Superman's Secret
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Sunday, 22 March 09 - 01:30 PM (GMT +08:00) By Khairil Mokhzani Bahar in Creative Text Juice |
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For the copyright holders and hardcore fans, this is a work of absolute fiction not intended to tie in with the DC universe in any way. It was just a little story that came about in my head that I thought would be interesting.
Everybody in Metropolis knew Superman. He was everywhere. You may not have seen him face to face, but you'd have seen him at some point, swooshing through the sky, always ready to help and to fight for truth, justice and the American way.
Everybody knew Superman, and everybody loved him.
No one knew Superman nor loved Superman more than Lois Lane, intrepid reporter at the Daily Planet. Her colleague Clark never thought much of the subject but Lois did, day in and day out. She thought about Superman and marveled at him and wondered where he came from, what he was really like, who he really was.
She had interviewed him, sure. And he had taken her in his arms and flew her across the sky. For the briefest of moments she experienced his world and it exhilarated her beyond comprehension.
And the feeling wasn't unrequited. Superman felt a kinship with her, a connection. Perhaps there was someone on this planet he could finally open up to, tell his secrets, and never be alone again.
One night, as Lois leaned by her balcony, staring at the Metropolis skyline, Superman swooped down gently, his cape flowing in the breeze. Even though Lois had seen him fly a thousand times the sight of it amazed her every time. At that moment, Lois would do anything to be with him, to feel the way he made her feel every day. She thought it would be worth anything.
But not this.
Superman told her, in full confidence, who he really was. He told her how she had been by his side every day but knew him by another name - Clark. He told her without hesitation, assuming she'd understand.
She didn't. After hearing what he had to say Lois made an excuse and entered her apartment.
The next day Clark saw Lois at work. She treated him like she always did, spoke to him like she always had and didn't mention a word about the night before.
That night Superman went to her balcony but she wasn't home. With his super hearing he heard the cries for help as a monorail train derailed and went to the rescue.
There, in the crowd, she saw Lois writing notes as Jimmy snapped away. When Superman came to say hello he expected her to act differently towards him but she was the same as she'd always been. She treated him like she always did, spoke to him like she always had...
...and didn't mention a word about the night before.
Because everybody in Metropolis knew Superman. He was everywhere. But Lois now knew a little more. She had always wanted to be special, but now that she was she wished she could be like everybody else again.
Because everybody thought they knew Superman, and everybody loved him.
The Talking House
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Sunday, 26 October 08 - 11:25 PM (GMT +08:00) By Khairil Mokhzani Bahar in Creative Text Juice |
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Is this poetry? Or a limerick? I don't know. All I know is it rhymes.
Perhaps it's rap.
There once was a poor man left without a home
And all through the country this poor man would roam
For weeks and for days and for hours and hours
This poor man would search for a home
Past the rivers and valleys, through sleet and through snow
This poor man kept looking for days upon end
For a place that this man could call home
But after a while this poor man stopped a-looking
Decided that maybe there's no home for viewing
Perhaps there was no place that suited this man
This poor man who so needed a home
He slept where he could and found some form of comfort
In what he could find for that's all that he wanted
His sights were no longer set ever so high
For this man stopped his search for a home
And that's when he saw an incredible sight
Shone upon him as though from a glorious light
It was there all along but the door never opened
This place that he could call a home
"Hello," said the home and the man was perplexed
"You can talk?" asked the man and the home answered, "yes,
I'm a house that can talk and I've all that you'd
Possibly want in your very own home"
The man was amazed as he stepped on inside
The house was beyond what his mind's eye described
On those nights when he dreamed of a wonderful place
That he one day could call his own home
In the past this poor man had seen this house before
But he never thought that he'd step up to the door
And he never imagined that this very house
Would be somewhere he'd proudly call home
"This is perfect," the man said, his face full of glee,
"Tell me where I should sign, 'cos you're so meant for me!
I shall care for this house like no other and when
Others come I shall show them my home!"
The house said, "Sir, there is no contract to enter,
To sit on this sofa or eat at your leisure
These doors, they will open whenever you wish
But I'm sorry, I can't be your home"
The poor man looked up at the house and he said
"If you can't be my home tell me why have you led
Me inside when I can't even say with all honesty
That you are truly my home?"
The house said, "I'm sorry, I know it's a shame
But this house is now under someone else's name
Though your company's welcome whenever you're here
Even though this house shan't be your home"
The man sat and wondered what option to take
Should he stay even though it would make his heart break
For he'd know even though he'd enjoy all its comforts
This house could never be his home
Or perhaps he should try to continue to find
Somewhere else that would give even more peace of mind
But he couldn't imagine another, more suitable
Place that he could call his home
He thought
And he wondered
And queried
And pondered
He mumbled
And grumbled
And whispered
And hollered
His mind couldn't
Think
No, he couldn't
Process it
Unless he was back
In that house
That talked back
In the house that
Could not be his home
So he went back inside
And his mind came alive
And between all his thoughts
He'd sit down and he'd talk
With the cool talking house
About Wordsworth and Proust
About life and TV
And the 'Rings trilogy
About anything that
He pulled out of a hat
And he'd think in between
Of what man he had been
Searching every which-where
For a place that he'd dare
Call a home but he couldn't
(Or maybe he wouldn't)
And now that he's found
Somewhere safe, solid, sound
That he spends all his time in
He can't help reminding
Himself he's just minding
This house till the owner comes home
And one day he'll again be alone
Malcolm Makes No Choices
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Friday, 18 April 08 - 06:20 AM (GMT +08:00) By Khairil Mokhzani Bahar in Creative Text Juice |
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Janine held the blade on Malcolm’s neck, her shaking hand causing small slices just above his
“Do you love me?” she trembled. It was the same question she’d been asking since before she pulled the knife out from the kitchen drawer. She repeated again, louder and more determined, the same question again and again,
“Do you love me?”
Malcolm had told her he loved her in the past in numerous occasions. He had said it in so many ways and in an as many languages as he knew. Even now, he knew he could tell her he loved her. Even though he had said it so many times and in so many ways he knew he could think of more ways to tell her those three simple words.
But he had never been asked that question. He had never been asked whether or not he loved her. He had never been asked to make a choice as to whether he did or did not love Janine. That was the problem. A problem he didn’t realize until a few days ago when he discovered something disturbing about himself.
He couldn’t make a choice.
Malcolm first realized what was wrong when he entered his usual restaurant a few days ago. Ordinarily he would have his usual – a roast beef sandwich on white with a side order of fries and a diet coke. He chose this dish a long time ago, when he first entered the restaurant, and liked it so much that he never thought to try anything else.
After a while the waiters realized that he’d always order the same thing that they stopped asking and simply brought him his usual whenever he came in. It became routine. The waiters at the restaurant weren’t going anywhere, it was a family business, and Malcolm never felt the need to eat anywhere else on Wednesdays.
“Hi, there,” asked the waitress, as Malcolm sat down, “can I get your order?”
Malcolm turned, curious. He hadn’t heard those words in a long time. He faced the waitress, a young blonde girl he had never seen before.
“Excuse me?” asked Malcolm.
“What would you like, sir?” she replied.
Malcolm froze inside and simply stared. He had no idea how to answer. He knew he came in to the restaurant to eat, why else would he be there? But he couldn’t answer the question.
“How about if you look at the menu, sir?”
It sounded like a good idea. He flipped the binded laminated pages and everything looked delicious – a vast number of entrees, appetizers, meat dishes and pastas, oven baked goodness and sweet frozen desserts.
But he couldn’t decide.
A beat later another waiter came, someone he recognized.
“Is there a problem?” he asked the waitress. As Malcolm kept flipping through the menu, the waiter told her that Malcolm was a regular.
“I’m sorry about this,” said the waiter to Malcolm, “she’s new.”
“What happened to your sister, Tracy?” asked Malcolm.
“Oh, she went to college. First one in our family to do so.”
“Congratulations,” said Malcolm.
“Thank you. Lisa here just started two days ago.”
The waiter then turned to Lisa and said, “This man here’s been coming to our restaurant for years. He always has the same thing – a roast beef sandwich on white with fries and a diet coke.”
He then turned to Malcolm and asked,” Isn’t that right?”
And Malcolm couldn’t answer.
The waiter waited for a while before asking again, “Would… would you like your usual, sir?”
Malcolm still couldn’t answer.
“Sir? Your usual, sir?”
Malcolm’s lips parted, a faint sound could be heard, as if he was trying his hardest to say something but had forgotten how to speak. The waiter watched, confused, until finally Malcolm said the words.
“I don’t know.”
The waiter turned to the waitress, then back to Malcolm.
“I’ll… I’ll get you your usual, sir.”
The same thing happened throughout the rest of the day, and it bugged Malcolm to no end. When he got into a taxi the driver asked him where he would like to go, and Malcolm couldn’t answer. When a colleague offered to make him a cup of coffee and asked whether he would like it with or without milk he was lost. When the shopkeeper asked him whether he would like a plastic bag for the carton of milk he had bought he felt like he was going to get a migraine. Every single one of these questions he answered with the same thing,
“I don’t know.”
It wasn’t amnesia. That much was certain. When the receptionist at the clients’ office he was visiting asked him who he was and who he was meeting, he answered just fine. When someone asked if he had change for a fifty he gladly obliged. As the day progressed he realized the awful truth.
He couldn’t decide.
It was questions that required decisions and choices that were the problem. He simply couldn’t answer them, he didn’t know how. In short, he didn’t know what he wanted.
He explained all this to his girlfriend, who listened attentively, as she always had. She listened as he told her about how difficult his day was, how it disturbed him, how he couldn’t decide on anything.
“I don’t know what I want anymore, honey,” he said, lying in her arms, “I feel like I don’t know anything.”
Janine gently stroked his hair and said, “it’s ok, Mal… we’ll work it out…”
Her hand through his hair soothed him, and for a moment he thought things would be ok.
“After all,” she said, smiling, “you know you love me, right?”
And Malcolm froze.
The Other Door
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Friday, 14 March 08 - 07:11 PM (GMT +08:00) By Khairil Mokhzani Bahar in Creative Text Juice |
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[N.B. I haven't written any weird prose here in quite a while. I used to enjoy writing stories in my blogs because it feels like writing with a gun to your head - "make up a story and post it on-line within the next hour or you die". Enjoi. Or not.]
Ruprecht woke up, as he always did, from his comfortable bed with the comfortable sheets in his decently sized bedroom on the first floor of his modest house. The glow of the morning sun could be seen trying to peep through the light blue curtains, playing shadows on the hardwood floor. Ruprecht turned to his clock - 7:15am - which gave him 45 minutes to shower, get dressed and have a light breakfast before going to work.
Work was a job Ruprecht knew he could do, and do well, regardless of what he actually thought of it. The office had what any regular person would need to be an office and the job had what any regular person would need from a job. 9am to 5pm, two weeks leave a year and a Christmas bonus that never strayed between 7%-12.5%. Ruprecht wasn't an air pilot or a deep sea diver or race car driver, but he wasn't stuck in a demeaning job like so many of his friends, forced to endure the inanities of day-to-day stress and strife, office politics and corporate backstabbings. These things did not exist at Ruprecht's workplace. He could honestly say he had no complaints.
But then again, during drinks at the local drinking well on the first weekend of every month, whilst friends of a past life bitched and moaned about the lives they led and praised Ruprecht for being so lucky, Ruprecht only smiled. Smiled and nodded, before ordering another drink.
On the third Thursday of the second month, Ruprecht noticed the door.
It was during his light breakfast, whilst waiting for his toast to pop up from the toaster at 7:45am. He'd always known the door was there, under the stairs next to the kitchen, but he'd never paid it much thought. When he rented the place four years ago (with the option to buy) the house adequately fit everything he needed without resorting to looking for more storage space. Sure, there was some stuff he still kept in a storage house but he was quite sure he could live without those items for now. He'd never had a need to open the door under the stairs, and although he was sure he had no need to open it now, whilst waiting for his toast to pop up from the toaster, he couldn't keep his eyes off the door.
Slowly, Ruprecht walked to the door, perhaps curious, and turned the door handle with his right hand. He delicately opened the door and leaned in to take a peek. It was dark, but Ruprecht could make out the stairwell leading down to what looked like a basement. Above his head he noticed a draw string for a light bulb. He gave it a quick tug, then another - nothing. He was ready to go back to his breakfast when he heard something, a tiny little crackle, coming from the basement.
Ruprecht squinted his eyes and noticed a small glow at the bottom, getting brighter every second. The stairs leading to the basement began to illuminate, step by step, from the very bottom and quickly making its way to the top, building up speed. Although he was surprised by what he saw, a part of him felt that this was all ever so slightly familiar. The lights began to build up more speed as it went up step by precious step, racing up to Ruprecht like a path leading him to somewhere... else. Five steps away and Ruprecht began to wonder what was happening. Four steps away and Ruprecht's curiosity kept him from turning away. Three steps away and the lights began to take on an almost hypnotic quality as they came closer and closer... two steps... one...
POP! At 7:48am, Ruprecht grabbed his toast from the toaster and quickly made his way to work.
For the first time in four years Ruprecht couldn't concentrate at work. His mind wandered between his numerous meetings, his imagination caught up by the mysteries of the door under the stairs. During lunch, between bites of his prawn mayonnaise sandwich on rye and sips of his green tea latte, he thought about the door. During the estimated 45 minutes to an hour spent static in traffic at 5:45pm, he wondered what was behind the door, down the stairs, into the basement.
Ruprecht usually had his dinner in the kitchen with the small television on the counter on, watching re-runs of old BBC comedies which his colleagues never really understood, dining on whatever meal for one he could conjure up on the day. His dinners were usually at 8:00pm and lasted half an hour to 45 minutes.
At 8:32pm, Ruprecht arrived home with take away fried chicken. He did not switch on the television.
At 3:19am he'd had enough. He hopped out from under his comfortable bed with the comfortable sheets in his decently sized bedroom on the first floor of his modest house and made his down the stairs to the kitchen, remnants of friend chicken still scattered over the table next to an empty can of lager. Ruprecht ignored the state of the kitchen and went straight to the door under the stairs and swung the door open.
For a moment he thought he'd lost his moment. Everything remained dark as it was when he first opened the door, except this time it stayed dark. Ruprecht turned to draw string above him and pulled, gently. The light bulb came on and Ruprecht could see all the way till the bottom of the stairs. Nothing. No glow. No sound. No strange light. Just a basement.
Then the light bulb blew.
The familiar tiny crackle was the first thing he noticed before the glow began again, stronger than the morning before. This time, the lights didn't take so long to reach him, quickly making their way up the steps, stopping inches away from Ruprecht's bare feet.
Ruprecht turned to face the kitchen, then back to the stairs. Slowly, he lifted his left foot and gently placed it on the first step and watched as the glow on the step slowly changed color from the point where his foot touched, moving outwards. Slowly, he lifted his right foot and took the next step, and watched as it changed color again. Step by step he went down, watching the changes in lights and colors, vibrant and warm, colors he'd loved as a young man but no self-respecting adult would ever have in their home furnishings or wardrobe. Step by step he went down, faster with every step, till he was practically racing down what felt like an eternity, running faster and faster down the wooden technicolor steps, almost tripping at some points, but not giving a good goddamn till he reached the gl-
At 4:20am, Ruprecht stepped out from the door under the stairs and for the first time, everything looked different.
At 4:45am he sat on his bed and starred at the wooden floor till the sun came up.
At 7:15am he heard the alarm go off and finally, after 27 and a half rings, turned it off.
At 8:07am he made waffles, knowing full well he would be late for work.
At 9:08am he made up an excuse to his team-mate as to why he arrived at the weekly financial report meeting 23 minutes late.
At 2:12pm he told his superior that he wasn't feeling well and took the first sick leave since he'd started work at the company.
At 3:09pm he met up with Arnold and Jacobi, and told them what he saw under the stairs.
He told them of the stairs, the lights and the glow, and the world he discovered underneath. A world where anything could happen. An exciting world, where you had no idea what you'd see or hear or think or feel, a world without security, where the unexpected was to be expected, where foods and flavors and experiences and temperatures were never the same twice and your adrenalin was always on the go. It was a world he knew, had once experienced only fleetingly as a young man, and he'd forgotten how much he'd missed living so recklessly, without a safety net. Take the jump, hope the cord is strong enough and keep your eyes open otherwise it's not worth the bother.
But he didn't enter all the way, merely watched through the window, not daring to take another step.
Arnold was the first to speak.
"Ruprecht," said Arnold, "you've hit the jackpot. You truly have the best of both worlds."
"No, he doesn't," said Jacobi, "he's got to make a choice. I know the world he speaks of, and there are rules."
"What rules?"
"You're first visit is free, but the next time you enter, you have to make a choice. Stay, or never enter again. Those are the rules."
Just then, Ruprecht's phone rang. After seven minutes of uhm-ing and ah-ing, he put the phone down.
"Who was that?" asked Arnold.
"That was my landlord," said Ruprecht, "he reminded me that I still have an option to buy the property."
Ruprecht, Arnold and Jacobi drank their drinks and they changed subject.
At 5:12am it had already been 8 hours and 36 minutes since he'd opened the door under the stairs and sat down in front of it with a five bottles of water, reminded of something a friend of his from another country had told him - "there are so many drinks in the world with so many tastes and flavors and sensations, but in the end you always need water".
Ruprecht had been sat in front of the door for the past 8 hours and 36 minutes drinking the bottles of water, for he did not know if there would be any water under the stairs. There was no guarantee of water. There was no guarantee of anything.
At 5:14am, a floating shrimp came out from under the stairs.
"Are you coming?" asked the shrimp.
"I can't decide," replied Ruprecht.
The shrimp noticed the bottles of water.
"What's with all the water?" asked the shrimp.
"I'm thirsty," replied Ruprecht.
"Answer me this, then," retorted the shrimp, "are you drinking all that water because you're afraid that there may not be any water under the stairs, or are you drinking all that water to remind you, perhaps even convince you, that you can't live in a world where you're never sure that there's water?"
Ruprecht wiped his moist lips with the sleeve of his light gray shirt before looking the shrimp right in the eye and saying, "what do you think?"
And with that, Ruprecht finished the last bottle of water.
Past Lives and Horse Manure
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Tuesday, 11 March 08 - 06:49 PM (GMT +08:00) By Khairil Mokhzani Bahar in Creative Text Juice |
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I heard the sound of my past just now. Familiar, yet heavier.
I wonder how things are right now. I wonder if they're better.
I heard the sound of my past just now. Reminders of an era,
that I have named my past, for now. I'm living in the future.
... More items are available in my News Archive
