Chronicles of Morphine overdosed Goldfish: Flashback

“Do you like this place?” I asked. She looked at me without a word. That must be how it all started. November 2007.

I was somewhere. Driving. My phone rang and I picked it up knowing who it was from the Caller ID. “Hey pretty!” I said. “Andre. Auntie Dolly here.” Aunt Dolly is Denise’s mom and also a good friend of my mom. “I’ll be up this weekend with Denise. But I have something on. Could you look after her?” she said. “Sure!” I replied. “It shall be done!”

That weekend came. I picked her up from….. Where did I picked her up from? In any case, we went around KL and had a great dinner in a nice Vietnamese Restaurant in downtown. After the dinner, I took her to my place since it was still early and she wouldn’t had got anything to do if she heads back to the hotel room. We caught up. We chatted till like 3 or 4 am. We must have missed each other quite a bit. She seemed a little different though. Seemed like she had been through quite a bit in the past 3 years. Somehow, matured. Composed in an elegant way.

We were out by the porch of my rented townhouse. Now, where I live is amazing. It is a failed residential area. The developer bankrupt and development seized soon after the completion of the condominiums and the townhouse. A different company took over but they didn’t develop anything anymore. So you can imagine how it’s like. A residential community out of no where and is hard to get in and out of that place.  It’s like a world by itself. Cheap tranquility I would call it. I love it.

So there we were chatting away about things which I regretfully have no recollection of.

“Do you like this place?” this I remember asking her when I was looking out to the road. There was a silent after the question. Like a peaceful silent. I turned and looked at her and she gave me a very sweet smile. She took her eyes off me and said, “Yeah, is nice….” This was when cupid came and did his job.

Had I bloody went on rambling about how I found the place and all that nonsense? I hope not. I sent her back to the hotel eventually. It was goodbye again for us. The next day, she would be on her way back to JB/Singapore. I didn’t know when will I see her again. But I wanted to know. I wanted to know when will I get to see her, talk to her. I kept thinking. She kept appearing in my mind.

In the following days, I sat in front of my laptop every day after work staring at the lower right hand corner of the LCD screen. Waiting only to see her pop online in Live Messenger. We chatted everyday since then.

And that was how it all started.

Soon we found ourselves seeing each other every month. I would go to Singapore to see her and she would come to KL to see me. It was until the day she went to Leeds for studies.

And one day I came home from work. There was a mail for me. It came all the way from England. I knew it was her. I shoot up to my room and reached for my cutter. I carefully slit the envelope at the top making sure not to harm the content. I found this.

Our first anniversary and she got me this card. I know she meant a good man is hard to find. These days; the way they make cards. Atrocious!

Her loveliness is endless. For one, she loves the conventional way of life. Sending cards and sometimes letters to bring us closer. Leaving notes and hide it somewhere in my room. She is no doubt a romanticist.

This was our first year.

Chronicles of Morphine overdosed Goldfish: Space

“I still love you but now I want my own space. Do you understand?”, she said. Comprehending such complex issue is really difficult when you’re in love with that person. I’m sure many of you would agree. So I asked, “What is this space you’re talking about?”. The conversation in the tiny Live Messenger box went on for hours. For one, spending that much time with each other on Live Messenger is against the space she’s talking about. What about switching to Skype as I suggested which it didn’t help at all. This was indeed the hardest topic I’ve ever tackled in my life. I can make a couple of stuntmen jump off from a roof, landing on some empty boxes with a simple word of “Action!”. I can also effortlessly make someone die 7 times in the same method if I really want to.

“Space. How do I do that!?”, I kept thinking about it. We had many long conversations about what this space she’s talking about. But she’s thousands of miles away. What more space can she ask for? Space; I thought about it in the shower. Space; as I look at the tiles while I sat on the toilet for my routine. Space; while I brush my teeth and watches the running tap. Space; when I look at the notes she left for me in many occasions. Space; I slowly fade away into the REM. Space; the knocking gets louder. The drilling begun. The grinding came and stopped. Then the busting. My neighbor’s been doing a reconstruction for weeks now. 3 hours of sleep and I looked into the space above me realizing that I’ve suffocated her.

I restricted her from doing many things in her life. She wanted to try modeling. I told her that the industry is dark. Don’t get into it. She got scouted though. Just that they ended up wanting her to pay for a portfolio which it sounded ridiculous to both of us and she let that go. She wants to go out to the theaters with her male friend and I restricted her. She wanted to go for a road trip with another male friend and I said no. I mean, come on….road trip! With a family friend whom she met only a few times. She too later understood it wasn’t right; fortunately. I also didn’t allow a friend of hers who traveled from Asia to UK while taking the opportunity to visit her, sleep in the same room with her. I didn’t allow her to get a Blackberry because that family friend of hers is using one and etcetera etcetera.

With all these restrains I’ve applied on her it came along with what she would call, a Madagascar Dance. Means I go berzerk and make a big hoohaa. It also had made her unconsciously fear to do anything that will trigger my grand Madagascar Dance. It was great for me. She doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to do anything that would make me jealous. But I didn’t know she was in fear the whole time.

Only until now.

The root of the problem is gradually surfacing. My jealousy inflicts an act of communism towards her. She harbored those fears in her slender body while she wears a smile at me everyday. Yet none of us, not even her realized that she was gonna blow. And there it was 3 days ago. It was no Mambo or Madagascar. It was like a Moonwalk. Smooth and seemingly quiet.

So my existence now means that I would cast fear to her actions. She wants to be able to do her things without seeing “I like to move it move it…” in the Skype box. She wants to be able to go out and socialize with people of different genders (all includes) without having the guilt. Like you and I, she wants to explore life without having to hear a voice in her saying ‘No! Bloody No!’ the whole time. I’m the voice over talent by the way. Of course! Why should she lead a life like that?

Hence, the space. Ahh….the space. The room to breakaway from me for awhile. Regaining her freedom and interests. Using the same time, she would allow the slow time to heal her wounds which I’m responsible of.

“How long?”, I asked. “A year?” she answered. I repeated after her with exclamation marks in my tone. “6 months…” she lets out a tiny chuckle saying “Seems like a bargain in the market.” But I didn’t want a bargain. I know I couldn’t even handle 2 weeks. I would have lost myself and went from jungle theme to the north pole tap dancing theme. A bargain wasn’t even good enough. That was what went through my mind in that zero point zero zero one second. 5 seconds later, I knew I lost her.  7 seconds ticked away and a scene flashes back into my mind.

One day a friend of mine came up from south for something I can’t remember. He will drop by my place and we’ll head out for a dinner. She had spoke to him earlier without my knowledge that she would tag along. I was busy at work at that period of time. Not suspecting anything, she sneaked into my room as I walked out of my house to greet my buddy. When I came back to my room to change; there she was; sitting on my computer desk smiling at me. That was the sweetest moment. One of the many sweet moments she gave me.

Where had this sweet young lady who loved me that much went to? Had I drove her away or did America change her? I was scared. But I wanted to know how and when. That event was slightly more than a year ago. Whatever it is, the problem must have started after that. I decided to look into our past.

Chronicles of Morphine overdosed Goldfish: Something went wrong!

If morphine is her; you would probably had guessed by now, I’m goldfish. And how did I end up getting such an ugly nickname? I’m never used to having nicks. But when I told her that I had a memory of a goldfish (giving myself the pre-excuse to forget anniversaries and such) which could only last 3 seconds; I was goldfish then on. However in all honesty, I am really horrible with dates and names. Really, I’m serious.

What went wrong wasn’t because I didn’t remember our 2nd anniversary. And if you’re thinking about me cheating on her, you’re dead wrong. She cheated on me? Hell no. That angel wouldn’t do so. And is also not because one of us are leaving each other to further studies or work call. Our relationship had always been a long distance one. Since the very beginning we’ve always been separated by country. And she gets further away every year. First, it was Singapore. Then she went to Leeds. Now, she’s in Orlando. I’ve always been in KL.

Our problem is like many other couples. Married or non-married. Is term as the Constant-arguments-of-unnecessary-or-sometimes-known-as-the-stupid-subjects….problem. We would argue about many things. Food, cars, sleeping hours, health, jealousy, man, cigarette, wrong choice of word, wrong choice of action, wrong choice of underwear, you name it. Most of the time, I spark it. As in recently because at one point, she didn’t had any tolerance for me. Whatever I did was all wrong. But now is the other way round. Worse, I mental tortured her. I was on top of the game. I find something to my distaste of normality, I turn her sunny day to stormy night. Aye, just through Skype, Live Messenger or e-mail. No kidding. I’m that good.

The most amazing thing is the pattern remains constant even when the subject changes. I snap; she retaliates; I make the tiny little stupid subject larger than life; she feels bad; I make her feel guilty; she feels guilty; I blow again; she apologizes. And here, this is the best part – I threaten to leave her. Ahhh….such drama, she pleads and tears for forgiveness. Begging me not to go. I forgive her and feeling all manly again.

The greatness of being a male chauvinist pig.

“I hate male chauvinism. These men should be shot!!”, I said to many of my friends and acquaintances in many different occasions and locations. But without realizing, I’ve become the very pig I would bloody love to gun down myself.

Before I go on, I would like to apologize to every female reader here. I’m ashamed of myself. Please don’t forgive me.

With endless subjects to argue about while repeating the MCP pattern to mental torture her, everything seems simple. Our daily lives goes on. We’re happy at one moment, we’re angry and sad at the other. End of the day, I get my way. The repetition of it seems so perfect. Like a factory machine constantly doing the same thing over and over again and the result is the absolute same. If only we had known, that something terrible was about to happen.

2 days ago. We had an argument. Something not really that significant. I was being an anal as usual and made a mountain out of a molehill. The argument had the same pattern. All the same. Even up until I say the ‘break up’ word.

Then, something went wrong. Terribly wrong! The factory machine broke. The products are now making factory machines. It became the other way round. She did not ask for me to come back. I took a whole day to digest what in God’s name went wrong. I figured I went out of the line. The next evening, which is her day, I apologized and wanted to patch things back. Admitting that I was an asshole, wanting to get things back to how it ’s use to be. Still trying to reason my way out as a species with great sense of logic. Problem was, I forgot Love owned Logic!

She says NO. Now she wants her own space which I would humbly translate as “Get the bloody fuck outta my life!”.

Chronicles of Morphine overdosed Goldfish: She sweeps my feet away!

Have you once looked at yourself and realized how much of a failure you are? But you wanna change. You determined to change for the better and and so you did. And I did too. I can remember this experience so vividly like it happened yesterday and the day before. But even all the effort poured into it, the result is the same. I’m certain that I’ve changed but I’ve not change enough it would seem. Or could it be that I tried too hard to change and reminded myself the bad outcome of my mistakes in turn creating the same mistakes?  If you get what I mean.

In this blog of mine, I’ve used the word ‘bloody’ in almost every post. I mean EVERY post. The second word that’s quite disturbing to public that I’ve used a lot is my addiction to ‘morphine’. I don’t know if I had ever mentioned anything much about this addiction of mine.

Is actually this wonderful girl, Denise. Denise is this beautiful young lady who sweeps my feet away. Sweeps. My. Feet. Away. Profoundly! Indeed that is from the bottom of my heart when we started our little relationship. Then at some point down the road within these 2 years, I’ve started to perceive otherwise. I do not pamper her that much anymore. I get mad at her easily. Picked on certain things that are ridiculous, so on and so forth. But the actions are pretty mutual and yet both of us had quite an edge towards each other. Like I have this jealousy thing even I can’t take it. She has this stubbornness that drives both of us mad. We drove each other up the wall every half a week. We claimed to hate each others’ gut and more than that, we both hate ourselves even more. At least I do. Oh dear Lord, I bloody hate myself.

Yet there is still this fact that we are both madly in love with each other. Up till today I still feel the same. But in these past 2 days, something went wrong. Terribly wrong.

the selfish one!

I’ve been waiting for a very important letter for a month now. It doesn’t seem like is gonna come but I’m not the only one. Millions of mails are being delayed because they are having a strike. A bloody STRIKE!? Yeah…how selfish can they get? Do a freaking strike and let everyone else in the world whom are expecting letters to suffer and wait in agony.

Look….you freaks in the post office of England; tell me what can I do to get my precious mail. Yeah….think hard. There won’t be anything I can do to help it you fuck head. If that’s the bloody case, then go make your boss or your fucking government suffer. NOT ME!!!

Bottom line, you who had made millions of us suffer because of your selfishness have no rights to strike. You are no different from the ones you strike on. If you don’t fucking like the job, get the fuck out you lazy morons.