know about this. You’ll just tell them that this was the last loan.

Your boyfriend? He’ll surely understand. It’s not like you’re selling your body or anything, just a goddamn date. You’ve been to movies with your male friends before. Or maybe he can watch over you from a distance.

Dignity. Aaaah, yes. That was it. Everyone lives by a set of principles, mine is: money is not an aphrodisiac; take what you can, but don’t live by it. I have a pair of hands, and  with them I shape my own future, but I will not sink to the level of whores and sluts. I will not.

*****

She, who loved her little baby so much. Oh, look at you, my sweet lil’ clumsy baby. Come to Mama. He looks up at her, with those tiny bright eyes, and pecked. She shudders and heaved out his breakfast. Eat well.

*****

She staggers to the shore. A little farther. She slumps, facing the sky, and the sound of the waves roaring in her ears. Just a little farther. A little rest. She closed her eyes… the clouds are like a beautiful pair of white wings, like an angel’s… Red lips…

Her eyes snapped open. Was it a dream? I saw it!!!  The red flashed across the sky again.

“THAT’S IT! I FOUND IT! I FOUND IT!!!” She knew nothing more.

*****

When she regained consciousness, a seagull was lying by her side, unconscious. Why? She wondered briefly. But then she saw it. The most beautiful, the most sensual, the most vivid red. The other reds paled in comparison to this.

As if in a trance, she picked up her scalpel, and scraped out the red into her test tube that she always carried around. Just like blood. Without quite knowing why, she whispers: “I’m sorry…”

*****

She flew across the ocean, headed for the sunset. My sweet baby must be hungry. That’s when she saw something white lying on the sandy beach. A dead fish? She turned around to get a closer look.

All of a sudden, it let out a terrible cry, a cry that tore through her heart, and she knew no more.

She woke up much later. My sweet baby must be hungry! She took off towards the reddening sunset. Red, like blood.

She saw those tiny bright eyes, looking at her hungrily. Sweet baby, Mama’s home. She moved closer. Those tiny bright eyes looked coldly away from her. What’s wrong? Aren’t you hungry? Peck at me, like you always do. Those tiny bright eyes ignored her and stared hungrily at the reddening sunset.

*****

She felt like a dead person being brought back to life again. I found it. Carefully, she took the tube to her laboratory, and closed the doors.

Days later, those doors opened. Out came a trembling, withered hand, clutching a tube containing a beautiful, sensual, vivid red ointment. I… did … it.

*****

Many days have passed. She was desperate, and her stomach is churning, threatening to overflow. Those tiny bright eyes still ignored her, and stared hungrily at the sun.

Look at me! Look at me! I’m your Mama! She’s anxious to know what is wrong with her sweet little baby, and did not seem to have noticed that the red spot on her beak was gone.

Those tiny bright eyes looked hungrily at the setting sun. The red spot that is never going to come.

Don’t you recognize me anymore? She tried to force the food down on him. His beak remained shut. The half-digested food trickled down his tiny little neck. Without pecking at the red spot, he is never going to eat anything.

She grieved. He doesn’t recognize me anymore!

*****

She sat on her wheelchair, and smiled shyly at the flashing cameras. I’m a legend! She quietly applied the red ointment onto the pouting lips of the models. It was like a dream: the flashes of light, the thundering claps, the sweet scent of flowers. The models smiled, displaying those beautiful, those sensual, those vivid red lips of theirs.

This is the colour of life.

But it came with a price, she mused, as she sat in her wheelchair and stared at what used to be her legs.

***

Those tiny bright eyes are still staring hungrily at the reddening sunset; each peck at the air grew weaker.

The sun sets. Darkness falls. One last peck, and those tiny bright eyes never opened again. She closed her eyes too.

She died, not knowing that her red spot was gone.

Her baby died waiting for the red spot that was never going to come.

*****

The sun sets. All of a sudden, everything went dark. Those beautiful, sensual, vivid red, were gone.

This is the colour of life. She now understood.

Fin

Random fact:

Gulls are typically medium to large birds, usually grey or white, often with black markings on the head or wings. A noticeable trait would be the red spot at the tip of it’s beak. The baby gull would peck on it, and then reaches it’s head inside the mother’s beak to feed on her half-digested liquidized food.

Translated from Bing Po, ‘Red as Blood‘.

I must say, I have my father as my role model too, but for a completely different reason. He’s there to remind of my mother’s mistakes, and the epitome of a failed human being, mentally challenged, and incapable of reasonable thinking.

Which father uses his own son to threaten his wife, hurting her, and telling her that both of them thinks she’s a sickening person and they longed for her to be gone?

Which father, instead of understanding his wife’s PMS, tells her to shut the fuck up and mind her own business in whatever he’s doing?

Which father, instead of spending money on proper investments which is beneficial to his own family, emptied his entire bank’s savings on a mushroom plantation (his friend gets more than half share of profit), and fishing equipments and never goes on a fishing trip?

Which father, instead of spending money on his children, gave his friend’s children pocket money?

Which father rushes to the other family’s side on the moment a phonecall arrives?

Which father sends OTHER PEOPLE’s children to the airport, but not his own son to KL?

Which father chooses special, meaningful holidays, to spend time with ANOTHER FAMILY, instead of his own?

Which father chooses Valentine’s to send another family’s son to Sabah, instead of spending it and try to mend his already strained relationship with his wife?

Which father tells his own children that he don’t give a damn about his own family anymore, and that the other family appreciates him more?

Which father is so blind to realise that this family loved him for the man he was since 20 years ago, but that other family loved him for the money he provided them since 2 months ago?

That, readers, is my father, my role model.

Take your friends for example. Do you really think you know them well? Do you have absolute trust and faith in them? Do you think the world of them?

Many would disagree with me, but I do. Or used to do. I mean, I still would, if not for what happened yesterday.

I was at a christmas party one of them organized, and I spent almost the entire past week preparing their christmas present, and even went to the extent of spending an entire night (till 4am) preparing it, and on the day of the party itself, I brought my guy to look for a suitable present for them, suggested a cookie since it’s an all-time favorite (let’s pretend for a moment that my guy actually hangs out with them 24/7 and knows exactly what they’d like – spoiler: he doesn’t), spend almost 3 hours getting caught in a christmas jam to pick up a darned cake, only to arrive exactly on time, which was 6pm, waited 45 minutes for the gracious host to arrive before I decided that we were already running late for another party.

So I did what I could do the most to make the situation work: I went to both parties, drove like mad all across a jam-packed Melaka town to both very-conveniently-far-apart-from-each-other places, to hang out with my friends.

Now, there’re 2 kinds of friends here: on one side, it’s people I’ve known half-a-year, the HiVElings; and on the other hand, it’s people I’ve known half my life, my so-called real friends. And guess who stood me up?

When it was time to exchange presents, though it was something small, I still received a hearty thanks for my present from the HiVElings; but the present which I spent so much effort on my real friends, well, the result was, to put it simply, stunning.

I thought I’d do something nice  by getting creative and making a notebook / jokebook, but when it was unwrapped, the person who received it read the entire thing out loud in this monotonous, bored voice; and the rest of my friends went like, “woooooooooooow this is sooooooooooooooo funny. Har har har.” That, I can handle.

But what really hurt me was when they unwrapped my boyfriend’s present, and literally threw it back to me, and demanded what the hell is it, and when I explained it was obviously a cookie, they told me that he will not be invited to the next party and told me to take the cookie back.

I was speechless. I really was. All of these, coming from the people I’ve known since Form 1 / 2, 7++ years of friendship are worth nothing compared to expensive shampoo, expensive cups.

A plain old cookie, and a lame self-made notebook. Yep, they were right. These are incomparable to real presents bought by real money. And since I’m so poor, what am I doing hanging out with these kind of people amirite?

Here I am, voluntarily begged to tag along on a random tourney trip to Little Akiba, hoping to pick up some WS tips, maybe play a couple game or two with other players…

and then here I am again, lashing out at my poor guy who just did us proud by emerging the winner, for something as small as not keeping me company.

Not only did I not  congratulate him on his winnings, I sulked, moped, snapped, ignored, and basically everything else that I can possibly do to make him feel as depressed as hell, which I succeeded, and now, not surprisingly, I brought this on myself.

I want to apologize, but I don’t know how without sounding like I’m just apologizing to get it over with. All I can hope for is everything will be better tomorrow…

Sometimes I just wonder,

If I had chosen to remain single and unattached, would that make my life less complicated? I had never seriously thought about this before, but I suppose everyone would think likewise. Someday.

I had about enough. Imagine being sick the whole day, with a throat that feels like a sandy volleyball, and a throbbing headache that makes your head feel like splitting.

And then imagine going to sleep for a bit, and I dunno, maybe overslept for a couple hours.

And then, imagine waking up, asking your guy if he wants to have dinner before you go to your 8pm class. Imagine asking him repeatedly, ever since 5.15pm, all the way to 6.30pm. And when he’s finally done, it started raining. ALL the way till 7.30pm.

That would be tolerable, I think, if the reason for the delay was anything, but him playing a game that’s been played non-stop since last night.

And then, imagine jokingly putting up a facebook status which goes along something like this: ” Touhou > dinner with gf.” I mean, anybody with a reasonable mind would of course take that as a fucking joke, right?

But no. Instead of laughing, he turns to you and say, “so what, I wait for you while you sleep is fine lah?”

That would be a reasonable retort. Except that

1. He was in a class the whole time, and probably went back to take a shit and a shower. He didn’t stay by his sick girlfriend side for 4 hours.

2. As mentioned previously, sick girlfriend.

Tell me, if you had been sick the entire day, and you finally wake up, wait for your guy to finish playing a stinking game that can probably be saved (I dunno) or paused (I don’t fucking know either), and he had the nerve to say that he’d been waiting for you to wake up, and that you’re supposed to wait for him to finish a game, would you feel insulted? Pissed? MAD?

Yes, that’s precisely how I feel. I had about enough of this shit.

Couple days ago, after returning from an awesome Karaoke-outing with my friends, like fate always had in store for me, my hype disappeared almost instantly when I saw that every. single. fucking. rubbish. that was scattered all over the tables and the floors, were dumped on my bed.

Also, there’s a note on my table, which basically describes how a parent had found out I was using swear words on Facebook, and threatened to stop her kid’s tuition.

I had mixed feelings as to this, to be honest.

1. How the fuck did that parent get hold of my Facebook status updates?

2. What the fuck does this had to do with stopping her kid’s tuition?

3. HOW THE FUCK did that parent get hold of my Facebook status updates?

I asked my brother what did he think of the note. And surprisingly, he gave me a pretty plausible answer: that letter was nothing but a bullshit attempt to stop me from “playing” Facebook. Almost at once, everything fell into place. I was mad for no fucking reason. Or more appropriately, I was mad for the wrong fucking reason. I thought I was doing my mum justice, but no, everything was just a fucking lie.

Before I could fully digest this, my beloved uncle sent me a Facebook PM, saying, “Hey, I’ve never scolded you before, but what you’re doing is an embarassment to everyone. Stop doing it.”

That sentence hurt me more deeply than mum’s note. He was my favorite Uncle. He was supposed to understand how I felt. But no, I’m an embarassment. Ever since I missed an “A” in my UPSR, I’ve been nothing but a fucking joke, a fucking source of embarassment, the fucking black sheep of the family. And my parents took hold of every opportunity to remind me relentlessly.

“Hey, XOX’s daughter got a JPA for getting Straight A’s. How I wish I have a daughter like her.”

“Hey, XXX’s son got a scholarship in the US, how proud his parents must have been!”

Yes. I fucking get it. Everyone just wished I was never born, alright? I fucking get it already.

I wish I won’t wake up tomorrow. I wish I can just die. I wish I was never born.

From what I could gather, as I sat quietly upstairs eavesdropping while folding clothes, he had apparently deposited RM 250 worth of coins (?) at a bank, suddenly remembered that he had left something important at home, and asked a ‘chinese girl’ to hold on to his money while he dash home to get that something.

Needless to say, he never saw his money again.

As I cringe at their shouting match, I was depressed. I don’t know why, but I think it’s my fault that all of these are happening. If only I had gotten back earlier yesterday, he would not probably have been so distracted. She would probably been in a better mood and forgiven him for that stupid mistake. I’d probably be a happy girl studying for her Torts Examination in her room, right now, instead of writing some emo shit.

I can’t believe we pulled it through, despite the fact that the secretary and Assistant Director quitted, elected a new Secretary and Assistant Director who also quitted (a week before the event, mind you -edit: OK I can’t really remember when was it, but it was pretty close to the event), leaving the original secretary and Assistant Director no choice but to help out at the otherwise, pretty much fucked event.

Yet, despite all that, the event was a success. Why? Not because we’re comforting ourselves, not because we’re resolutely denying the facts, but because the attendees are telling that to our very faces that we rocked, and they loved us. Yes. Fuck yes.

But all of the happiness aside, I was actually pretty disappointed at certain people who just gave up a week / two before the actual event. It’s not like I don’t understand how they felt. What, zero sponsorship, Director too stressed to do anything, only a fistful of committees left, no venue, basically, no NOTHING. Yeah, that’s pretty shocking, but come on, if you have the intention of quitting, please do it earlier, and not so close to the event itself.

I won’t be mentioning any names here, but whoever it is, you know who you are, and I hope you’re aware that not only me, but practically everyone feels the same way about you guys, and we hope that in the future, you won’t do the same thing to us again, because, to be frank, it’s really irresponsible, and it’s called D-E-S-E-R-T-I-N-G your friends / co-workers / colleagues or whatever.

All unhappiness aside, the ‘fistful’ of committees left were fucking awesome. I’ve never seen such hard-working and dedicated people in my life, seriously. A few bad eggs here and there, but the majority of good eggs are of significant larger value than the bad eggs. (Yes, I’m one of the bad eggs, thank god)

Special appreciation to Maylin, Shinyi, and 2 other girls who helped out at the information counter: you girls were awesome and know what you’re doing, unlike me who spends half the time snoring away T.T

Last but not least, Navin, I hate you forever for not allowing me to enjoy the last GACC. Bye.

My brother was telling me of what happened in the hospital late last night. While they were taking care of my sick grandmother, a new patient came in at 4am-ish, and she was only a young girl, approximately my brother’s age.

Having nothing better to do, both my mum and my brother eavesdropped on the conversation between that girl’s father and her, and it went something like this: “你看啦你，酱子就给你花了我几百千块给你住医院，为什么你跑去做这种傻事？为什么不跟我商量好？你的孩子又不是讲我不可以跟你照顾啦。。。”

(Direct translation: You see lah you, like that let me waste a few thousand bucks let you stay hospital, why you do something so stupid? Why no tell me? Your kid not say I cannot take care for you…)

Apparently what happened was, the girl got pregnant, somehow, and was afraid to tell her parents the truth, and tried to kill herself. Upon hearing this, I stood in awe. Despite hearing news like this all over the place, it’s pretty unnerving to learn about this yourself for once, and not through the newspaper. In fact, I don’t doubt this would be in the newspaper tomorrow.

Also, it got me thinking: What would happen, if I really got pregnant now, before completing my studies, before getting married, before getting a steady job? It wasn’t a pleasant thought, and I’d be more than pleased to just discard this right away.