the rage of achilles

Isn’t it strange how there are possibly so many other unique worlds beyond our own, yet we are always obsessively troubled by this one?

I am a rough draft, and she is the staple keeping me together.

Every once in a while you might get the idea that you can somehow outrun sleep. As if you can somehow do without it completely and conveniently forget that it’s something you actually need and that it’s good for you. So you try it for a while, and you think to yourself that you’ve won. Until you catch yourself forgetting to open your eyes after blinking. And that’s when sleep (or the lack of it) finally catches up to you. Angry and unannounced, and fully ready to knock you down a flight of stairs after a single misstep.

The French word for bread is “pain,” of course pronounced slightly differently from its English homonym. But every time you see this word labeled on some French or bilingual packaging, juxtaposed beside the one thing some people actually have to work so hard for, you have to wonder whether the connection is merely a coincidence. Look below you in the social hierarchy, look towards the bottom if your vision permits, and you will see it; pain—a lot of one kind, and a complete scarcity of the other.

Theses on survival in volatile conditions and its practical uses

i.
“If you aren’t making waves, you must be drowning.”

There is a certain brand of bittersweet sadness in all things that are both the first and last. The similitude of such a moment or event is that of a rare and extinct specie; there are simply no more of its kind. The sad part of it all is that you never really know this fact until the moment has passed, and you then come to realize that you never knew how much of it you should have savoured. Because any amount at all would never be enough.

ii.
“Kicking and screaming will save you, until you run out of breath.”

Physics and politics — all things are essentially one of these two things, both, or neither. There are times when one wishes to feel nothing, especially in those moments when they feel everything. But nothing is still something, or else you wouldn’t be here.

iii.
“Some float in the shallow end, some play dead. Some others don’t play.”

Make a bed you don’t intend to sleep in and you will have learned hospitality. Sleep in a bed someone made for himself, and you will learn his hostility.

iv.
“It is imperative that you ensure your will is waterproof before you spoil the trust required to teach another how to swim.”

The only problem with honesty is that all those who exercise it foolishly prefer to believe that others do so as well.

v.
“Water is heavy, it will make you feel light.”

We are all born with rivers in our eyes. But by the time we have carved canals to fill them with, we often find that the very source has become dry.

A page at a time

I have a certain tendency, which I, at times, am rather ashamed of. You see, I’ll pick up a book, any book, either for my study or for leisure, and I will immediately check how many pages it contains. Its number of pages does not so much as determine whether or not I will read it, but rather how long it may possibly take (and depending on the kind of book, how much I may possibly dread it while reading it).

If I compare you to a book (as I often do), I have to admit that you are the only one for which I have never checked the number of pages. Even now, I hold as much interest in you as I did when I first approached your spine, as I caressed it gently with the softest touch I could possibly afford. I tried to catch a glimpse of your synopsis every time you turned around, because I knew you were not to be judged simply by your hardcover.

So I delved into your story, not in search of anything in particular, but suddenly found myself becoming increasingly absorbed in your narrative. You are written in a language which often pries at my ribs and sends jolts down my spine. Quite simply, you move me, and the thought of even checking how many pages are left has never crossed my mind.

In fact, the truth is, I want to keep reading you. I want to keep unfolding the layers and unravelling the person within these covers. You are, essentially, the only book I will never be in rush to finish. And you are mine, always a page at a time.

For mother’s day I got my momma a card and some Tylenol for all the headaches my brother and I cause her.

I’m a thoughtful son.

Some people write their own narrative, while some others instinctively run from it. The hand may falter, it may even just as easily drop the pen altogether. But just because the story is not written does not mean it does not exist. The truth of the matter is, it is people who fade, their names eventually forgotten from the lips of their kin. But their stories always remain, immortalized in some stubborn yet equally fragile heart. Their stories are etched in the dust of years old vinyl records, book shelves, and ancient wicker chairs, sitting neglected in the tropic heat of decades old memories.

Taken from the example of Homer’s own, undoubtedly it is in the nature of all stories to wait until they are retold.