Musings on things within my experience and beyond. A graveyard of passion (ie. unfinished works). And a lot of people I hate. I'll probably post some of my art here too.
Based on the ALA’s Banned & Challenged Classics list, which can be found here: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics
1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
10. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
11. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
12. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
13. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
14. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
15. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
16. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
17. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
18. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
19. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
20. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
21. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
22. Native Son, by Richard Wright
23. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
24. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
25. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
26. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
27. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
28. All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
29. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
30. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
31. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
32. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
33. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
34. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
35. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
36. Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
37. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
38. Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
39. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
40. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
41. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
42. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
The scarlet sunlight pierced the vast darkness of Istanbul’s morning sky.The tops of Bosphorus waves reflected the orange light to glaring white, while the troughs kept deep pockets of azure that bobbed up and down with the choppy current. To the west, bathed in black and gold, there stood the jutting shop-houses of Beyoglu, piled atop one another. Like children they circled Galata Tower, a sequoia of medieval stone, laced in arches, supporting a glowing spire. Eons ago, the sea must have torn this land asunder and whipped its icy tail into a bay knowing that it would be blessed as a cornucopia of the near east, The Golden Horn. It blared its trumpet to the east, where the Bosphorus mingled with the sea of Marmara.
The melodic call to prayer rang simultaneously throughout the mosques of Uskudar. Centuries ago, wandering merchants must have stood in wonder as they beheld the silhouettes of a thousand domes and minarets, at the final destination of the silk road. The trade ships still cruised down the Golden Horn-no longer with billowing sails, but with a trail of cumulus smoke dragged back by the wind that followed tankers on their voyage. Separated by the bay and the ships from the younger Beyoglu were the old boundaries of Constantinople. In the heart of the old town, a church and a mosque face each other in an eternal standoff.The church of Saint Wisdom had a grey, bulging dome, nestled staunchly on its stone throne reflecting the Blue Mosque standing in front of it. They could have been brothers but were split by a gap that spanned across the limestone tiles of the plaza, as well as time and faith. Behind the church, a fairytale castle rests on the top of the hill that slides gradually into the sea.
Follow that curve and you would meet the point where sea and land meet, where craggy outcrops fought on the frontlines in their endless battle against the sea. The effusion of sea salt flew as high and free as the cawing seagulls, black curves against the sun. The waves clashed and churned, sinking into the crevices. The stray cats, pumas in this miniature mountain range, weaved in and out. Next to the rocky shore, lay an empty road greeted only with the passing of a truck, or the high speed chases of mongrels. Their coal black eyes narrowed at each other, framed by wrinkled snouts. Mehmet the conqueror posed in bronze on a pedestal of limestone, one hand on his sword and the other on a globe. Did he have the same narrowed, determined eyes, shadowed by his sagging turban, when his army blasted through the walls of Constantinople?
Next to the road, half-sunken in the ground, lay ruins of a wall. Over the years it had been reduced to piles of dusty ochre brick, arranged in arches that span for broken miles, segments scattered and collapsed. Rubble and gravel lined their sunken caverns. Imagine when he was whole. Imagine when he rose from the earth and amazed meager men as it looked down on us as we look down on it today. When his sides were whitewashed and guards stood at his top, firearms at their ready. But of course they must have been there. They must have known what was coming. Mutiny. Guns. Blood. Marching up the hill, the high hats of the rebel Janissary soldiers numbered in thousands, inflamed as the torches they carried in the third hour of the early morning, loaded with rage as their own muskets were. Their footsteps must have thundered to the rhythm of the war drums that commanded the might of the old Ottoman Empire: relays of gunshots slinging back and forth, bullets disappearing into smoke and bodies, cries that both grieved and rebelled. In the end, the wall was drenched in the smell of soot, dappled with flecks of blood.The Janissaries fell, just as the sultan commanded. They littered their corpses on the grass that was once there. For how does it dare to grow when it knows the atrocities that it feeds on?
To this day, the dead grass prefers to be concealed in tarmac. The wall too has washed the blood and soot off his body with time and decay. He hides in the solace of the earth, but the wall knows he can never extinguish that moment from memory. At least it might be eradicated by the disremembering of history. How forgetful are its writers and inheritors! No one alive mourns their slaughter. Mistakes from then are made again. The wall knows for he sees it again. This time he has the safety of distance, the Bosphorus serving as his own barrier. There, across the straits, the same drive of rebellion roared as it did almost two hundred years ago. But in the tear gas clouds in Taksim Square.
The traveller had done what he always done. He walked. What had he seen? Who had he met? If he were to answer those questions he would never say the truth, well, the whole truth, anyways. No one ever could, for the day he reached a village could have been a month before or after, and no one could face a hundred armed bandits on the road, might have been ten but it doesn't make an exciting title for an epic ballad. Memory and time are the most difficult things to recollect, though, if you were to ask how long and far had he travelled, he had forgotten, but if you were to ask how long had he been away from home or where he came from, he could not. There was one thing he was certain, it was the now, he knew he could be no far from the edge of the Steppes.
The traveller felt the ground beneath him churn. The taupe brown sludge had become his manacles, dragging him to the soil with each struggling trudge of his mud-caked boots. Though earth had taken him, he knew he did not belong to it, for his eyes were field and his hair the sun. The green field of swaying chartreuse grass that the summer haze lit aflame with gold. The yellow sun, a great glare in west, in a sky stained with tangerine and magenta. The air was scentless, breathless. The leather of his coat had been bleached by the light, the fur lining drenched in sweat. He heaved his sack over his broad shoulder, spending a moment to try to balance himself on his shifting limbs. He drew his lips in, his brow furrowed, sweat that had drizzled down to his parched,thin lips, was fresh with a draining intrusion of salt on his tongue. Behind him, he had left a trough of grass, a mere incision in the unmarred expanse of paddy field. The silhouette of falcon soared high, circling him, crying to the cloudless sky. They faded, into blotches of blue, red and green. Was it the haze or his narrowed eyes that were failing his vision? Was the world always out of focus, such a swirling cascade of colors and light? He saw his shadow, a blurred, grey phantom, resting on one side on the grass. It was as if the shadow had tired from the journey, that for now all it desired was to lay on his side forever, untouched and undisturbed. Within a few minutes, the traveller had joined his companion.
They were rumored to belong to Hawa, one of the earliest and most brutal of the Marksman. She had an unbreakable faith in the Marksman’s pledge. It was said she transcended time and space, which made her immortal. Often would she play five stones, when waiting for a marked, it is, after all, a game that hones the reflexes and rewards the quick. In each stone, she stores the memory of her assassinations and clues to the final truth.
The haze had drawn a veil across the rainforest, hanging heavily over the mottled tree trunks and branches overhead. The sky was glare of pale fluorescent light, the crimson sun that bled like ink on the rice paper. Mala looked around, her eyes smarting, her nostrils filled with dust and smoke. She adjusted her footing, the ferns under her feet writhed like crocodile tails. Then, the sky burned amber, she heard a crackle from above as if the air was about to boil and rupture.
The rainforest was slowly drained of colour, reduced into nothing but shadows. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a glint of silver surging towards her. Mala fell to her back, her hands scrambling behind her. The blade lurched at her again. Frantically, she grabbed a fallen log to shield herself. The blade pierced through.
“Is that all you’ve got? You haven’t forgotten who you are, have you?”
Mala threw the log to the side with the rope dart sticking out from it. She reached into her pocket and brought out a small torch. “Well, I know you,” She flicked the switch, and it illuminated her attacker’s face. It was unmistakably Haytham Nasser, his dark eyes squinted, his curls of black hair standing straight up, the chestnut complexion. “You can stop trying to be dramatic.”
“You don’t seem to understand, love. This isn’t a friendly reunion.” There was gravity to his tone, Mala backed away. He drew out a knife.
“I wasn’t counting on that.” Mala kicked her leg to tackle him. He stood his ground and slashed her ankles. She grinded her teeth.
“Pathetic. I expected more,” Mala growled back at him, grabbed his arm and sunk the knife into his shoulder. He yelled and pushed her off. As he clenched his right shoulder, Mala watched the blood seeped out. Her own blood had soaked the leaves around her ankles as she struggled to get back on her feet.
“What? You’re not going to finish me off? Is that all you brought me here for?”
“I didn’t bring you here. As a Marksman and a Vanguard, you and I are drawn here. The Haze calls to all of us.”
“I thought this place was a myth.”
“It’s a myth we both know. The more who believe, the more it becomes a reality. And here in this myth, I intend to become a legend. Can’t have you getting in my way. Why should I need to waste any more energy with you when I can let the beasts have you? They have a taste for defenseless Marksman.”
He disappeared into the night.
Mala woke to leaves bristling against her face.
“Oh! How, now? She only wakes in the night!” an old woman squawked, slapping a bundle of leaves against Mala’s face, “Fumbling and mumbling like a babe.”
“What are you doing to me, old witch?” she looked down at her clothes, she was wearing a shirt and a short sarong, her ankles were bandaged but her feet had swelled.
“A rite to cast haughty spirits aside
A rite to aid your harsh toils in this dream.”
“Are you a Marksman or an enemy?”
The woman pointed to rafters, shrunken head bobbed sided to side. “Marksman, I was, before the curtain opened
Before the paths grew rough and intertwined.”
Mala stayed silent, she didn’t have time to dissect her words. Her grudge against Haytham was as raw as the slits on her ankles. She knew the Vanguard was up to something, and it was her duty to stop them.
“I must get going.”
“Leave the old soul behind, here with the witch.
Take the child who never walked in the wild.”
With one of her hands she placed a keris in Mala’s palm. With the other, she pressed a knucklebone into the girl’s palm. She flinched as she felt the sharp edges dig into her skin. The haze seemed to creep into the long house, and then all at once the smog flooded it. Mala coughed, her fists clenched onto the knucklebone and dagger. The wind whipped, blowing icy currents at her way. She heard the chime of a great clock tower. She saw its pale marked face in the distance, hands locked at midnight.
She turned around. A single gas light lap stood in behind her, drunken sailors singing sea shanties stumbled across the cobblestone road. To her surprise she saw three Malays, sitting at the corner of an opium den. Mala limped towards them, leaning against the adjacent wall. They were playing five stones. One had just begun her turn; her right hand launched a knucklebone into the air while she picked up all the others like lightning. Mala had played with her little sister once, but she couldn’t admit to being quite as dexterous.
A man stepped out of the den. He was an Englishman dressed in a black tailcoat and welded a walking cane. His face was as white as a lily petal, with grey eyes and dark locks that framed his slender face. But Mala saw something else. He was marked, without a doubt. She could sense it; behind that plastic face was beast, with a heartbeat that pounded like a wild animal on the prowl. Mala braced behind the wall, she braced herself for the kill. She had to land a solid strike; in this state there was no way she could run. As the man walked past, one of the Malays stood up and trailed the Englishman. Mala lowered her knife. The Malay turned to her, and brought her fingers to her lips.
She seized the man in a headlock, and grabbed his mouth with her free hand. In one fell swoop, she stomped on his legs. His knees bucked and he fell with a crack onto the cobblestone. He could only muffle in response, and his eyelids spoke with a wealth of expression. The women leaned into his ear and whispered, “You’ve begun to hear it haven’t you? The drops of rain…”
The street dissolved. Mala was back in the long house, sweating from the sudden rush of tropical heat.
“I want nothing to do this, headhunter. Just show me how to get out of the Haze.”
“Full fathom five thy mother lies
In five stones done by her hand
In five lives by her hand undone
For not even the sea can wash away
The sea that shifts and fades.”
“So, I carry the first. Will they bring me back?”
“Aye, they will bring you back from whence you came.”
The old woman uncovered a woven basket with straps and brought out an old katana.
“May this sword and the possessions within
Bring you luck where it’s old master had none.”
“Thank you.”
Mala stepped out of the long house, unsure of where she was heading next.
Bin is a high school drop out who lives on the second floor of a Chinese shop house in a fictional Kuala Lumpur. It’s the timeless tale of girl meets Satan (although she prefers to call him Lucy) where they try to apprehend an AWOL demon, while failing miserably to postpone the apocalypse.
Part the First
Chapter 1
“I am he who is loved and is not known.”
Bin pondered on that note stuck on her windowsill. She wasn’t the type who had stalkers.
Crouching on her rattan stool, she scratched the back of her head, causing the hair bun at the top her head to loosen and bob side to side. Her eyes diverted to the rotten floorboards. That's what you get for renting a room in one of the oldest corners of the city centre. Yet, she found the dodgy neighbourhood refreshingly authentic, especially from the top floor room in a dilapidated two-storey Chinese shop house. Its colonial facade, tarnished with mottled grey, had a rattan store nestled at the bottom, a cavern filled with strings of ochre fibres, pulled taunt, weaved into shapes and forms of all sorts.
Bin liked the old gangly rattan man; he was a dying breed, with his blotched, weathered face and wide frown. Best of all she liked his rent prices. It didn't take much for one to discern the real estate value, from the termite-ridden door to the ceiling colony of geckos that splattered to the ground as soon as the monorail overhead grumbled past. The cracked pastel-pink walls and rickety wooden floorboards that leaned to one side made this place seem like a cross between a haunted mansion and a carnival funhouse. Her choice of furnishings didn't help, she bought a rattan chair from the man downstairs, and book piles occupied nearly all of the remaining space on the floor. The ceiling fan chopped overhead like cyclic guillotine.
She rubbed her face, pushing her glasses up. Her sinus kicked in again. Her squinted eyes wandered back to the note. She blinked, focusing her small eyes on the piece of paper. She must have missed out the words the last time because now it read:
“On man I have founded my fiery empire”
She rubbed her temples and moaned, but her gaze kept returning to it. Bin took a deep breath and sighed. It seemed like a Lit major was trying to text flirt but failing miserably. She stood up to pick up the note, the smooth paper sliding into her coarse fingers.
The words ran down the paper like wet ink. Bin flicked the paper across the room but the ink had already crept onto her nails, converging at her hand. They stained the wrinkles of her palm, like black veins. Frantically, she rubbed her hand against her shirt. No trace of it was left, not even on her white blouse with a barong face printed on it.
She drew in a deep breath and folded her legs on the floor, mentally reciting her mantra for moments like these. Calm the fuck down. Calm the fuck down.
✕
Later, Bin went to the night market. The naked flames crackled. A fire dancer tossed his torches in the neon lit night; his sweat-drenched body glistened against the spinning flames. The street was lined with plastic sheet roofs shopkeepers chattered indistinctly many languages. A ring of spectators had gathered around him, tourists and locals alike, eager to consume the spectacle.
Bin was among them. She was reminded of Hamlet's words on man:
"In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god."
Then, the fire dancer did the unthinkable. He brought all his torches together and stuffed them down his pants. Gasps and popping eyes locked on his crotch. A Malay man exclaimed, "Ya Allah" in disbelief. The flames extinguished in his jeans. Bin giggled, wondering whether the “quintessence of dust” was the ash in his loins.
As the applause simmered down, and the crowds dispersed, so did Bin. She bumped into a white tourist. He was so lanky that Bin was sure she could have toppled him with a push, despite being half his height. He wore skinny jeans and a black shirt. A black and white scarf was draped loosely around his neck. He had a hawk nose and thick wavy black hair covered his ears.
"Sorry," Bin mumbled, keeping her head down. She was about to slip away when the man commented, "That was a cheap trick.”
“You can do better mah?" Bin asked, forcing herself to be amiable.
"I spend a lot of time around open flames."
A bloody pyromaniac. Why did she always end up with the weirdos? Her mouth twitched from the strain of holding back a wince. She had to make her escape quickly. Perhaps she'd say something like her parents were looking for her. It wouldn't be a complete lie since she refused to answer their calls. But mum, always the paranoid, she had stuck a tracker on her phone. Half-truths and lies were the better of sins.
"You've got to lie to yourself with more conviction, Bin."
Bin stared at the man blankly.
"I take it you saw the note."
"Oh, thought that was a prank."
"Who pranks like that in this side of town? Never mind. So will you hear what I have to say?"
"Ummmm...”
"Hurry up, I can't be waiting till Judgement Day."
"Urmnmm..."Bin turned and ran.
"Mortals," she could hear him mutter.
Bin sprinted through the corridor of stalls. She pushed past the sweaty crowd. The current of people kept pushing her back, but she managed to weave around, into the five foot way. She stopped at a makmak shop.
"Teh tarik, kurang manis.” she wheezed in her broken Malay, slamming her hands at the countertop. The Indian man at the cashier hollered to the kitchen in rhythmic Tamil. Bin pulled out a plastic chair and collapsed into it. If he dared set foot here, she would know. A white man stands out in a place like this. He wouldn't be able come near here without an entourage of locals taking selfies with him.
A glass mug, filled to the brim with thick milk tea, slammed onto the table. Bin snatched it greedily, chugging it down. The waiter took a seat. Bin spat out a fountain. It was him: the emo hawk-nosed pyromaniac. "That was impolite.”
Bin shot up and bolted. She ran through the five-foot way, hurdling over the crates scattered along it. As she ran the road opened wider, engulfed by motorbikes and cars. The rustic shop houses faded into skyscrapers that shimmered in the city lights. Bin made a sharp turn into a Chinese temple nestled between two colossal buildings. The fumes from the traffic jam turned into wisps of incense smoke, ribbons that wrapped around the crimson red temple. Bin took a step in.
She was confronted by rows of burning incense. The goddess's statue seemed to rise from smoke, with her flowing robes, plump oblong face. She had small, slanted eyes Bin herself possessed. That were the similarities ended, Bin had a mess of black hair and was spotted from her head to toe, that trait had given the girl her name, Bintik, the spotted one.
The goddess statue held her gaze. Her ustaza had never been fond of statues, or "filthy idols" as she referred to them. Bin could not ignore their power, to bring people to marvel at them and contemplate. There were at least two things ustaza and the 'idolterers' could agree on: faith, belief. Bin wished she had any of them.
"You can’t keep running," the voice came from behind her. She didn't bother turn around. Her hands clenched into fists.
"What you want?"
He sounded like he was swallowing his words, "I need your help."
✕
She brought him to her room in the Chinese shop house. Bin sat on her rattan stool, the man sat on her book pile of existential philosophers.
"Nice place by the way. Never felt so comfortable with Nietzsche and Schopenhauer on my ass."
Bin sighed, looks like another cultured, elitist asshole, "Is it something illegal?"
"Nope. But something bad? Yes."
"Why should I trust you then?"
He chuckled to himself, “I’m the last person you should trust. Let me make this crystal. You're not some chosen one. You're just convenient. As soon as you get inconvenient, you will be—”
"Cut to pieces and dissolved in a vat of acid?"
"With sprinkles on top."
"What choice do I have then?”
"I'm all for choice and free will. The man upstairs? Not so much."
"I don't believe in God."
"That's one attribute that makes you convenient."
"And?"
"And there's your history—"
"How do you know that?" Bin growled; her bun had become dishevelled over the course of the conversation. "No sins escape me." Bin gave him a death stare. She crossed her arms and legs, turning away from him.
"You still haven't said what you want me to do."
"For now, a place to stay. Later, some muscle.”
Bin took the opportunity to kick him out, "Go and ask the mat rempek." Bin pulled the man by the collar and pushed him towards the door. "They should be having dinner," she checked her watch, “right about now across the street." She managed to shove him out of her door by now. Before she could shut the door, he pressed his hand against it, leaning his body weight onto the door. Bin suddenly felt small, like a stray cat cornered into a cage.
"Will you really turn me down?"
"You may know what I did but it doesn't mean you know me. I'm different from back then."
"Yeah, I've noticed you've got this whole hippie Buddha thing going on. The irony of it is that you're more of a Kali."
"The Goddess of War? Does it look like I decapitate and drink the blood men?”
“Just boys.”
“Sorry, I don't take lifestyle advice from a teenaged emo hipster."
"Sensible call. By the way," He pushed the door wide open, Bin jumped back, "I still need a place to stay.”
Bin groaned. Too tired to argue, she complied, nodding her head drowsily, "Fine, but don't expect me to get involved."
"Where will I be sleeping?"
"I guess I'll have to clear out the piles of world mythology over there so you can sleep on the floor-" Bin turned around to find the man snuggled on her mattress in his boxers. Bin placed her hands on her hips and frowned.
"Don't worry, there's still some space,” he said as he tugged the blanket for himself.
"Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Satan, the Devil—take your pick. I guess you could call me Lucifer too. Hmmm…it feels strange to say it."
This kid was just plain FUBAR. Bin concocted some Freudian diagnoses for him involving some strange fundamentalist relations. Bin decided the best course of action that required less effort was to simply play along.
"Lucifer sounds too pretentious. I'll just call you Lucy."
"If you say so. At least, it isn’t a place you put rubbish in." He promptly dozed off. Bin massaged her temples, and recited her mantra to prepare herself for a long night. She caught sight of a piece of paper on the floor, wondering why she kept it:
St. Jerome’s College
Senior School Report
December 2019
Name: Bintik
Year: 12
Subject Achievement
English A
Mathematics B
Physics B
Malay C
Mandarin C
History A
Head of House Comment:
Bintik’s indiscretions are a concern. This term has not been an easy one for her and she has had a rather tempestuous time. It was sad that Bin was unable to complete her Michaelmas term.
The open-air food court was hot with the scent of curry leaves, turmeric, and sweat. Three generations of a Malay family occupied the centre, their family tree deconstructed along the stretch of a table. Some office workers on their lunch break sat across them, with all the diversity of a 1-Malaysia advert. There were even wayward backpackers, pink from the equatorial heat, seeking authenticity on their expedition of navigating through the concrete jungle. The Indian waiters dashed up and down, their aluminium canteen trays lined along the entire length of their arms, each with the standard composition of roti, curry and dhalcha.
Bin sat near the backpackers, scoffing down her fourth serving of tosai. And that didn’t include the side dishes of cuttlefish, crab and chicken; all burnt sienna from being haphazardly fried together. She sat alone, save the two devils on her shoulders. Beelzebub and Mephistopheles had been regrettably subjected to watch all three of the previous tosai rounds. While most people had only one devil and a guardian angel perched on their shoulders, Bin had got stuck with the bad end of the two for one deal. Mephistopheles was pulling his eye sockets open with his long fingers; the effects of Bin’s sleeping pills from last night had not fully subsided. Beelzebub twirled a fork between his hands, glaring impatiently at that insufferable mortal and the nauseous chomping of her molars.
“Are you done yet?”
“Nope,” Bin sputtered, with her mouth filled with a mush of roti and curry. “Satu lagi,” she hollered for a waiter while pointing at the fried chicken on the table with the backpackers. A platter stacked with it was promptly placed on the table. Beelzebub groaned. “It’s a wonder you aren’t fatter.” An ever-burning metabolism was probably the answer.
Mephistopheles cooed, “Don’t listen to him. You do have some assets that I wouldn’t mind—”
Bin showed him the finger. Mephistopheles smirked. Beelzebub rolled his eyes. They broke off into gossiping.
“Have you heard, Beezels? One of us has gone AWOL,” said Mephistopheles.
Beelzebub nodded, “Yeah, Belphegor, wasn’t it?”
“Who the hell’s Belphegor?” Bin mumbled her mouth filled with chicken.
Beelzebub sighed. “Guardian of the Third Circle: Gluttony.”
Bin swiped off that notion like the flies buzzing near her dhalcha,“We already have an obesity epidemic here.”
Mephistopheles stuck his hands behind his head, “Less work for him then.”
Bin glanced at the other tables. One Chinese office worker was gnawing a chicken bone, nipping off splinters of cartilage. Everyone seemed to be feasting with as much voracious energy as she was. Yet, the moment their teeth found nothing else to dice into pieces they grabbed for another. As soon as the lunch of three generations had cleared the table of every dish, they ran for the canteen counter and snatched more. The office workers and the waiters followed suit.
Mephistopheles and Beelzebub exchanged glances. Mephistopheles folded his arms and asked, “Is this a customary thing?” They could never be sure, hadn’t gotten used to working in South East Asia yet, being expat demons and all.
Bin scrutinized the scene, “Not that I know of.”
Soon, all that was left on the counter was the metal tabletop, but even that wasn’t safe from the horde. Four Malay children had their lips stuck at each corner. The adults were shoving utensils into their mouths, until chewing the forks and spoons tore open their cheeks from the inside. The 1-Malaysia dream team had turned into a nightmare, as they attempted to claw and bite each other, shredding off huge clumps of flesh. Bin vomited, with a chicken drumstick in her hand. The spectacle piqued Beelzebub and Mephistopheles’s interest; they got drunk with the primitive joy of two Romans watching Christians being fed to the lions.
Once Bin wiped the clunky green mush off her lips, she locked eyes with one of the Malay kids on the tabletop. His eyes sank down to her drumstick. Bin gulped. The child leapt off onto the floor crawled on all fours towards her. She threw the drumstick to ward him off. The boy caught it in his mouth and swallowed it whole without stopping. He hissed and lurched at her. Bin threw a punch, only for him to clench his teeth on to her knuckles. She shook and wacked the kid on a nearby wall until he went limp and relinquished. It felt as though a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders. It was then she realized that the devils had already bolted. A groan rumbled in her throat. Bin’s eyes scanned the room, and she stayed no longer either.
In the Bureau of Surrealism, you will find:
no fantastical creatures
or monsters from the deep.
No rooms turned upside down
Scrambling
like tortoises on its back
You will not find Dali’s clocks
melting across the desks.
Nor will you find lovers
trapped in mirrors,
running endlessly
through rays of light.
Or the wretched
that scream only
in the dead of night.
What you will find are secrets.
And a girl
She could tell you a thousand and one tales,
A thousand and one secrets
That only she knows
For the ones who had told them lie
She could have recited them word-for-word
Till the sultan’s oil lamps burnt dry
If only she had a tongue.
i
he had just turned sixteen,
when he got a taste of
la douleur exquise.
i bit from the same fruit,
the heartburn lingered.
ii
that boy
ended up with a bare morsel of me.
reflected in a bathroom mirror,
reflected twice over by the camera phone.
access. excess. as simple as typing out a command.
iii
the penitent preacher kicked in eventually,
to purge me, to cleanse him of sin. too late.
maybe we both just wanted to feel,
felt something in wanting.
iv
he hated himself so much,
started working his body
until his knees fell through.
couldn’t stay sober either,
he’d get drunk home alone
& think he’s so fucking cool.
v
like any good tragic hero,
his hamartia had hit me right on target,
desire for catharsis soon became paralysis.
vi
just before he had turned seventeen,
he asked for those pretty pictures again.
i stripped down to my bones.
then his grandfather died.
said it was a slow suffocation by ceaseless mitosis.
all those corrupted cell cycles
made me think of us.
vii
there was still that vulnerability as crystalline
as the bottle of vodka by his side,
he had kept both since last summer.
viii
fair-weather friends only fret in foul weather.
other days were spent invoking aspects of january in july.
ix
soon he found another girl to give him pictures
& praise & ditch when he felt dirty.
‘why do i always end up with the crazy ones?’
he asked so i turned the other cheek & laughed
because he was crazy too.
used to tell me a good girl swallows, so did she—
enough pills to end up in a&e.
x
when i had just turned eighteen, he fell again.
told me he liked blondes but it was clear by
now he had a fetish for brunettes.
Don’t breathe.
He’s the oxygen thief.
Slick, suave, diffusing
From alveoli into capillaries:
Scentless. Unassuming.
No preliminary symptoms.
Once you sigh in relief,
He slips into your hemoglobin,
Its curved, full figure,
With the concave center,
And pries it wide open,
Lodging out those sweet dioxides,
The cuckoo occupies your nest.
Next thing you know,
He made your body into art
Painted it a Zephyrus blue
Just like Botticelli
And daubed your lips
In Rothko’s red.
It was breathtaking perfection.
