break in

[to write it down as to not forget.]

our house got broken into a few days ago six pm tuesday to be exact. the guy smashed the kitchen window, located at the back of the house, using a brick (which we later found to be on top of the washing machine the next day). he then managed to unlatch the window, and then lift the damn thing up, and gained himself entry.

what was a curious/lucky, depending on how you view it, was that A was inside the house, probably just got came in, but didn’t realize the intruder. suspecting and hearing nothing, she went straight into the bathroom and did her business after lingering around the hallway for a full five minutes.

we speculated that the thief was trapped in F’s room, and decide to hide there, evidenced by the loss of her mobile phone (the cheap one) and the mess he had made by opening each drawer. he even took the trouble/liberty (leisure?) to separate the malaysian coins and the australian coins from the piggy bank. that and my conveniently put money jar on the table containing not more than 20 quid.

what was certain was once A called out from the toilet who’s there, thinking it was us, (hearing the footsteps), he panicked and started to run through the backdoor. it was after she got out of the toilet she realized that, one, the house is empty and two, a freaking window was smashed.

and there you have it the full incident. after that the normal panicking, neighbours pouring in, police knocking on the doors of the neighbours, collecting ids and all that.

oh where were we, you ask? at the university of course, trying to finish this one assignment worth eight percent of a subject, which i only managed to partially finish (aka given up) twenty minutes ago. naturally by the time we got home, getting a lift from ze Canadian Fwend, all the commotion has ended and there was only the police trying to see what’s missing and what’s not.

now, how does one handle/react to a news like this?
let’s look at how each acted, after reaching the house,

a) person A, zooming into the room; frantically touching everything, OHMYCAMERA’s still here, emitting little squeaks of amazement over what’s lost and what isn’t, much to the puzzlement of the officer, wondering eh, what’s the commotion about. why is she worked up like that.
b) person B, zooming into the room, noticing what’s different, checking each important item if it’s still there, then resume to look at person A.
c) person C, looking at the window, after hearing A n B, proceeds to follow suit.
d) person D, greeted the officer, looked at the window, and then when everyone has looked at her stuff, goes to her own room and notices nothing missing. (when it was pointed out that some cash was missing only then she remembers oh i did have some money lying around).

there is nothing significant about the above reactions except to see how people are more attracted to the cause or to the effect.

at any rate, there’s nothing to be worried about. some people came during the night (the femes kak z), the forensic came the next day and tried to find fingerprints with his very convenient dusty stuff and brush, the window fixed by noon, and everything resumes as normal.

other boring notes;

  • it turns out that you may need a biology degree to be in the forensics. 
  • fingerprints are only good on shiny surfaces, and when they are gripped tight. smudges, slips don’t count. 
  • when in state of agitation, you need to drink/eat a lot.
  • sometimes people are too tired to react to any news. the internal state controls/influences the external, and not otherwise. (extraversion vs introversion?)
  • break ins happen often, anywhere.
  • you have wonderful neighbours
  • things get done quickly in states of emergencies but stalled otherwise
  • the advent of pressure
  • everyone likes stories of crimes/mysteries
  • some people instragram everything
  • asked whether to take a picture or not, person B says, i’d rather keep it in my head.
bye. 

on films and other things

haven’t watched any good movies lately. maybe i ran out of people to tell me the good stuff, such that i’d resort to farty movies on the tele. or maybe i have lost the propensity to fathom really good films. or maybe videos don’t excite me as much anymore. or maybe i no longer find it worthwhile to dig over new films, go to cinemas and all that. maybe i spent a large part of being 17, 18,19 just watching movies finding nothing worthwhile to do. it’s all just ignorance back then, eh?

but if i were to list down the movies i really liked, not just good ones, film-wise (whatever that means), executed towards perfection, and cut it down to five; (because it’s a convenient number), they would be; 
The Fall (2006)
The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
In the Mood for Love (2000)
Lost in Translation (2003)
The Color of Paradise (1999)

of course there are others tapi aaah, semua di atas adalah top notch. 
but now i’m just barren. jadi sekarang tengah download Baran. would also like to watch Calcutta by Louis Malle, just because it’s India, but needs concentration. also Valley of Saints, but it’s nowhere to be found unless you go to film festivals. 
the only sort of weird music maisarah likes; Ustaz Shujaat Khan
music+poetry+visuals = perfect?
O friend, the homecoming of my Beloved 
has made this courtyard so perfectly blessed 
To my Beloved, I bow a thousand times for accepting at His feet, 
this unworthy self of mine 
In deep longing I waited and waited, 
with henna and flowers arranged 
Glancing upon the Face of my Beloved, 
lost I – my heart and my mind 
Being in the Presence of the Beloved 
makes the spring so much more beautiful 
And the spring that is spent without the Beloved,
may it turn to ashes, 
may it turn to ashes! 
also, if anyone can capture Tanah Melayu in the 18th century complete with istanas, gold, mystics, pendekars, tigers, some western infusion, gunungs, hutans, and all. 
then again i’m probably just eager to travel to different places. to see things and people and places and landscapes. 
arabic words always comes in pairs, such that a switch in one alphabet can mean something else, but always related. like kufar (deny/to cover) and fikir(to meditate, ponder deeply). or al-ahwa (dark)
and al-wahyu (revelation/inspiration). or aalim ( learn) and aamal (practice). 
eh, where am i headed?
an interesting thing about the word s-f-r (safra) in arabic which means journey, (musafir, if that rings a bell to anyone), also means discovery, to unveil, to reveal. tafsir (f-s-r) means to remove a veil from something, or to make clear of, to explain, expound etc. so we travel in order to interpret and make sense of the world. 
oh there, something finally beneficial on this blog.

on the other hand

you hear about the suicidal h, hovering between the living and the dead, quite unsure of this or the other, dragging his existence, terrorizing his surroundings, casting fear and worry into the hearts of others. your name, do you know what it reminds me of?

But if they turn away, say, “Sufficient for me is Allah ; there is no deity except Him. On Him I have relied, and He is the Lord of the Great Throne.”

death

the father of a dear friend of mine
just passed away yesterday.
i don’t know what to react to this.
in fact, i don’t know how to properly
react to any news of death, either.
one is arrested with a sudden paralysing feeling.
as if time stopped moving, and everything suddenly 
pales in comparison.
as if each movement ceases to mean anything.
you see it in movies, in film, in the news, everyday
how many? only one? two? oh not a big figure.
how disensitized we have become
to feel towards the unliving
a certain somnambulism
a stupor that continues to gape at life
to grasp to seize greedily
what it has to offer us
when the earth is always ready
to receive us.

the n factor

of course, you could always glance at me across the seats, always eager to speak to me because you know how much i know yet you would never allow it out of pride out of egotism over your flowery poetry with nuptials and strange barbed words spread at every stanza. no i don’t find it strong, profound, or even remotely tasteful, perhaps because i am a mere layman atrophied by equations and formulas related to all the macro and micro, my brain hardwired to become to architect circuits  designate wave forms manipulate numbers – i didn’t study literature or english or poetry in my university – i know not what is past present principle tenses verbs nouns in all their confusing trajectories – nor do i know art or philosophy psychology social theory – marxism confuses me, nietzsche disgusts me, freud bores me jung eludes me kant i cannot fathom sartre makes ponder but kierkegaard delights me – i never studied german or french or japanese enough to translate them to use them in my letters or tweets because i don’t want to suddenly be asked how am i progressing along even though i have all three lessons and dictionaries in my room – i don’t suddenly secretly address people ff in obscurely written essays in to appear intellectual because i know i am not i am extremely limited in my capacity to understand all the isms and dualities – i don’t even understand love or angelic references because i don’t like to read nature i let it seize me with feelings and awe not with words and colors – i am no artist and i have no eye for the particular i let things and people and scenery imbue me but i cannot paint them with expressions. i am merely preoccupied with my own world and the little bits that i pull from everything. so  yes, my opinion, my words; they don’t have the least significance to you, o great poet, they only occupy a little space here and nowhere else.

excerpts #5

the whole point of the expression, if i were to give it an expression, is to let another person know your thoughts. but what if you wanted to conceal a thing in the first place? how does anything gets written then? mon cherie remains an idea, because she is steadily growing, bemoaning her fate and anxiety; you are anxious enough to write it down, but find it difficult to get out of bed and stare monotonously at the computer for hours without end. yes, it is difficult precisely because you’d rather lose yourself in short empty chatter fruitless pandering that points toward nothing but short momentary bursts to mollify your heart, that you realize will never be enough. why don’t you, why won’t you, turn your head to what lasts, to what gives you more permanence?
*
then again, to speak of anyone, to anyone, these days is rather fruitless.
*
you have abandoned all ideas of being purified and dignified, and would rather roll in your sheets and face nothing but the wall than embrace the disparaging noise that creep across the hallway in all their gaiety and laughter.
*
reading list;
marx, beauvoir, kafka, swettenham.
(yet you know you’ll never finish any of them)
*
the fourth state of matter, jo ann beard.
*
don’t send anything if you think i’m not worthy of it. it is as simple as that. don’t complain of the inability to comprehend. sometimes it’s the refusal to acknowledge that leads to a cold response. one is not at loss of words, rather one doesn’t want to give any.
*
would rather read than write. one must be patient, and not eager to lash out words upon words to claim the title writer. right now you must lay dormant and read read read.
*
someone sent me a picture of some author to the phone. it is now forever marred with a very sial existence.
*
it’s blatant but only with those familiar.
*
sekian

hiver

wrote another email yesterday. did a word count and saw it amounted to a thousand words, just written under an hour. that is your pace you guess, if you don’t put much thought into it, to blast, blast away without a care. toe on the side, looping indefinitely without knowing or caring which is which. of course, one has to wrap up at some point, but to end with, i am going to read kafka now is very abrupt. the thing arrived this morning, all soaked up in rain, so you teared it open after you agreed to get spaghetti at A’s place, bringing in a pile of books you said that you wanted to read. you didn’t even read anything there. you slept on the cold hard floor. it was raining. it was snowing, in fact, in other parts of the country, despite it being a month into spring. the mad weather. you sat at the side of the cafe waiting for the binding to be finished, submitted it, going through the breezing wind saying hello to brian while he tells you of his nineteen year old autistic son of how his mother left him how you had to take care of him. my hands are full, so you see him reflecting on his life, a mild expression on his face but it was raining you had to say goodbye adieu and brace again the cold weather.

love – not in fiction

“….A broken line of black trees stood clear against the rapidly-darkening sky, but, as we reached the foot of the hill, heaven and earth were wrapped in the shadows of night. And then my day was done. Doubt was buried, and the “big word” bound our hearts in the joy of that priceless sympathy which carries human aspirations   beyond the storm and stress of human life to a knowledge of the Divine. We said little; when hearts are at one, few words are needed, for either knows the other’s thoughts. 

But you were slow to unbend, making a brave fight against fate, and keeping true to your creed, though seven days would bring the end. To me, the light of that one brilliant day had been intensified by the rapidly approaching shadow of the inevitable parting. I wonder—now that the bitterness of separation has come, now that I vaguely ask myself what has happened to Time since I lost you—whether, if we could have that day again, you would again be so merciless in your determination to hold love in leash, and give no sign of either the passion or the pain that was tearing your heart. I think it was a hard fight, for, though you concealed your thoughts, you could not hide the physical effects of the struggle. Did you know how your weariness distressed me, and what I would have given to have the right to try to comfort you?

       I have a confused memory of those other days. Brief meetings and partings; insane desires to make any excuse to write to you, or  hear from you, though I had but just left your presence; a hopeless and helpless feeling that  I had a thousand things to say to you, and yet that  I  never could say one of them, because the time  was  so short that every idea was  swallowed up  in  the ever-present dread of your departure,  and  the ceaseless repetition of your cry,  ”  I  cannot bear it,  I cannot bear it.” From out that vague  background  shine two stars, two brilliant memories to  light the darkness  of the weary months  until I  see  your face again — a blissful memory and  a  sign.  All the rest seems swallowed up in the bitterness of that parting, which comes back like some horrible nightmare.

       Only black water under a heavy overcast sky; only the knowledge that the end had come; that what should be said must be said then, with the instant realisation that the pain of the moment, the feeling of impotent rebellion against fate, destroyed all power of reflection, and the impulse to recklessness was only choked back by the cold words of a publicly spoken farewell. Then rapid motion, and in one minute the envious darkness had taken everything but the horrible sense of loss and inconsolable regret. Whatever my suffering, it was worse for you; I at least was alone, alone with a voice which ever murmured in my ears that despairing cry, “I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it.”

       When two who have been brought together, so close together that they have said the “big word” without faltering, are suddenly swept asunder by the receding wave of adverse circumstances, there must ever arise in their hearts that evil question, “How is it now? Is it the same? Or have time, and distance, and a thousand other enemies, so filled the space between us that the memory of either is growing dim, and the influence of the other waning, waning till the absence of all binding tie begins to feel like a very bond. Will the vision simply fade gradually out of sight? “For us there is no promise, no tie, no protestations of fealty; only knowledge, and that forced upon us rather than sought. You give or you don’t give, that is all; if you also take away, you are within your right.

There may be reasons and reasons, I understand them all; and I have only one desire, that whatever prevails may secure you happiness.  What you can give seems to me so unlike what others ever have to give, so infinitely beyond price, that, where I might gain, it is not right that I should speak. Therefore  I  cannot urge,  I  dare  not even plead,  a  cause that has less to  recommend it than the forlornest hope.”
from Of love, not in fiction, 
by FS. 

"as if the moon had fallen into my lap"

I am reading the Unaddressed Letters by Frank Swetthenham. It turns out it is a series of letters (most possibly written by him himself), addressed to several different people, but more frequently to one specific person. His Carina. This Carina, whether she existed or not, whether she is but a collective of images wrapped in one persona, is of no importance. The advantage of unaddressed letters, he said, is that one does not have to think of the other person, or the his reaction. Because in writing, the image of the addressed appears before us, and thus, under his gaze, or what really is under his influence, that we write. Thus we are constrained in both our language and subject.

Why not then just have a journal, you say? It’s because a journal never has an audience. A writer is a liar if he says he only writes for himself, secretly he conceals his desire to be read by at least one person, imaginary or not. For everyone desires to be heard, to be sought out, to be spoken to, whether by a stranger, a friend, a lover, god if you may.

Of course, to be the recipient of such letters (or emails, for that matter) is a feeling even more wonderful. Now, who’s going to write a real love letter to me?

p/s; he quotes frequently from persian poetry (most likely rumi/hafez), and has a thing for snakes, sunshine, india, and the whole eastern experience. i suppose if i lived at the beginning of 20th century tanah melayu would be extremely enchanting.

relayed, so to speak

as if you need to be jovial all the time. 
of course, i tell nothing to anyone anymore. and they keep listening in even though there is none to be said, each heaved in their silent crawl, ready to snap snap snap at every opportunity. i am alone in my wandering/running.
after all, what’s worse than the absence of a person? it is silence of presence.
at least for the latter you could take comfort in not having to care, to reach out. no agitation to yak about in order to fill in the emptiness. the spilling of triviality.
but here i am basking in agony. basking? how can there be joy in pain?
never.
yet you keep calling me a masochist downplaying the suffering of others but i am the one who is always try to be jovial about this unbearable existence.
we laugh at ourselves, believing it will alleviate ourselves gaping at the world with wonder and beauty everyday we become little woodsworths and seize, carpe diem, tres bien tres bien.

but now it’s just tres movais.