Romance In The Tropics

Assalamualaikum.

Home-Bound

Quoting a dear friend, during one last long dash of conversation that helped to kill time (and quench the rindu) in the long watch of night, as I waited for daybreak to leave for the airport.
"Nak update blog malas, tengok anime ada masa pulak."

True to the statement, I've spent about ninety minutes reading the aforesaid anime-stuff (yes, I love to read and research anything watchable that I found engaging) in this cyber-cafe before I finally pushed myself to do some writing. I'm an easily obsessed feline.

Ridiculous though it may sound, I'm currently out of reach by almost everyone who knew me in the UK. The phone line - and with it, the Internet - is unavailable, thanks to repeated successful attempts of cable thievery. These creative sods. Meanwhile, my new Malaysia phone number is also known to almost nobody, since I did not bother to record anyone's phone number earlier. In a way, such a state of inaccessibility is almost blissful. No one being able to reach me instantly (and hand over a bulk of responsibilities to add to the existing pile). No one knows my whereabouts or my doings. I feel the romance of the self-exiled, seeking salvation in the wooded mountains, where grey-white fogs, dark green forests and chirping birds (with the occasional tigers) are company.

And now, I'm seeking contact with the uncivilised modernity, via the vessels of a cyber cafe in the heart of Metropolitan Kuala Krai.

Traveling from Manchester back to Kampung Lepan Pauh was as eventful as every day is. Pulling an all-nighter for fear of missing the nine a.m. flight, then simply collapsing on the six-hour journey to Doha - waking up occasionally to savour the food given and then drifting off to sleep again before I realised it with the food half-bitten. In Doha I had paid for the luxury of a transit lounge, and spent time - guess it - watching anime. There were several memorable moments of playing along to the advances of an airport staff. I guess he was tired enough to be deluded into thinking that a young girl sitting alone in the computer chamber oblivious to her surroundings is attractive ('beautiful' in fact.. uhu). I'll confine the rest of the events to memory, though.

Plus about 100 minutes of watching Garfield (oh I fell in love with Sir Roland), I ate and slept my way through the Doha-Kuala Lumpur flight. Arriving in KLIA - getting lost, typically, in finding my way out of the baggage claim arena - buy new SIM card - get KLIA Transit to KL Sentral - somehow arrive in Hentian Putra - buy bus ticket for the night journey home - collapse in the surau. Praise be to Allah who never left me alone, I was awakened by a concerned lady (who might've considered that there is a high possibility of that zonked out girl spread out on the floor next to her waking up with the Subuh adhan). It turned out that she had truly rescued me. In addition to the time then was barely one hour to the bus departure, the lady also somehow let me realize that my phone clock was also almost half and hour late. In other words, if Allah hadn't sent the graceful lady (who left almost before I was fully sober), I would've missed the bus.

I got home. Home to screaming brothers and sisters, same-as-before parents, and the unending supply of cartoon TV shows. As I said to my younger brother, I've had enough of real life dramas, I want to watch cartoons, cartoons, nothing but cartoons.

In case you haven't noticed, throughout the long journey home - that spanned almost two whole days - I didn't even once mention any pursuit of bookish pleasures. In simpler words, I did not read anything. Other than The Observer that I bought in Manchester Airport, flipped through the food and cookery section, and bequeathed it to the pocket of the seat in front of me in the QR042 plane to Doha. Truly, several days of constant heavy-weight(both literally and figuratively meant) motion has drained me. Completely. Packing up, moving my things, carrying various loads with various weights (mostly heavy) to various distances and various heights, going shopping for souvenirs, last-minute traveling, watching anime (ops), have left me mentally and physically drained that by the time I'm setting off to Malaysia, I was functioning on auxiliary power, so to speak. There simply wasn't enough 'concentration energy' and 'creative energy' to read or write, and what little remains were used to listen to music and staring into whatever it is within my field of vision.

Rare, but wonderful feeling of floaty detachment.

Perhaps you've guessed it. I didn't really write to prove any point. I just write because I loved doing it. =)


Truth and Promises

The blog hasn't been decently updated for a fairly long time, and the next available time for me to do it is not really fathomable. So I'll write some more. (As if I have thirsty fans waiting to savour the water-and-fire from my fingertips. That will happen though, insyaAllah, sooner or later. Do I sound like Naruto wanting to become Hokage, anyone?)

Ashes of Time is a movie directed by the legendary auteur Wong Kar-wai. In the last scenes, there was Maggie Cheung - her character was that of a lost love who lost her love (figure it out yourself) - lamenting her sad life as her beautiful features were washed golden by the sunset.

Pity was it that the clip wasn't found in Youtube, or I would've linked it here. In short, it was something along this line.

"Did you tell him that I was waiting for him?"
"No. You told me not to."
"Why were you so truthful?" The pain and melancholy in her quiet eyes surpass those expressed by hearty weeps and sobs.

When a person tells another to not tell the other something, do they really mean it, or do they secretly harbour wishes that the matter would somehow reach the third person anyway? (Such things often happened in movies and dramas - call anything a secret and it'll eventually be known to everyone it's supposed to be kept secret from.)

Is it a burden of honor to keep silent no matter what, or is it more honorable, more compassionate, more humane to let it leak? Or would the latter choice seem to be disrespectful to the first person's wishes, deeming the first person incapable of making his or her own decisions without being self-destructive?


........

My head is starting to throb, and I still have some serious work to do. I'll have to conclude it here.

As usual a few works of literature are underway, and I can't believe that I'm actually contemplating to write something that could classify as a fanfic.

I wish the person for whom these words are meant to would read them.

I was a loner, and to a certain extent, still am. I'm afraid of bonds, for I'm afraid of the pain I'll get when they were severed - and I've suffered countless times from it. Nevertheless, from time to time, I allow those bonds to form, and I allow myself to be dedicated to it. In fact, it is this kind of dedication that leads to the hurt - I love and hate with equal measure, equal intensity.

Trust is a big issue with me. Let's not talk about betrayals, though. Suffice it to say, this proud soul within me won't tolerate anyone who doesn't trust me. You don't trust me, then I can't be bothered to trust you or expect anything other than ordinary acquaintance with you.

However life has a funny way of challenging personalities and stands, almost before one realized it. For once I realized that I don't care whether you trust me the way I do towards you or not. The necessity of mutual, equivalent trust suddenly dissipated. Only one thing mattered - as long as you trusted me enough to unveil what little concern that you have to me, as long as I don't feel that I have to 'become somebody else' when I'm with you, then things between us had never changed. Your concern to my safety and security, and mine towards yours - albeit in different contexts - were enough to remind me that we were friends, still are, and would always be, Allah willing.

I won't put myself on a platter, grovelling at your feet, asking you to proclaim trust for me when you don't. If you don't.

I don't need you to proclaim it. Even completely independent of trust, love can exist. In our case, the latter is prevailing, and the former is still there, however minute. We're friends, through and through. Right?

=)

meow~