Short stories at 14

Short stories at 14

At the age of 14 my imagination was at its wildest – I created my very own Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. My story revolved around a rich teenage boy who falls in love with an ordinary girl in school.

He lives in an amazing mansion, drives a Mercedes SLK 230 to school, is part of a dangerous cult and is able to perform supernatural acts and decipher ancient scrolls. They share a few classes, sit together in History and go to the school dance together.

There are Elders in the cult who predict her arrival in his life, and as their relationship progresses, the girl begins to grow a tattoo on her back which gets stronger and stronger by the day. It starts to control her life and even tells her where to go.

She is occasionally made to drink his blood, and there occasional vampire sightings in the wood. His involvement in the cult begins to threaten their relationship, and she ends up dead in the snow, after escaping into the forest, her body surrounded by a pack wolves.

Occasional themes that appear in the story include nature, man and animal. There are slow walks in the forests, a drive in the countryside, mountains, rivers and picnics.

The teenager escapes to another country and pursues a quiet academic life. He ends up with a wife and a daughter, and is simply known to many in his new town as a man who was once “powerful, exceedingly beautiful and was deeply loved and highly favoured”.

 

Movies like music videos

One of the reasons I love Sofia Coppola is because she makes movies like they’re music videos. Her collaboration with AIR from The Virgin Suicides (1999) followed by Lost in Translation (2003), is the secret to the dream-like quality of her films.

What amazes me is how she manages to make a movie out of loneliness and sustain it for two hours. Tokyo, seen through the eyes of two very bored expats, is turned into a utopia amidst the quiet chaos of its central characters’ lives.

The city’s frenetic energy, with its kinks and quirks, is juxtaposed with the placid nature and boring lives of Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson).

And yet, Coppola makes us see Tokyo through their eyes… and so enticing it is.

 

Short stories at 11

It was so difficult getting myself to read the short (and mostly incomplete) stories I wrote as a child, because they are so bizarre and embarrassing. They include:

• A story about a boy called Timothy who left half his broken heart under a railway track, and when he tried to recover it, was knocked down by a train. This 15-year-old also had AIDS, smoked, took drugs and beat up his girlfriend Caerha.

• A story about a boy called Vinnie who works in Yellow-Mart after school, and goes to visit his girlfriend Natalie in her apartment after work. She finds out his true age (16 not 19), is angry with him, begs him to get off heroin and to move to Philadelphia with her.

• A story about a brother, Conrad, who loves to hunt but who loves his sister, Cassian even more. Set in the medieval ages, he gets drunk after a castle feast and beats her up, too.

• A story about a bunch of school kids in a science lab, who spill some chemicals during detention and see an apparition of a blue boy who eats glass and calls it “crispy”.

• A story inspired by the childhood of River Phoenix, in which “I” was Rain and River was my older brother. We travelled around South America in a caravan, busked for three years until we were broke and moved back to the United States.

 

10 days of Chinese New Year

Day 1: Arrive in Penang, kidney meatballs, lady’s fingers and home-made fish ball soup
Day 2: Driving my sister to work, coffee with my favourite aunt, running errands in town

Coffee and jam biscuits with my favourite aunt

Day 3: Reading at home, afternoon tea time alone, housework at night
Day 4: Washing the car, washing the dog, cinema trip with the family
Day 5: House chores, tea time with ex-schoolmates, reunion dinner, fireworks and a midnight drive up to Kek Lok Si

Bundles of vinyl along Campbell Street

Day 6: Lunch at home, afternoon at Grandpa’s, roaming the streets of Penang in search of its nightlife with my sister and a cousin
Day 7: Visiting a childhood friend, driving to Batu Gantong, reminiscing around Green Lane, having a McDonald’s, reading at home

Kampung life in northern Perak

Day 8: To Pengkalan Hulu, Temenggor dam, kolam air panas Ulu Legong
Day 9: To Klian Intan, Grik, Sik and a Thai “glass bottle” temple in Kedah
Day 10: Back to Singapore

 

Uncle Cecil’s library

There was once a secret corner
In a huge house in sunny Gelugor
It was Uncle Cecil’s library
You had to be careful as you tiptoed
Up the steep wooden steps
And your little fingers grasping
The cold iron railings
At the top of the winding stairs
You are rewarded with a secret corner
A big black chair
Amidst thousands of books
Lined up against the walls
Oh! To dream the hot afternoon away
On top of the world
Above the gossiping aunts
And the noisy cousins
The party’s up here.

 

Pulau Ubin

“the contents of these boats are yours too,
because i have returned.

i am no longer afraid of the oceans
or the differences between people,
no longer easily snared
by words or ideas.

the years at sea and in coastal states
have taught me to choose,
to accept only those tested by comparison,
or that which matches the words of my ancestors,
which returns me to my village
and its completeness.”

- Si Tenggang’s Homecoming
by Muhammad Haji Salleh

 

A serpent, a giraffe and Robert Pattinson

On Saturday night as I went to sleep very tired, I had a strange dream involving a serpent, a giraffe and Robert Pattinson.

I was sat at a school desk together with my colleague, and we were chatting away. Robert Pattinson was sat on an adjacent desk. His elbows were stretched out and his shoulders slumped like a lazy student in class.

Suddenly, I caught sight of my eldest sister and her little girl Zara. They were standing on the edge of an island, and a snake was running around their feet as they were screaming away.

Without warning, the snake turned into a huge serpent and tried to swallow my sister, her little girl and a giraffe. The three were in the serpent’s mouth and as they were screaming, it looked like they were on a rollercoaster ride.

Dreams can be so strange.

 

Books 2011

For all of 2008/2009, I read a total of 8 books. In 2010, I read 9 books (hurrah!). Last year in 2011, I read a whopping 28 books thanks to my non-existent social life when I first arrived in Singapore. For 2012, I do not aim to beat this record as my social life is back on track.

Books that I read in 2011:
1. Ripley’s Game by Patricia Highsmith (Jan)
2. Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris (Feb)
3. God, Sex and You by M.O. Vincent (Feb)
4. Short stories by Italo Calvino (Mar)
5. The Living Daylights by Ian Fleming (Mar)
6. The Colonizer and the Colonized by Albert Memmi (Mar)
7. The Hour That Changes the World by Dick Eastman (Apr)
8. Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane (Apr)
9. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (May)
10. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (May)
11. The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith (May)
12. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis (May)
13. The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis (May)
14. The Coma by Alex Garland (June)
15. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (July)
16. Seeing Ourselves; interpreting contemporary society by Stephen Platten (July)
17. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (July)
18. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Aug)
19. 1984 by George Orwell (Aug)
20. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Aug)
21. When Heaven Invades Earth by Bill Johnson (Sept)
22. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (Sept)
23. The Tale of the Body Thief by Anne Rice (Sept)
24. Aesop’s Fables (Oct)
25. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (Oct)
26. The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum (Oct)
27. Words of Revolution by Tom Skinner (Nov)
28. The Merlion and the Hibiscus by Dipika Mukherjee et al (Dec)

*My favourites highlighted in bold