Grey Matter

"..the remedy is the experience,
it's a dangerous liaison,
I say the comedy is that it's serious,
which is a strange enough new play on words.."

Dear lonely isle,

Some things we give we just can't take back.
Maybe because some things are just too insubstantial to be given or received.
But if we felt it, does it mean that it does exist?
Felt in the sense that we feel with our mental consciousness but we can sense no shape or presense, save the nature of the thing that which we have received. We can perceive hostility, ill-intent, or sometimes joy radiating from a person, but we can neither see it, touch it, feel it or even smell its presence.
Animals are said to be able to smell fear, but probably in the same sense that we are able to see a killing aura, which we can't, not really actually see an aura hovering around a really really really pissed person whom you say, spilt honey on during the trip to the ant farm, by the way.
So how do we feel something as insubstantial as love? Or hate, for that matter.
Are they really all just emotions we conjure in our heads as an explanation of the way we feel towards another person? Or is it something more?
Why do we even feel these terrible things? Hormones?
What drives us, other than the need to propagate our species, to sacrifice and to devote our time, attention and thoughts towards another?
I realise I'm starting to not make much sense again... so just forgive this relapse...
I don't know how this happens. I just start typing with a blank mind, and before I know it, I'm at a point where I don't even know what I'm typing about. So I tend to pretend that I actually know what I'm typing and that I actually intended to type it all along. It's not hard to spot these posts. It's usually things that start with something, and end up as something very different.
It happens all the time, especially when I have nothing particular to blog about, and just felt the need to go bang on the keyboard for awhile. It usually ends up with some crap post that doesn't make sense even to me, and just goes to show that the human brain, when left running idle without much thought processing, will tend to malfunction and spew crap in every direction. Or maybe it's just me. Other people who leave their brains running idle, and let the grey cells direct the fingers across the keyboard probably end up penning "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" or even the "A Brief History of Time". Which just goes to show why I will never make it as an author or will never become a philosophical genius. Everything I say tends to be crap-saturated.
And while most bloggers tend to write beautiful and meaningful posts, I tend towards the nonsensical junk just to fulfill my fingers' need to exercise. And possibly because my mind is always blissfully blank when I start blogging. It's only when I've finished and published the post that I realise the amount of damage I have caused, both to my reputation as a mentally stable person and to other people's perception of me as one. Which I think that with each oncoming post, is eroding their initial view of me as one, and building up the mental barricade that I am certainly not one.
Well, I know your opinion of me is certainly somewhere below ground by now, and hopefully with this post, you will realise that most of this is against my will as my mind does not care much for my reputation, neither does it really give much thought to how people see me and so on henceforth continues to type..

Well, there is only so much crap you can produce in one day, and for this brain, I think today's production is a tad bit lower than normal thanks to the inability and ineffectiveness of this body to recover from fevers fast enough.

So thank you for making it this far.

love, joyce. ('s brain)

A Tale Of Two Villages

"..once upon a time,
all tales tell,
but where it ends,
is a different story.."

Dear lonely isle,

Let me tell you a story. It goes like this...

Once upon a time, there lived two villages on opposite sides of a stream. It was a peaceful community, and both sides lived rather happily in harmony.
The river was a place of extensive social activity. In the mornings it is the unofficial gathering of wives from both villages, as they head down to the stream to complete the daily scrubbing of dirty laundry and, not to mention, to talk about other people's dirty laundry too. But all in all, it's just a healthy dose of general gossip all around, and by the time the clothes are considerably clean, everyone would've known who's done what and who's done who.
On hot sunny afternoons, or basically most afternoons, really, come hail or storm, there'll always be diving champion wannabes, and a lot of snorkeling activity going on too. It was a place of pure innocent fun. And because the currents weren't strong and the river not quite so deep as to lose your footing, but deep enough for a cooling soak, children from both villages flock to the river like a swarm of flies to horse poo. Sorry for the rather distasteful metaphor, but you get what I mean.
Sunsets (and some sunrises) bring a different scene to mind, concerning the river. It now became a place to hold hands, for cuddles and general snogging amidst the setting sun (who said they were actually watching the sunset? It was more of mind-numbing, electrifying looks into the unfathomable depths of someone else's eyes, while hands take the opportunity to explore and wander to places they should not...).
While activites at the river become gradually less and less innocent as the day wears on, nevertheless we arrive still at dusk. Moonlit nights (and cloudy, starry, hazy, foggy, etc. just any night) at the river were best for secret skinny dips and passionate kisses. Also currently all the rage was taking off all your clothes and a lot of bush shaking. But that's for another day.
On a soggier note, the river was also a place for meetings (romantic or not) and in some circumstances, goodbyes.
It was a place where ashes are scattered, with the hopes of lost souls finally able to see the world when they reach the ocean.
It was also the place XX met XY.
Both from different villages, XX was a maiden of seventeen, with hair of sunshine gold, and eyes of the bluest skies. Indeed she was a rather ravishing sight for sore eyes. Being slim and tall didn't hurt too.
XY was a piece of nineteen-year-old hunk. Black hair, green eyes and good physique to boot, it was not unusual that girls cry themselves to sleep over him at night. (Think Harry Potter, but better looking.) Anyway, it was only a matter of time before these two impossibly perfect beings find one another and experience the soul-shaking, earth-wreaking, electrifying, death-defying, know-that-he/she-must-be-the-one look. Better known to inferior mortals as love at first sight.
Anyway, usually you'd expect a lot of objections from either or maybe both sets of parents, or perhaps jealous bethroths and envious ex-girlfriends, all out for blood. And maybe after a few assassination attempts, or magic mumbo-jumbo that threatens to tear our lovebirds apart, they would decide to elope, settle down somewhere where nobody knows them, and regret the decision some years later (or months, possibly days. Depends on how similar the illusion is to reality.).
Or maybe 'unfortunate' accidents that lead to amnesia (real or fake, you decide), or loss of some important body part or parts, (depending on the creativity and level of saddisticism of the director) true love shall prevail. Or tragedy ensue...
Sorry to disappoint you, but you will find no such rubbish in this story. In fact, both sets of parents agreed fully to the union (perhaps blessing the passing on of good-looking genes in the family) and there were no fiances or exes to ruin the picture. Too good to be true?
Thought so myself.
So, one day, the polar ice caps melted due to extensive global warming, and low lying regions or coastal areas were swallowed up by the sea. Rivers swelled and rose to dangerous levels. The river aforementioned earlier was no exception. It spilled over the banks and flooded the villages, before subsiding a few months later, leaving villagers with a months of muck to clean. (frankly, I would've just moved.) However, even with the ebbing water levels, villagers of both villages were shocked to find out that what was once a rather shallow stream now became a raging monster. Currents swift and fast threaten to capsize any floating vessel stupid enough to try its waters, and even at the banks, the river was deep. Extremely deep. It was as if an ocean dropped in on them overnight.
The saddest part of it all was that XX and XY were now officially and very thoroughly separated. Each a small speck across the river, they could only sit on the banks each night and sing the songs of a broken heart.
Years passed. Decades flew by. Finally centuries drew close.
In the end, the two villages were separated not only physically but also genetically. Villagers from both villages had evolved apart, becoming a new subspecies to the human race.

And they lived happily ever after, never again to interbreed.

love, joyce.

PS: A sequel? Romance between hybrids..sexually incompatibility: how to celebrate the ultimate expression of true love when you can't make love? I'll think of something...

Erk

"..nightmares are not terrifying dreams,
merely unresolved problems.."

Dear lonely isle,

• Last night I had another weird dream.
• It goes a bit like this.
• Ok, there's this small town somewhere. It's pretty secluded and rather remote.
• The community of the town is a close knitted one.
• One day, somehow, there's this outbreak of vampire disease.
• You can tell who's been infected by looking at their teeth.
• The thing is, the people who've been infected, well, their aim is to bite those not infected.
• Our heroine, the girl who stabs the first vampire, leads the group of survivors.
• Armed with a pair of scissors in one hand and her glasses in the other (beats me how a pair of spectacles can get THAT sharp), our heroine goes off to fight a losing battle.
• Take note that all the spectacular special effects and wonderfully choreographed action-packed scenes cannot be described here. (Yes, my vocabulary is not sufficiently wide enough.)
• Take note too that most of the dream included those scenes.
  
• Things get rather tricky in the end when it's just down to four people.
• Three survivors (heroine included, duh) and one vampire.
• Thing is, the vampire's hunting them down one by one, until we are left with a lone survivor. La heroina.
• Anyway, in the end, the four remaining people are all sufficiently infected.
• However, before she was infected, our heroine had managed to contact the authorities about the matter.
• And now they face another threat.
• The Government.
• Trying to wipe them out.
• Well, basically, after all the explosive sequences, and death defying stunts, only the original vampire and the heroine succeeded in escaping.
• Our noble but infected heroine wanted to kill herself and the vampire by exposing herself to sunlight, and therefore ending the disease, but the vampire managed to talk her out of it, what with having a way with words and all.
• And the dream ended with the both of them looking at the world as a new place for breeding and infecting....

Oh dear.

love, joyce.

Once Upon A Time...

"..I do not attempt to unravel dreams,
they unravel me.."

Dear lonely isle,

When I was napping today I had the weirdest dream. It goes like this...

My father and I never stay in one place for long. We're always moving. He takes an interest in all things out of the ordinary and wherever odd things are happening, that's where you'll find us.
My father's rather unusual line of work takes us to a rather remote kingdom this time. It's a small country, and their king just recently died. What's odd is that the king was murdered, and there was no successor to the throne. I mean, not even next of kin, or an able minister with a motive. Everywhere we turn, we meet dead ends.
The king's will states that all his possesions, even his throne, goes to his gardener, a rather cute face who does odd jobs around the palace. Things were definitely not making much sense here, and my father was in the thick of things. As in, he was really feeling thick, so did the rest of us. This was weird.
But it gets weirder. The king's last wishes are that his kingdom be sealed away, his palace in the middle of a forest of thorns, so that it'd be unreachable to all. And the new king, the gardener, was to be with the kingdom too. Okay, so now who do we listen to, the new king or the old king?
The new king, or the gardener as we should say, was a rather simple and innocent guy. Even though looks can be deceiving, I was rather sure, will or otherwise, this WAS NOT the murderer.
The only possible suspect to me was a blond pale guy who always wore black. He was the king's butler and he had sad blue eyes. I know I know, the butler did it, you say. But something didn't quite fit. The king treated the butler well, and had no past grudges held against him. Once again, I wished I was an entire C.S.I. team (if only Ann Gee was here. Her skills of expertise in the area would have been greatly appreciated.) .
On the king's funeral, it was a pretty dark and stormy night, suitable for dramatic endings and mysterious happenings. We were all gathered in the tiny church that held the king's lifeless form, and the gardener (the new king really) was outside in the adjoining cemetery digging a grave. I know, it's weird.
So we were all there, and I was standing near the window, watching the gardener. He looked sad, as he shovelled land out of the hole which was to be king's final resting place. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck a nearby tree, and the tree fell on him!
We rushed out to his aid, but it was too late. The gardener was out cold, and a quick check by the palace physicians prooved that he will remain in coma for the rest of his life.
Now we have two incapacitated kings, and no successor to the throne. I was just about to suggest that they give up monarchy and adopt democracy or something, when a cry of anguish breaks out in the crowd. The butler was crying in a crumpled heap upon the floor, shaking.
Later on, he confessed his to his crimes of killing the king. It seems, there was a reason why the old king never got married. He was in love with the gardener.
As to why he's last wishes were so, I guess all's fair in love and war. He wanted to keep the gardener to himself even after death, out of the prying hands of his butler, who also loved the gardener.
So the butler was banished, and the castle and the country and the comotose gardener was sealed up in a forest of thorns, forever isolated from the world.
And every night, a blond figure, all in black, would ride to the forest edge and wait forlornly, for a love forever out of reach.

I guess, crimes of passion, never did make any sense, and the fact of a love triangle between three guys does not help. Sorry to have wasted your time, for those who read it and wished they didn't, and sorry for those who're disgusted cos I have sick dreams.

Honest, I never thougnt nothing of that sort, ever.

love, joyce.

Star Wars: Episode III 1/2...

"..and unimpeded, unhindered, and unstoppable,
he comes forth,
striding like the apocalypse into our midst.."

Dear Padme,

It's been awhile since I've last wrote you, and I apologise. I had to replace all my fingers as the previous ones gave me little electronic jolts after I've used the Force one too many times.
I'm still trying to get used to this suit. It tends to be stiff at joints and after the third pair of knees only was I able to sit. His Royal Highness, the Emperor also known as Darth Sidious the Hideous (HRH, tE aka DStH), had recently installed a new panel of buttons on my chest plate. It comes with a wide array of special effects, which I suspect is a thoughtful gesture from HRH, tE, aka DStH. Also included is my 'Darth Vader Theme Song' and 'Special Asthmatic Breathing', the latter which I plan to have another button likeso installed on my palm (to avoid awkward moments of poking at my chest in the middle of a conversation). No longer having a handsome face and once agile limbs has proven difficult for me to command the respect of my minions. And as I have said many times before, HRH, tE aka DStH, is a thoughtful man, though not necessarily the Father of Bright, Workable and Effective Ideas. He believes that with this new panel I am able to impress my minions and make Grand Entrances once more, and not to mention, broadcast to an entire parade ground with the internal subwoofers (with added bass) included on my waist. However, it is Not The Same.
I am given my own meditation chamber, something of a blessing (once again, another kind gesture of HRH, tE, aka DStH) as now I am able to take off my helmet in privacy. I suppose HRH, tE, aka DStH thinks it will keep me sane, as I am not used to wearing a bucket on my head All The Time. I have noticed also, that the personal guards I command have recently taken to wearing helmets of the same design as mine (only that theirs look even more like buckets). It seems too, another decree from HRH, tE, aka DStH has them all clad in black. It is but another subtle gesture of HRH, tE, aka DStH, to help me fit in with the others, so that I do not feel so much of an outcast. HRH, tE, aka DStH, is trying his best, but somehow, it is still Not The Same.
He has his heart in the right place, though I cannot say the same for myself. I am not entirely sure if I have a heart, but I have high hopes that I am positive, though I cannot say for sure where it is. HRH, tE, aka DStH could have had it commisioned to be in my left foot, for all I know, so as to make me truly invincible, save for my Achilles Heel. For, if I have no heart, how is it that I still feel for you? How is it that some parts of me ache at the thought of you no longer here? In me I hear echoes of your voice, bouncing off various electronic body parts, as I face each night alone. I am desolate, hollow without you (which accounts for the echoes, I think), and it seems that I will live for a very long time (what with exchangeble and upgradeable spare parts).
I have spent my whole life learning about Life's Vital points and how to apply them in combat, yet I have forgotten to apply them to myself on that fateful battle with Obi. Obi. Mentor, friend, and now foe. Yes, how I hate him so, for leaving me when he could have granted me the mercy of decapitation. Even now I still feel the wounds of seared flesh, and it seems I will continue to feel them for the rest of my days. As an afterthought, I have decided that if I were to die one day, I would NEVER EVER want to be cremated. In fact, I would be most grateful to the person who chooses a great body of water to dump me in as my final resting place. One of these days I must really get down to Writing a Will of Sorts, more of Last Instructions, maybe. And put it in my heel, with my heart, so that it will be safe.
The alarm in my chamber alights, and I must go. Smiting rebels is a major part of my job nowadays. So, with a heavy heart I have to conclude this letter.
Even though you will never read these letters that I write to you everyday, yet somehow they keep the part of me that loves you alive, the man in this machine alive. And even though you will never hear these words again, still,

I love you.

Always, Anakin.