Devious Inception

KUALA LUMPUR: A massive nationwide joint operation was conducted by the local law enforcement and the state police reserves yesterday. It was the largest operation executed within the last 5 years eclipsing past major operations like those of Ops Sikap I, II, III, IV, ABC, JKL, RST, XYZ, Alpha, Iota, Omega and Zeta.

Roadblocks were setup at main highways, high-traffic exits and major shopping malls. Field reports indicated that all motor vehicles displaying the logo of the famous UK-based football club Manchester United were stopped and its drivers detained for questioning.

This action was a direct result from the ruling by the nation’s leading Fatwa scholars 5 days ago where the iconic symbol of the most successful football club on the planet (Manchester United) was deemed unislamic and is now illegal.

Eyewitness accounts reported the presence of expert Fatwa Extractors at the roadblocks. These highly-trained and highly-paid Extractors had standing orders to remove all visible and unlawful logos from the detained vehicles. In cases where the logos were irremovable, the vehicles were impounded and sent for scrapping.

An anonymous Extractor was approached for comments, “The f***! I don’t know why the f*** I am doing this. It is just my f***ing job and I just do it. Ask the f***ers at the Fatwa administration. I am just doing it for the f***ing money”.

The operation also showcased expert planning and execution as Fatwa Fireteams were strategically deployed at 5km radiuses throughout the Klang Valley to respond to any emergency requests to carry out their purpose. They were tasked with the unique responsibility of destroying these heretic logos onsite by incinerating it with extreme prejudice.

Traffic jams were widely reported throughout the Klang Valley. Priscilla Patrick who is a recognized local radio station personality broke the Guinness World Record for the longest traffic jam report at 3 hours 25 minutes and 7 seconds long.

It was an ugly scene of chaos as motor vehicles were in a deadlock. Traffic standstills at major shopping malls were reported to extend 10km to all directions. Most of these weekend shoppers were clueless about the cause of the jam and were stupefied to learn about the reason when they reached the roadblocks.

Reliable eyewitnesses indicated that motor vehicles with football team logos bearing the cross sign were being pulled over as well. A source reported that a Brazilian by the name of Felipo Fatwanha who was on a 2-month long vacation in KL was stopped by the police when his rented car was spotted displaying the Brazil football team logo. Subsequent investigation confirmed with a source from the Immigration that a certain Mr. Fatwanha left the country yesterday night via China Airways. He forfeited his Malaysian Airlines return ticket to Brazil which he accidentally left on the ticket counter. When reporters requested access to the ticket, a note was found written on the backside of the ticket which reads MH – MALAYSIAN HYPOCRISY.

Terror incidents were also reported at The Gardens and Pavilion shopping malls. Fatwa Forgers in plain clothes were seen stalking and harassing shoppers donning football jerseys like Man Utd, England, Portugal and Barcelona. Witnesses to the incidents reported that these unsuspecting shoppers were asked to remove their jerseys. The offenders were escorted to the nearest fitting rooms or toilets to facilitate the surrender of the contraband jerseys. The Forgers were also considerate enough to provide the hapless shoppers replacement jerseys in various size and colour. These replacement jerseys came with a set of printed number and name.

A clueless Portuguese offender who refused to be named on the matter was approached to comment on the actions of the Forgers and their thoughtful gesture, "Oh, I thought they (Forgers) were very professional and committed. And also very creative. The jersey is very nice too. The number is 1 and the name is Malaysia."

In other news, raids were simultaneously executed and spearheaded by Fatwa Pointmen at all sports outlet nationwide. All illicit football jerseys at these outlets were confiscated. Mysteriously there were no Fatwa Fireteams reported present onsite. Journalists on duty at The Gardens and Pavilion gave a similar report. The Police Commander issued a statement this morning that the value of the goods confiscated from the nationwide raids is worth RM7.8 million (USD2.3 mil) - equivalent to the amount allocated for the establishment of 14 Special Corruption Sessions Courts and 4 Special Corruption Appeal High Courts in the 2010 Budget.

A Miss Fatima Wahab aged 25, branch owner of a highly successful local sports franchise called Al-Ikhsan was seen in tears and traumatized by the audacity and persecution of the Pointmen, "Why they did it? I just opened my shop 3 weeks ago. It's my life savings. Now I am bankrupt. How am I going to pay the loan? Pay my rent? How am I to support my mother?” She was later observed entering Wisma MCA the evening of the same day.

An Indian boy at the scene who refused to be named but chose to be interviewed said, "Why did they (Pointmen) also took the Liverpool jerseys? Their logo are just birds!"

Mr. Fatil Watul, the Pointmen in charge at the scene responded, "Liverpool’s jersey promotes alcoholic beverages (Carlsberg). Alcohol is unislamic".

Major local newspaper journalists and TV station reporters combined resources to pinpoint the location of the elusive Fatwa Architect – the mastermind behind the carefully planned and perfectly executed operation. Overwhelming public outcry demanded an explanation from the Fatwa Administration. After combining resources and cross checking their network databases, the Architect was located at a mamak stall in Petaling Jaya.

When found, the Architect was wearing a football jersey from that of the Everton football club. Reporters enthusiastically questioned the Architect about the illegal jersey he was wearing, “Why? Everton’s jersey is just promoting elephant wildlife from a place called Chang in Thailand”.

A Specter's Past

What was once a seemingly straight road is now twisted, bent and forked.
This dreamscape I have or had...will it ever be written or walked?

The world is now a smaller place to me. This landscape that I tread upon is a carpet of indiscernible fate. Its outline so unapparent I am blinded by uncertainty and indecision.

I am struggling...no. I have been struggling for months. Or is it years now? Is it that hard to know a man's path in life? I've heard all the stories there is to know about discovering yourself, finding your destiny in life, becoming the person you are meant to be and more. These so called truisms come no where near in steering me towards a funneling point.

I keep revisiting these truisms like a phantom haunting my own past. And I've always had a hunch I knew what I wanted to do in life. What I wanted to become. What I know I am capable of, even if only in dreams. But too often the path spawned from an idea in the deepest chasm of my subconscious leads not to action.

It is always held back by my own pragmatic sieve. And the intuitive part takes hold and gets evaporated away by my own inferior flame.

I recall vividly the very enlightening moment I had about 2 months ago during a training I attended. In one of the sessions, I was asked to reflect deeply within me what I really wanted to do with my life if all constraints were taken away...if I had the world as my time. The possibilities were limitless but my subconscious only zeroed in on one thing that mattered.

The one thing that has defined me in the past couple of years. The thing that I take for granted so often but yet find so much joy and satisfaction in doing. The one thing I know for sure people recognize me for. Or is it all just part of me looking through a reflective mirror engulfed by wisps of wishful thinking? If that was even possible...and that is exactly my point!

The deadline approaches and I have to decide soon. To many, it may just be a small step. But to me, it is about breaking my inner limits. Coming out of my psychological shell to do that one thing that will put an end to all the self-doubts. For the hardest part is mustering that courage I know that will push me forward.

So will it come to the juncture? Where I'll say "There, I've done it. I've written my future".

Be that as it may, I will undoubtedly take that sentence up to its literal meaning at the end of the day. God willing. Please grant me the courage I so badly need for I see now...

I know that courage is the discovery that I may not win, and trying when I know I may lose.

When Honour Meets Envy

I have often mused about the trappings of an adult life and the definition of it. Allegorical questions like what it takes? how it works? who to look to? and where it leads? are but a few of the more abstract anonymities that vexes my mind this morning.

But perhaps the grayest conundrum of all is the question of WHEN?

When to be strong and vulnerable?
When do you persist in the face of futility?
When do you give up?
And when do you honour?

The list of rhetorical questions will undoubtedly go on perpetually because life is also a life-long learning process of mistakes. When you unveil the curtains of interweaving mendacities, you will regard the underpinning truth of it all - where all the answers are already entwined within our own beliefs and faiths.

Most of the things we do in life are a series of mistakes - of us missing to understand the stakes of our actions against everyone and everything around us. Its affectations have long since being the keystone to the way we conduct ourselves with the dynamics of our surroundings and the capriciousness of human nature.

I just have to go out into the world, bring along a mirror and look into it. I will see that being a grown-up comes with a lot of emotional responsibilities and mental acuity as I gaze into the people and world around me through my own indistinct reflection.

We all stand on our own patches of grass that it is always easier to look at someone else's pasture and justify all the fallacies for our desire on it. Each day in our waking moments, we have to contend with the achievements and failures of others - dealing out determining decks of judgment cards to them in hopes we may have some sort of précis from it all.

As others grow in stature and feat, there are individuals who cannot face the fate of a man's affluence. I will not lie to myself by claiming I am above such notions. Like everyone, I am only human. It is the capacity in which we bring ourselves back to solid grown and steadfast affinity that perhaps will define us for the character we could be.

People come and go. We lose and gain new friends from time to time. Successes will come knocking at your doorsteps many times, so does failure. We are not oblivious to the accomplishments of others, nor are we absently empathic of their defeats. Ultimately, everyone wants to see themselves better than others and we all strive to do that in our lifetime.

I just want to remind myself that no matter how well others do in life, I should never compare. Even more so if that person is a friend because life is more than just about the paycheck you receive at the end of the month, the key in your pocket that opens the door to a high-end property or the turbo sound of your ride coming when you sent your valet.

It is about acknowledging the reality that it is in the character of very few men to honour without envy a friend who has prospered.

Stoned Arrow

If there is ever a day that I could be more incensed by someone or something than today...

Be that as it may, I was enraged by this person beyond words. My demeanor was seething with venomous focus, my veins livid with noxious gush, and my tongue ravenous with spiteful utterances and malicious intent. I could feel my jaws clenching under the tremendous restraint and my muscles straining to liberate itself from my frame of equanimity.

This is a recollection about someone who believes himself to be of higher stock than others. A vermin who sits so comfortably on his roost that he can no longer feel earth beneath him nor see his own legs, eclipsed by his potbelly. A soul who's only sole purpose in life that is not yet revealed is to make the people around him feel thankful for not being what he is.

What started as an initiative on my part to seek help and better performances resulted in an all-out war of words with the scum. An engagement that was largely his responsibility to support my querries ended up with him "educating" me in the importance of doing my job right from the start by his own right.

Even before I initiated the first communiqué, I was wrestling with my conscience of whether to rope in his superiors for my enquiries; as an indication of his incompetence and oversight and also as an accelerator in harvesting prompt reply from his gangrenous hands and festering mouth.

Perceptive consideration took the better of me. I limited the list of audience to him only. But he had the fool's courage to reply by roping in his and my superiors, much to my joy and amusement. In his response, he critiqued on everything that I asked which spawned from objective intentions of seeking help and rectifying matters. The very kind of reply you would consider as a no-contest. He was wrong.

For the backing I received from my benefactor, I fired home with a 30 minute composition of factual responses with logical system knowledge and reasoning behind kindergarten common sense. Saving the best for last, the icing on the cake was an additional last-gasp addition to the mailing list - to an overall leader 2 levels above.

At this point, subsequent chronicles of this story is no longer relevant nor a requisite. The purpose of this is just to remind me of how silly people can be when they come from higher places. Every man and woman is an equal. So talk down on others at your own risk. At the end of the day, he will be known as the Brave Fool who threw a stone and received a volley of arrows.

I need not fear individuals like this in my life. I need to remember to be true to my convictions and principals and never compromise under pressure.

Today I learned that there is nothing to fear even when you are surrounded by enemies on all sides. This should be an excellent position. Why? Because you can attack from any direction!

Broken Twig

It is remarkable sometimes how far people would go just to make sure they are superior to others. Human beings are probably the only known lifeforms to kill and do harm to one another, be it physically or emotionally, for reasons other than pure instinctual survival.

In the past few months, I was swimming across torrent seas with raging winds that cut to the core of my bones. This very sea - the large body of water where I have navigated for 3 years now, is no longer the environment that I have come to respect.

This milieu of mild misgivings muttered meanings of malicious mayhem into my mind.

The people that have helped, supported and admired me for the longest time suddenly abandoned ship and left me forsaken on a derelict vessel from where its stirring philosophies and beliefs inspired blind loyalty from me when I came aboard the ship, hauled the anchor of naivete and set sail into the limitless horizon of possibilities.

With the constancy fading, I sculled my way aboard my diffused dinghy onto the shores of self-reflection clinging onto my self-worth on these sands of solitude. Every moment of the way, I kept hearing those uninspiring words of wrath that did so much harm to my poise.

A castaway on this island of intent, I gazed faraway to the other side of the world at my Plateau and resolved not to return there for a period. I know that being in that place will make me wallow in my self-pity.

I thought then that being away for a time from the Plateau will heal me but it only served to starve me of my connection and my bond. For a time, I thought I did not recognize myself anymore. I know better now.

So I'll say this to anyone on this island as I dig my feet into the earth: I am going home and I will not let the actions and words of a select few from Point Vantage dissuade me anymore. I know why I did what I did and it was folly of them to judge me too soon. Because once I am judged, forever I will arbitrate the intentions of these people...

...because if you think I am dirt, then I'll tell you that I am the soil which grow trees and you are only a broken twig.

The Fallen Angels

I have often thought about angels and their origin. Even the mere fact of their existence has always been a matter of belief to me and their susbsistence a quintessence of believing. In my thoughts, I catch fleeting glimpses of sporadic settings laid between walls of infinite insights and anchored veracity. It is here at the hedge of my poignant reveries I discern the epitome of an angel...a seraph among us within the sea of waking souls and walking consciousness.

It is only recently that I realize the closest archetype of an angel resembles that of woman-kind. The embodiment cannot be closer as how these creatures of God have such an affable role in mankind, so to speak.

All I know is that lately I have grown more and more attached to the beatific allure of one such celestial being in my life. Whatever the pursuits we are striding through now, we are doing it with indulgent solidity and perceptive solidarity. I have never been this articulate in my affirmation. Be that as it may, privations in our disparity darts here and there unbriddled occasionally and sometimes it becomes the bane to our steadfast affinity.

But as I look around me in constant oddity, I see many female friends of mine who once walked the self-determining path have laid waste to their trail of misbegotten solitude. It is so easy for them to forsake one's aeriel bequest for the prospect of an earthen life filled with verve. For I can testify that there is no greater joy than being able to share your life's hopes and dreams with regrets and disappointments to a significant other whom you can so unselfishly devote to with your most altruistic reverence.

It is from this perch among the heavenly aeries that these eventual earth-bounded seraphs of our time shed the lamenting feathers of their yearning and make the graceful leap of faith into the protective and soothing arms of men. It is what these beings of worldly origins give up that men had lost in sight but is starting to gain in faith again.

For women were once angels in heaven, when they met the men they love, they then broke their wings.

Untitled

Let this day be the day I remember...

The devotion,
The kindness,
The care,
The love.

Also let this be the day I will keep in my deepest most grudge...

The selfish,
The materialistic,
The hypocrits,
The insensitives.

I need not words or entries or lessons learned to remind me.
I need only the following to rescue me:

Dear Lord, I pray to You for the right thing to happen. So that I may live the days ahead guilt free and vengeance free.

The Faithless Believer

I have always looked in envy of other families that embrace, live and understand the greater intricacies of familial kinship. Gazing at these little pockets of copious solidarity through my love-tinted glasses, I fervently venerate the jaunty adulation witnessed in silent reverie for as long as I can remember.

Of course, someone will constantly remind me that the grass is always greener on the other side. That may be true but only to the extent of its unembroidered meaning. I would think that this is the case because we look across to the greener side where the light shines brighter. I will then say we should let in more light into our own lives instead of counting on the luminosity from the other fount.

Whatever the reason or circumstances we all find ourselves in, it never is pleasant or heartening to learn of a friend's adversity. The story that was shared made me realize that in a larger world, we're all going through the same endeavour at home. We are no different than our neighbours, colleagues, friends and other passing acquaintances in our life.

I used to pity myself a lot and I still do nowadays. The insidious discontentment I have inside built from years and years of enduring the contemptible in my sanctuary has spawned me into two things from my chasm of careless whispering - the faithless believer and the desirous dreamer.

That is why when I see the beginnings of a similar chronicle happening unto a close friend, I cannot help but to be supportive and understanding. It has also make me search deeper within my soul to better understand my own probity. Virtue as I see it, is wielded like a double-edged sword. No matter where it slashes, you are the one grasping its hilt. When it has executed your will, you sheathe the sword of withered belief back into its scabbard of virtuous rectitude.

When the seemingly unbreakable trust in a family crumbles down after years of storming through all kinds of weather, you start to wonder about many things and question the weight and intimacy of its origin. The layers of trust in a family is interlaced with sinuous lies and truths. As the saying goes - it takes years to build trust but seconds to destroy it. What the storytellers failed to continue divulging is that Lies is its number one nemesis.

When a group of emotionally interdependent creatures realize that even the most steadfast among them can succumb to the wiles of a sinner's sin, it is truly heartbreaking to listen - even more so to be the one living through it.

I do not know how we will all pick ourselves up from here. I do not know what holds for us in the futurescape of an uncertain and seemingly lost cause, at least for my part. I do not wish to open up myself again because my sword has a broken hilt.

I can only pray and hope the best for those joining into the fray now and continue to be my own desirous dreamer...no more the faithless believer whose own dreamwalking reflection echoes the ripple of yesterday's promise.

From the tranquility of the still waters I can understand how it is that lying makes a problem part of the future while the truth makes a problem part of the past.

Knitted Strands

What is the hardest thing in life?

It is not something that can be measured. It certainly isn't something concrete, its tangibility long washed away by the waves of relentless qualms. It is something that is not discernible and yet fathomable, something that is not understandable yet comprehended, and something that is not obvious yet painstakingly apparent. Its verity actually a travesty of its former self.

It's single most dominating mannerism would be the pretentious palpability of ungrateful souls. Souls that have forgotten, taken for granted, misplaced trust, strayed loyalty, and most grievous of all, losing the pure faith of other unswerving souls.

In every life connection we each make throughout our lifetime, each strand of bond we sew unto other acquaintances along the journey are like determining dominos that ricochets off the wall of cogent reckoning padded with layers of faith and belief. It is the porous nature of these layers that is the coercive aspect of this relationship dynamics which allows us to accept, nurture, forgive, forget, heal, learn and renew.

Every now and then some of these strands are knitted together into a circle of closer affiliations. It is here where the ball of closely-knitted strands start to roll that eventually it becomes so entangled and entwined that it is almost impossible to untie it. One could cut it but what if these strands are made of tougher materials?

The only way is to burn this ball of intertwined amity with the searing fury of the fieriest inferno that can destroy and melt away the strongest and deepest of relations to the very last fiber of it.

In the last couple of weeks, I learned that the hardest thing in life is knowing which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn.