ambigiousity-blog

[ambigiousity-blog]

One tempest

He was the only person in the world.

The skies were constantly blue, and the trees were an eternal lush of green. Clouds would always form his favourite shapes and sometimes, on very rare occasions, there would be a rainbow.

The only oddity in his world was that the said rainbow would always be one colour - black. The rainbow had different shades of black and grey and slate that shone differently as the sun revolved around his world.

Yet, he felt no curiosity towards this oddity. He only observed the blue sky, the white clouds, the endless horizon of grass. His home stood in the centre of this world - a solitary room that stood stagnant, closed off from everything else. Four walls that hid everything he would rather not face.

But he always had to go back, as light turned dark and bursts of fire started at the edges of his world and made everything wither and crisp. Only his room was safe - and the sense of security triumphed over his tucked away insecurities. He would watched silently as the outside become bright and dark, alternating between each extreme as the cool flames wrapped up the surface. Tomorrow, his world would be born anew.

And it was never born different; this was the only sky he knew, the only earth he'd experienced.

Inside his room, every night, he had a bad dream - a dream where he would be locked up, scared, inside a room of all white. He screamed yet no one heard. He thought he could hear someone calling for him, yet no one ever came.

Pain, scorching pain ate at his mind. There were flashes of himself, another him, yelling and thrashing about as people retreated, trying to keep themselves safe.

Those dreams seemed all too real, but every morning he woke up and felt as if nothing ever happened.

He was the only one in the world.

Until one day, he woke up and there wasn't a blue sky. There weren't any grass, nor white clouds of his favourite shapes.

No, he woke to darkness, a blank stagnant space of nothing. He could hear himself breathing, listen to his own heartbeat throbbing in his ears - he was well and alive. Yet where was he? What was it that took him away from his world?

A light broke out, painting him in fluorescent orange. He squinted against the light. Someone beckoned at him.

That someone was sobbing. Mouthing the words 'I'm sorry,' again and again and again. A never ending barrade of guilt.

And that was when he truly woke up.

The air turned thin, his chest felt like it was going to collapse into itself. His skin was shrinking and binding him onto himself - choking, a choking pressure pressed on him from every direction. He struggled to keep his eyes open.

With parched lips, he managed a short yelp of pain before it overpowered his senses - he was dying.

Slowly but surely.

Each breath was hard. Water ran from his eyes and his throat wasn't working too well either.

With a final gasp, his head tumbled onto the ground - an earth shattering resonance beat at his insides. Everything moved slowly, started to distort.

He knew, knew that he was living a dream. A dream of plain skies, white clouds and painless days.

And now he truly understood the oddity of the rainbow - he had never seen one. Never bothered to look at it while he was still outside, still living and mingling with so many other beings. What colours did it have? How did it shine in the sky?

He barely remembered the stories, yet they stuck while he was shelled in solitary confinement.

His sin?

Well, they told him he never would be at peace. His anger was a tempest that never quelled. A bloody concoction of hate and fueled by a maddening drive.

They tried quelling the tempest, softening his mind.

He then showed them anger in cold, cold blood. Not a raging tempest - but instead a blizzard.

And he didn't regret it as the light faded from his eyes.

[ambigiousity-blog]

Born blue

 Her name is Navy and perhaps it resonated well with her appearance.

 The midwife could not really believe it when Navy was first born. Her eyes fluttered open and a soft wail escaped her lips. Nothing was odd there - the midwife reached for the baby's tiny hairs on her round head, and touched it gently. Like every other baby she helped deliver, it was soft and stuck to the skull.

 But then again, the baby's hair was a shade of blue - the colour dubbed navy, of the sea during a rough storm; the shade of sky the moment night descends. After another frenzied breath, the midwife yelped at the oddity and quickly passed the baby to the tired and sickened mother.

 The mother only smiled, for she barely held her conscience and the blue of her darling's hair didn't stop her welcome grin. She placed a soft peck on the baby's cheek and murmured, 'Take her, please.' before she dozed off.

 The midwife stared at the baby, her eyes hovering over the baby's eyes and her flesh and blue, blue hair. Nothing seemed wrong - the baby was healthy, perky even - so why?

 She decided against reporting it before the mother woke up. Her husband and her should be the first to know - and the midwife wondered about the husband's whereabouts. He had thrown up at the sight of the blood and watery fluid everywhere. He should be around.

 The midwife weighed the oddity that was a newborn child, did all the standard procedures and sat back down, the crying little fellow in her arms. There was a soft knock on the door, and the father stepped in.

 He had not one blue hair on his head.

 The midwife stared and stared. The father grew queasy, as there was still blood on the sheets and some had formed tiny puddles on the floor. She noticed him inhale sharply as he saw the tiny being in her arms (she thought he would have cried and left the room, indeed) and broke into a sincere, tired smile.

 'My lovely angel.' She could hear him whisper softly. He crossed the room and held his child, and wept openly at the sight of the now-smiling child in his tender arms. She noticed him stroking the newborn's hair, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

 To the father, he did not care if the child was an oddity. He touched her hair and hummed a happy song. He was just glad that he had a new purpose to live for.

 Navy never thought that the colour of her hair was an oddity until the first day of kindergarten. The teacher gave her a disapproving look each time their eyes met and the other children tugged at her hair until her eyes watered.

 She could never get her disheveled hair back to its initial condition when she went home. Her mother would always smile fondly as she imagined her daughter playing on the field with her classmates, having fun playing rope or something of the sort.

 Navy found that she could not say anything to her mother, as two differing emotions welled up in heart - and she did not know how to recognise them then; it was Pride and Sadness. She had felt ashamed that she was letting her mother's expectations down, and felt sad at the fact that she wasn't accepted in kindergarten as she was at home. It was puzzling. She did not know how to call her thoughts her own - for she could not identify them herself until much later on.

 And in middle school, Navy finally understood why she was left out - during recess, when the gymnast coach was picking the official team, and was always picked last whenever there was gym (she was fit - a gymnast, as her mother was, even!) - it was because she was different. Too different from everyone else that they distanced themselves on the first glance.

 People only talked to her whenever it was needed, under strained circumstances.

 Navy would curse them under her breath and turn sullen while walking away from home and towards what was known as her 'Anti-Navy Fort'. A fort of disgust and judgement that was directed at her only. It made her sad to think of those people like that, but what choice did she have?

 As they condemned her, so did she. Wasn't it fair?

 During high school, things escalated downwards too fast, and too soon. Navy dressed in black all day and would not leave the house whenever she didn't need to go to school. She had three new piercings the previous month and was planning on a tattoo next. Her parents were obviously worried, but only labelled her erratic behaviour as a 'phase'. Little did they know what was going on Navy's mind - after all, they weren't the ones who were born with blue hair, no?

 And Navy had to put up with so much. Too much, actually. People teased her - everybody knew her to be a joke of a human being. She made the accident of confiding to a once-close friend about be condition of her hair, and was instant ratted out as a freak. She tried not to care, but it gnawed at her every time she saw someone look at her in a negative light.

 Navy had stopped smiling to people a long time ago, even before when she let others assume she had dyed her hair an erratic colour.

 One day, a boy confessed to her. She was shocked, mortified, and she lacked the skill to handle such a thing. If turned out to be an elaborate prank, and her stutter was recorded and shown to everyone, including the teachers. Everyone laughed. At her, at everything she was, at how she acted.

 How it hurt.

 Navy was about to drown herself at the beach near her house one evening when a stranger said hello. She nodded back in acknowledgement, before glancing out towards the sea again. Waiting for the guy go retreat.

 Yet he did not. He tried making a joke but ended up with a stony silence. He told Navy how beautiful she was, her blue hair catching the reflection of the lowering sun and how it glowed a million shades of blue and black and silver.

 Navy forced a smile, and whispered softly as the waves lapped against their feet - 'That's all alright, but won't you just leave me now to die?'

 The stranger was stunned into silence, his enthusiastic smile fading rapidly. Navy kept walking, her black jeans becoming heavy with water. A pair of arms held her back around the waist - the stranger had her in his arms. She struggled to no avail. And broke into tears.

 'I can't just let you walk to your death like that.' The stranger murmured against the crook of her neck. It was oddly comforting and chilling. Alarm bells rang in Navy's ears, yet she sobbed quietly, unable to move. 'Please, give me a week to show you how much life means to everyone. To you.'

 Navy found herself being carried off into a stranger's car and he drove her home safely. Her eyes were swollen and red, yet he looked at her with a certain fondness in his eyes.

 'Don't try anything funny.' he warned before speeding away. 'By the way, I'm Owen.'

 Navy entered her house without a word. Yet she tried to believe, that night. She wanted to believe that Owen was really going to make her not want to die a meaningless death.

Part one concludes.

[ambigiousity-blog]

Of the cold and cruel

All I wanted was happiness. But this twisted reality made me realise that happiness was subjective, and that it was hard to appreciate when it came knocking at your door.

I was inside my head again, clueless to the outside world. I knew because there was this fuzzy feeling in my chest, and a ticklish sensation blooming from top to tail of my spine. My senses screamed that it was all real, that each time I breathed I was living. I was kept alive.

Those breaths were so precious; I could see my each exhalation frosting in front of my lips, a wisp of life that I knew was limited.

Snow. Glorious, cold, pure snow. A few small scratches etched the bark of a dying willow tree. Death unto it, like how I felt inside. But still, I breathed. JOURNEY BEFORE DESTINATION. What father always said - what he preached all his life, his last words to his dying (or already dead) daughter. My fingers, bare and cold, touched the words. Carved them mentally, deep into my heart. The cold bit at my fingertips, at the edges of my lips and my ears - but I knew, consciously, that it was all real.

The scene changed. I was left alone on a slab of cold, cold metal. I felt frost biting on my behind, my head chilled inside. A welcome scene - I was supposed to be dead.

Yet I breathed. In and out. Never ending. A terrified yelp escaped - the voice did not belong to me. "H-how are you still alive?" someone whispered hoarsely. "Some...how." I whispered back. I thought of how my father slammed an axe into my back and tried to forget the pain as a scream tore through the cold, cold room.

"Journey before destination," he said. "But yours has ended."

[ambigiousity-blog]

A small insight into small thoughts

What have I done?

What have I done that I really enjoyed? What have I done that for someone I genuinely cared for? What have I done for myself, whom is constantly bitter and full of angst? What have I done to become a better person? What have I done to know more about the world?

What have I done to give myself meaning?

Finding the strength to start is hard - but knowing that you're doing nothing is equally bad. Yet this inertia, this unending complexity of both sides warring inside my head never stops. What should I do? What do I WANT to do? What is the meaning of BEING, of what I have come to done, and what I have loved.

And if only, I hope in some desperate part of me, there was someone that I could let this out to.

But can anyone be truly trusted? Am I brave enough to say the things I never said? Is there someone out there who will just sit and listen - and walk away - while I have the comfort of knowing that nobody else will know?

It feels too much. Yet I am here, thinking, deliberating - hoping that hope itself shall save me. For hope, it is the brightest light flickering in your soul and you are smothered in darkness.

[ambigiousity-blog]

Melodies

'I know you'll make a wonderful song.'

A soft whisper in my ear. A pair of delicate, yet cragged, hands held mine. Stretching my fingers gently over a span of white and black keys, arranged together in a continuous flurry of rhythm.

One note, two. Each resonated with the other, and a melody is born. I could only stare in awe as my fingers made sounds so sweet, so thrilling, my eardrums started to thrum in the hymn.

'Look here. This is a minor.'

And the rhythm continues.

Two years later, I was stuck in a cesspit. Trying, trying so hard to recreate the beauty I once experienced, the joy of creating a melody so euphoric, it made my heart resonate in the same tune. But nothing came. There was no happiness, no fulfilment of making notes string together.

I didn't know how long I played.

I only knew that it just wasn't the same anymore, that things have taken a turn for the worse. Slowly, my fingers relaxed. The blur of both white and black keys became much more discernible. Something, a soft sound echoed on the keys. I looked down, saw the glistening of a single tear. My fingers reached over to touch it - warm, warm and... and...

Red. Blood. The smell of rust pervaded my nose. Suddenly the world changed from monochrome, colourless to vivid. I saw the patterns of red streaks my fingers made.

Another echo from a single bead of tears. Soon, they would not stop.

I started and stared blankly. Lovely, red gashes spilled all over the whites. Even the blacks looked darker. My heart was pounding, pounding so hard...

I knew that death was irreversible. This emptiness, my heart - gone - with my beloved. Oh how I miss her. How I miss the sound of her smooth melody, the ringing happiness in her voice...

Someone gasped. I turned around, cheeks damp and warm. There was a crowd. Since when? Where did they come from?

Many were awed - most looked disgusted yet impressed. Impressed by what? The effect of death on a rhythm I created? It wasn't enough - couldn't express the lingering nothing that I felt.

The world became a blur. A reluctant clap burst out and rang in my ears. Soon, many more followed. Today was... Yes, today - was the tribute performance for Baudelaire Thompson, composer extraordinare. How long have I been playing? How long have they watched me play?

I found no answers as my body weakened, my hands stung and my knees wobbled on the bench. Soon, I was falling sideways.

Darkness came, filled the void. If only Baudelaire saw me now - she would laugh, bandage my fingers, give me a kerchief to wipe my tears.

At least in darkness it was not empty.

When did unrequited love become so empty? Death is but another form of beginnings - and I tried, tried so hard to recreate that beginning in a song. Yet nothing, there was nothing in the melody to comfort this emptiness. If only I never fell in love.

If only I never wound up in an abandoned classroom of my high school, playing with the bane of my existence.

I will end this. It might be in a song - or in death. She said everything has a beginning and a finale, thus I shall persevere - give myself a finale I deserve. A final chuckle gurgled out of my lips. I saw tears in my brother's eyes, cries of shock from many more and finally, finally - I saw it.

Pale, delicate hands waving at me.

'Won't you play a song for me?' she chuckled.

[ambigiousity-blog]

What this means

 I like to write.

But by all means, I do not think that I am an exemplary writer. Where is the drive, the prose, or the wit that I need to fuel my ideallic fantasies? Maybe it doesn't exist in me. Maybe I need to figure it out.

And this is my story. My adventure that may or may not bear fruit. A trial of sorts, whether these words of mine can truly help me figure out what is there for me, what is my life really, and ideally, how can I overcome the thoughts that plague me? (Somehow it has turned into a question. It may not be correctly phrased, but the world isn't an ideal place.)

Thoughts such as:

What will my life mean to me?

How do I become the best person I can, or the best writer?

And:

What is the point of conscience, or consciousness if we, as humans, are so fragile and dealt with so many variables not under our control? Is it not better to just be and not question the world as it is?

These questions may seem futile, rhetoric, and silly even, but I want to ask them. I want to know if they are worth the effort of asking. I want to know if I can find my own answers.

And to do that, I'll write. I'll put it all out and decide what works for me, what my perception is.

This might make me sound pretentious, or even like someone who is mature enough to try to figure it all out.

Let me reassure you (and, myself!) that I am none of those things. I just need to know.

This might be philosophy, but I'm going to try to delve into it through stories and jotted, emotional thoughts.

If you're reading this, it is up to you to stick around.

[ambigiousity-blog]

Who?

Angie, 21, overthinks & oscillates between fiction and reality. I write fiction for the sheer pleasure of expressing myself.