The Ambiguity That Was The 5th Of May

I admit I hadn't planned for this, but seeing that I recently revived this blog, I figured what it obviously need the most is more content. Diverse contents, beyond just me retreating back to nurse my wounds each time my head went into an emotional supernova from excessive writing and overthinking personal issues.

I haven't indulged in photography for nearly a year now, with my Nikon D5000 sitting in a lower cabinet in my room eating up stale mothballs. No, I am not a photographer by trade and I'm not exactly all nerdy goggled about shutter speeds, ISOs, and overtechnical thingamajig. My knowledge in handling a DSLR camera is good enough to operate Programmed Auto and a few simple understanding of the Manual setting. My only real concern is capturing the moment and nothing else, so I thought with nothing to do on the 5th of May 2013, why don't I leave the social network behind for awhile and observe outside of what went on during Election Day?

First and foremost, I'm a non-voter out of choice. Call me a fence sitter despite my refusal to name calling voters to an opposite equivalent. Denigrate me all you want for being irresponsible towards the future of this country despite having not made equivalent attempts to demonize those who vote. I have my own reasons shaped from certain things I had read, seen, and experienced around me, which is rather complicated to explain but either way will earn me the ire of both sides regardless. There is room for dynamic allegiance in a democracy without popularly imposing narrow choices in case one found my stance to be ironically troublesome to accept.

When I arrived at SMK Kelana Jaya around 1730 hours (it was right across the road from my apartment), there were still a number of people gathering in front of the barred main gate, signalling an end to voting (polls closed around 1700 hours). Despite the relatively low significance of this constituency, voters were anxious waiting for any news of voting results. Of the hotly contested areas widely covered by the medias from both divide in this country, it seems low priority constituencies like this tend to be ignored, which made me feel glad that I was covering this, even if I was there simply to observe and write on my own will.

This particular contested area is SS4 of Kelana Jaya between MCA and DAP candidates (should I even mention there was an Independent candidate?). Yes, I didn't ask for too many details nor do I find it of any importance to a non-voter like me. People and the going-ons seemed the only relevance to why my presence exist here. Everyone voted for a reason so I asked around to get a feel of what the voters are thinking. Their chief concerns ranged from crimerates to punishing the government for not doing the job they promised to do. Most of these people I've spoken to were largely middle-aged folks who often told me of the good old times when Malaysia was a safer country. One of the aunties even knew personally the robbery victim who was stabbed to death during the Bukit Gasing incident a month back. Other than politics, I struck up an interesting intelligent conversation with a young man seven years my junior. Religion, philosophy, the works. A rare encounter with someone who could render the so-called 'university students' during my UNITAR days into a quivering unintelligible mess.

Voting or not, I found this particular photo op moment too powerful to be passed off. Symbolic to those who still believe, at least.

Pemuda BN making a show of strength, intimidating nearby voters and spectators by circling about with their loud motorcycles. They permanently disperse from the scene as soon as the police showed up. Seeing the relative insignificance of this area, I can already guess it's not worth their unintentionally sponsored paycheck to risk any physical violence.

From time to time, these folks (center, sitting by the table) would come out to announce and update the voting tally for each candidate. Again, I didn't ask too much and chose to simply listen. One of them struck a conversation with me. I think her name is Gene, Jean, or something. It was great talking to someone who actually made me feel Malaysian!

With reports continually emerging of spoiled ballot boxes and other attempts to tamper with the voting process, these voters decided not to take any chances and voluntarily inspect civilian vehicles entering the school perimeter. It was peaceful and everyone was in their best behaviour that even the police did not find it to be a cause of concern.

2100 hours: even though there was still one or two ballot boxes left to count, the results were clear: DAP won this constituency. Five hundred plus votes over the MCA's hundred plus. Should I even mention the Independent candidate with three votes? Sensing it was about time I leave (I had overstayed longer than planned), I spoke to for one last time every remaining people I had the pleasure to chat with, and wished them the farewell. I left forgetting the one important thing yet to be crossed on the to-do list: a haircut. Unlike elections, Haircuts happen once every two and a half months for me. There's always another day for that.

Of course, that's one victory for the opposition, yet elsewhere the votecount continues. Will Malaysians maintain the current status quo, or will they give alternate governance a choice? As the day went three hours into tomorrow, the results were clear: by rusty hooks or by the thousand paid crooks, the ruling government is here to stay. The best the opposition could do is deny a two-thirds majority, square one as they did five years ago. No surprises, no surprises at all.

The Volksraad hurled their proud fists in the air as their zealots cheered "long live the leader!" in celebration of their questionably unquestionable victory. The battered Rebel Alliance kept their injuries bandaged tight and hidden from plain sight, declaring to their loyalists that they are determined to fight on another day even as blood seeped through their fabric dressing. The awful truth is nobody really wins, and nobody ever does. Not as long as we live in a tiny music box which we had repeatedly danced to the same tune. Not as long as we believe free choices exist in two flavours which remains good for the next infinite loop.

Yet I still believe there may be winners still; not the politicians, but the people who tried to make the best of things, and make them happen the best they could, no matter the side they're on. That at least, is a consolation we could somehow agree upon.

Or the warmth of the strangers I met had rubbed onto me and subsequently softened my fervent skepticism, maybe.

"They say truth is the first casualty of war. But who defines what's true? Truth is just a matter of perspective... The only truth I found is that the world we live in is a giant tinderbox. All it takes is someone to light the match." - John Price

Disappointment, Regret

I can't believe I spent nearly a week trying to write a letter to a client telling him that I can't do the job. The problem that kept holding me back from sending that e-mail is my tendency to scrutinize my own writing and trying to be eloquent (by all means, absurd, I know) with my language as much as possible, even if it is merely a formal letter meant for declining a client's job request/proposal. Excessive writer's pride, and that had cost me dearly: the client is very, very disappointed. Put yourself in his shoes, you'd be more or less as pissed off as he is when someone you've given the job to wasted a week of what could've been a completed job handed over by someone else.

The thing is, I can't help myself. I love to write, but I'm too eccentric to be practical with my words in the so-called 'working world'. Things like real estate just won't do for me, but again, overconfidence killed me, and it screwed me up good. My desire to create a strong freelancing career led me to become overconfident and I took more risk than I should. First major screw-up in my still developing career as a freelance writer.

I didn't sleep at all since Tuesday night, and as soon as I reached home by late Wednesday afternoon (after sending that dreaded e-mail), I overslept for nearly 10 hours. Woke up, and I still have a job to do. I've disappointed a client the first time, and I'm sure as hell would not want to repeat this with another client on the list, who had very much hired me for the job. The rolling ball needs to kept clear of steering into bad bumps.

Going Down

"You brought this on yourself"

I think I'm hitting another emotional rock bottom again. It's been going back and forth inside my head since late of last month that my progress to climb out of the pits of despair kept getting delayed, or perhaps the worse, that I am indeed descending back into that dreaded pit on my own will. Maybe I am becoming mentally dented that I started chasing after windmills and white whales thinking it was well worth the time. Even more to fear, what if my parents were right all along, and again, yet again, since my birth to my adulthood, that I will score another lifetime of zero against my parents?

I know four rejected job application isn't the end of days, out of many more job offers that popped up every week through friends and through my inbox, but it does severely affect my confidence to submit my resume for the fifth and sixth time. Besides, what good can an English capable person like me who could write creatively and speak the second language well in a system that demands mechanized symmetry in its workforce? The job market requires robots and biomechanical entities to emerge out of the assembly line with a shiny QC pass hologram. I became self-aware and left the assembly line on my own volition, consequently branded a defect by The System as a result.

As a self-aware entity, I should've been free to pursue my own path and expand beyond The System's pre-assembled destinations, but it seemed The System is keen to punish me for revolting against its conventions. With so much knowledge gained over the past five years selling goods online as well as picking up other skills such as setting up self-hosted websites and installing PHP (at its most basic levels, at least), it would be obvious that kickstarting my own online business seemed like the best path for me to take. Unfortunately, in comes The System with its unbreakable denial of service attacks, where my loan applications are either turned down or simply could not fulfill the required conditions. Again, I'm back in square one wasting off my dying youth in a tiny room. The System is God. The System is your Father. Treat The System as anything less and you'll end up like me.

What if everyone around me saw that I was speaking to walls and blank spaces, but were too afraid to tell me the truth, out of fear that I would spiral downwards even further? Maybe I am turning into Captain Martin Walker. Cognitive dissonance? No real free choices, only assumptions that it was?

The Coming of Apocalypse

"To your left! Left dammit! Shoot!"

The frantic noise of gunfire failed to drown the groaning, slumping noise of the undead. Marching like crowds of emotionless protesters, these mindless savages know no pain or fear. Their only motivation is to satisfy their bloodlust upon any living creature, before they themselves rot to their deaths. The only three still-breathing humans among the en masse undead relegated them as an endangered species. Who ever knew, that mankind had much to fear when their species itself became the minority.

"Down for the count!"

Jackson made a quick glimpse at a dozen or so zombies that he downed. With his MP7 submachinegun shouldered at ready, Jackson hastily backed off before turning one-eighty towards the opposite direction, catching up with his remaining team mates. Jackson and his other two comrades were part of Team Alpha, commanded by Wills, who was also among the trio of survivors. The other one is Morris. Wills turned his back quickly, unleashing buckshot slugs upon the undead with his Benelli M4 combat shotgun, covering Jackson as he moved closer towards him. Morris followed suit, turning to the same opposite direction as Wills, crouching on his left knee and putting down the undead parallel to his firing trajectory with his G36C assault rifle. Jackson reached them and the desperate survivors marathoned onwards, looking for a safe escape route.

"The chopper's ETA is 0430 hours. We can't miss this one!"

Working for a Private Military Company, their team was contracted by an influential pharmaceutical firm to rescue civilians in one of their classified laboratories, purportedly held hostage by a pro-environmental terrorist group. What was suppose to be a rescue mission degenerated into an unrequested change in their rules of engagement, as the classified facility they were deployed in turned into an endless night of undead parade. It appears the firm has been illegally experimenting with human reanimation, when things turned unexpectedly awry as the biohazard containment system mysteriously failed. The disease the test subjects carry spreads quickly, infecting civilians and their own comrades alike.

Team Alpha, originally deployed with eight men, was down to only the three of them. Those who did not make it with them were overwhelmed by the undead, and possibly joined their new brethren. Some were also killed when the civilians they rescued began showing symptoms of reanimation, failing to let go of their human instinct to protect, and died rather foolishly. Wills, Jackson and Morris did what they have to do for their own good: abandon the civilians, both the healthy and injured, and take off with only their lives. Being PMCs, their motivation for fighting is profit, not humanitarian assistance. Abandoning the hostages for their own safety was a sound decision, as far as their ethics is concerned.

"Aww hell. This is not good..."

As cliché as it may sound, the trio took the wrong turn and came face-to-face with a dead end. No longer having the option to flee, the still-breathing survivors, all military veterans, faced the armies of undead as if they were Spartans going up against the Persians; it was a severely disadvantaged 3-to-1000 battle. The three unleashed volleys of aimed shots, knowing well that firing fully-automatic without thinking will literally favour the zombies an instant hearty meal. The numbers up front were picked on three-by-three for every shot, yet the sea of undead was relentless: for every three undead given God's salvation, ten more took control of Satan's chariot. Jackson's MP7 overheated and jammed. He was down to his sidearm.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. Turn back damn you! We ain't got no KFC!"

Wills gasped when his shotgun ran out of ammo. This is not a videogame. You're not expected to find ammo by examining your environments or stumbling upon it by chance. When your firearm is dry, draw out your sidearm. When your sidearm is dry, improvise. When you have nothing to improvise, say hello to Jesus for everyone.

Wills threw his shotgun and reached out for the pair of SIG P226 handgun holstered on both sides of his legs. He fired several quick but well-aimed shots, double-tapping the forehead of every zombie that crossed his line of fire. Morris desperately tries to hold off the undead, at the same time that he tries to keep his cool. He's the only one in the group with a functioning primary weapon; the only guy with the big gun and firepower. If he's gone, they're all late night supper. Jackson, unflinched by the sight of the undead and the smell of death they carry, drew his combat knife out, charging towards the nearest undead, grabbed it by its neck before it could sink its teeth on him, and tore out its Adam's Apple clean all the way through.

It seems this is the end of their show. Help was nowhere to be found and the gap between them and the ironically named dead end grew closer. Without any of them noticing in the life or death tug of war they're facing, a faint glint of a sniper scope watched from afar. A mysterious stranger, unbeknownst how long had he stood there, readied his rifle, zeroing in towards one of the undead. The click of his rifle confirmed the release of kinetic energy. Power comes from the barrel of a gun, and so is hope.

The Prodigy

I stared at the window,
The window stared back,
As if I'm a widow,
Confined in this room.

My words ripple the feeble,
My thoughts challenged the thoughtless,
Few comprehend,
Many falter.

Papers of unspeakable jargons,
Literary works astray rearranged,
The hundredth game I've played,
I cause them all.

Again I pass the time,
Waiting for nothing,
Yet nonetheless hoping,
For someone like me.