the Elusive

This could be something else.

This is the means to deliver groundbreaking news a nanosecond before they mutter, "Well, this is awkward..."

This is pinning the horseshoe upside-down and getting the devil to hold in your luck anyway.

This is watching Romeo kneel under Juliet's balcony, and not calling it teenage stupidity, but rather raging hormones and some sort of medieval crack, as a person who shall remain anonymous once said.

This is the genius who said that of course the chicken came before the egg, because eggs obviously can't have sex.

This is the battered heap of winnings slowly collected through time, and then suddenly gone, all gone, in a great gamble of cruel luck.

This means scratching out the fine line (if there ever was one) between the bold and the insane.

This is something else.

Escher's Birds

Neighbours have always found Auntie Lara to be a tad...well, odd. Some people claim it is her eccentric personality, and others say it’s more those ridiculous hats she always wears. Auntie Lara jokes around about it a lot, saying that she got lost in a garden maze once when she was little and have never been the same since. I didn’t really get it.

The day I came to visit, she was dressed in a lime-green sweater and an ivory-coloured gypsy skirt sewn with silver beads and miniature mirrors, which made it clank and jangle merrily every time she moved. As usual, there was a stuffed dove, bright orange this time, perched on top of her straw bonnet.

“Kat, darling, it’s so good to see you!” Auntie Lara gushed, enveloping me in her soft, thick arms. I stammered out a passable reply and she herded me into her house, chattering animatedly all the while. Everything went in one ear and out the other though, because her house was like an art museum: Every single whitewashed wall was crammed with newspaper clippings, photocopied images from books, and random complicated-looking doodles scribbled on torn-out pieces of scrap paper. Each picture glued, tacked and taped to the walls seemed to be all somehow alike in their peculiarity. Staring closely at the picture closest to where I was standing, I noticed some very strange and quite impossible details. Labelled Relativity, there were 16 faceless figures, all upright, left-leaning, or right-leaning. It was as if three kinds of gravity existed at the same time, and the little figures lived in their own world, oblivious to the sideways and upside-down people around them. There were also three gardens and five stairs that were even odder than the people: They were, like the people, tilted, but a few of them also had stairs on their undersides as well! One staircase had an upright person climbing it on one side, yet a left-leaning person was descending on the other side at the same time.

“Ah, I see you enjoy Escher’s art too!” Auntie Lara said happily, pricking my balloon of thought.

“Er...who?” I asked.

“M.C. Escher, darling. He was a most intriguing Dutch artist who liked to bend the rules of art to create impossible things,” she offered enthusiastically, eyes sparkling. “I find his works quite fascinating, as you can see.” Laughing, Auntie Lara gestured to the art-laden kitchen walls around us.

“Now, would you like to see your room?”

---

The wallpaper in my room was, of course, unusual. Snow-white birds entangled in curling shoots of ivy twined loosely with large bunches of leaves that somehow managed to look like miniature bird wings. No part of the picture was exactly alike, and it was easy to get lost among the swirling haze of white and green.

There was something missing on the wall that faced the bed. I couldn’t figure it out at first, but then it hit me like that time in Phys Ed. when someone smacked my forehead with a dodgeball: There was just another tangle of greenery where another bird should have been. When I pointed this out to Auntie Lara, she simply shrugged and raised an eyebrow.

That night as I lay asleep, I dreamt of Escher’s birds on my wallpaper. Cooing softly (they were apparently doves), they led me away with a soft rustle of their feathers. We were drifting over an impossible world, Escher’s world, where double-sided staircases and multiple gravities were the norm. As we flew over the strange scenes below us, the bizarre became even more bizarre. Bird people, insect curl-ups with a dozen pairs of feet, contrasting viewpoints from a dangerously tall building, hundreds of wild tessellations, reptiles coming to life from paper, drawn hands drawing themselves, fish in fish scales, magic mirrors, reflective spheres, neverending stairs, impossible architecture, and tribars, and running dwarves, and falling water going the wrong way...

Images spun around my mind like a carousel going a hundred miles an hour, and were whipped away, only to be replaced by another one in an eternal dance of the kind of reality so rare and deadly that you can afford to live it only in your dreams.

---

With a start, I woke up in a cold sweat panting in my now-twisted covers. Sitting up, I noticed that my hands were ice-cold, as if a freezing wind had struck at it for the entire night.

Glancing around the simple room filled with sunshine streaming in through the window, my eyes fell upon the part of the wallpaper with a missing bird. I nearly choked on my morning spit.

Another one of Escher’s birds was missing.

Leaping out of bed, mind whirling with impossible possibilities, I stumbled across room and stared at the two empty spaces. Resting my elbows on the smooth wooden top of the dresser in front of the doves, I felt my bare skin brush against something soft and delicate.

A single snow-white feather.

---

Image #1 - inspired by an illustration from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

Image #2 - Relativity by M.C. Escher

Dear Diary...

I think since the first time I poured out my heart on paper, I've kept at least 6 different diaries, all no doubt crammed with childish secrets ("I didn't make my bed today...I hope Mom doesn't notice!"), typical teenage ravings (OMGG HE IS SOOO HOT), and random scatterings of philosophical musings here and there (I bet the person who said 'step on a crack, break your mother's back' didn't have a mother. Or a father. Heck, he was a heartless orphan).

Everybody should have kept a diary once in his/her life. It's like a mandatory STOP! square on the board game of Life. If you didn't buy one, then somebody must have given you one as a Christmas or birthday present, with pretty stationary and shiny lock and key. I admit, I was quite ecstatic when I first got mine. 8 years old, I think, in the little shop in the lobby of the Disney hotel where I was staying over the summer. I still have it, you know. It's tucked away, hidden under a pile of old sweaters in my closet. My first diary had Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Snow White on it, with a cutout heart-shaped mirror stuck to it and girly, exaggerated font with rather Barbie-like curlicues. (Yes, I had the Princess phase going on at the time. My next diary even had the words "Hello, Princess!" in purple font on the cover.)


You know the classic diary key? That tiny, simple one that every diary-manufacturer seems to use? That one was on my Disney Diary. I brought it along with me on a sleepover once to a friend's house, and lo and behold! My key could open her diary lock! Imagine! The coincidence! The magic! (Yes I was rather naive as a child.)

I experienced the normal teenager routine: the Dreaded Hormones!
You can imagine what was in my diary during those starry-eyed years.
(And can you believe I actually blacked out all mentions of my crush when I went back to read it afterwards? Yes, it's not just an urban myth: Girls are way too . . . )

Eventually, just like nearly every other diary-writer, my entries started appearing weekly, not daily, and then they slowly trickled to a rare paragraph here or there. Finally, I just stopped writing them altogether. They had become a burden, like a tedious task that I felt forced to keep doing, rather than an eagerly-anticipated pleasure.

It took me 3 years to finish that diary.

During that time, I had begun, but never finished, 3 other diaries.

Diaries aren't meant to be finished. That's my theory. Notice how hard it is to finish one?

They're just meant to be a sounding board for people's thoughts, randomness, rages, lovesick speeches, etc. They don't really mind very much whether or not you finish them.

What's in your diary?

Tidbits from Europe

From top to bottom:

1. Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City (Rome)

2. Example of art in Basilica (ooh wonder what's beyond the glowing door...lol)

3. Roman ruins beside the Colosseum in Rome

4. St. Mark's Square in Venice

5. See above

6. A canal in Venice

Ascending & Descending

Nicolaas de Vries was just about to give up and leave when that man suddenly materialised in the shadows between the two columns behind him. About time, he thought as he quickly stood up and brushed the dust off the seat of his unfortunately black trousers. Nicolaas had been waiting for the past half hour, sitting on the cold stone steps of the monastery counting the cracks in the cement for lack of better entertainment.

“Ah, Nicolaas, how good to see you,” Brother Johannes said smoothly, hands clasped together and bowing his head respectively. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I think you know precisely why I’m here, Brother,” Nicolaas scowled, “so let’s skip the formalities and get to the point, shall we? What exactly are you doing up on the roof every night?”

“Meditation,” he said simply.

“Continuous footsteps for six hours does not sound like meditation, it sounds like a tape stuck on replay. I’ve had countless complaints already from people yelling at me saying they can’t sleep well anymore because the sounds of pounding feet and, I quote, ‘evil hyena laughter’, keep echoing around the neighbourhood. And apparently it comes from the roof of your monastery, Brother.”

“The footsteps are mere sounds, Nicolaas. What matters more is how one changes as one contempulates thought in such a way so that it produces other matter,” Brother Johannes murmured softly, gently pressing the tips of his ink-stained fingertips together.

Nicolaas rolled his eyes and sighed. He would have to consult somebody to check up on Brother Johannes soon; the poor old man was not entirely sane.

Some years ago, the number of brothers in the monastery had plunged due to lack of interest, with many priests becoming artists in favor of the “New Age” art craze. Brother Johannes had been the only one left in the once-crammed monastery after only a few months, but still clung to the old building, refusing to have it knocked down despite many generous offers on the land. He claimed that the building had special properties that made it doubtlessly important , and kept insisting that it was “absolutely magical”. Brother Johannes had raved so much about his precious monastery that he had become known as that man, the crazy old man that lived in a run-down building. The monastery was already centuries old, and the peeling paint and crumbling walls made it fall just short of a ruin. Nevertheless, the council had decided to leave Brother Johannes alone and let him live out the rest of his secluded life as he chose; besides, it wasn’t as if he could hang on to it forever. They figured it was only a couple of more years before old Johannes would finally kick the bucket and it would be the go-ahead with the new apartment complex. Lately however, the monastery had been the cause for more complaints than usual.

Now, these footsteps. Those were new.

Nicolaas found himself baffled. Why on earth would somebody suddenly start walking around their roof at night? And, Jesu, could they do it any louder?

Looking around impatiently, Nicolaas’ eyes landed on the top of the monastery, which was a good three or four stories from the ground, including the two small extensions on the roof. Standing at the top of the stairs in front of the main entrance, he could see the dull iron railings that ran around the perimeter of the roof. As he studied the outline more closely, a thought struck Nicolaas like a sharp slap.

Oh my Lord, that roof…

The roof was not normal. It wasn’t sloped like Nicolaas’ and everybody else’s, or even flat. From what he could make out squinting up into the unusually bright fall Dutch sky, the edges of the roof were jagged. Or, to be more specific, stepped.

I bet there are stairs on that roof. And I bet that’s what Johannes is doing every blasted night. Climbing blasted stairs. The man’s not exactly an athlete, so I can see why he might want to lose some pounds here or there. God knows why he laughs like that though.

“Johannes…—”

“Brother Johannes, if it pleases you,” he cut in rather haughtily.

“Fine, Brother. Could you please stop making such a racket at night, whatever you’re doing?” Nicolaas asked. “Climbing stairs are good for your health and all, but there’s no need for you to go and wake up half the town.”

Brother Johannes visibly caught his breath before quickly rearranging his expression to a suitably wary one, raising a cautious eyebrow. He was silent for a long while, looking intently at Nicolaas in an unnerving way that made him exceedingly nervous for no apparent reason whatsoever.

“Er…well then, farewell and good afternoon, Brother.” Nicolaas said awkwardly, taking his silence as an affirmative. “I’ll drop by soon to see if everything’s all right, ’kay?”

With that, Nicolaas de Vries, veteran member of the Amsterdam police force, hurried away as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.

Leaning heavily against the stone column beside him, Brother Johannes stared after Nicolaas’ rapidly retreating back and sighed, closing his tired eyes.

* * *

The noises didn’t end that night. Nor did it get any quieter, for that matter. In fact, one or two people claimed the sounds were even louder than the night before, although Nicolaas suspected that was only because they had heard of his unsuccessful confrontation with Brother Johannes and wanted to rub it in.

True to his word, he dropped by the monastery again the following day. This time, he tried to be more patient and open-minded in reasoning with Johannes, but that was more easily said than done.

He still wasn’t prepared.

“Would you like to see?” Johannes asked.

“Er…what?” Nicolaas replied dumbly.

“Would you like to see the roof?”

“Oh…er…sure,” he said, although he really couldn’t see the point. They was just stairs.

A few minutes and some huffing and puffing later, the pair reached the roof. It would be an understatement to say that Nicolaas’ jaw scraped the floor of it.

Because they weren’t just stairs. They were stairs that ran around the edge of the roof forever, continuously, ad infinitum…While a bemused Johannes looked on, Nicolaas ran up and down the stairs and somehow ended up exactly where he had started. It was a most unsettling sensation, as if he were terribly itching to scratch somewhere but could not for the life of him figure out where. He was an onion, and every step he took stripped away another layer of worries, thoughts, fears…Nothing was holding him down now, and he felt weightless to the point where he slammed his foot against the stone steps with extra vigour just to ensure he wouldn’t all of a sudden be lifted straight off the ground. A hysterical laugh of ecstasy escaped his throat, a barbaric noise that sounded foreign even to his own ears as it echoed back to Nicolaas. But the moment he stopped, Nicolaas recoiled and winced with an aching pain as everything came plummeting back from the void to weigh him down again. There was another feeling too; a desperateness, maybe. A drive, probably, compelling him, commanding him, charming him, wickedly whispering, You never have to feel like this again, if only…

If only what?

***

The next morning, people in the Haarlem Quarter of Amsterdam, Holland, reported what sounded like two pairs of feet pounding all through the night…

Inspired by M.C. Escher's lithograph, Acending and Descending (pictured above)

The Eleventh Hour

When the bells call in the Eleventh hour
Amber-eyed doves cry out and flee in haste,
Sunlight shrinks from the ivory tower
And its spires too; mottled and ivy-laced.

The grating chimes ring through all of Venice
Grimly echoing down the shady lanes,
Striking fear into the butcher’s menace
Silencing the songbird’s merry refrain.

And Lo! the mighty sky’s all a-quiver
As the Unholy pound against its doors,
Soon to break, under the ever quicker
Tides, sweeping up to the End’s blackened shores.

Behold humanity’s immortal plane,
Embedded in the rocks of mortal bane.

PS- No, I did not intend it to refer to the documentary "The Eleventh Hour"

Reminder

On those dark and stormy days
when the moon is Circe’s night,
Remind me of those days long gone
remind me of Mankind’s blight.

Remind me when the Light is gone
and Darkness comes to reign,
Remind me when Freedom is imprisoned
and tortured with rod and cane.

Remind me when Nature is no longer Mother
and Father Sky takes all,
Remind me when madness erupts in the world
and Sanity suffers a fall.

Remind me when the Truth is lost
and Justice gets some glasses,
Remind me when the solution is found
and rejected by the masses.

Find me when eyes are blind
and Music is tone deaf,
Find me when all rights are wronged
and Ignorance is Beauty’s chef.

Find me when the Devil gets burned
and Hell freezes over,
Find me when Luck is scorned
and every leaf’s a clover.

Find me when Joy takes drugs
to maintain its happy expression,
Find me when Purity is tainted
and Innocence makes a confession.

Love all those who cannot love
Whose broken hearts cry out in despair.
Shun all those who love no one
And refuses to admit thy err.