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Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Wednesday, April 08, 2009
"MY ATTEMPT AT WRITING A SHORT STORY"

Wilson woke up one morning and realized that all his friends were into writing short stories. The straw that broke his lumpy back was an email from the sixth friend – this was Gerald, though his name is unimportant as he will not be mentioned for a second time – sending him a manuscript and asking him for feedback. 

He thought to himself - and did so while sitting in what should be a poignant thinking posture except that on him it just looked comical – and thought about the words “He thought to himself”. 

“Oh my sunshine,” his brain exclaimed. “There’s a redundancy in the line ‘He thought to himself’. Clearly you can’t think to anyone else.” Wilson smiled.

Feeling awfully clever, he turned on his computer and started writing a short story. He even had the audacity to call it “My attempt at writing a short story”. 

And so Wilson wrote all morning, skipped lunch and wrote all afternoon and was about to consider pulling off a grand cracking romantic tortured writer’s move  by skipping dinner as well when the smell of fried chicken made him consider otherwise.

I’ll just have some chicken and continue after dinner. 

He didn’t save.

Halfway through his fifth piece of chicken, a thunderstorm struck. The trees outside his house – in fact, outside his room – were creaking in the wind. Rain at eight thirty was followed by hail at nine. Lightning bolts crashed through the roofs of two houses on his street, setting fire to the houses and lawns and their trees too. Their trees fell. One landed on their dog’s kennel, but the dog was not inside. Another fell on a stranger’s car, which already had a ticket anyway, which can be a good or bad thing, depending on how one sees these things. 

One of the lightning-struck houses was inhabited by Indonesian factory workers. They were the object of hate and disgust by their racist middle-classed neighbours, and those neighbours watched on as three men from that house ran out with fire on their heads. Another one lay in the living room, apparently dead. 

While all these things happened, Wilson continued to eat fried chicken at his dining table. Five pieces soon became nine pieces. He was about to begin eating his tenth when the front door fell in and a truck drove into the living room. Not being the kind of truck that stopped at the sight of a television set and a four-seater sofa, the mighty behemoth razed through the entire ground floor of Wilson’s house. The living room, the store room, the common bathroom and the maid’s room were all ploughed through.

This time, Wilson would not be oblivious. 

“A truck!”, he exclaimed. 

And then, without much logic, Wilson was reminded of his unfinished – and unsaved –short story sitting on his computer upstairs. 

“I shall go and finish it”, he thought, evidently now to himself, to himself. 

And so he did. He lumbered up the stairs, got back into his room and plonked himself back onto his computer table where he would spend the next two hours finishing his short story. And all the while, carnage ensued outside his house.  Fire trucks had arrived and three doors up the road, two elderly women had died of supposed natural causes. The hailstorm had receded but it had already left two firemen injured and the entire road’s cars smashed in. 

Wilson wrote his last line. 

He liked his last line a lot. He kept reading it. And reading it. And reading it. What an awesome line. 

Then he saved the file. And he attached it to an email.

And bypassing all his six fellow-competing friends, Wilson sent in his short story for competition without so much as a second draft. 

He lost. 

And his ego, like his town, had to be rebuilt from scratch again.

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Genusfrog [ 5:26 pm ] | 0 comments

Friday, September 19, 2008
THE DESERT JOURNAL: TRAINWRECK

It felt like one of Calvino's train stations. Those neon lit stations that remind you of some indecipherable past. The train is unspectacular. I sit alone in a cabin. I get the feeling that I'm a long way from the front.

It doesn't matter.

The spectacular happens anyway. The train careens off the tracks into a desert. It keeps travelling, without a railroad beneath it. This goes on for days.

All day outside my cabin window, all I see is dust. I wait for hours to see some sky. At one point, I imagine the desert as a narrow strip, like a beach. A narrow strip of sand, animal bones, buried treasure and pale yellow shrubbery.

After a few days, I forget where I had been headed to. Perhaps it was a terminal in the city. A crowded station where the teenagers slept on the benches and the turnstiles believed they were the cogs that moved the city.

Perhaps there was nobody at the station.

As it turns out, there was no station. The train lumbers to a stop with its first two cabins submerged in a gaping hole where desert sand used to be. People took photographs. They took turns to take photographs. They smile and show peace signs to the cameras. One of them put his hand on the wreck and gave a thumbs up to the pointed camera, believing as it clearly did, that the train was some relic.

When a train wrecks, nobody remembers where it was going. People only remember where it fell over. They arrive with their keen senses of journalism. And they report.

This is not my report. This is my port.

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Genusfrog [ 12:02 pm ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, December 15, 2004
POKER WITH THE DEVIL 5/6

Eight of spades.

He's got the queen of diamonds. The devil throws in another forty dollar chip and I go in. He deals the next card.

I get six. He gets the queen of clubs.

Now, I'm thinking about his jokes about the queen of hearts. Did he really have it or was it all a big show? So far, I've got nothing. He could already have three queens.

(now, if you ever play poker with friends, and you don't get any dramatic hands even after a few weeks, it's not because you're not lucky. It's just that the devil has a penchant of spicing things up.)

One more bet. Eighty more from each in the pot. He gets a two, and that annoys him somewhat. I, on the other hand, get a four.

Last card. A hundred and sixty more in the pot. I can tell he's dying to raise and reraise, but I'm not opening the bets, he is. That annoys him even more. Now, listen to this: it's the last card. He gets his third queen, the queen of spades. Now, I'm thinking that I'm done for, because if he has that queen of hearts in his hand, that's all four ladies. He talked about her. He's always talking about her. Making rude jokes about her. And now, he's got all three other queens. Why would he do that? Talk about her?

Then my card comes gliding in. A five. Is that my money card? 4568. I'm wearing a face like I have no faith in the world but in my heart, I'm grinning from ventrical to ventrical. I look up and the devil's got his eyes on my cards.

"Your grandfather had that hand!" he speaks up. It is only now that I realise how quiet the whole game has been. It's never like that. He's always talking about one incoherent thing or another. "Yes, he had that very same hand. His five was a spade but the rest were just like that." He looks at me and grins. "How intriguing!"

What was his pocket?

He bursts out laughing. I cringe inside - a mistake.

"You can't seriously be asking that, can you?" he settles down in his laughter, shaking his head from side to side. "I've told you, your kind really depress me. You should have seen his face".

I've lost all mood to talk. I've almost lost all mood to play as well. I have a good mind to get up and leave, if not for the five hundred and sixty in the pot. I know my grandfather lost, he lost it all. He probably had a pocket two. Or three. Something miserable and useless. At any case, he never got his seven.

"But for you, my old friend", the devil starts, "I'll let you in on it. Actually, before I tell you what he had, let me first say that your father asked me that same question. I didn't like him. Pompous old man. But I like you. So I'm going to tell you what your grandfather had in his pocket.

I don't really want to know anymore. It doesn't matter.

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Genusfrog [ 7:09 pm ] | 0 comments

Monday, December 13, 2004
POKER WITH THE DEVIL 4/6

My turn.

I exchange a portion of that money for a thousand dollars worth of chips. I'm sitting there, across the table from the devil. He's got his eyes closed. He starts sniffing the air in front of his face and starts talking.

"I know you. Always folding though you've got the king"

Then he opens his eyes and sees me. A regular. A regular loser. I almost feel like telling him I know him back: always full of jack. But I stop myself.

"You play a twenty-forty game," he looks for a twenty dollar chip from the city of chips before him. And plops it onto the middle of the table.

"No," I say. "Double the blinds."

The devil looks up, as if caught by surprise for a fraction of time, and then he breaks into the biggest smile ever. "All the more for me, then!", as he plops in another twenty without looking.

I put in my starting bet and he hands me the deck of cards to be cut. There are two things you should know when you play poker with the devil. One, always insist on a fresh deck. I've seen men play away all their chips on 51-card decks. Two, always insist on cutting the deck. He shuffles funny.

So I cut the deck. And he deals me my pocket. As the card glides from his end of the table before me and stops just where it should, I think about the thin man and I look up. There the devil was, turning his pocket card, mulling over it and making rude comments about queen of hearts. He does that all the time. He's dealing, so I'm opening the bets. I put my left hand on the table, next to the card. I put my right hand on top of my chips and I wait for him to quit acting like an idiot. Eventually, he stops playing around with his pocket card, puts it back faced down and notices that I haven't touched mine.

"Not about to sniff your queen?"

I'm not listening to him today. He's always making rude jokes about the queens. And in my head, I keep trying to think of the thin man but for some reason, nothing is coming into my head. I try to imagine his face, but no face comes to mind. So I start to think of the man who came in and played no-limit poker. I have no idea what he looks like, I don't even have proof that he exists - except for the fact that the devil before me has nothing to his name.

I pick up a forty dollar chip and toss it on the table. I have not seen my pocket. The devil lets out a big sigh and shakes his head.

"Another one of his disciples..." he starts to grin really big again. "You fellows depress me. Just ten minutes ago, this man comes up to me and decides to do it like you're doing it. He had six hundred with him. Spent it all in one hand. Reraising and reraising. Lost it all! Six hundred. One hand! It was so depressing. His pocket was nothing he expected." Now, his big grin is a big chuckle. "You should have seen his face. You depress me".

"At least he had six hundred. You've had nothing for years,"

And for the first time, the devil's fraction-of-time surprise takes a bit longer in recovery.

"Just deal me my card."

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Genusfrog [ 11:37 pm ] | 0 comments

Sunday, December 12, 2004
POKER WITH THE DEVIL 3/6

A year later, when I started to consider borrowing money to keep playing poker, I met the thin man again. We were waiting for the table to clear. So I say to him, "Mister, that first time you came in here, and you set him back thirty thousand in five hands. How did you do that?" And he says to me, "Son, do you not know that the devil is bankrupt?"

I'd forgotten about that. I told the thin man I wasn't sure. "That thirty thousand doesn't belong to him. Some of it belongs to a cousin of mine, some of it belongs to my brother-in-law, and some of it belongs to you". He pulls out a roll of dollar bills. "Fourteen thousand. It's all you've ever lost since you were ten". He puts it in my hand. "You never should have lost it".

I was confused. What do you mean I never should have lost it? The thin man says to me, "Son, the devil is bankrupt. He has no right to play with you. But somehow his licence to keep this joint open keeps getting renewed".

So, none of us should be playing with him?

"All these guys, what do they know? They play poker with the devil to enrich themselves. Your grandfather, he did that didn't he?"

Yes. I think he did. So, it's not ok to play poker with the devil to enrich yourself?

"Son, if I have to tell you one more time that the devil is bankrupt, and has no ability to enrich anybody, I'm gonna first have to slap you across the face".

I was was struck by a strange fear, so I decided to think to myself while the thin man got caught in a conversation with someone else. One, the devil is bankrupt. Two, it's wrong to play poker with him to enrich yourself. Then I remembered the roll of fourteen thousand dollars in my hand.

"Mister," I tapped on the back of the thin man. "I lost this fair and square. I'm really thankful I got it back, but technically... isn't it unfair?"

"Son," and I don't know why he keeps calling me that, but he says, "do you know how the devil got bankrupt?"

"Yes. A man came in one day and played no-limit poker with him. And won everything."

"Do you know if the devil has paid up this debt?"

I wasn't sure. So I didn't say anything at first. Then, I remembered a neighbour of mine, who went bankrupt when I was a child. He lost his shop, his house and all his possessions. Even his wife left him, but I know that doesn't count. He couldn't have a title to his name.

"He hasn't paid up his debt." I answered, like a schoolboy. "If he did, he would no longer be bankrupt".

So the thin man says to me, "This fourteen thousand in your hand. All these 22 years, who owned it?"

Not me. I lost it. I lost it to the devil.

(But he cannot have a title to his name!)

"Son, wise up. The devil is incapable of ownership. It goes against his nature, ever since that man walked in and played no-limit poker and won it all. This we know. That fourteen thousand dollars has been withheld from you."

Withheld from me?

"It didn't belong to him. He just withheld it from you. You allowed him to take it, so he took it. You allowed him to hold it, so he withheld it. As for me, I play to claim back what he has withheld."

I thought about that. The thin man was really good at poker. He never had to open his pocket cards! How could he have anything to claim. Then, again I remembered the fourteen thousand rolled up in my hand. And more of it belonged to his brother-in-law.

"I'm up next, son," he says, patting me on the shoulder as struts up.

Wait. Wait. "You get up here every night," I start. "You never open your pocket. You never lose. How do you do that?"

The thin man, he turns back just as he is getting pumped up to take the table. And he is standing about five feet from me already, but all of a sudden, he is holding me by the shoulders, and his head is pressed against the side of mine. And he speaks into my ear, saying, "One, don't ever play to enrich yourself. Two, know that the devil is bankrupt. Three, play by faith and you will get the cards."

Faith in what? I was trembling. I didn't need to tremble but I was trembling.

"Faith that once, a man walked in here and played no-limit poker. And bankrupted the devil".

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Genusfrog [ 6:56 pm ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, December 08, 2004
POKER WITH THE DEVIL 2/6

So, I kept on playing till I was 21. Around that time, I started hearing stories of this guy who played no-limit poker with the devil. I thought, no-limit poker? With the devil? You must be kidding me! How much did he lose? My friends told me he won everything. That somewhere along the line, he bankrupted the devil. I didn't think much about it, but after a while, the story about the devil being bankrupt started getting around. I started to think that maybe it was true. But still, he kept on winning. Every night, rows of men would file into his den and play cards with him. All of them would lose. The devil can't be bankrupt, I thought. He's like the casino. Every night, he wins. Every night, he's paying you with another man's money.

At the start of the hand, when you get your first card, the pocket card, some people don't look at it immediately. Some will eye their opponent, trying to intimidate them. I've seen men stare each other down for minutes before either took a glance at their card. Others like to steal quick looks. I've seen some perform rituals that involved every totem in the world. One day, a bad day, I decided to stay back and watch some guys play. I had to learn from somebody, or else, I was gonna end up like my father and my grandfather before him. Broke, in my 20s.

The guy who took over the table played a 100-200 game. He was extremely thin, so I'll call him the thin man. But 100-200, that's a lot of money. It was like, the first anyone had seen of him. And this, this I'll always remember. The devil hands the deck to the thin man to be cut. So he cuts the deck. The devil deals the first hand. And the thin man doesn't look at the card. He's playing blind! He just looks back at the devil and pops a hundred dollar chip on the table. All of us thought, "A madman. He's gonna be dried up under ten hands. Playing 100-200, no less! And every time he threw in another chip, I secretly expected him to peek at his pocket card but he kept it faced down. Didn't even want to touch it. His left hand was placed on the table, his right hand on top of his chips. Like he couldn't wait to pop another piece into the pot.

What happens is, when the devil lets people hang around to watch him play, you don't get to stand right up there and see the cards. Everyone stands a few feet from the table. All you see is where the money goes. But we could all see what the thin man wasn't doing: he wasn't looking at his pocket card. So, as the first hand draws to a close, there's a thousand four hundred in bets, plus two hundred in starting bets. All the cards are dealt. Still, the thin man has not peeked at his pocket card. He throws in another two hundred dollars to see the devil's hand. The devil follows in. Two thousand dollars on the table. They pop open their pocket cards and none of us can see what's going on. Actually, no. All of us can see what's going on. The devil smashes his fist on the table, and starts cursing at the thin man. Every curse in the book, in every language.

We all laughed! I don't ever remember anyone laughing in that place, but everyone, all the guys like me who lost, we all started laughing and cheering on the thin man. For some reason, the devil allowed us to keep hanging around. I think he wanted to show us he could turn it around. He couldn't. In five hands, the he lost close to thirty thousand; the bulk of which came in the last hand, when the devil and the thin man kept raising and reraising each other. It was crazy. After that, they closed up for the day. No one else got to play until the den reopened a week from that night.

That was the longest I ever went without playing poker with the devil.

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Genusfrog [ 7:20 pm ] | 0 comments

POKER WITH THE DEVIL 1/6

I'm gonna go ahead and do this before the poll results come in conclusively. always being a self-conscious blog, i have been aware that this place has seen more narratives about my criminal exploits and whatnot than that of a struggling christian. i disappoint myself sometimes that this blog veers to very worldly themes for long stretches.

on top of that, i've been finding it hard to put together well thought out, cohesive and properly written blogs of late. so, as you'll know, this place has been patchy at best in its updates. i'm thinking that if there's something new to read - regular blog or not - it's better than nothing! right?

now i've never been very protective over my prose/fiction. maybe it's because i never fancied myself a fiction writer and so i'm quite loose with showing them around. besides, i could always do with feedback.

so i'm gonna post a short story i wrote called Poker With The Devil, which one might find more faith-inclined than a lot of the rubbish i stash on here in the name of human interest. the piece will be divided into 6 parts. here's the first. enjoy.


POKER WITH THE DEVIL


Every day, I sit down and play poker with the devil. I don't really like it, but I don't have a choice. I remember playing poker with him since I was ten. I used to play with five cent chips, now I play a twenty-forty game. But I still play with limit. It's hard to play no-limit poker, especially with the devil.

I play with him because a long time ago, my grandfather used to play with him. My grandfather played poker with the devil every day. And every day, he would lose. Yet, the thing about my grandfather is that the more he lost the more he went back in to play. He lost everything. My father made some money on his own and went back in to play with the devil as well. He lost everything. His brothers, they went off and studied their poker. They lost everything. All their wives would keep saying, poker is a lying man's game. Of all people, don't play it with the devil.

I remember being brought to the devil's den. All my uncles and aunties and my dad would go there. For some reason, the women never went in. They would see their husbands off at the door and go home. I don't think women weren't allowed inside because there were always a lot of women inside. I don't remember them playing cards with anyone, but they were always there, drinking and talking among themselves. I used to go in. Like I said, I've been playing since I was ten.

The first time I played, I lost the first ten, maybe twenty hands. Then, I won a couple of times, and then came this hand that I remember till this day. I had open kings, and the devil had open jacks. I put in my five cent bet, and the devil saw it, then raised it. At that age, I saw no reason for losing the hand. I had the stronger pair and another five cents to be won. Besides, I was on a roll. Three wins in three. Then, against the custom of things, an uncle standing behind me started hissing softly, "he has another jack, he has another jack". I looked at my pocket - no third king. "He always has another jack".

Someone must have removed that uncle of mine. At any case, I folded. The devil didn't have another jack. I lost. I should have been going home with a brave victory, but I folded like the child I was. To what? To a six of clubs. He didn't have to show it to me, but he did. Until this day, I don't know why he revealed that six of clubs, cos you and I both know, you don't reveal your bluff card if you don't have to. I used to think he did it to make me feel stupid. Nowadays, I think maybe God compelled him to.

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Genusfrog [ 2:44 am ] | 0 comments