My Muses

I am losing my creative juices. It must be the air; maybe it is too humid which impedes the oxygenation of the brain. Or maybe it is the water which is overzealously chlorinated that somehow encourages conformity of personality traits. See what I mean? The quality of my nonsensical ramblings has been reduced from dry-wit claptrap to logic-laced gobbledygook. It is a sure sign of maturity; I want my petulant puerility back.

I remember how I used to sit in my office – the real one, back in Australia where the discretion to leave my feet on the desk was left entirely to my preference – and would procrastinate from work with such grace and grandeur. I would drift from working on my thesis and begin conceptualising theories that challenge only those who care to make any sense out of them. I read with pride, my old entries in this blog that are able to dance along the fine thread of logic that separates wit from utter stupidity.

It is difficult, living on an island where fashion is dictated by Giordano and thinking out of the box means following guidelines. I find myself less sensitive to the minor details in life and often overlooking the pedestrian moments. Despite the inclination to wear bright colours I feel, perhaps, I’m becoming dull.

I think I just miss my muses – the desert chief, the debt collector and his wife, cheese and Mrs Whale, CG, the undisputed world’s best listener, the comely lawyer and the blur queen. If my world was a cloudless sky, they will be the palette from which my rainbow was painted. I get murky clouds nowadays, the kind you find on a hazy day when Indonesians start burning their own forests. Bless Alexander Graham Bell, but damn the itchybackside who came up with the day-light saving concept now that it is so difficult to reach my friends.

Ah yes, 6 April is coming. My friends will only be 2 hours ahead.

Conversation with my Remisier

Me: I wanted to sell in the morning and buy back before market closed. But thought I shouldn’t take the risk.

J: Hmm if you had sold in morning and bought back at the end, you would make an intraday profit; coz when you sell first it’s effectively a short & buy back = short cover

Me: In other words the eagle would have eaten the zukini if not for the evil ducks which started playing the banjo. I get you.

J: You meant zucchini and eagles don’t eat that, they are carnivores.

Me: No no it was a metaphorical analogy, the spelling mistake was deliberate. Lets put it this way, it’s like having your tail soaked in perfume only for the grasshopper to pay its taxes. If you know what I mean.

J: …………..

A Pocket of Time

Men in their retirement years gathered. Their faces were expressionless, save a certain calmness that transpired from their eyes. No words were spoken, where the absence of conversation appeared to have been arranged by mutual agreement. A group of them sat themselves on stone benches and were placid; perhaps in reminisce of fond memories from yesteryears. The street performer sang another number from her repertoire of Cantonese oldies. Her echoed voice, amplified through an overly exerted mixer reminded me of wedding bands in old Chinese restaurants.

I found myself seduced in that moment, as if captured in a time capsule. I was blanketed by a deliberate pace, unperturbed by the clamouring noises of urban life. The simplicity of every element that beguiled my senses was intoxicating. I stopped to reinvigorate a forgotten pallet and soaked in a breath of life.

I did not stay to listen to the end of her song. I strolled on, without pondering why I did not stay any longer. I had to be somewhere else; and it would seem, I always had to be somewhere else.