theinternetisforever

[theinternetisforever]

Strawberry

Originally posted on 26 September 2018

As he leaned in for the first ever kiss in his life, she promptly stopped him. She withdrew three candies of different flavors from her pocket. Strawberry, orange and green apple. She asked him what was his  favorite of the three. Confused, he pointed at the strawberry candy. She  unwrapped the candy and in one swift motion, popped it in her mouth. As he was still trying to understand what was going on, she tip toed and filled almost his entire view. And then their lips met. Touched. Connected. And the sweet scent of strawberry expanded from hers to his and it was as if he could smell using the insides of his mouth.

Strawberry. That was all he could smell. And taste. And it was sweet.

...

He opened his eyes, and returned from a vivid viewing of a scene from  his past. The candy in his mouth was almost completely dissolved now.  Just like her, soon to be gone without a trace, but for the fruity reminder she has ingrained upon his mind forever.

[theinternetisforever]

An Open Letter To The Girl Who Let The Nice Guy Go

Originally posted on 18 June 2014

Not by me. Very worth reading. http://elitedaily.com/dating/an-open-letter-to-the-girl-who-let-the-nice-guy-go/589089/

I’ve seen it happen way too many times: The nice guy loses the girl for being exactly who he is.

What’s even worse is if he’s really the nice guy, he’s going to lose her and say nothing about it. He’ll accept it as something she truly wants and give her his best wishes, as she walks away being everything he could ever want.

On behalf of all the nice guys out there, this is to the girl who walked out on the best thing that ever happened to her:

***

Dear Girl Who Walked Away,

It’s not like you weren’t aware of what you were getting yourself into. He told you he was nice. He trusted easily and gave you all he could when he could.

The nice guy believes in doing things right. He was there when you needed him to be, and he went out of his way to make sure you knew just how much you could mean to someone.

We live in a generation where we all have to wear masks and play parts to make it through the battlefield of dating in the 21st century. There is no such thing as giving it your all.

We like quotes on Facebook and post things on Instagram stating we want the masochist one day and the romantic the next. We play these games where being available can only happen sometimes, and playing hard-to-get must be our number one priority. Why?

I thought the ultimate goal was to eventually settle down. I mean, what is the point of dating if you have no desire for it to go anywhere? If a one-night stand is what you’re looking for, leave the good guys alone and toy within the levels you lay down.

Save yourself time and energy because the good guy isn’t going to make it easy to just walk away. The good guy cares, so he’ll get his explanation from you even though he knows it’ll be a load of bull.

Every girl says she likes the assh*le because he’s the challenge — the one she must break, train and force to be more than just a douchebag. Have you ever thought, however, maybe you were the girl in need of learning what it means to actually feel again?

You went through something, like we all do, and because of it you changed. It’s normal and heartbreak happens, but the next assh*le didn’t fix what the first one did; he kept it the same or made it worse. His priority was not you and couldn’t be you. So now you’re bitter and closed off from anything remotely more satisfying than a one-night stand.

I won’t deny that the assh*le is fun or that a good time isn’t promised with him, but when it’s all said and done, is it ever more than just a good time? Probably not.

In fact, the assh*le has a charm about him; it’s the charm you justify your pursuit with. You say, “There’s just something about him.” However, it’s probably the same quality that ended up hurting you in the past.

So you tried to push the nice guy away. When he wouldn’t go away, you pushed harder. Still, he didn’t give up and every time you pushed harder, he pulled you in even more.

He ignored your fears and forced you to grow; he fought for your passions when you were too busy writing them off. He forgot your wants and focused on everything you needed. Then you walked away because he was too nice.

He gave you too much of everything you wanted, and life got too easy. You wanted conflict and hardship as if everything else in life did not promise you an endless journey of just that. This is where you failed.

The nice guy has been hurt, too, he just chose to stay nice. He learned that different people were going to provide him different things in life. The nice guy also chose not to let any of it change who he was.

So, he let you walk away and he called it a day. Everyone always says there are plenty of fish in the sea, and he let you go knowing this, even though it hurt.

What you don’t know is that someone else is out there, and she won’t be as foolish you. When you realize all you really want is the nice guy who cares about you too much, it’s going to be too late. Some other girl will be able to see how great he is, and she won’t waste a minute.

So you lost your Ted Mosby and, I promise, to him you were Robin. The nice guys are there to give you a break, a light to something more than the games we identify our generation with.

He may have loved you too soon and it was too crazy and too much, but guys like Mosby don’t happen every day; they happen never. He got you the blue French horn, and he made you feel love when love was no longer a part of your vocabulary. You were now saying “I love you” again and remembering what it felt like.

He was the guy you were supposed to end up with, who makes everything change. I just wish you’d see it before another girl does because at the end of the day, everyone, including the nice guy you don’t deserve, is rooting only for you.

Sincerely, The Girl Who Was Too Late

[theinternetisforever]

Art-Is

Originally posted on 15 June 2014

I colour

With my twenty-four colour pencils

Entire fist wrapped around

The wooden body that housed the coloured lead

I would often break the tip

And leave a distinctive scratch

On the paper

My biggest problem

Was staying within the designated line

But just like any other good kid

I slowly learned

To never venture out of the thick black border

That screams "Stop"

You may call me cray-cray

And that just reminds me

Of what came next

I made it

I made it past colour pencils

To the crayons

A piece of paper, redundantly,

Modestly wrapping up the oily, waxy torso of the crayon

Never enough

To save me from having to wash my hands later

Crayons

Seem to be the epitome of childhood

Much like playdough

Was

And then when you were old enough

You'd get to dabble with water and the colours

The difference between a new set

And an old one

Was that the old one most definitely

Had black in white

Or yellow in red

Or purple in green

And the colours seem to be

Getting it on

Mixing it up

Exchanging parts of themselves

When they visit one another

By the time you were done

The drawing block

Would be soft and drenched

And show signs of the whitest fur

That frustratingly coagulates like wet tissue

And it takes more wet tissue to get them off

So in the end

You just hope it dries

And gets you a C+ or above

One very important thing I learned

Was the simultaneous use of crayons and water colour

Because there was something about the water and the waxiness that didn't mix

And you could colour the tree green with no. 47

Then splashed light blue water colour all over the sky behind it

And no matter how clumsy you handle

Your hands

The blue will never be friends

With the green

I guess it was just good, knowing

That I could mess up

Without really messing up.

[theinternetisforever]

How to be a good psychic

Originally posted on 31 May 2014

Steps to be a good (and hopefully famous) psychic:

1. Tell others that you're a very good psychic. (Warning: They may doubt you. Do NOT be sad)

2. Prepare a great number of containers, or cups, or basically anything that can be upturned.

3. Paste a piece of paper that says 'I knew you would choose this cup' on the bottom of every cup.

4. Show your non-believers your array of cups and tell them you can 'know' beforehand which cups they would choose. Remember to say 'know' while doing open and close inverted comma signs with your fingers.

5. Tell them that you have put pieces of paper predicting their choices in the cups that they will choose.

6. Let them upturn any number of cups of their choice.

7. With any luck (and lack of thinking on their part), they will be converted to believers and you would thus become a good psychic.

[theinternetisforever]

Origami

Originally posted on 15 May 2014

The first night he didn't come home

She spent the whole night sleepless

Restless

And at last,

She decided that she needed a hobby

So she made a paper swan

And put it on the stereo

"Where were you last night?" she asked the next morning

"Work" he quickly replied

But he did not meet her gaze

And when he kissed her before he left for work

There was something different about the kiss

And she knew

She knew

That he was fucking some other woman

The next Tuesday

He called home, said he wasn't coming back for dinner

That there was a company event

So when she bumped into his colleague while doing grocery shopping

She smiled while she made small talk

But she knew

She knew

That he was fucking some other woman

And when he came home that night

She was sound asleep

And there was a paper crane hanging from the night lamp

Three months, one week and four days later

It was a warm Saturday afternoon

When he came back from his fishing trip

But she was nowhere to be seen

So when he dragged the boat

That he had been sneaking off to make in his friend's shed

For three months, one week and four days

Complete with a bouquet of paper roses

He was met with an empty house

Siting on the steps, all he could do

Was add his bouquet of paper roses

To an empty house, now full of

Origami

[theinternetisforever]

Across the street

Originally posted on 15 May 2014

Sadness is like a sharp blade

That cuts through anything good

Despair is a bad friend

Who whispers terrible thoughts in your head

And they never come alone

With Misery, three's a company

They suggest and recommend

Persuade and petition

Cajole and coerce

Flatter and seduce

And if words don't work, they

Grip you by your wrists

And ask you to leave

With them

And when you reject

For the umpteenth time

They leave, without you

Their ephemeral visit almost traceless

Except for their grip

And its mark

On your wrist.

[theinternetisforever]

Should I tell her 'I like her'?

Originally posted on 28 April 2014

Welcome to our weekly "Let Me Help You With That" no-help series. Word of warning: It's only weekly when I'm not lazy.

Scenario that you may find yourself in. I like her. Should I tell her?

Let me give you some rubrics and algorithms and formulae and *insert own technical-sounding words* (to convince you that I know what I'm talking about) to help you through such a situation. However, I shall need to make a huge assumption in order for this to work. I'm going to assume that what you want is happiness (Shocking, I know). So, if you're thinking of say money, or looks, or other auxiliary benefits, please convert those things onto the 'happiness' scale.

We shall use the same 'happiness' scale throughout. The scale ranges from 0 to 20, with 10 being the happiness level on an average day, < 10 being sucky and > 10 being awesome. Let's commence.

First I'm going to ask you to imagine and assign a 'happiness' score to each of the following outcomes.

a) I tell her I like her and she says 'Yes, let's try.' Get a feel for how happy you might feel in the next few days should this happen and assign a 'happiness' score to it. Hopefully it's better than your average day. Otherwise, you may be suffering from anhedonia (Oops, I said it!). This is h1.

b) I tell her I like her and she says 'I'm sorry, I don't feel the same way. Let's just stay friends.' Get a feel for how happy you might be in the next few days should this be the outcome and assign a 'happiness' score to this. This will be h2.

Okay? Now think about the probability of her accepting you and let's call this p. The probability of her rejecting you will then be 1 - p.

Great! Next step, we shall imagine that you're not going to tell her and continue to keep your feelings to yourself (It's your Fifth Amendment right, after all). So assign a 'happiness' score for today, all three days before today and all three days after today should you choose to not tell her and she never knows. We'll call these scores d1 to d7 with d1 being the score 3 days ago and d7 being the score 3 days later assuming you didn't tell her.

All done?

Now, your 'happiness' score based on your choice (This is after all a game in which you're the first mover. I think first mover disadvantage, but that's just me.):

Tell, T = p x h1 + (1 - p) x h2

Don't tell, T' = mean of d1 to d7 = (d1 + d2 + ... + d6 + d7)/ 7

So you can probably guess by now,

If T > T', you SHOULD tell her.

If T < T', you SHOULDN'T tell her.

At least that's what expected outcome theory and mathematics and game theory say.

You are also very welcome to just screw all this and do what your heart tells you. After all, when has that ever led to anything terrible?

Live life according to what your heart says. Maths can wait until later, calcu-lator.

(Wrote this whole thing just so I could stick in that terrible quasi-pun in the end. NOT.)

[theinternetisforever]

Staying Safe (Within the realms of Sizzling Chicken)

Originally posted on 26 April 2014

You would never

Catch me venturing off to Ramen or Udon

Or lingering around the earlier pages

Of Sushi.

But more often, I do not

Even open my book

And sit around tapping my index finger

While contemplating the sluggishness

With which others make up their minds.

I admit, slightly ashamedly,

That I'm not a foodie

Nor am I fond of adventures,

Of the gastronomical kind.

The book is useless,

For I have decided,

To stay safe,

Within the realms of Sizzling Chicken.

But there will come one day,

When choosing the Sizzling becomes unacceptable

And perhaps I will go all the way,

To the back,

And try the Matcha

That she said was good.

But then again

Maybe I just like

The sound of the word 'Matcha',

Rolling off the tip of my tongue.

[theinternetisforever]

Life As You Know It

Originally posted on 25 April 2014

Life as you know it

Is about to drastically change

Become radically unknown

Uncertain

As you age away from the age of blissful ignorance

There used to be a black

And a white

And momma would say go towards the white;

Stay away from the black

But now there are just shades of grey

And sometimes as many as fifty.

Life as you know it,

May I say once knew it

Was easy, simple and straightforward

Listen to your parents

Don't do drugs

Don't have sex

Or at least don't get a girl knocked up

Get good grades

Be happy

Do well in school,

And you'll do well in university,

Which means you'll do well in your job,

Have lots of money,

Buy whatever you want

And meet someone special

(Not necessarily in that order)

And start a family

And retire one day

In your giant family home

And die knowing that you've had a good run

It was madness

But it was madness set out in a logical sequence

A set of seemingly achievable steps

Paving the road to your future.

Get an A+ in school? Good boy.

Join the local gang and try your hand at drug peddling? No no.

Get a girlfriend and your first taste of love? Great.

It doesn't work out and you can't really focus in class and nothing seems to matter? Oh no.

Caught not tucking in your shirt in school? Well, to be honest, nobody really cares.

But then things start getting confusing

Rankings are thrown into disarray

Who did better,

And who fared worse?

I don't know anymore.

Is the guy with a girlfriend better?

What about the guy who always has a girlfriend?

How many is too many?

What about the one who has good grades but is desperately alone?

Or the one who looks good but is dumb as bone?

Or the one whose sole achievement in life is making others laugh?

Have you heard of the one who is making tons of money?

Or the rich one who has gone through 4 wives now and is getting divorced again?

Or the one who is stuck in a dead end job?

Cul-de-sac of life.

How about the one's who poor but whose family love him?

Is that happiness?

What is happiness?

What if you had happiness in your hand, but it slipped away?

What if you didn't recognise it, won't know it,

Until it's gone.

But then it's easy to just look down memory lane

And claim that sometime along that path

You were a happy, happy man.

One can judge,

Based on many, many things

Judge you by your looks, your grades or your job;

Judge you by your income, your relationships or your choice of pets

Judge you by whether you're funny, or whether you've done some crazy, crazy things

Judge you by the music you like, or the sports you play

Judge you by the things that you are, and the things that you aren't

Judge you by your popularity, or the friends you have

Judge you by what you eat, and how you dress

Judge you as much as one likes

But they won't know whether you're happy

And is happiness even the final thing we want from this life?

So while it was easy to say Little Timmy was better than Susiebean,

Or that John was a kind hearted boy but his brother is a giant bully

Who's to say the bully won't do better in the 'real' world?

I have scoured stationery shops in the entire nation

But nowhere could I find

A legal pad that can house enough columns

For me to do a proper pros and cons list

And so I can't tell whether he's better than me,

Or I'm greater than her

But what I do know is that we all mess up

And we are all confused

About what to do in this life

About what we want from this life

And that we are all so lonely together

And if you're bloody sure of what you're doing,

Then, oh boy, are you in for a good twist of fate!

A watershed moment, as they say.

Take off those scales that measure you

That tell you how good you are

Because while they may mean a whole lot when you're young

They're of little use as you grow older

Leave behind the stereotypes

And the social conventions

That dictate how to live one's life

Because the truth is that if they had to admit that they're just clueless like us

They won't survive

The helplessness.

And when you mess up,

Life is going to suck,

It doesn't suck less as you grow older,

And it's going to suck for a while

But if you let it suck,

Suck for long enough

One day it'll stop sucking

And I can only hope that when that day arrives,

You'll still believe in love

You'll still believe in hope

You'll still believe in each other

You'll still believe in the things you believed in when you were little

Because as you grow older and less innocent,

Life as you know it is going to change

But maybe life as you know it doesn't have to change all that much.

(One notes the highly varying tone and theme of the writer from bleak and morose and feeling helpless to a sudden sense of hope and purpose which probably ended upon finishing the last line. The technical term for such a condition is bipolar disorder.)

[theinternetisforever]

When I Won't Need the Internet

Originally posted on 22 April 2014

The thunder's grumbling

And it nudges at me to turn off the internet

To cut off my sole connection to the rest of the world

And I think back to a time

When I won't need the internet

I'm either watching online lectures

Or streaming shows directly

For which I'll need the internet

I could be on Facebook

Or just browsing news and things of interest

For which the internet is a must

Sometimes I'm not using the laptop

Maybe I'm doing some practice exercises

Or perhaps a bit of stretching

For which I'll need the internet

Because Spotify

Because why download music when you can listen to anything you want

Anytime

Except when a thunderstorm is brewing

What about when I'm asleep

But then I'd be torrenting

(For the internet police, torrenting completely legitimate things.)

So it is still not a time

When I won't need the internet

Fast forward to my death

No internet for me then?

But without,

How would I send timed e-mails or post pre-set status updates to scare the living shit out of everyone else

So maybe

There won't be a time for,

When I won't need the internet.

[theinternetisforever]

Routines Can Be Deadly

Originally posted on 11 April 2014

I was the most paranoid man you could ever meet. I trusted no one, believed in no such thing as security and put my self-gain above everything else. There was only one thing I valued more than my own life - my money. I was a nouveau riche, having made my first million in 2001 as my newfound internet company ballooned beyond my wildest imagination. The sky was the limit, and soon I had my hands on my first billion.

I believed, NO- knew, that everyone must be after my life. After my money. And I personally held that routines can be deadly. So I set forth to devise a plan that would make my routine and schedule every day unpredictable, from the time and place of important business meetings to where I would be getting takeaway for the night. I refused to hire cooks, they could too easily be bribed to poison me.

The plan was rather simple. I downloaded a random number generator, and it would generate 6 random numbers for me every day. I would run each pair of numbers through a pre-written algorithm to decide the time, the place of my routines as well as my dinner destination. Each two numbers were processed together to produce one final number which corresponds to a time or a place in my city. No I will not tell you which city I'm in.

Even if somebody managed to get their hands on my algorithm, they wouldn't be able to predict where and when I'll be. My number generator would surely be different from theirs. And calculating the combinations of places and time that I could appear in the city, it would take the equivalent of the whole country's special units to be able to stakeout all of those places, the kind of manpower that a mediocre criminal organisation could never muster.

I knew I was safe.

45, 2338. 8.23 a.m. 0.98, 57. Cafe Mnemonic. 0.0085, 21. Thai Takeaway.

8.24 a.m. I was sipping a grande cafe latte with extra caramel and vanilla syrup. Wearing shades, I was scrolling through my feed for tech news and making sure nobody knew who I was. And then a man sat down next to me, 'This isn't taken, is it?'

Slightly annoyed, I replied, 'Now it is.'

'Bad day? Can't be, right? Look at this beautiful weather. Oh hey, aren't you that... that... co-founder of the much hyped company? I'm Fred, I work at Uber Technologies. Guess that makes us competitors eh?' He chuckled.

Uber Technologies? That sounds familiar. Something I read a few days ago on my feed?

'Sole founder actually. I have no idea which tech magazine you read but you should probably unsubscribe.'

'My bad. You guys are really senstitive about things like this, aren't you? Anyway, good meeting you. I'd best be on my way then.'

I was happy to see him leave. Peace and quiet at last.

He stopped in his tracks, and turned around with a smirk on his face.

'Hey I think I know someone who knows you. Jimmy Paige says hi. Have a good day.' He winked and left.

'How does he know Ji-' and I could feel my heart straining, contracting into what felt like a giant black hole. It was getting tighter and tighter, collapsing into itself into a ball of useless muscle and the pain radiated throughout my chest and into my head and I was seeing stars. My legs grew numb and I fell off the chair.

Fred. Could it really be? That he was sent by the co-founder that I edged out, Jimmy?

Then as my body hit the ground with a loud thud and my vision and hearing blurred, I 'felt' people around me scrambling in my direction and some pulling out their handphones. '911, a man has just had a heart attack.'

So this is what's going to bring me down? And I'm going to go down in history as one of the richest founders to be wiped out by a myocardial infarction?

And just then I remembered why. Uber Technologies. The creator of the random number generator that I've downloaded.

That's why I believe that there is no such thing as chance. No such thing as randomness. And I'm comforted by the thought that I was so deadly correct.

[theinternetisforever]

The kidnapper's dilemma (An economics trade issue)

Originally posted on 31 March 2014

Say you're a kidnapper (For future reference, don't be one), and you've got a kid. You ask for a ransom of $10 million and the unfortunate parent of the kid has agreed. Good, time to trade.

"Don't bring the cops," you threatened, as any good kidnapper would. The parent agrees.

Since you've expressed willingness to take $10 million for the kid, and the parent has agreed to get the kid back by paying $10 million, you value the kid at less than $10 million, while the parent values the kid more than that. The most efficient exchange would be for this trade to happen, and you would both be better off after the trade. Utility for both sides would be higher at the end of this.

So now you're in a quiet garden at 3 am, you're holding the kid. And the parent is standing opposite you with a briefcase full of $10 million. Who should go first? Let's assume throwing the briefcase and pushing the kid forward simultaneously is simply impractical (Well, for one, the kid might get hit by the briefcase and get a concussion).

If you push the kid forward first, what if the parent then runs off? What if, worse, police who have been hiding in the garden pounce on you and end your fairly mediore criminal career. So, no, you think to yourself. I'm not going to hand the kid over first. If you have the kid, even if the police shows up, you can still threaten the kid's life and demand an escape route.

The parent thinks that once he gives you the briefcase, the game is over. You may run away with it and the kid. You may kill the kid immediately for whatever reason (Having seen your face seems to be the most commonly quoted one). He would have lost his leverage. So he decides that it's too risky to just give you the $10 million and rely on the goodness of your heart to fulfill your end of the bargain (You are, after all, a kidnapper. Can't really blame the guy).

So what we do have here? I think it looks awfully like an impasse. And it seems like nobody's going to go home happy.

Well, what about a down payment then. Give part of what you promise as a down as a sunk cost, and you're pretty much forcing yourself to proceed with the trade. Clearly giving part of the kid is not going to work (I'm hoping you're not psychotic). So the down payment will be in the form of the money. (Brilliant, get me another briefcase, the parent tells me).

So let's say you value the kid at $8 million. The parent chucks you a briefcase with $9 million and reserves the $1 million as leverage. You hand over the kid, you're already $1 million better off. If he upholds the end of the bargain, great - You get $1 million more. If he doesn't, you're still better off than just holding the kid whom you value at $8 million. Bade your gleeful farewells then.

But how do you convey this so as the parent trusts you? You may know you're better off once you get the $9 million but the parent may not be convinced. He doesn't know how much you value the kid at. If he thinks you value the kid at more than $9 million, then why would he think you'd give up the kid after receiving just $9 million? And in fact, if he does think that, he wouldn't give you the $9 million to begin with. Bummer!

Ask for $20 million, $10 million in each briefcase, perhaps? Jack up the price of something so as the opposing party thinks that you value something higher than you actually do, then when you ask for only some part of it, they'd either think they're getting a bargain (As some delusional shoppers do) or if they see your receiving something less than what you're promised first, they may see it as a sign of good faith and proceed with the transaction. No, actually that won't work. He still has no reason to trust you if he doesn't believe you've received the full value of what you're giving up.

Have him mail the money in advance? Still wouldn't work.

One problem here is that you can't trade part by part. The same problem wouldn't exist, say if you kidnapped his television.

You're holding the TV and you say I want $500 for it. (It's cheaper than getting a new one, or there's sentimental value to this TV. Anyway he wants it back). And so he agrees to $500.

Again you're both in the quiet garden and you're caught in the same impasse. He's worried once he gives you the $500 you'd run away. You're worried if you hand the TV over he'd run over. It's not going to work, is it?

Oh wait, luckily the homeless guy sleeping on the bench speaks up, 'Just trade part for part, dumbasses. Get it over with, I'm trying to sleep here.'

And so he says he'll give you $200 for the screen. You say fine. You detach the screen from the TV (You're some genius TV engineer maybe?) and you both trade. This works because once this trade commences both of you now have the incentive to follow through. Because with each trade of a part, the remaining bits worth less to the seller and more to the buyer.

Once you've given away the screen for $200, the internal speakers for $80, the remote control for $10 (You're a TV kidnapper who pays attention to detail), is the rest of whatever makes up the TV worth $210 to you? Probably not. What are you going to do with a TV minus the screen, speakers and remote control? (If the parts could be sold for more than $500 at some spare parts shop, you wouldn't have agreed to meeting in the garden in the first place.)

And him. With each trade, the value of the parts added together are not as much as the whole TV itself. Would he be willing to pay $210 for the rest of the TV? Probably. Why would he suddenly run off with some random parts of a TV that he has paid $290 for?

So this trade, if the first small tester trade proceeds, should follow through.

Who ever said a TV is the sum of its part? So with the help of a sleepy homeless guy, a potentially ugly impasse has been averted.

Okay so back to the kid. Actually I'm tired already with this. It's an impasse no matter how I look at it. Plus it depends on how the parent and you would think and react. And there a million other variables such as whether you have a gun, or are there cops hidden in the park, or even whether the kid knows Taekwondo.

You know what?

Just DON'T be a kidnapper. You get stuck in impasses and that's BAD.

[theinternetisforever]

The boy with a thousand smells

Originally posted on 27 March 2014

This is the story of the boy with a thousand smells. But it is not a bedtime story- there will be no magic, no chosen prince with an alluring fragance, no heroic deed, no love and no moral lesson. If that is what you seek, then urge you, I must, that you look elsewhere.

Good. You're still here. Let's begin.

There was this boy. From my class. He sat three seats to the left, four seats down away from mine. Or as Mrs. Rutgers taughts us, that would be a hypotenuse of five seat units away. He was very ordinary. Nothing special. Nothing that beckons our attention. All except for one thing. One tiny, teeny thing.

Yes, you guessed it. He was the boy with a thousand smells. Fragrance was too big a word for me back then. Mind you, we learned Pythagoras' Theorem at a rather tender age.

On some days, he smelt heavenly. Manly. Like he owned the world. And even as a boy, I would cut our hypotenal (yes, it's a made-up word I deemed necessary) distance down to 2 seat units away, just to get a whiff of that. Oh my, how they tickled my olfactory senses. What a curious sensation it was! And the girls, they would just swarm around him on days like those. He seemed overwhelmed and flattered and proud all at the same time.

On other days, he smelt of fruits. Of lychee, or mango. Of strawberry, or cherries. He was a walking fruit stall. And when he walked past, he made me salivate. And sometimes, I wonder why he never smelt like fried noddles. I was too young to realise not every fragrance is a desired smell on the human body.

And on other days, he smelt like a mature woman. Maybe an expensive hooker. Or a rich man's mistress. Or a successful career woman's scent as she made her way up the corporate ladder. The point was that he smelt feminine. And on those days, girls got jealous because he smelt better than them. Not that the guys paid very close attention to these things.

And so I asked myself, 'How did he possess a different smell, day-in, day-out? He couldn't have an entire collection of perfumes, can he now?'

It puzzled me. We studied in the nearby public school and the boy with a thousand smells certainly came from a very modest family. Their modesty certainly prohibiting them, or more specifically, him from being the proud owner of so many fragrances.

So, one morning, I stalked him. I woke up early (that was the intensity of my curiosity. Name me a schoolkid who would willingly wake up earlier for menial reasons). I hid behind a tree and tailed him after he left the house.

If you've already figured out how our boy wonder achieves his vast array of body odours (B.O. here being used in a positive light), feel free to leave at any point without ever finding out whether your solution matches what happened here. Oh, but this is a completely fictitious story though, without a shred of truth (I did not make up Pythagoras' Theorem though, Pythagoras did).

He wandered into the local supermarket. And he unlocked the magical powers (Sorry, I guess there is going to be magic in this story.) of testers. Yes, those rows and rows of free, sample bottles of fragrances. I picked up my jaw from the floor (Yes I dropped it. Pick up yours too!). No wonder he was a suave gentleman on some days, a feminine lover on others, and just a giant walking fruit on the rest. What a potential that he had unlocked! What infinite resources and untapped reserves that he had stumbled upon!

He was never the top boy nor would he ever be. But from that day onwards, this boy, NO- THIS MAN, had my respect, and even feeling a little envious that I had not thought of it myself.

The boy with a thousand smells went on to become the richest man I have ever had the honour of brushing shoulders with. He made our town proud. And he was just a street-smart, creative individual who saw opportunities when others saw culs-de-sac. While the others were surprised, I was not. I was instead reminded of his venture into the perfume aisles and waiting to retell this little foreshadowing anecdote should a reporter decided to interview some of his 'close' friends. I am a firm believer that friendship is measured by the distance between hearts, and not some arbitrary hypotenal (Does it seem more legitimate with a second use?) distance. Reporters, if you're reading this, do drop by and interview me.

In all seriousness, I made up the above paragraph. He was thrown into jail for theft for two years after we graduated. I guess his decision to go beyond free samples was an unwise one.

Considering I've already reneged on my promise to not include magic in this story, I might as well reneged on another. So here's the moral lesson of this story: Smart people steal, dumb ones rob. Until they are caught anyway.

[theinternetisforever]

i is for imaginary

Originally posted on 26 March 2014

He emptied a medium-sized sachet into the water cooler while no one was looking. Why would anyone anyway? Nobody ever paid attention to him anyway. They called him weird, told him to go play with his 'imaginary' friend.

"My friend is IMAGINARY? YOU ALL ARE... IMAGINARY!!!" He stormed out. Granted, his lack of prowess in the department of insults made his departure very anti-dramatic.

"Bye loser." One of the guys called after him.

***

When the police arrived, the party was long over. It was over because all of them were dead.

Three jumped off the roof thinking they could fly. Another eight died from seizures and eventually heart failure. If it was just a tiny sachet, then maybe all they would have had would be a good time. But a medium sized of such potent stuff? The kid certainly knew what he was doing.

You know the saying that "The best defence is a good offence"?

I think in this case, an insanity plea would be the best defence.

[theinternetisforever]

The Lucky Ones

Originally posted on 25 March 2014

The women were seated courteously in a tidy row. They all had one thing in common. He had, at some point in time, promised that he'd marry them some day. Not all at once, of course, each separately, at those various points in time.

Perhaps they had one other thing in common too. He reneged on each of those promises.

His innocent first love that he had had a crush on since third grade. The wild college girl whom he experimented with. Yes, sexually. The married woman whom he had an affair with. Who is now divorced (in case you were wondering). The attractive colleague that became more than just a one night stand. And finally, his friend-with-benefits who then became his best friend and whom he had loved the most. If he was capable of such a thing. Going from left to right, they occupied the third row to the left of the aisle in the church.

He was getting married. To none of them. But to the pretty woman now gliding down the aisle.

They stare down at this stranger, waiting for his bride to descend upon him. A boy, a teen and a man that they had known at various stages of his life.

His head was thinning now, no longer the full head of lustrous black he once was. His six pack had given way to a beer belly, his sexual prowess a thing of the past. At least that was what they imagined. He looked content with his bride-to-be's gradual arrival. Content, mind you, not happy. And most of all, he looked tired. A man that had been worn out after his youth, after his adventures and triumphs and defeats. A man who was looking to and finally ready to settle. To settle for consistency and peace, for those seemed to be the best promise he had for happiness.

They couldn't remember exactly how old he was. Early forties, the college girl ventured to guess. And the divorcee appeared irritated at this discussion of age and numbers. What was he doing now?, his first love enquired. A co-manager at the downtown Starbucks, two of them thought out loud. And that was about it. They grew silent.

Five women who had nothing in common (Fine, I did mention two) brought together only by a man and his unfulfilled promise to marry each and every one of them. And they were all here today. Because he had said, in the invitation, that each of them had made him a better man, that they were each an important milestone of his life, and that he had them to thank for every good that he became and every bad that he did not.

His best friend sneered, 'Look at him now. I guess we are the lucky ones.' And she ungracefully exited the church. Best friend past tense.

If they were the lucky ones, they certainly did not seem happy.

The bride, on the other hand, was beaming like she had just won the lottery.

[theinternetisforever]

Bubble pop

Originally posted on 18 March 2014

I see something

Be it a song, a movie, a joke.

It reminds me of you.

A thought bubbles to the surface

To post it, on your Facebook wall

Or to Tweet it

Or to text you

Or Whatsapp you

Or Snapchat you

But probably,

Not e-mail you.

Because we all know e-mail is for the adults and the serious stuff.

And I'm just a lovesick teenager.

But then I stop

Suppresses the thought

The bubble pops.

And I remember

That we are friends

No more.

[theinternetisforever]

How am I going to pay the rent?

Originally posted on 5 March 2014

A long time ago

We ate what we planted, what we herded

Everything was natural

Healthy by today's standard.

Then with the advent of chemistry and biology

We had pesticides

Knew what soil went with what vege in what season

We could put beta-carotene in rice

Or double each muscles of a cow

And we called that progress

A while later

We once again decided

Natural was healthier

Organic was the way to go

I mean who decided these things?

And progress truly seems like a cyclical thing

Rather than a straight arrow moving forward

So many questions

This and many more

I must not be the only one

Who thinks of these things

Who feels confused, perplexed

Who hopes that humans can someday figure out what they actually want

Yet only a select few

Will ever get the chance to be paid to think

And if I continue to ponder such things

Instead of earning my keep

How am I going to pay the rent?