#FictionFriday: Another Job Well Done.

A/N: Wow, it’s been a long time since I last wrote a short story. Must have been ages ago, when I thought my biggest problem was being alone and having to fight off a pervert boss. Now, thankfully, no more pervert boss; just one that breathes down your neck and made you feel suffocated, literally and figuratively. Hey, maybe that’s where the idea of this short story came from?

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I don’t understand what’s so hard about doing a 9-5 desk job, humans are so spoiled. All they do is complain day in and day out about how horrible their jobs are, but they show up the next day and the day after that, and well you get the gist.

Look here, I have been doing this desk job for I don’t know how many millennia, and you don’t see me complaining nor do you see me needing a break or what you corporate slaves called, “annual leave”; and this is me working without a clear definition of working hours. I mean, time is just a concept if you’re a being like me. After a couple of hundred years, you’ll start to realise that time means nothing.

Oh, what do I do here? Well, it’s nothing fancy, but it keeps me busy, so I don’t go around, and I quote, wreaking havoc. I mean, you shoot a couple of arrows and made people fall in love one time, and suddenly you’re strapped on a table doing admin work and you’re not allowed to be anywhere near arrows. I thought everybody loves to love, you know?

Anyway, recently things have been busy around here. There’s so much paperwork, directives, reports, what have you that I must sort out. Luckily, I’m quick with my hands so everything is distributed well in time, and all is well in your tiny little world. You are very much welcome.

What? What kind of documents do I distribute? Now, that’s a secret. I’m afraid I cannot tell you about that.

Wait, how did you even get here? This place is limited to authorised personnel only, and you being human means you are not personnel, let alone authorised to be here. Now, off you go before I mislabel these documents and cause the end of the world. Hahaha … What? No, it’s a joke. Off you go.

Oh, humans, you would think they would have developed a sense of joke at this point.

#FictionFriday: Grace Spins the Globe

A/N: I wanted to write a story about some of the places I’ve visited over the course of my 30 years on earth, but I was worried it’s going to come off as obnoxious or bragging. So, I chose to write a story about the place where I was born and raised, Jakarta. You might tell from the story how I have missed this city so much, picturing it in a light that I’m sure had I wrote this story back home, I would not have seen Jakarta the way I see it now.

#FictionFriday: Children of the sun and chickens

A/N: This story is mostly inspired by my love of fried chickens. I have yet to be bored by constantly eating fried chickens. And yet, not a huge fan of sunbathing, or being under the sun in general, but after one in a half year of missing out on proper sweat, maybe I kinda miss it?

#FictionFriday: The Black Bra

A/N: Honest to God, I do not know what this mess of a story is about. But, one day at work after me and my mates came back from lunch, we were walking past this old decrepit house. That house is vile, you know? We’ve seen actual feces, human feces not animal feces, left on the side of the house. We even saw an actual live human being taking a shit next to the house on broad breaking daylight like it’s nobody’s business. I kid you not. Anyway, on that day we were all joking about what possible disgusting thing we would find next to the house, lo and behold, an actual black lace bra! Yep, someone thought that maybe their bra is not good enough that they’re just going to throw it out on the street? So, that is the inspiration behind the story and I wished I had written it better but I’m a firm believer that whatever I wrote, and however shitty that was, I’ll stick by it. Here goes. That being said, I am sorry for this mess of a story.

A turn-up

A/N: Not a complete fiction because some parts mentioned in the story actually did happened, whether in real life or happened in my head. Either way, I had a great time writing this incredibly short story. I wanted to elaborate more but I felt that the ending was perfect, at least for me.

The Brightest Star

People think that sitting on a grass on a summer night whilst stargazing is romantic, if not a beautiful experience. Truth be told, it’s nothing close to beautiful when you’re busy swatting the many bugs swarming over your naked arms and legs.

And yet, I’m still here anyway, swatting bugs and mosquitoes over my naked arms and legs. I would have worn a jacket but it’s summer and I’m already sweating from the heat. I could have worn longer pants, but even with shorts, my thighs are already sticking together like caramel from the sweat pooling up. I would rather be home but I don’t know how to say no when all my friends said that stargazing is the ultimate summer activity. Yeah, I don’t buy that. What part of getting swarmed by mosquitoes and bugs in a remote place screams the ‘ultimate summer activity’?

The Unjust towards the Just.

This morning Nima woke with a heavy heart. He felt angry at things he could not put into words; it was just a strong surge of anger flowing through his veins. He sighed as he looked up at his bedroom ceiling and noticed the faint glow in the dark stickers that he put up just a year ago. Why did he think it was a good idea?

He sat on his bed, thinking of how life has been like for him the past year; how it was full of ups and downs, but mostly downs and yet he is still here. His friends said it was a testament to how strong he has been, but Nima thinks that it’s just a load of crap. He won’t say it out loud though, Nima has always been favouring stability and peace over any types of conflict; if agreeing to all the things that he finds repulsive will keep people around him happy, then Nima would be more than happy to do so.

Amidst his daydreaming, if it can be called daydreaming at 6.30 AM, his phone rang. It was one of his colleagues. Nima just stared at the phone, debating if he really should take the call, after all they were going to meet at work, so why should he called Nima so early?

Evie the Sad Vulgar.

Evie can be quite vulgar at times, not because she is without a class of her own, but she just wants to be genuine, authentic of some sorts. Not confined to society’s rigid norms. It can be quite problematic in her line of work. As a matter of fact, calling it quite problematic is an understatement. There are times when Evie’s brain is telling her to just shut up and stop being vulgar with her thoughts, you know to keep the pretence that she’s actually as normal as those run of the mill new aspiring employees at the firm that she’s currently working.

Just looking at her day to day, she does seem quite normal, almost as if she could blend into the background, like a chameleon, which happens to be Evie’s favourite animal. Give her enough time to get her going on topics such as equality and society’s expectation, then you can see how vulgar she can be; how illustrious she can get with her chosen words. It’s not that she’s trying to sound edgy with all the cursing, she just felt it easier to express her anger that way, something that is clearly frowned upon, but honestly that is the purpose, isn’t it? That Evie is not going to be tied and crumpled by society’s expectations, norms, and standards.

Her friends said that she’s barking up the wrong tree if she thinks she can make a difference by cursing and being angry. But, if she is expected to not bark and just observe whilst sitting quietly waiting for the world to change, that is practically like when Socrates was being asked to drink poison as his punishment, becoming his own executioner.

Yes, it is indeed true that Evie can get dramatic at times. More than once has she said the things that would have her rolled her eyes to the back of her head had it been said by another person to her, but on her defence, the situation does require a dramatic response and honestly, she was just so tired and she deserves to be a tad bit dramatic.

Right, where was I going with this story of Evie?

Evie, with all her shenanigans, anger, frustration, and just a pinch of patience, have been having a hard time at work. She is constantly at odds with how much injustice and inequality there were at work. And whilst she can get angry at the snap of a finger, it’s not always how she chose to go about solving the problems at work, so she stayed quiet. And she carries that anger and the feeling of powerlessness all throughout her day and sometimes the next.

Amidst the anger that engulf Evie on a daily basis, she can’t really dismiss the feeling of powerlessness too. She starts to look at things with a make-believe magnifying glass, reading everything between the line, and getting herself wrapped up in the never-ending cycle of unresolved anger.

So, yeah, Evie can be vulgar and dramatic, but she is also extraordinary in the way that she is still around, even when things get hard, frustrating, helpless, and endlessly annoying. Evie may bark, explode, sulk, and crumble, but she will always rise when she falls, and rest when things get too hard, which to her feels much more often these days. And she knows that it is still a long way until she can breathe a sigh of relief that the world is right on its own axis, at least the world that she knows of, and she will learn to be okay about it.

#FictionFriday: The Moonlit Beach.

The beach at night is scary. The beach in the morning is also scary. Beaches in general are scary, and yet tonight felt different. The moonlit beach is relatively calm compared to last night when the hotel was throwing out some kind of bonfire party. I can hear the laughter and the cries of happiness from my room’s balcony, even with the doors closed. Tonight I stood on my balcony and was watching the waves crash against the beach when I saw a woman walking along the beach, holding her slippers in her left hand whilst her right held her dress aloft so as not to get wet. The moonlit beach illuminates her face, giving her a glow as if from inside of her as opposed from the moon itself. I wouldn’t consider herself a beauty, but moonlight almost always give you the notion that something is more beautiful than it should be.

She looks to be in her twenties and I almost on my way inside my room to grab the room key and went on my way to chat her up when I saw that she ran into the arms of a much older gentleman. Okay, maybe not that old, the man looks to be my age and I’m only 33. They were kissing and the man cups her face, staring at her face lovingly. I can almost felt the overflowing love he has for the woman. Almost like the face that my Dad makes in all of my parent’s wedding pictures, like he can’t believe that he is married to my Mum. Ah, that explains it, they must be on their honeymoon. I’m glad that I notice it before I’m down there on the beach and had made a fool of myself. Well, best I go to sleep now, for there is no love available for me for the night.

The Liar in the Elevator (Trash Trio #2)

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“You saw him what now?”

This was something that is too good to be true, there is absolutely no way Ru would believe this blonde girl who also happens to be the daughter of Mr Langley, the rudest adult she had ever met in her life, would have something important to share, with her and Max no less. She felt a bit calmed as she looked at Max, and he had the same skeptical look on his face, albeit he covers it well as if he was not as intrigued as Ru was with what Jean had said.

“I saw him, Mr Bob I mean. I saw him in front of my house the night before he was found dead,” Jean said again as her eyes darted left and right looking worried as if someone might heard the three of them.

“What did he want? Why did he go to your house? Did you hear anything they talked about?” Max was barreling with questions, and yet he still manages to look like he’s not interested in what Jean had said, as if it might not have helped his uncle’s situation. Ru is most definitely intrigued. Is Max not as naive as he always made himself out to be?

“What? Like you’re not going to ask the same questions, Ru? Jean, is it? How can we trust you? For all we know, you’re the daughter of the man who, more than anything, only wants this so-called scandal to not be associated with his business, and not to mention that he was so rude to the lady that was with him at the police station the other day. My Mum said, you shouldn’t trust people who are rude to other people.”

Ru was sure something is off with Max, he never talks this much except for when he’s frustrated by his math home works, and that is mostly because he hates numbers.

“You’re right, my Dad is not the nicest person when it comes to his work, but I am not him, okay? You can’t judge me based on who or how my Dad acts. I’m telling you because something does not add up, and I love mysteries, and I think the both of you would want to know about what I saw and heard after I saw Mr Bob came to our house.”

“Wait, this really does not make any sense,” Ru was almost screaming at this point. Everything was swirling inside her head, Ru thinks this could probably what it means when adults are experiencing what they called information overload. First, the strange girl, Jean, showed up saying she had something to tell them relating to Mr Bob’s death. Second, who and what have they done to Max? He’s not talkative per se, but he’s like an entirely different person the moment Jean showed up.

Both of them looked at Ru with huge eyes as if it’s about to pop out of their eye socket, and with incredible reflex both Jean and Max took both Ru’s hands whilst putting everything on the table inside Ru and Max’s bag, and they just drag Ru away from the library right before the librarian even managed to tell them to be quiet for the second time.