MIDNITE TRAIN

Travelling on the midnite train has been her passion. Somehow, she failed to find the schedule that fit her destination. The midnite train that brought her alive the living memory from the past.
It was a spacious house with a big yard, constructed sometimes during the Dutch Colony. The house has floor-to ceiling windows that look out over an empty deserted land. A couple hundred meters away on the uninhabited land run the sturdy train tracks. Two bars of the longest iron cutting across the land, like twin giant glossy snakes moving in parallel.
At night when the darkness had fallen onto the lap of the earth, she waited for the signal to come. Ting…tong….ting…tong….ting….tong, the midnite train was approaching to pass. She kept her eyes half open. As the train was passing by, she felt a sense of sublime and anxiety brewing in her heart, stimulating her mind to unravel the enigma of the destination of the midnite train. The minute the train had gone, she felt part of her went away with it to a place she would die to know. As she woke up the following morning, she would throw a glance to the railways as she hold the belief that they would bring her to the answer.
On one morning she decided to skip school and embarked on a journey to solve the haunting enigma. She decided to follow the train tracks that would lead her to the destination. In the beginning, the journey was so fascinating for the attraction of the mystery of the midnite train was too extensive. Along the way, she found many exotic objects, such as colorful pebbles, broken painted glass, a piece of magnet and put them all in her weather beaten bag pack. As the sun reached the peak of the day, the horrendous heat and sores that bit her feet drove the claw of despair to grip her tightly. She was suffocated for the end of the track ways was absurd.
She arrived home in the afternoon with a tattered mind. The destination of the midnite train remained a mystery. She was so tired on that particular night and failed to notice the midnite train for the first time.
As she woke up the following morning, she was clear in her mind that the day would be hers and the mystery would be solved. She went to the window to know what the invisible hand had to offer her. As the sun rose in the east, the glossy surface of the train tracks were glimmering and glittering before it petered out in the horizon, like a stairway to heaven. She ran to her mom and announced her discovery with a glowing triumphant smile: “Mom, now I know, the midnite train takes all the passengers to heaven.”

HOPE , ARE YOU THERE?

The early morning dew landed on the ground, penetrating the pores of the earth. The fragrance of the wet damp soaked earth stung her nostrils. She shuddered as the gust of the cold midnite breeze patted her skin. The night was wearing its darkest and gloomiest shadow.
In the middle of the flirtatious sound of the cricket, she felt the presence of a shadowy invisible being. She felt small and belittle by his aura of command and by the glow of authority that radiated from his presence. She stiffened and gathered all the courage in her. She expected a hasty aggression to appear in this enigmatic ambiance.
A loud roaring laughter broke out and tore apart her nerves into small tiny particles. She pulled the strength in her and gathered all the crumbles of her courage. She greeted him haughtily and posed a rhetoric question: “Have I in any ways broken any unwritten convention here?” I meant no harm to any being but to have a discussion with the fireflies?”
He coughed coarsely and sounded like there was a dense cobweb in his throat. Are you in search of the spirit of the death?, he exclaimed in a voice that infiltrated deep into the night.
“I’m in search of hope “she said in an abrupt manner, not wanting to let him peek into her apprehensive heart. I wish I could find her in these hours of darkness.
“All the hours of darkness have long been traded in to me. The entire nights are mine. Any existence that dwells in this time and space is under my jurisdiction. Hope does not live here.” He retorted snappishly, somehow she could feel a vague empathy in his response.
“I wish she would have showered her piety upon me. I have been haunted by a vision, in which I see myself as a living programmed mortal. I see my own pictures in some cubicles performing the flawlessly part of my roles. I wish I had a chance to add a small picture in it. I expect Hope to lend me a hand."
Strange enough, the invisible being was locked silence. She felt the air of nothingness occupying the space for a few seconds. “Disclose to me your dream…the picture that you long to insert,” he whispered softly as if he knew that she would have been wanting for an unattainable wish.
“A heart”, she impulsively replied. All of a sudden she poured it out to this being… a stranger that somehow brought alive the creep in her. The long buried feeling in her sub consciousness spurred out likes the stream of water that flow from the top of the hill down to the river. She had never shared this feeling to any living mortals. The feeling that had been buried for so long in the graveyard of the nameless.
Her Hope was dangling and drifting in the sky. The moon was strolling slowly and brushed her with the tender strokes. The stars were twinkling brightly to lighten up the hopes.

THE CAGE

The parade was moving stealthily along the boulevard like a giant dragon that crept along the street. Flocks of people were flinging on the curb of the streets. Some preferred to linger inside their cars and pulled their windows down. They swayed their hand with faces of enthusiasms.
She was standing there among the crowd, watching the world swaying by in the state of total innocence. Her body shuddered as the huge clock banged and filled the emptiness of the sky. There was an invisible presence of enigma in her mind, occupying every silent corners of her mind.
She abandoned her bodily being and locked behind the cage of solitude. In this cage she was dragged away by her imagination into a state of perpetual delirium. Floating, drifting, wandering like a crowd of gypsies searching for the meaning of existence. The cage has been so suffocating, especially in this mortal silence of the heat. The intriguing and fatiguing chore of life exposed her to the haughtiness of the spirit of life. The intense efforts to keep life free from lice and nits had reached the empty air. Moth has perforated her life.
The parade of life is still in motion. She is trapped in this space, locked in the cage of time and being, frozen…

A VIEW THROUGH THE WINDOW

She sat in her comfortable chair looking through the window that provides her with the view to the world. A blue robin landed on the windowsill.
“Good morning”, she greeted him cheerfully for she’s happy to see him again. The bird looked at her and flapped open his wings to give her a warm hug.
She moved closer to the window and pressed her fingers against the glass and murmured: “Thank you. So… what’s the news today”, she asked him.
He pointed his beak to her.
“Me ?", she exclaimed in surprise. “What has made me so special as to be covered by the news?"
The bird chirped while moving back and forth on the windowsill.
“Aha... you think I’m lucky to be on this side of the and occupy this room?”
The bird nodded gently and chirped again.
“I do have many things in this space. I have to admit that,” the lady exclaimed.
The bird flapped his wings and flew around the window, before he landed again on the sill and waited for her answer anxiously.
” You want to know if I’m happy? Hmmm… let me tell you this, I always envy you for having those two precious wings. I dream of having the freedom to fly, she said as she closed her eyes and daydreaming. “I move along with the wind to those places I have never been. I can be closer to the sun and feel the tender stroke of its beams against my skin. I don’t have to worry about my chair, my room, and my desk. That’s what I call ….”. The moment she was to finish her sentence a squeaking sound filled the air. She opened her eyes in dismay, and saw a bigger bird was chasing the blue robin. She felt so sad and sorry for the blue robin. She wondered if the blue robin would survive.
She went back to her comfortable chair and focus on her computer. A statement popped up on her screen:

How many joys are crushed underfoot
because people look up at the sky
and disregard what is at their feet.
(Attributed to mother of Johann Strauss)

A NIGHTMARE

Everyone thinks he's such a cute and adorable boy, so does the girl thinks of him. He's only four, fat with spiky hair and splitted eyes. He's a menace. He turns the house upside down. He sleeps late at night and cries out loud everytime he's uncomfortable. Sometimes life with him turns to be a real nightmare to her.

All was silent except for the soft breath of the climatiseur. With thumping heart she made her way into the living room, downstairs. As her eyes became used to the dark she could make out a little figure. All by himself. He was leaning forward to the window. He exposed his head to the night air. She could heard a soft babbling noise. The boy was talking. She called his name twice, he stopped talking but didn't turn his head around. Silence.... silence was the reply.

Suddenly the boy whistled his own message toward the tree. The night echoed a strong, clear squeaking sound. The sound of beating wings. Hundreds of bats surged out of the tree. They blocked and darkened the view through the window. She could see nothing but a swirling swarm of grey.

The boy turned his body around facing her. He was wearing a cloak. He looked at her with a horrifying expression. A sneer was curling up on the corner of his lips. He moved toward her direction and his white little sharp teeth shone in the dark as a blitz of light falls upon them. She felt so creepy that made her paralized from head to toe. She was grasping for help. Her voice got stuck on her throat. She was so petrified and ....

It was still very early in the morning. She felt something warm and wet creeping on her PJ. She was struck by it and opened her eyes. The little boy was looking into her face with his innocent eyes and smiled. His pants were all soaked. He landed a warm kiss on her cheek and said:" I love you and gave her a hug. Her eyes were locked in silent conversation with him.

.

THE BROWN ESPRIT TROUSERS

He's not the type that would make the traffic stop. In fact he's simple and plain. Despite this fact, she was madly in love with him. Amongst all of the available choices, she preferred him.

Her mom introduced her with him at the airport, upon her arrival from a trip overseas. She could hardly breath when she saw his smart look. She knew right away that she had fallen in love with him. She was close to giving him a hug, should the moral fiber allowed her to do so. Soon after, she made her confession to her friends and they claimed that they would have done the same should they had been in her position.

Poor him! After he's been with her, the entire universe evolved around her. She chose any time and any mood to be with him. He hardly got a chance to put his feet up. His days were scheduled just for her. There was a time when her mom grumbled and yelled: “ Give him a break!” She just laughed and pretended that she was hard at hearing.

A misfortune brought everything to an end. On one ill-fated evening, she went home with him riding in a taxi after spending a night at grandma’s place. She was really busted and turned to be a bit out of control. She left the taxi without saying a word to him. Ever since that time, he's no where to be found. He has vanished into the thin air. She could never forgive herself for behaving inappropriately. She has left him there, in the taxi, her brown pair esprit trousers.

THE TUNNEL

The cold air was biting her and made her quiver. She sat there all alone in her room on the top floor of the building. The window provided her with a breath taking work of art of the nature. As the sun was about to dive into the horizon, the beams brushed the sky with grey, orange and yellowish strokes. Flocks of birds were dashing home, flapping their wings elegantly among the drifting spongy clouds.

The picture of a young woman standing in a play ground was brought into her mind. Summer had almost ended at that time. The playground was empty as the sun had expressed his boredom to shine that day. She was holding a book in her right hand and a bag was hanging on her shoulder. The gust of cold wind blew her hair away, blocking her view. she held her jacket closer to her chest. It wasnt easy for her to be in control of all the stuff she had in her hand. She looked around and found only the falling dead leaves spinning on the grass. She called out a name a couple of times and was greeted by her own echo that twirled back to where she stood.

Faintly she heard a soft sigh coming from the tunnel. She bent her head down to peek into it. A little girl was sitting in the tunnel. She sat there all alone hugging both of her knees close to her chest. She was sucking her tiny dirty thumb while an empty gaze was carved on her face. As soon as she saw her mother's face the flame inside the kid's eyes blaze. She pulled out her thumb and murmured softly: "Mommy, I miss you. "

She wished that the blue robin would appear on the window sill just to greet her. Loneliness is undeniably suffocating.