Maktub

Lately, the blues and greens have been whispering strength into this soul. Yet, I feel a fresh and peculiar weakness. They speak of the veracity of death. Yet, I feel unsettled and insecure.

The hearts of birds. I hope for one.

Tired

This morning, I heard a baby myna chirping near my window. There were two adult mynas being all loud and melodious. I recognize one of them - the mother. Its nest is near the lift. The baby myna was on the grass. They were teaching the baby myna how to fly. Threw pieces of bread and the pigeons came, along with a crow who sized up its prey (baby myna), and approaching it slowly. It pulled the baby myna by its feet. The mother myna was surprisingly cool about it. I wasn't. I threw bigger pieces of bread for the crow. It took a big piece and flew away. The mother myna then took a piece of bread for its baby, but it used it to lure the baby up on the tree.

When I came back home this evening, the 3 mynas were still there. The baby hopped around. Saw it flapping its wings. Lifted itself up for a bit. Went down to give them bread. The mother myna took a piece in its mouth. It kept going near the baby with the bread, but then it will fly up to a branch to lure him up. Where will the baby sleep if it can't get up to a branch before dusk?

I wonder how these 3 mynas are feeling. They're loud. Happiness, excitement, worry, fear? They make various chirping sounds. Sounds when they get food, when communicating with one other, fending off other birds, grooming themselves. Lively. I heard a set of foreign chirps just now. Was looking at the big trees around the back carpark area. Saw 2 green birds with a long tail. Parrots, here?

It's difficult

Love to see the mother myna taking the bread and flying off to its nest.

I feel so defeated. I know this is my limit. There's only so much I can do when it comes to academics. I'll try better next time. Tawakal. These 3 consecutive days of exams will just be extremely unpleasant for me. The things that I've studied for just seem to.. disappear when I try to re-do it again. This is frustrating. I have never felt so nervous and hopeless like today for my exams, ever.

But thankfully I do see something good coming out of this.

- -

Just as I typed this, my dad told me he's sending my mum to the hospital.

Humans. Stop.

They are (excessively) cutting the branches of the trees in front of my window. The trees are not even tall or huge. Not posing a threat to nearby units or roads. I see butterflies flying near the ground. I saw a myna jumping around the fallen branches. What is it searching for?

Careless Whisper

Birds are beautiful creatures. The huge trees at Eunos MRT are home to many, especially the mynas. I've seen a couple of things lately. I saw 8 to 10 mynas gathering on a manhole pecking on the lid. It was after a drizzle in the morning but there wasn't any puddles on the lid, just some fallen withered flowers. Hmm. One afternoon while I was eating, there was a one-legged myna on top of a food stall at eunos. It swooped down to eat the leftovers on the table and pecked on the shell of some sambal prawn. It flew to another table to search for something more edible. It couldn't keep itself stable and kept slipping down beak first while pecking on the food. Then an old lady came and sat near my table. She took out tissue packets and sorted out some stuff in her plastic bag. She nonchalantly threw an empty tissue packet on the floor. A few seconds later she threw out another empty packet on the floor. Then she came to me asking if I wanted to buy tissues. I rather buy a meal for the myna. I have been having headaches every day this week. I'm stressed out with many things. It has been raining lately. That's good. Trees look better when it's cloudy and dark. I love to see the birds drinking water and bathing in the puddles. Yesterday, in the showers I watched a mosquito struggling for its life after getting caught on a spider web. The spider was on the web too, crawling slowly towards it. But it got away. The spider is still there today. I've been hearing the chirps of the blue kingfishers near my kitchen window. There is a crow enjoying the drizzle. It looks brave. And strong.

~

Yesterday was (:

A special song came up at an opportune moment.

I'm sitting on my kitchen chair in my room. Samurai's been sleeping on my computer chair beside me. I've been hearing a familiar baby myna's chirp. In fact I see him at the top of a tree. He's so high up. The cool wind is swaying the tree. I hope that's Jack.

Flash. Miracle. Strong.

FURASSHU! MIRAKURU! SUTORONGU!

Against the world

I have been imagining a small lake, surrounded by casuarinas and other trees with gentle-dull looking leaves. Crystal clear water. Shallow depth. Rocks and pebbles near the edge so that I can walk comfortably without any mud slowing me down.

I want it to be drizzling when I get there. Each droplet will be a reminder on its own. I need to see the lovely tiny worlds of greeneries submerged under clear rain puddles. The contrast of underwater green with dark brown soil is beautiful. Will there be tiny fish in those puddles?

I will climb a tree to see the fish in the lake and catch the sunset. I have always wanted to climb a tall tree. The wind will sway the trees and rock me gently to sleep.

I want to be there alone, to escape from myself.

Evil has been brewing in my heart.

I'm drained.

Pride Rock

The huge open field beside Masjid Alkaff is now being dug up and re-flattened. Its reddish soil aroma reminds me of something familiar though - Pusara aman? Sato kogyo bendemeer DTL drill? The building phase of Taman Pelangi at Johor? Mmm.

The evening was pretty. The wind lightened my breathing. The birds gave me company. The setting sun was subtly beautiful and modest enough to highlight the huge, semi-barren trees. Plenty of birds were foraging the reddish soil to have their end-of-day feast. The crows settled on the most barren tree. The mynas were doing their 'reporting my location & finding my pals' chirps. The swifts (or swallows) and pigeons were doing their common quiet things. I went up to a pair of white-and-teal-coloured kingfishers. They were 3 metres away. Lovely colours. While walking home, a handful of sparrows flew to a patch of grass beside me. It's the super fine natural grass that looks nice, and super fine. Did you know the normal blade of grass (not the super fine grass) is sharp enough to cut your fingertips?

Anyway, my cats have been lovely to me. I'm thankful.

All forms of knowledge except the knowledge of our own words and character.

Flight and Plight

I've been a little more attentive to the birds around my neighbourhood lately. A little more aware of the different sounds they make. What time they're active. The flock dynamics. Their respective nests. It's cool that a myna sticks with its partner and wander in pairs most of the time. That's nice.

Jack's still here with me. It should be his last day. Tried to release him twice though but somehow the crows circled my kitchen window when Jack was near, like they're waiting for their lunch. He only chirped for his parents during the first few days. He doesn't do that now even when the adult mynas are nearby. How will his parents find him if he keeps quiet? He can't fly that high and far yet. Or can he? He's following me everywhere I go around the house. He responds by his name and comes running after me when I call him. I think that's cute.

I've been constantly worried about him. Is he too warm? (Switched on the kitchen fan when I leave for school just for him). Is he thirsty? (There's no water in his cage because it'll be a big mess). How will he learn to fly when I release him today? Will he find his parents? But honestly I'm tired taking care of him, and I'm trying my best not to be too emotionally attached to it.

I care a little too much about the things beyond my control.

Jack

It's been more than 24 hours. Jack's doing well. I think he's happy. I hope he's happy. I'm placing him near the kitchen window now, and 2 adult mynas have been calling out to him. Jack's responding very actively with its own chirps. The chirp is a set of 3 to 4 consecutive chirps. I know he misses his parents, and his parents miss him as well. I'll find a way to get you back safely into your nest.

It eats and drinks from my hand. I was pacing around the house when it flew to me and perched itself on my shoulder. Jack is a good friend. My cats (especially Amy) accompanied it last night beside its cage. Jack likes to follow Amy around the house. I've been training it to fly by releasing it from a high place. It slept on my tummy this afternoon. It's nice to have the trust of a tiny creature.

Hang in there Jack.

Where's my old rubber slingshot?

It was an animal war scene. The crows preying on this injured baby myna after attacking its nest. The adult mynas doing flying karate kicks on the crows. AKs being fired left and right. Mines detonating everywhere.

Since it's my parents life-long dream to be a war veteran, my dad cooly told my mom to get in the crossfire. The process of R&E was conducted flawlessly by my mom. She walked with a limp straight into the red zone, like an injured general immune to life's bullets, (I wanted to type "like a cute mother penguin") with her eyes fixed on nothing but the helpless baby myna on the ground.

Now she's going to nurse it for a while. My cats and I are going to have an extra friend. She's feeding it with bread. My dad wants to name it Jack. They used to have 2 pet mynas named Nine and Ten. Hope I get to climb the small tree to return it to its nest.

As I'm writing this, I see a crow near my window ripping apart another baby myna. The raw meat looks like the $10 frozen boneless tenders at the supermarkets.

Well, now I'm questioning things again.

The night sky

An owl’s nest, if read properly, speaks to the health of a forest.

There are stars that lose their light after greeting death, permanently camouflaged in darkness as corpses made of colossal diamonds. What an ironic grandeur of insignificance (as consolation, astronomers nicknamed a space diamond Lucy after the song "Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds"). Maybe they are meant to remind us of insignificance or ignorance, or a combination of both. There are also heavy stars bagged with glorious struggle in their lives that burst into tiny miracles of apparent emptiness with nothing but faith in the Four Fundamental Forces for a new rebirth. Patience must be one of them. Then, there are also those that will just be a grand splendour of beautiful destruction and mystery.

Technically, if we point a blaming finger to an event or someone on Earth as we always do, we’ll be blaming the stars. We’ll be blaming the cosmic events spiralling to the point of our displeasure. Extend a finger and we’ll point to the Act of Creation – and that would be blaming God. Good heavens O celestial creations! Your astral garden marvels me. How can you embrace the flap of a cosmic butterfly and be patient in such deterministic chaos? Verily, you are in constant praise.

Scientifically and historically, we are made of stars, or at least we have the same elements as them. You can call someone a shining star. We do have our spiritual collapse against degeneracy pressure, our glorious outbursts and puzzling enigma – can’t see any difference there. All the same, except for the Divine injection of free will as our greatest blessing and test. Just like the stars, we are sensitive to pre-determined conditions too but with free will, we can choose to chew on what we create and what we destroy. Oh and I am choosing to clench my jaws right now. Because when it comes to choices, I’m being helplessly sundered to portion my trust generously in the heavens instead of mankind. Oddly enough, there is guilt in being a noble victim of the circumstance. Like false courage, the blessing of guilt takes a monstrous form in the dark. I trust my feelings. Thus before pride silences me, I declare that there is nothing noble in choosing to be weak when one is permitted to be strong. The world today fuels the unravelling secrets about dark matter. They deform our perception of cardiac constellations, making patience to believe what we see as more of an active choice. Gravitational lensing.

One thing I’ve grown to realise in better lenses is the shortness of time. Some things feel like eternity, but the untangling truth is, our lives are short. Credulous. Just a heedless judgement based on the complacency of our past. Perhaps it’s not about the struggle to find time. Perhaps it’s about internalising the things that matter about living and dying so that we will never be a stranger in the hands of time. Time finds you. There are meaningful ways to live life rightfully while still being wise and enjoying the beauty presented to us, especially the hidden ones. Similarly, like living and dying, time is painfully beautiful because it can delude us while still painting the truth.

Time deceives what the eyes perceive. Billions of people don’t know that we’re gazing back billions of years into the past up above. It’s beautiful isn’t it, I mean, the night sky. It is like a fabric woven together to coolly untie naive deceptions of what we ought to receive. The further you are from the stars, the further you’ll be dragged into the past. This delay in delivering what’s hidden has been promised. Thus purify the dark within us. The heavens receive what the heart conceives.

It is equally interesting to note the evident relationship of a star’s mass and its struggle – that too has been promised. I believe all tests are internal. A black hole’s involution is an albatross of its own being, collapsing into a personal gravity capable of pulling everything apart within its reach, including light. Interesting isn’t it. This immense greed for light becomes a pandemonium of emptiness to an outsider. Just a perpetual enigma of darkness, a cosmic trap of innocence and evil. Interesting, interesting, interesting! It is a lighthouse to those observing (one of the strongest signals in the universe) with an internal secrecy labelled as the greatest mystery of the universe. What gets expelled through the two polar jets? What deserves to be shown? What should be silenced? What ought to be removed completely? But the past, it will still be there, inscribed in the fabric of existence. Can it be compressed into singularity before disappearing completely, at least in our time? What gets transported away to another time and space?

Yeah, impractical pondering. Let’s hasten into the future. What about our future? Thinking about what’s ahead of us, and sometimes behind us, bring forth insecurity and restlessness. Fear. Or is it just me? I’m afraid of the future. But I do appreciate the nature of a story that can be written and read at the same time. I don’t know what the future and the past hold for me but the future in the past was different from what I experienced, just like how one gets involved in seeing beyond the centre of singularity. The future and the past are equally unpredictable in how they’ll hold on to you. Time is unique for each soul. I have to understand that. As I grow, I began to appreciate the future as much as I hold on to my past. But perhaps not at the moment. There are many things which I have to let go to ease myself into the future. It’s not easy having heavy sentiments weighing us down in the mind, heart and soul, time after time. Sometimes I get a random surge of energy while staring at something. I’ll get visions of myself shooting through space so fast that I feel practically still while having stars streaking past me. I shall learn to be still without imprisoning myself within my own visions and memories.

"There are worse prisons than words."

I feel like diving into a black hole. Yes. I want to avenge my lack of wisdom and patience to understand the truth about living, and dying, in the best humanly, virtuous way possible, and that is by plunging myself head first, with hands on my belly, or slightly above it, like how I choose to dream and escape. No not parallel to the direction I’m travelling, but with a tilt of 15 degrees, so that I don’t have to strain my neck while looking at where I’m going. And I’ll gather all my courage that have ever manifested since my existence to utter the sacred word “PATIENCE” in a composed, mellowed voice (with suppressed boiling hatred and anger).

Like the tormenting pull past the event horizon, a point of no escape, like fate itself, my distrust for anything unknown to me have been growing exponentially. I’ll crumble and get spewed out into the pain and insecurities of unsuspecting time and undetected spaces. Nevertheless, in the end, I have faith that these sentiments will lose their vigour and disappear from our mortal senses but not from our sanctuary of wisdom. I believe I am brave enough to come face to face with my own gravity. I’m going to hold my body with all my remaining soul and if all matters are ripped apart – even my own trust – I’ll face it like the weak man I am. I’ll battle in the reality that I wish to bend in my own world. And by God’s Grace and Mercy, and only if He permits me to, I will win.

I'm lost in patience. I hope the broken elements scattered across this void will become something.

Trust patience.