Sentrosi's Advent :: Etrinoss

I want to make this a long post, I really do.

( Alas. )

I opened my eyes and he was upside down before me. Then I sat up and turned around.

Is there something on my face?

"No, but there was."

Then he calmly walked away.

An apt name, I feel. The points in our lives when we make decisions which will adversely affect the rest of our existence, the fallacy of post hoc notwithstanding.


Amazing what you can get out of a mug.

"Try telling them what they want to hear," he suggested. I wasn't sure what he meant by it, so I asked him.

How was I to know what they wanted to hear, anyway?

He laughed.

"Tell them what they want to hear."

And he wouldn't talk to me the rest of the day.

Hello, I said to him one morning. You look a little down.

And he did. He told me as much, not so much in the words than the tone

"Ten minutes. That's all I wanted. Ten minutes."

Another failed romancing? I was too polite to ask, but

"The poor bastard wouldn't even last five."

Then I saw the glint of the sun on the blood on the blade of the knife in the grip of his hand, and the sentence felt like it would never end

Why does this beautiful darkness torment me with its lover's embrace?

"You're scared," he told me matter-of-factly. "Scared of what might happen if you were to give in. Scared of losing--"

What? Scared of losing what? What do I possibly have to lose at this point?

"Nothing. And that's a lot."

I once told him I was being original.

"No, you're just a pariah without shame."

But... how many can claim to be like that? Surely there would be some uniqueness there.

"... You and every other pretentious philistine."

"Life is like standing at the edge of a cliff," he once told me. "Think jagged rocks at the bottom, seagulls flying across the interminable gulf..."

Why? Because of the dangerous beauty; because we live on the cusp of death?

"... No. But it's a damned convenient place to relieve yourself."

Because the concepts are too convenient.

... Jeans. Guns. Donuts.

Worn. Without an aim. A hole I long to fill.

... At what price?

... I'm sleepy. Ares won Fac Dance, so I'm happy. I told my parents I'm taking H2 Math, so they're happy. It works.

It's interesting having a week like this. I mean, other than the obvious invention that results of whether or not we can name every week after some particular theme that everyone might do their best to emulate (i.e. Campfire Song Week or Mass-Flagpoling Week)... which I might really suggest for a CT thing, if nothing else.

Pretty much it. Got my head stuck in the armhole today; wouldn't know if I'd call it one of the most interesting things to happen to me today, but it was something.

I discovered today just how false I must seem to those around me; playing false to myself, even, in the revulsion I have for hypocrisy; the immense discomfort I have being what I am. But if I have had a thousand different masks, put on at different times in my life, now, when the time comes when I'm to make a decision to take it all off, I find that there is nothing underneath.

And then of course is the indecision that plagues much of my life; the lack of confidence and inferiority that is probably the only constant I am sure of. I cannot choose one, but wear them all; awkwardly, with different masks poking out through the jumble as I move along the narrow walkway that is life. Some I'm forced to discard as the singular passage grows narrower; others I use once and then throw away, leaving the experience behind and marking it as decidedly unpleasant... but the remainder that is me, even now, is beginning to fall apart.

I just realized today how unprecedented my calling myself a "lazy bastard" in front of Ms. Khoo in what must've been our first lesson was, after reading the blog of one other member of our CT, and recalling words in a conversation Chan-chan and I had once had on a bus, and that got me thinking. It's a shallow thinking, not really the kind that deserves a mention, but it's a thinking nonetheless.

I can hardly keep my eyes open, and I've no idea why. Well, I do, really, but it's not one I can understand from any objective point of view; college life has been fun; admittedly, tiring, but nothing that I might link to the fatigue I feel now; I've kept hours far longer than these in high school, so the duration can't really be the problem.

I guess the issue, as with sleep, is how much you get out of each hour. And while I don't remember my dreams, I know for a fact that there were dreams; one reason, I guess, why the sleep I have has been less than satisfactory. In a way, I believe this lethargy might be a sign as to how much more fulfilling college life is... although well; I guess given my record in Secondary School, that particular criteria is not one especially difficult to maintain.

I spent most of today trying to be sad.

It's no point being hyper all the time when you don't actually feel any of it, deep inside. The main problem I have is that I can't elicit any emotions from deep within myself without a catalyst.

One like Narcissu, I guess.

How does one be properly considerate? You'd think it'd be easy to tell, but I've very little idea of how much of one's life one ought to spend devoted to others. To be completely selfless, even at one's own expense? As much as I'm loath to admit it, Economics makes sense when it talks about its rationalization of human behaviour; only the truly irrational (i.e. insane) will devote all their life to helping others; Shirou Emiya, I guess, is one such fool.

I've always found the iris a beautiful flower, but its meaning was something I only bothered checking up on after watching the anime Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna. It is a flower which represents faith, or, in the words of Narumi Kiyotaka, the fortune (or blessings) of the believers.

Found my kite today. If I get any free periods at the same time as Shu Yan, I guess tomorrow will be kite-flying day in school. Should work, given the windiness of the school compound (and no, I'm not talking about the stretching corridors, although I guess that works, too). But perhaps it'd be better to start everything with a brief summary of what's happened in yet another of my (obligatory) livejournal posts.

I can see why having a closed mind would be appealing to most of us; the definite realities which surround us are the only ones we can truly embrace, for the fleeting glimpses of the infinite and the infinitesimal are too abstract for them to be of any but the vaguest comfort to us. To open oneself to everything is to invite a plethora of insecurities and hypocrisies to come crashing through on all sides, sundering what little peace one might derive from being in such an (presumably) elevated position. Given the transience of human life - indeed, of existence in general - there is little one might hope to achieve from the embracing of chaos over the well-ordered-ness of things which humans seem to crave. This craving is evident enough in the way we shun barbarity for civilization; abandon the survival of the fittest in the wild, and instead adopt a survival of the corpulent in the boardrooms.

Do you see that picture up there beside this post? That's a cat. Do you know why I have a picture of a cat up there? No you don't. Do you want to though? Yes you do. That cat's not just any cat; it's Shiro, one of the two cats who live under my block... except Kuro's moved out (to a neighbouring block), so Shiro's alone downstairs. For a stray, though, it's rather well-fed and lazy... and very much people-friendly. It's the affectionate animals like Shiro that make me want to have a pet of my own... but, well; responsibility isn't exactly one of my core traits.