The Story

B Y A P P O I N T M E N T T O H E R M A J E S T Y, M S . R E Y E S O F M I S S I S S A U G A PURVEYOR OF LEVEL 4+ MIND-BLOWING LITERARY EXPERIENCES

EM O P D N A IES R O Y ST E T L S L E B O Y O W FM O D D N R E A L B N A R E

Y R O T S

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E H T D

Y IA S G Y L O ALA

O D IN M H T A N NDE

A NA N D B L E

LE L I T IS

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E S TA B L I S H E D 2 0 1 5 TAY L O R ’ S C O L L E G E S U B A N G J AYA

STORY IS

GOLDEN -Casey Neistat, Filmmaker

E C A F E PR

T

he art of writing is an admittedly acquired taste; not in the sense that everyone can’t do it, but everyone has got a different flavour of writing when it comes to writing their pieces in general.

For me, I write in the confines of a pseudonym, as I believe that my pseudonym provides me with the ample sandbox space to play around with ideas that I dvelve into during my deep modes of thought. As a writer, my goal is to transcend my dear readers to a piece of my history and my experiences; I don’t aim for flambouyant James Bond-esque plot lines or settings, but I write what I am most comfortable with, but with twists added to the workings of each assignment I curate. All my experiences, such as the Everyone Has Hope outings, to my interations with friends and family, as well as my participation within the Model United Nations community has a part in my stories.

It is not just a matter of typing out an essay, but the mental thought processes and planning that goes into my essays is tantamount to sheer insanity (I actually hate writing down plans, but would rather keep them in my head). I place a huge amount of emphasis on character development, with emotions being my prime focus. The emotions, in terms of the wrinkles they show, and the way in which they fold their hands, are central to the curation of a good story (you should be able to see this in the novel excerpt).

As Casey Neistat, a famed videographer said–Story is Gold. Everything else serves the King. All the techniques I apply only serves to tell the story better.

That, right there, is my writing philosophy. Telling unadulterated stories based on real-life as clearly, and as beautifully as possible. For my themes and styles, I tend to lean towards dark, sinister stories, or stories with a pessimistic side to it as I am a naturally pessimistic person when it comes to life.

Especially the poetry, these stories tend to be written when I feel low or when I have things to get off my chest. In terms of what works, I believe that the fact that I am sticking to my roots and my Britannic inspirations do help in my quest to improve my writing, but things that I could work on include the fact that I write for an unknown audience. I can’t figure out the people who would actually take the time to read my stories because, in my mind, it is too deep (Finding My Life Back), political (Malaysian Race) and confusing (Armchair Reminiscence) at times.

That said, dear reader, since you want to see the world in my world, I invite you to read this portfolio, as this portfolio contains a carefully-selected bunch of texts I had written over the course of my semester. I hope you will enjoy reading this portfolio and get something out of it. Moral values, new inspirations, that sort of thing.

Go on then.

-Bernard Woolley (I’m still not going to reveal my name) A writer.

S T N E

T N O C E C A F E R P Y R T POE N O I T FIC ICTION F N NO

P

Y R T E O

S D E E R N I U F T E C D PI S R S E E V N R I E P E S P C B A N O H E T C H S I G I N I N M THE AIR RE OR H O C M ARM ON THE Y T R PA

HAPPINESS

DEFINED

Happiness, as a scholar might say Is a subjective element The elements of a family united together Your life being stable and clear Your love being dear and near Your work being beneficial and rewarding Your work being boring and mere Your love being distant and feared Your life being dishevelled and bedevilled The elements of a broken home Its a subjective element Happiness, as a scholar might say.

The memories lay Behind a full-frame picture Emotions ablaze.

PICTURES

THE NIGHT OBSERVER

Long descended the skies of red and blue Unto the night life, dark right through The colour of glowing amber streetlights Like tattoos crossing the horizons true.

A lone man walks the empty street, The parked cars observing his stepping beat Lights from every flat seep out to the street, indiscreet As the man bows his head over his damn scratch sheet Waiting for luck to beget his materialistic soul.

The observer, staring at the desolate scene, Carlsberg in one, a woman’s glint in another.

He sips on the bottle green, While the night weans off his life, rendered obscene By the rest of society, considering themselves clean By day, he is a labourer at a construction site By night, he is a labourer to the immigrant’s might He is both object and person by design, But he is a machine by virtue, toiling So that the “clean” society get what they want.

Yet he is unappreciated But he continues to do his solemn duty.

From each today to each action replay.

To the day he gets caught astray, Thrown back home by the elites, feeling betrayed

Sitting with a glass of whisky and a cigar, Unpacking old emotions like a baggage car.

The thoughts about love and your past Whizzes through his mind like a dynamite blast.

His self-worth drains through the night, Like the perpetual droning of an international flight.

The flickering of the right eye reminds him, Of his withering hymn of life.

The sounds of friends chatting about their lives, Bothering him like a swarm of flies.

He is so tired of the circle of life, That he wishes to swiftly die.

But he looked at the picture of his ancestors, The stiff upper lip creases the faces of his predecessors.

Then suddenly, he had a reason to live The fire of life is burning alive.

He got up from his chair, smiles alight Ready to set the day a-bright He leaves the baggage car to its own disgrace While he lifts the mace and retraces his place

ARMCHAIR

REMINISCENCE

PARTY ON THE MOOR

The rave song blasts its hallucinogenic tunes As the night descends upon the green coloured dunes The people, chattering excitedly over their perfect summer June As the lone man walks along the grassy path, Looking for his clear-headed view.

The night sky lights its star-shaped clues As the lone man peers over the balcony to dissolve his blues In the hazy night air.

The jazz music fills the surroundings with notes of a saxophone While someone beats a drum and sings along With his croaking voice and crude dance-along.

The lone man concedes to his thousand-yard stare, His aperatif not the orange coulade, but the taste of despair, While he hums to the tune of the Postman.

His gentle recollections of years past, A silent toast to his life and times, As he read between the lines of light That stabbed the clouds with unforgiving smite.

I F

N O I T C

K C A B E F I L S S Y E M N G K N R I A D D N FI IN THE E C A R T N H A LIG LAYSI A M THE

FINDING MY LIFE BACK

T

he morning, as cold as always, started with the walk from my accommodation at the Newton Arms down at Newton Road. The revellers of the night before sang a good oath to the morning ahead, slumped on the lamp post while being drunk out of their minds.

My mind kicks into action, replicating the dread of the day ahead as I walked on. The busy A4200 beckoned as I carefully crossed the busy thoroughfare; cars, buses, trucks and motorcycles whizz by precariously as I make my way across. As depressed as the downtrodden owners of those vehicles driving themselves to the gates of hell, my pessimistic mind went into overdrive, sending me the hate messages that I have received and read without much passing thought for the past two weeks. It had been a rough ride for me since I moved from Münich; the place where my roots lay dying in sorrow as I had to move away from all the things I loved. I was all alone in this huge city of London, expecting to study as hard as possible to achieve some sort of enlightenment in the realm of Political Science. I continued walking down towards the Lincoln Inn Field, irking at my life choices and my hardships while gritting my teeth with such intensity that my jaw hurt. I questioned the purpose of myself even existing in this world, since most people say that life can be a colourful thing, but the shades of life I had been seeing were those of grey. Greyer than the façade of the old Peacock Theatre on Portugal Street as I pass it by without much of a thought.

Right at the middle of Portugal Street, I turned right towards the LSE Library, and the boundaries of the LSE campus beckoned. I entered John Watkins Plaza, and turned left to the rather simple entrance to the library itself, a supposed grand applause to the art of architecture and design. But all I saw in all its twisting glory were zombies studying their work to the point of sheer insanity; they were all being mechanised to commit to the labour of education. I walked up the building’s twisted stairway to the third floor. Hiding my angst, I quickly found a table at the edge of the floor, away from the roaming zombies and what not. By then, I begun to question the rationale behind my education; it’s like I am being expected to do everything that is possible, yet I couldn’t expect any kind of reward or at least, a modest return on my part,” one part of my mind cried in disgust. I live the typical zombie’s life anyway.

I readied myself for the force-feeding of information by professors who believe in only their own theories and research, but nothing else in their lives. I go for my study periods, grab some miserably expensive lunch, sit in the Library, get paranoid about my grades, go back home and wince about the stupidity in which I live in. As John Oliver might say, “There’s a certain roundness to it.”

As I opened my books to read about the philosophers of Economics, a person approached the table.

I assumed it was another of those zombies coming to bother me, but when I glanced up, this person seemed different. On first glance, I noticed he was a tall person, with his hair combed to his right side, sideburns visible. He wore a red shirt with the words “Good Vibes Only” emblazoned over his torso as he moved to sit down on the table. Judging for the basketball he was holding and the reflections of his phone wallpaper from his normal-looking glasses, I could also say that he was a basketball fan; another game which I was absolutely rubbish at. He placed his books on the table; some were about skeuomorphism and software design, others were about coding in JavaScript and CSS. He asked, in a meek but distinctly Chinese voice, “Do you mind if I could sit here?” he asked. Of course, I obliged although my mind was sending me very uncomfortable impulses about him.

After a few hours of moving in between force-feeding sessions, I came back to the library to find that he was still sitting at the exact spot where he had been sitting all morning. I continued to approach him with caution, stealing glances at him when he does not notice anything. He doesn’t seem like a suspicious charac–oh, he’s looking up again! I hid my glances as he sat there, impervious to my thorough analysis of his character. The, he got up, gathered all his things, and said his timid goodbye before he left. Relieved to some degree, I placed my Economics primer down on the table, and I noticed a USB drive on the table. “Bugger, that was his!” I thought, as I rushed down the library steps to meet him at the middle of the second floor. “You left your thumbdrive upstairs.” “Thanks, owe you one,” he replied. I wasn’t even questioning how he would pay back that due he just announced; all I could do was to return back to my routine after that bit of unexpected action.

“Back home, I suppose,” the little Tannoy in my mind announces with its sad tone as I walked back to my old dormitory on top of the pub. For some reason, my mind seemed much clearer on the way back; maybe it had something to do with the disturbance in my routine that person’s caused. The A4200 seemed more formidable as a barrier today; I guess it was because the Notting Hill Carnival was happening, so everyone wanted to have a glimpse at a parade of seemingly happy people to ease the vines of life that entangles them. I looked left and right on both sides of the road to cross it, hoping for a gap in the traffic that I could use. While I was crossing, I heard a minute honking sound.

I looked right. A huge London double-decker bus was heading towards me at some speed. I couldn’t move. My demise approached, the likes of Satan and his unworldly disciples embellished my mind as the bus got closer and closer. I closed my eyes, hoping for a respite from it all; I had enough, I had enough, I had enough! Tears rolled down my eyes as the bus finally got to the inches that separated

myself between life and death. Then, darkness.

I tried opening my eyes, afraid of the death that welcomed my tired body and mind. Instead, I opened my eyes onto the length of a London pedestrian walkway. Another person was hugging me tightly, panting with the deepest of breaths.The pavement was hard and cold, like the aluminium slab I would have been on if I was not saved by the person behind me. I got up, turned around and what I saw made me confused. It was that Good Vibes person from the library. I helped him up from the pavement, then asked, “How did you even...?” He replied with a distraught voice, “I was in the Cooperative Bank that lined the place you were crossing. I saw you in deep trouble and I ran across to help you. Told you I’d return the favour.” I couldn’t even understand his simple words due to my shaken nature, but I sat down next to the person.

“What’s your name?”

“Frank.”

We continued to sit down on the pavement, looking on towards the calming traffic of the A4200.The dragon which tried to kill me was now just a stream of water flowing calmly through the city. At one point, Frank got up and handed me something.

“What’s this for?”

“The second part of my payback for your favour.”

It was the thumbdrive again. “Don’t you need it?”

He didn’t respond to that; instead, he got up and just left, walking towards High Holborn. I took out my laptop from my bag, and plugged it in.

There was only one picture on it; I thought it was one of those quotes from the internet which were made from cat pictures and such, but it delivered such a simple message to me.

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.The ones who see things differently.They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

T

he night filled with the smell of burning fuel as Jeffries lied still on the corner of Springmartin Road and Ballygomartin Road. His police van stood at the middle of the junction, alight with the yellow flames of horror and fear as his life ebbed away with every drip of his blood spilt on the hard asphalt road. His eyes saw only the starry sky above, the night perpetuated by the pure white moon streaked with the fumes of petroleum and the wavering focus he could place on his vision. As he blurred to the afterlife, he breathed his last on the pavement as someone cried out for help. It was too late, Jeffries was gone. His broken warrant card stood beside his lifeless body, a stark reminder of his painful existence, a collateral damage statistic meant to be carved to a stone war memorial when the violence ends.

His family, who lived at the end of the road, ran over to comfort his lifeless body.

“Daddy, daddy! Don’t leave me! Don’t leave me!”

His son, a teenager 18 years of age, descended into a crying spree as his body was whisked away to the morgue by the coroners. Stood in the middle of the road, his mother shouted to the very same moon and stars, demanding an answer to her hubby’s early demise. Unfortunately, the stars and stars could only do so much as to stare down with its white light to illuminate the scene of the crime.

Jeffries’ police colleagues hugged the dumbstruck family as the coroner’s van moved away, the white chalk mark on the road bearing the last resemblances of Jefferies’ death.The son, now sat on the kerb of the road, recounted the life of his dead father while he stares on aimlessly into the crime scene, the exploded van being the only focused thing in his vision as he transitioned to his train of thought.

The only thing that he last remembered was a dark silhouette, walking away from the scene, head hunched and looking down towards the cold, unforgiving pavement.

Jeffries was a simple man caught between a huge conflict, bigger than what most people on both sides can comprehend. Some might say that it was a clash of civilisations, a difference in thought and the practices of religion to the point of overbearing dominance. He worked for Her Majesty The Queen as a lowly police officer, inspired by the cop radio dramas he heard as a child on the radio in the sitting room growing up in County Antrim, the north-eastern part of Northern Ireland. Since the day the Troubles began, he became increasingly disillusioned by his job, partly due to the changing nature of his peers and his superiors in dealing with the people they bring in on a daily basis. He believed in the police values of fair justice and brotherhood, and he upholded it to the best of his abilities through thick and thin. But he found that this conflict is not going to be easy of him. His shift requires him to patrol the most violent areas of the city of Belfast–Shankill, The Lower Falls; if you hear news of any violence, he was there to quell it, whether it may be Protestant or Catholic. He pulled his sleeves up every single time to help the victims of the Troubles no matter the danger he was putting

himself in; he had been shot twice at point blank range while helping some injured IRA members, but he survived to tell the tale.

The street where Jeffries’ family lived was eerily quiet the next morning. His wife sat in the sitting room of the house where the family once gathered; a picture of a complete family glared at her wrinkled, swollen face as she rested her eyes on the palms of her hand to ease the tears of sorrow.

The son looked on as she cried, feeling the same sorrow, but he held back his tears, remembering his father’s advice to bottle everything to show a brave front in the hour of chaos and destruction. He got up from the floor, and with a sense of reluctance, he hugged his mother, hoping that she would stop crying.

He glanced at the large mirror that adorned the space above the fireplace; his face reflecting the sense of utter despair and denial. He told himself this very phrase while he looked at the mirror, his lips now forming a tough long line across his face, his eyes fiery like the eyes of the devil, his knuckles red and clicking to the force of his rage– “I will one day find revenge for my dead father. I have nothing to lose. I will not stop until I find that person and put him down like how he killed my father.”

I

t has been ten years since the funeral of his father. His son had now grown up to become a military high-flyer stationed in Coagh, a village 45 miles south of Belfast. He has command over forces in County Londonderry, and his stiff upper lip is as stiff as before when his father died. Sat on his office chair in his makeshift office, a picture of his father looked on towards his desk, the black dots representing his eyes looking straight at his face, his face fronting the bravery that he was known for.

Now 28, he wore the military colours with pride and glory; his voice, rough and deep from extensive use, indicating the stubbornness and his confidence in his decisions and tactics. His rank was the result of his inner motivation to push on like his father did when he was working for the police; he was best known as the mastermind of the ambush in Dunloy, County Antrim, where he killed two Provisional IRA officers whilst he was undercover to infiltrate the ranks of the Provisional IRA. He walked with an air of defiance; a two-fingered salute to his past and a red, left-handed Ulster salute to the present. As he started his day in the office, some junior officers assigned to him marched into his office, the door swinging forth into the room to allow the officers to come in full view of him.

“Morning sir!”

They continued to stand with their chests thrust out into the air, their hands ruler-straight, pointing down; their legs forming a perfect 90 degree angle from the floor.

“Any rioting or ambushes around the area?”

“There’s an ongoing ambush in Belfast. Ballygomartin Road.”

When he heard that street name, he paused. His mind registered an emotion of worry and pain as he heard the officer brief him about that situation.

“As of now, we know that the PIRA is planni–” “Cut to the chase; are there any casualties right now?”

“Come on, spit it out!”

The junior officer’s face strained under the reluctance to release the information that had been given to him.

“Aileen Jeffries, your mother. She’s in hospital right now for gunshot wounds to her chest and face.

Uncertain chances of survival. She was shot while fleeing from the house.We are sorry, Commander.”

He was taken aback, shocked at the injuries his mother sustained. He asked the officers to leave the room, then looked at his father’s portrait.

“Father, what has become of our family? What else can I do now; mom’s dying in hospital. What can I do?”

He teared up in sadness as he opened his drawer. His service pistol, along with a box of bullets greeted his sad face, ready to deploy its golden, fatal load at the pull of the trigger. He holstered his gun on his utility belt, and he ran out to the courtyard of the base. Before he left, one of the junior officers rushed up to him.

“Where are you going sir?”

“To finish the fucker who did my family in. I’m certain he was involved in it.”

“Who? You mean Fergal Caraher from the intelligence files?”

As he entered his military Land Rover, he said a solemn “yes” before starting the engine and speeding off into the gloomy morning.

A

fter an hour and a half, he arrived at Ballygomartin Road. Everything was on fire; the acrid smoke billowed into the sky as he got down from his vehicle. He unholstered his weapon and joined the remaining two policemen fighting to get rid of the enemy. The rest of the police battalion were dead, having been shot during the first half-hour of fighting. It was a miracle that the two policemen managed to survive the 2 hour long duration of the gunfight. Backups were impossible; he received word from HQ that Belfast was going through a multitude of attacks; two bombings and an ambush on the northern side of town. Everything boiled down to the three of them now.

“There’s two beyond the makeshift barrier down the road.Your mother on the other hand, is another story.”

“I know she’s dead. The hospital called me on the way here from Coagh.”

“Sorry for your loss. I wish we could have told you this in better circumstances–” “Bugger that, let’s get rid of the two Provos over there. We’ve got better things to do.”

He gestured to the two policemen to flank him on the left as they ran for cover on either side of the road. They ran across the empty street, which resembled no-man’s land; desolate and barren like a warzone in World War 1. The fightback of Ballygomartin Road had begun.

The three moved along the road while bullets showered their positions. They inched forward across the length of the street, ducking and diving at their first opportunity when a defensive position appeared. After another hour, things did not seem to move along as quickly as they hoped for.

“Let’s charge their positions.”

“Are you fucking insane? It’s suicide!”

“Inching towards them isn’t helping as they have a bloody machine gun with enough ammo to bury us six feet under with hot shells. We need to get rid of those guys now or we die here in vain!”

As they charged, all three of them fired their pistols, hitting the machine gunner at point-blank range.

As the machine gunner collapsed, he fired his final round of bullets, fatally hitting both policemen and piercing his shoulder.

“Don’t come to us! Finish the goddamn job; don’t mind us!” the policemen cried as they died, their blood staining the asphalt road with its dark red colour. He carried on shooting his pistol, hiding himself behind a brick wall at the middle of the street.

As the firing of guns silenced, and the groanings of the injured settled into dark, sinister silence, he yelled out in his coarse voice– “Caraher! I know you are there! Show yourself with your hands up, you coward!”

“Really, Aedan. Do you think I’ll ever surrender to you? I killed your father, and your unworthy self would be easy for me to kill as well.You are nothing like your father! Your father’s a pig, like you are!”

A pause hung in the air as the two did not reply to each other. Caraher broke the silence a minute later, with a request.

“Do you want to die like a gentleman? Challenge me to a duel!”

Both men stood up from their defensive positions. As the cold air bites the wound of his shoulder, he gritted his teeth and uttered the words– “This is for you, mom and dad. Nothing can replace you guys, and nothing will.”

He crossed his Protestant heart as he looked at Caraher’s face. Every single wrinkle and imperfection on his sickening, deceptively smug looking face was all too familiar to him from all the hours of intelligence gathering and covert spying. His face appears on his desk every time he works, the results of his work deadly and disheartening, his trophies being the bloodied faces of the civilians and troops he’s killed. Every single time he looked at his face, his body filled with rage from the sins he has committed, and this time, he is going to end the sinner himself. No matter what. He had nothing to lose. He would one day find revenge for his father, and this was the day. Nothing will stop him, even if he died now. It’s all for his parents.

With his sentiments ringing in his ears, both men marched across the street, three paces forward.

Every three paces, they would shoot at each other using their pistols. It was always a missed shot.

Aiming was difficult in the smoke; the only thing both men could do were blind shots at each other.

They continued moving towards each other, shooting and pacing forward each time. As both of them got closer, Aedan’s shoulder wound pulsated harder, bleeding out more profusely as time went on.

“Your missed shots are like the failures of your kind, Aedan. Give up!”

“No! I shan’t, not until I get to murder you for what you’ve done to my life!”

At the junction of Ballygomartin and Springmartin Road, both of them met face to face, their guns now jabbed into each other’s stomachs. This was where Aedan’s father died, and this was where he will meet his ultimate demise.

“So, this is where it ends.”

“Yes it is. Any last words to languish the pains of your demise, Aedan?”

“No. Not even a word. The taste of revenge is sweet, and it is a dish best served cold.”

And with that, both men pulled the trigger of their guns. A loud bang, then a thud was heard. It was Aedan. His gun jammed at the last minute, allowing Caraher to survive.

It was all too familiar.

As Aedan lied still on the corner of Springmartin Road and Ballygomartin Road, his life ebbed away with every drip of his blood spilt on the hard asphalt road. His eyes saw only the grey sky above, the day perpetuated by the dark grey clouds streaked with the fumes of petroleum and the wavering focus he could place on his vision. As he blurred to the afterlife, he breathed his last on the pavement as someone looked over his face.

“I won, you lost. Like your parents. See you soon, Aedan.” A sinister laughter conincided his finishing remarks.

It was too late, Aedan was gone. His broken warrant card stood beside his lifeless body, a stark reminder of his painful existence, a collateral damage statistic meant to be carved to a stone war memorial when the violence ended.

Caraher walked away, head hunched and looking down towards the cold, unforgiving pavement as the sounds of police sirens echoed in the horizon.

THE MALAYSIAN RACE

T

he moon casted a cold, white glow across the street as Bernard walked the path towards the old school.The silhouette of the trees, shrouded with the darkness of night, blessed the length of the pathway as Bernard turned the corner towards Fleet Street. A car, with its harsh neon lights, whizzes by; its metallic silver paint reflecting Bernard’s sullen face and stoic upper lip.

The buzz of his phone filled the crisp night air. He took a quick glance at the phone; the white light of the screen blasting alight the eerie tenebrosity of his face. On the screen, a message lied in waiting.

It read– “Ready for your retribution? I’d rather you face me as you should, rather than chickening out as usual.”

His breath quickened. His joints popped. His pace became wider. The wrinkles on his forehead deepened with anger. The adrenaline rush surged throughout his body. He ignored the message and walked into the school, shoving the wrought iron gates that beckoned him.

Then, another message. The vibrations of the phone sent tremors throughout his angered soul.

“Timothy here. I heard about it. What the fuck do you think you are doing?”

“I’m ending it.”

With that, he entered the courtyard of the old school.Vines and dry branches float past his shoes as he paced the oval courtyard pavement, stopping at the fountain, dry and fading into the dark chasm of disrepair, like everything that surrounded him.

“I’m here! Come out wherever the hell you are!” he yelled as the observant crows of the night fluttered away into the night sky.

Gunshots ring throughout the callous walls of the courtyard. He stepped around, ducking to prevent himself from being shot. He glanced up towards the school building, looking for the glint of a sniper rifle’s scope or a silhouette with a gun. His arm moved into a chicken-wing motion, getting his concealed side arm ready to shoot.

Blam!

His shoulder pulsed and bled; the dark red blood draining around his shooting hand as he cursed at the white, pure moon. He saw a figure shifting against the window panes of the classrooms on the third floor. He moved into position, assuming his aim and firing his gun aimlessly towards the target.

“Why are we doing this? Why do you want retribution. Why do you want retribution, Eshaan?”

“You have something I want.”

“I got it fair and square, like how everyone else should have gotten it, by working hard for the bloody thing!”

Blam!

His knees collapsed into heaps as pieces of bone and flesh flew across his face. He was forced into a kneeling position as he writhed in pain; the pain shot into all his conceivable senses as he looked up towards the school building once again.

“Look at me!”

He turned around, and there was Eshaan, with his weapon jabbed at his stomach. His deep exhalation tingled at Bernard’s face muscles as both of them met eye-to-eye, staring at each other with sheer intensity. His eyelids were twitching with the angst of murder and revenge. He was ready to shoot.

Bernard had been working for the National Unity Council these past several years, starting with being an office clerk in the Unity department of said council. This council, brought into existence since the tragedy of May 13th, 2015 under the Emergency Ordinances Act, was tasked with the challenging job of “unifying the country” under difficult circumstances. However, most people knew the ins and outs of the governmental jargon and doublespeak whether it may be in Malay, Chinese or Tamil, and they see that the government was returning to the old days of colony. Communist rumours spread like wildfire as tensions rose between all the races until the government stepped in to “solve” the problem.

Divide et impera was the order of the day, where everyone was evicted from the towns and cities and moved to new cities called Bandar Kesejahteraan, or Cities of Wellbeing. Groups of people were isolated from each other using ultrasonic barriers designed to vaporise any intruders without a trace. Troops had shoot-to-kill orders, with gunshots being heard across these cities on a daily basis.

Rumours of rape and desecration of religious entities were rife, vis a vis to that, the Government ensured that this was part of an amalgamation exercise where everyone was to follow the teachings of one nation and one leader. Information was restricted and filtered through only one channel, Makmur Se-Malaysia.A deep-voiced woman, dressed in a baju kebaya, would always go live on television, on the hour, reading out the government’s instructions and press releases repeatedly until her voice echoed in the empty heads of the people at large.

The secretary-general of the NUC, Tun Haji Mohammad Arizan Rahman, was a military hardliner; his actions were always dashed with a pinch of violence and death on the sides. He was firm to the cause of the Government, he believed that the Government will bring back the Good Old Days, which, in his demented mind, was what the country needed to maintain its supposed superiority in the world.

However, the Government had other plans. They believed that he was too soft on the population, referring to an incident where a couple was spared instant execution for the fact that they stole food from the army canteen, reserved for those on duty. He was bribed by the couple, of course, but the Government, which was rampant with the serpent of lust, does not currently sign up to the idea of bribery, it signed up to the idea of forced ideology at this point.

The secretary-general was handed a nondescript letter by his adviser one rainy afternoon.

— Notis Merah/Red Notice Tun Haji Mohammad Arizan Rahman Penjara Kajang/Kajang Prison, 0900 hrs “Before we execute you, appoint a leader which we can trust. Do not screw this up, or else, your execution would be as painful, or even more painful than what is possible now.”

Ditandatangani/Signed, T

The air in the boardroom was heavy; the embellishments of the room consisting of various accolades and tokens of appreciation, lined the walls of the beige coloured boardroom. As Bernard entered, the searing eyes of the Secretariat burned the awkwardness of Bernard’s actions. The sounds of the central air-conditioning blasted through the room as the deep voice of the Secretary-General broke the silence.

“Have a seat, Bernard” Complying with the Secretary-General’s order, he dragged a velvet red office chair, and sat alongside the Secretary-General on his left. The glares softened as the Secretary-General introduced him to the rest of the Secretariat, and said this, in his rough, hoarse tone– “He has been serving the Government for the past decade, most of it being under our purview. He, along with another candidate, will be pitted against each other to see who is the better replacement for me as Secretary-General. I am ready with my kris, and once I find a successor, I shall honourably end my own life for the betterment of the nation.”

“Who’s the other candidate?”

“Eshaan.”

Glances were exchanged between the rest of the Secretariat as they moved their chairs to face Eshaan. He propped up his tall, skinny body as he walked to the front of the room, while buttoning his suit in the process. His chin was held high and his his nose, even higher, a sign of arrogance which was to be expected in an organisation like this.They don’t give a hoot about the little guys, if you will, they care only for the nation, with a secondary objective of saving their own skins if the need arises.

It’s a political dystopian novel in one room, essentially, like Francis Urquhart from House of Cards.

And with that, both people said their pieces about how they would like if they were accorded this honour of being the Secretary-General, while shaking hands, promising to compete fairly and respect each other’s views and ideals (which was laughed at by the Secretariat due to its infinite contradictory factor).

As the first splattering of a monsoon rain hit the back of Eshan’s back, Eshaan tried to pull the trigger of the gun, but can’t. There was another gun aimed at his back instead.

“Get up, Eshaan.”

“Arizan? But why? I thought I was your choice to be the head of the NUC!” Bernard smirked at his vulnerability, and said– “I was already the choice from the beginning; the competition was there as a cover up to make sure the Government had the right choice of Secretary-General in mind, for the people of course. It’s all an illusion.”

“You see, we don’t want someone who is actually hardworking, talented and capable. We want someone who can listen to sound advice if it was given, and can be flexible with with their opinions.”

“You are too attentive, too nosy, too radical. It’s not something we look for in Government. Remember your actions in Bersih 3?”

He was astonished. How did he know? How did he know that he was not such a fervent government supporter and that he was in the government to change things? A streak of anger emblazons Eshaan’s face as he tried to run away. They let him go for that moment, allowing him to run back to the wrought iron gates “We know anything and everything about you. Your Special Branch files say it all. It’s no use running, as we will still find you. Give up now.”

Bernard took out a Walther P-52 from his adviser’s holster and shot at his legs. He missed.

Eshaan stopped in his tracks and knelt before the gates. The taste of freedom was deliciously near, but it seemed that he was mentally locked inside an open-air prison. He looked down on the cobbled path; the rain has made the path sparkle in the presence of the moonlight as he sighed deeply, almost as if he was prepared to take his final breath.

“If you want me to surrender, shoot me here, now. I’d rather die a hero from your cowardly causes” Tun Arizan’s eyes twitched at that statement, his eyes staring straight at Eshaan. He tried to move

forward and kick the man so hard he can’t live past that moment, but Bernard prevented him by putting his arm out.

“What are you doing? Protecting him?”

“No, we are explaining our worldview to this undesirable person” He walked towards Eshaan, and pulled his head up by clumping his hands on his curly hair.

“Such a naïve person. Did you ever think that the world was a fair place, hmm? We are here to ensure that this country exists. Like the good old days. Did you ever think for a second that you could change your country?”

Eshaan spat at Bernard’s face, his face bearing the markers of intensity; his eyes stared deeply into Bernard’s eyes, while his mouth was tightly sneezed by his face muscles. His eyebrows sloped down towards his nose as his anger surged his every bodily crevice.

“Well, you chose this route, so, any last words?”

“Fuck you.”

And with that, Bernard dispersed a golden bullet from his Walther straight into the back of his head; the bullet penetrated the back and front of the skull, with pieces of brain matter splattered on the cobbled floor.

Timothy emerged from the shadows.

“Well done! Well done! Great show of sadness, naivety and pessimism” “You were the best actor we had!”

“Nah, I just provided the phone call to you so that he could hear it by tapping into your phone line.

Anyway, congratulations on becoming the new Secretary-General!”

Both of them looked towards the old Secretary-General, who was standing beside them, but then, a gurgling sound indicated his position. He stabbed himself in the stomach, his eyes locked in shock as blood emerged from his lips. He died soon after; his breath added to the coldness of the cold, rainy night.

“So, your first order of business. Ijok.We have to burn the settlement down.Too many undesirables.”

“It’s done already. They are being burnt as we speak. These commodities are a liability to us anyway.”

With that, they shook hands and shared a glass of champagne over the dead Secretary-General’s body.

O N

I F N

N O I T C

N A I AYS

L A M Y M N W I O D N N K A L U T O SCO WHAT Y CATION U E D T E I WR ABOUT S T N RA

T R A HE

SCOTLAND IN MY MALAYSIAN HEART

D

uring my crusades beneath the waves of the wonderful internet, I was dying for the thirst of freedom; something which is not a provision within the realm of my life due to restrictive schoolwork and my sheltered manner of living.

As usual, I was looking for the usual things that I like–soundtracks and advertisements for the BBC and other British channels. As an avid fan of broadcasting and contemporary Britannia, this is all my web history has to offer (although I know that you, the reader, expected more from me). At one point, I stumbled onto this music video, used as an introduction to BBC Alba, a new Scottish channel developed by the BBC and MG Alba.

Air sgiath a' seoladh nan neoil 'S an domhain liath Mar dhealbh a' tighinn beo tro na sgothan 'S mi a' tilleadh gu tir Alba nam beanntan ard Nan acraichean lom Thairis air na lochan mointich Nan coilltean 's nan gleann Ach 'se sealladh leointe is gann Tha an seo aig ceann thall an linn Talamh alainn nan daoine Fhathast an lamhan duine no dithis Cuibhlean stolda mu dheas Na fasaichean a tuath An taigh-mor falamh an Dun-Eideann Gun chumhachd gun ghuth Sibhse chuir achadh ri achadh Taigh ri taigh Gus nach bi ait anns an tir An gabh sibh comhnaidh air leth Ach 's math dhomh bhith seo an drasd A cur failt air a' bhlas 'San tir a tha cho ur dhomh an diugh

Is a bha I nuair bha mi 'nam phaisd This song piqued my interest even though it was a Gaelic song; there’s something about the moving pictures of rural Scotland and the various singers that appear between the luscious landscapes that appealed to my inner apperception. The melody of the song, reminiscent of the bagpipes and the flamboyancy of the Scottish people brought the song together, in full circle.This song, in essence, was more than just what it was in plain sight.With that, I looked up the English translation of this song on the internet, and this was the result.

“This flight is sailing through the clouds And the blue heavens The homeland appears like a developing photograph Through the mists as I return to land I see Scotland of the high mountains And the empty acres Flying low across the moorland lochs The forests and the glens But it's a wounding and a hollow sight Here as we reach the end of the century The beautiful soil of the people Still in the hands of the few I see the wheels of industry at a standstill And the northern lands wasted And the empty house in Edinburgh Without authority or voice You that have laid field upon field House upon house Till there be nowhere for you to be placed alone In the midst of all the earth But it is good for me to be here now As I welcome the warmth In this land that's as exciting for me today As it was the day I was born” I wrote the results in a notebook I had beside me, and then I proceeded to dismantling the song, if

you will, to find the hidden meanings; to read between the lines and to relate this song to the different facets of my life. What enticed me to research this song and remember the lyrics, I have no idea.

Something within the deep corners of the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that produces the emotions I feel on a day to day basis, enticed me to pay attention to the drums and the dragged out Gaelic “al” sounds.

As I went on the read into the motives that provisioned the writing of the song by a band called Runrig, I understood the main theme of the song–the beauty in freedom. This song, written in 1987, was written in an era of change. Just a few years before, a referendum was conducted by the UK Labour Government in 1979 to form the Scottish Parliament, although the song does state that “the empty house” in Edinburgh, referencing the Old Royal High School building where the Scottish Assembly was located in, had no “authority or voice”, referencing the lack of powers over defences and taxation which were all centralised in London.

Another part of the song, talking about the “northern lands” being wasted, brought forward a point made by my father, who did make a trip to the United Kingdom some years ago. “Scotland’s a mess, Edinburgh and Glasgow were quite impoverished and the roads there were bad,” he remarked while driving down the potholed highway towards Kuala Lumpur with me to attend a Model United Nations event.

“But what does this all mean, this beauty in freedom?”

The beauty in freedom comes in the last section of the song.

“But it is good for me to be here now As I welcome the warmth In this land that's as exciting for me today As it was the day I was born” The beauty in freedom is to see it happen in front of your eyes. To be involved and to evoke the changes we expect to see as a society. The Scottish were making their voices heard with their referendum. They demanded change, and they expected to see it.

How does this relate to Malaysia, since this essay is written in a Malaysian context?

Well, we live in a rapidly changing world. But we also live in a world of indifference and ignorance, possibly fronted by the whitewashing of certain forces intending to keep the society a silent herd of lamb, observing the moves of their shady silhouettes.What I am trying to say is this–we need to make

noises.The useful sounds that move the gears of our leaders.We cannot be the silent observer all the time, we need to participate and make the world as we see fit.

This song bears some similarities between Scotland and Malaysia, if you think about it. I won’t go and list mine here, since I believe that it is up to your own interpretations, but the general consensus is that the people are at the mercy of the higher authority, and the people are dependent on the authority which supposedly gives them a voice.

The beauty of independence, however, is blissful.

With independence, we get to say, write, shout, scribble what we think.With independence, we get to trade ideas and participate in change. With independence, we get to live as we want to live.

With independence, we thrive.

And to thrive, we need to find that independence within ourselves. Fight for it.

And then, and only then can we live a life of our choosing, not the life as dictated by foreign despots and the elites. All we need to do is to make the first move.

WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW

W

rite what you know. I usually do that most of the time, but I do prefer the rhetoric of writing what you think you know. The word “think” is important here. Back when I was in a MUN event, I asked a friend who was coming along with me to debate a resolution he wrote in the same council. I asked– “How do you even manage all these negative questions that are coming forward to you?”

His reply seemed normal, but the answer was impressive nonetheless.

“I like answering questions” I find that approach strange; coming from the product of a very restrictive British-Asian fusion school curriculum, where the letter of the curriculum, not the spirit and the excitement of it was emphasised, and the spirit replaced by dodgy teachers with no interest at all in their areas of education. That answer struck the inner annals of my mind.

Since then, I preferred the idea of discovering emotions myself, rather than waiting for me to experience it in real-life. The videos I watch, the music I hear; it forms a part of my emotions album within my head, waiting for the moment where I use the emotion for something exciting and new.

Why wait for the emotions? There’s no challenge in that, I believe. I might as well answer the question of how these emotions feel within me if I experience it, and how other people might deal with it as well.

It helps if you know how to analyse other people–Cal Lightman from Lie to Me has some facts to uphold in terms of analysis. I keep a keen eye for movement, microexpressions, hand gestures and the sort.These tell me what emotions someone is encountering; whether they are confused or upset, happy or angry. From there, I work a character in a story. If the character hunches forward, with arms crossed, it means that the character is defensive and trying to make himself look small, showing his lack of confidence. If a character is incessantly tapping his fingers on the table, the character is impatient or that it is expecting something to happen.

These small components, derived from one’s own environment, makes for good writing.Why? I get to experiment with things I have not tried before, I get to test new emotions and settings to influence the thoughts of those emotions. Never allow anyone else to dictate what your emotions in your story should be, it makes for very unnatural writing which makes me cringe all the time. Write what is best in your mind, what is appropriate, and what you think makes a good story in your own set of standards. And, when you experiment with new things, there is always that chance of failure, which is expected. Try until success rewards you; throw everything you have at your writing. Who knows, any side knowledge you might have could potentially form your next bestseller!

RANTS ABOUT EDUCATION

I

believe in a future where education is different. How different, you might ask. For me, some of you might find this radical, but my mind leans towards the abolishment of education in its current state, and the introduction of radical ideas for everyone to benefit from the actual joy of education itself.

To give us a clue as to what needs changing, we need to take a look into the annals of history during the inception of the Industrial Revolution.

Back in the heyday of the Industrial Revolution, people were only starting to see the importance of education. Subsequent Acts of Parliament such as the 1879 Elementary Education (Industrial Schools) Act ensured that children got the education they needed in the industries they were working in, whether it may be textile, coal or steel. Teachers taught students the tools of the trade, making sure that they were fit enough to work the levers and shafts that powered the European economic powerhouse, producing consumer goods for the masses. In essence, the schools and students of the Industrial Revolution were caterers to the consumerist cause, supplying in great demand what the job market demanded.

Moving back to the 21st Century, what do we see? We see, at best, an ion of change against a white drab wall of conformity. Like the Industrial Revolution, students still sit in pre-arranged rows in school, guided by a teacher in front of class (with an electronic whiteboard, of course) who still do the traditional thing of talking at students, rather than talking with them. There is still no effort to work with students; a parallel still exists between the world of the teacher and the student, and the students are suffering because of it. Curriculums still change according to the demands of the local industry, making concessions for growing job markets such as IT. Students, teachers and parents still lack the power to control their education while bureaucrats, lobbyists and industrialists use education to reap their vested interests at the expense of everyone else–hence, the “tragedy of the commons” principle where one group acts to their own principles in contrary to the consensus of everyone else.

So, what needs to be done? Well, for starters, we need to not encourage the removal of traditionalist education.

“Wait, what?”

Yes, you heard it, but there is a caveat to that.We need to take the post-revisionist principle of history into this argument. We must combine the best of both worlds–the traditionalist education is good at instilling values and content, while new education is good at ensuring that the skills they learn are relevant to today’s job market and industry, as well as what students are capable of learning and discovering.

To quote an example, I recalled what a certain teacher who teaches some of the social sciences

courses in CPU told me–he regaled the days of his teaching college where he was assigned to some group work where he had to plan out a whole year’s teaching plan. He was, at best, confused by the amount of content he had to cover. When the lecturer ended the group work assignment, he said this–It’s impossible to cover the whole syllabus. There’s too much of it. Cover what is important to you.

There is a constant development of new but important concepts when it comes to teaching and education. Newfound emphasis for active, cooperative, discovery and community learning are the fundamentals of the new classroom–a classroom of relevance, where there are no walls to learning.

Think about it this way–if Newton was able to come up with the Universal Law of Gravitation just by sitting underneath an apple tree, then why are we forcing children into classrooms? If we continue on this path of desolation, we will start encountering a population that is apathetic to the cause of education; as Jacob Clifford, the host of Crash Course Economics on YouTube says in clearly in his teaching videos, if a student says that they hate history, it means that they hate discovering where they came from and who they are. If they say they hate maths, they hate problem solving and learning from their own mistakes and here’s the kicker, if they say they hate school, they are essentially saying that they hate applying skills that will decrease the likelihood that their lives will suck [sic].We already have a lost generation caused by war and poverty. Let’s not create another one.

In fact, what we should start doing is this–remove that disconnect between government and education; they are always getting the wrong signals when it comes to education as there is a lack of input from all stakeholders. We need to tell them what we expect from our education, not let people control the whole thing in a shadowy governmental set up. Education is the backbone of a great economy, and without the wise words of education, we would not be able to understand how the world works, and how we can use the world to improve our quality of life, and preserve it at the same time for generations to come.

I DRAW WHAT I FEAR -Gerald Scarfe, Cartoonist

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