[ 1 0 ] 8-Strange Deliverance

expectations seem to always be shattered

I opened my Hotmail inbox like I usually would because it said:

Inbox (4)
Junk Mail (5)

A statistic which signals the need to open it. I carefully scanned the all the mails in the Inbox and dismissed them as misplaced Junk mails. Then, I switched into the Junk Mail folder in hope for a quick ending of this timeless routine. Looking at Junk Mails - a move I don't usually perform - I see a familiar name at the "From" column: Teo XXXX XXXX.

It had the same last name as I did. It held the family name. It was my father.

Someone I vaguely remember as an authorative figure. A well-hated tower once but now diminished to a passing shadow. He was never there. Not then, not now. Except now he is both physically and psychologically absent. Ironically, I more vividly recall the brand I once used on him, 'omniabsent'.

The mail was simple, it had no "Dear son" or any hint of a greeting. My eyes yearned for a body of text but it wasn't there. What I found was an even simpler company signature with his name. No position of him in the company. No detail of his occupation. No links. No disclaimers. Just his name, the company and a fax number.

As if instinctively, I read the subject of the mail again. It was clear and plain, saying, "for sons & daughters." I didn't find my email on the to line. Instead it gave less than mystery:

But wait, there was an attachment.

I saw it. It looks like a chain mail but my dad wasn't one who's fond of such worldly affairs. To you, perhaps with a nice enough family, it could touch your heart. Yet, that part of my heart had long been frozen. Neither the music nor the content could thaw it. It was never warm there, I have forgotten how being warm was like.

That name, I've nearly forgotten. That love, I've never experienced.

A mail like that did nothing. It is worse off than that zephyr that carassed my skin. Still, that room is empty. Could more do? Take me back to 1988, the moment I was first here. Perhaps if I saw that gleam on his face, I would reciprocate easier.

That memory would too easily be overwritten by the sufferings of mum I saw. The undeserved silence she had to observe. The pains I took from the breather he took. I have too, forgotten when the word mother had the meaning of father imbued onto.

Perhaps I too am "Hotmail" who never recognised that email address and sent it into the Junk Mail folder.


As I learnt to speak, you forgot how to do so; you taught me to love by not loving.

[ 9 ] 8-Words Fatale

swords = silly words

"My child, words are like weapons, use them wisely," so the elder told the minor.

They say it because they know we don't know it and if we knew, we won't believe it. How can we believe that? What makes of the dictionary, the Devil? Indeed.

That double-edged sword had its praises in kudos but its far-reaching ills, remembered only by the pains it had caused, is less than benevolent. It's not a weapon; it's much more than that.

Used with a good intention, it behaves like a honey, soothing a tattered throat. When the intention sours, the blade is sharpened and the speaker can find his/her ways to the left side of the chest. Plunge it in, the reckless mind yearns. There is no difficulty. The blade had so long been honed to deal the damage. It had waited ages to take its toll on another whose guard had been let low thanks to that other deceiving side of the blade. The stab takes no effort. It's probably even unplanned.

The dictionary does the perfect job in making it even more lethal; it dips the blade in a vessel of poison. When our mouth throttles off unleashed, the blade cuts skin-deep at first, wiping the lightness of the conversation into a bleak hush. Time is on its side for it to bleed into the flesh. Then, the heart awaits its impending doom.

A surge of adrenaline rushes as the signals of a puncture spreads to the mind via the convenient neurons. And so the blade etched itself into the heart.

Withdrawing, as the user sensed the damage, the blade leaves in its wake, a trail of toxins. The victim's immune system is triggered like an unstoppable assailant cringed by vengence. There will be no mercy to talk about, the laceration had already been done.

You can of course re-open the wound and attempt a remedy but silly, the person probably won't let you. The immune system did a great job.

*

That is why seasoned speakers take heed not attack the heart. Pick the hair, scrap the teeth or at the most clip a nail. They've had it coming, probably many times before. Just enough remind them to keep their weapons of mass destruction to themselves.

Sheath the blade.

Some had stood by the line: the best communicators are listeners.

Me? I haven't learnt it really. By experience or by others' experiences, it's best better learnt than speaking itself. And they say, "A picture's worth a thousand words."

[ 6 ] 8-Omnipresent Love.

those without, yearn for it. those with, cry for it.

Today, I pen my thoughts on the most magical feeling all living thing - not only humans - exclusively have. Recently it'd been dispelled as a chain of chemical reactions by scientists but that wouldn't veer me ever off the root of love: emotions. Love has too many complexities to ever be described by hormones or cells akin and shall remain sacred with its chaotic bridges between sanity and some deviance.

If God came down this moment to observe just how love has evolved from its maiden form, He would stand in awe. His creation is a great and wise one. Love has no doubt equilibrated a world of binding unites and a cutting separations. With it, writers, authors, editors worry little of their publishing material. On love built civilisations of all forms by simply...

Love for thyself. Love for well-being in a society. Love for wealth. Love for material. Love for one's religion. Love for our rights which so coined the love for a peaceful governance. Love for aesthetic. Love for our environment. Love for our beliefs, goals and successes. And most powerfully, the love for another entity bearing likelihood of us - love for him, love for her, love for our closed ones, love for the well-being of another. Outlining these all, the everlasting spirit of protecting what we love or seek to love.

These all breed harmony and, with little doubt, bliss in all our daily lives providing purpose. God has so ingeniously forged love that we all gave him our love in worship. The sustainability of love is eternal transcending the sands of time.

Yet, ironies seem to not spare such a fundamental concept of our existence. Anchored on the root of happiness is a deprived love. That is hate. When the love is taken away, forcibly or by sheer giving up, the equilibrium tilts. When love is ripped off, anger rises in protection of it. The loss of love for one can invoke so much hate, it kills. Violence stems from this. Our beliefs all lie on a delicate balance which Librans know best how it can be tipped. In fact, it is our insatiable love that would torch the fires of fury on the slightest threat of it disappearing.

Over-protection some would call it. But I prefer it as an instinct of preservation. It is after all this gift that we have all integrated with that has given us this state of civilisation. How far can we say we are over-protecting?

Trust me, one way or another, everything in your life has all to do with love. Perhaps that is simply because it is the most basic and 'simplest' emotion we first learnt.

signing off, 8-avariciousness

[ 4 ] 8-Definition: Greed

Hide your cries.

"Keep that," you think, "you wouldn't want it taken away!" Avarice breeds everlasting selfishness and that makes the world a cold, harsh place to live in. But this is a cold hard world where you have to go digging for that bit of comforting warmth. Do we need to define greed?

As graceful we think we are, we are the precursors to define greed...

*

We all want time for ourselves, we give little for others.

We all desire attention, how do we get it? From others? All of us hate to give it.

We love love, but how often had we sincerely offered it.

Curiousity we all possess but the quest for knowledge rarely beats the temptation of laziness and procrastination.

We all hate being mocked at but aren't we most generous with it?

We would feel blessed with forgiveness nonetheless mercy sounded foreign.

It feels good to depend on another though we many a times withdrew from those who depended on us.

We wished for freedom in speech, best without the responsibility.

Kudos can light up our hearts at its most perplexed state; we commonly miss their necessity.

*

'We' appeared in every statement. Need I define further?

signing off, 8-avariciousness