Stay here with me

I finished two random chapters of the book. Not chapter to be precise, rather it was two short stories. The weather has been cooling, a nice day to go out for a walk, but also it can strike someone as gloomy day. Gloomy day, as people will say. Maybe this is the sort of weather I prefer, no sun, but just white light from the sky, filtered through the thick layers of cloud in the sky. Cool breeze rushes through the window into the surrounding now and then, with the air stirring ceiling fan, serenaded by some noisy music, a contradicting blend of the morning at eleven AM. I poured a glass of drinking water and drank it a few sips, feeling the liquid being divided and consumed by every cell in my body. I wondered about the Nine Deaths in Shanghai. I faintly heard drain cleaning sound from the back of my house. It is already the end of September.

The ants, one follows another, hundreds or thousands of them heading somewhere, forming an uneven dotted line on the wall; like a convoy traveling in Sahara desert. I see them crawling about, carrying breadcrumbs, tiny food bits, and insects’ remnant, each of the six-legged step they make, edge a millimeter nearer to their home, from one side of the cracked white wall to another. Some ants are lost, but manage to find their way back to the line. I have been watching them for a whole afternoon; my legs feel sore for squatting too long. An ant is lost from the convoy, it is too far from the line – from my satellite view. Out to search for its freedom but it also might end up dying alone. “Pap said there is no zoo in our place” a voice comes from behind, a disappointed sort of tone it sounds. I turn my head back and look up, still squatting. I squints my eyes and I can only see an over-exposed shadow under the glaring sun. The girl who is three years older than me, standing there with leg

“Maybe you are addicted to the pain, you are going there far too often. For me, I cannot quite take it.” So our topic of conversation flowed to foot reflexology again, the thing she repeats every week. I wasn’t sure was it because my memory playing trick at me, I remember every time I talked to her, she had her foot reflexology done the day before, and she would tell me her brand new experience, which was not too much of a difference – that is the Chinese guy was trying to speak to her in mandarin during the foot massaging and all that she knew was nodding and smiling. Not smiling all the time of course, imagine it is a foot reflexology session. “Just once a week” Came her reply. “I won’t get addicted okay, it is so painful but healthy you see. That will be sufficient to keep me going.” By saying this, I wondered she realized that this was the second time I said about her foot reflexology addiction. Not that I was too concerned of her being forgetting things we talked before but I was

I have known her for five years. We’re not the best known couple among friends but we got along well. We seldom quarrel, not to say we had not raised enough issues to quarrel but we had our own way to tackle it, we came to the consent and agreement on things before we got together, we talked issues over and we discussed together to sort out problems. There was once we had a big fight, and hmm, I shall rephrase the big fight to cold war instead. We managed to get back well together again in two days time, it was like two years for us then. After that we came to really appreciate each other. I don’t really remember the detail of reason why we quarreled; I can say it was a rather long story, that it will take two pages to explain. I won’t be explaining the reason here because that is not the main point. Among my girl friends, she moved me the most. Since the first day we had known each we had unbroken topics of conversation. The conversation was so smooth that even the most tedious and bo

I stared at the arrangement of dine wares she set on her finished plate, it formed a twenty-five pass five in her place of view, which was now left empty. There was only me now. She left for her own wedding. I gazed at the empty chair that was isolating to cold. This place will never be the same for me again. Twenty-five pass five. It will stay as a curse in me, haunt me forever.

Gosh, I thought. I must have left the face towel somewhere on the Abwork Bench (Short form Abdominal work bench), no wonder I felt something was missing from my hand on my way here, felt like I should have carrying something but obviously I didn’t realize it until now. So it was the towel! I made a motionless nod. I stared blank at the locker for while, thinking of what should I do; I had already taken off my red Nike shoes and socks, locker door half opened and my laptop was inside. Nobody knew the laptop was inside; it rested peaceful while I went for work out. Ah just forget about it I thought. It is just a towel, if I’m lucky that the towel counter never find out, I will get through without any hassle. So, I took out a new stock of underwear and headed into the showering room. I’m going to look for it later, the towel. I thought. Somebody must have been using the Abwork Bench and they probably just toss it aside, on the red carpet floor maybe? seeing nobody come to claim the towel.

“Can you don’t write story about man and woman?” She asked, as she rolled her body over to face me while lying on the vinyl chair. She framed her yet-to-dry hair with her pulled up sunglasses and looked intensely into my eyes. “Do you mean love story?” I asked her back, thinking over why she has to use the phrase ‘ man and woman’ . Wasn’t there a clear cut way of presenting the meaning? “No, it’s not love story, you don’t write about love story.” She responded, lazily rested her head, her cheek on her left palm. “You write about man and woman, their conversations, the most you write about is partner that you long dream of or describe a bit of how she ideally looks like. That’s all”. I leant my back down at my vinyl chair, laptop still in my hands, I tried to figure out what she meant by that. Afternoon in this long beach was almost like a desert; we could hardly see any tourists strolling or lazing around on the beach. In the sea, there was occasionally surfers struggling to stand on t

Usually in Sunday morning I would sleep a bit late, every times I woke up to find another half of the queen size bed empty, like an indentation of a paragraph, an empty space left on purpose. I felt the warmth on the other pillow. It was still warm. She must have waked up a few minutes earlier than me, never had once I woke up earlier than her or together, I wonder why. Scent of Coffee leaked into the room, her style to lure me up from the bed. Her coffee brewing skill is remarkably outstanding, I would say, working in her industry she has to make good coffee, a little bit less in its taste would have caused complaints to flood in; she would not let that happen. So, I got to my feet and went to our common space, the coffee table. She was already all set when I walked into the room, pouring coffee into tasteful tea cups she bought it from Egypt, not those elegant kind of kitchen ware, but rather it looked rugged and worn out, like some artistic masterpiece you see in art gallery, imperf