Trance

Had a sudden realization of my existence as I was lying down on my bed, pondering upon the things I need to do, but don’t want to. Wrapped inside a blanket, the last one awake, I couldn’t control my mind. So I closed my eyes.

I felt like I was just below Brooklyn bridge at night, with traffic noise above me, and the wind whistling loudly. Merely a second later, I was floating in a void with no sounds. Though I could hear my thoughts loud and clear, I chose to ignore them. 

I can’t bear to listen to my own voice up there, rambling about everything and anything that comes to mind; it is a battlefield in which the war never ends. But hopefully it would. I just want peace and quiet for once, outside and inside. I want to be calm, of my surroundings and myself. I seek silence.

I quickly noticed how a series of thoughts could distract you for only a few seconds, yet it feels like a very long time. I opened my eyes, and I was back in my room, with a screeching sound from the air conditioner above me, and blowing its cold air loudly. 

Kusoi

Typical. When one gets bored, they procrastinate, especially when they have something to do. I was supposed to be studying, but instead, I played video games in the middle of the exam month. The gap between my previous paper date and my next one was about a week, so I wasn't worried, but I should've.

For a few hours, I sat on my favourite chair with a controller in my hands, killing raiders in an apocalyptic world, destroyed by a nuclear fallout. I had all the time in the world that night. The room was cozy and I had nothing to worry about.

I thought everyone in the house was asleep, but my dad opened the door slightly, in the middle of night, and I figured he just wanted to see me, making sure everything was okay. He smiled, and I noticed he had a plastic bag in his hand. He lifted it and asked, "Hungry?" Before I could answer, he saw it through my face that I was hungry, so he continued, "We eat this later together." Then he closed the door and went to his room.

I laughed, because it was random; My dad came in the middle of the night, asked if I was hungry and wanted to have a midnight snack together.

A few minutes later, he opened the door again and went into my room. He had the plastic with him, so I immediately paused my game and followed him. He sat down on the carpeted floor and insisted me to join him. I sat down with him, and he reached inside the plastic bag. I expected food in a plastic or styrofoam container, but he pulled out a lunch box and a small plastic container, inside was filled with white powder. I was really curious of what he brought.

He told me, "A friend of mine made this for me, it's called 'Kusoi'." I never heard of it before, so I began to wonder how it would look like. He gently opened the lunch box and the whole box was packed with brown cakes. I was surprised. He opened the small container as well, grabbed one of the cakes, dipped it into the white powder and ate it.

I was eager to try it, so I took one, did what he did and took a bite. The cake was cold, and eating it with the powder made it even better. I didn't expect it would be that delicious. I took another one and ate it without the powder,  surprisingly, it was still tasty. I started asking my dad questions about it; what is the white powder, how is the cake made, is it a traditional food and more. Apparently, the white powder was coconut powder, I didn't expect that. I guessed my dad was thirsty because I was too, so I left my room for a while, grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and went back.

After we finished, dad stood up and told me throw away the plastic bag along with the coconut powder. I thought it would be a waste throwing the powder, but I threw it anyway. No sense of keeping it since all the cakes was already in our stomach. He left the room, and I sat on my chair, smiled and continued my video game.

Truly, it is one of the moments I will cherish forever. Being with my dad in the middle of the night, eating together the best cake I never tried before in my life. Father and son bonding.

Parallel Universe

She told me to wait for her. It seemed like she’s just saying that, like she wanted to abandon me, but by some means, part of me believed it. So I sat down and waited for her. A friend of mine came by while I was waiting, and we talked. After a few minutes have passed, my friend left, and a dose of doubts began to pour inside my head. I started to think that she actually did ditch me, like a blind date gone wrong where the person wanted to go to the toilet, but actually left the other person behind. That would be really rude.

She came back, and as soon as I saw her, I stood up like a recruit when a high-rank officer comes in. Apparently, she was just grabbing her jacket, which reassured me. She looked prettier, as ever. I thought I would never see her again. Seeing her made me smile. “Let’s go”, she said in a polite manner.

Normally when I’m with her, I would be nervous; I will stay quiet, be shy and awkward, and fidget a lot. Fortunately, I didn’t show any of those. I somehow kept all of them to a minimum.

“Alright.”

We went outside. The weather was quite nice, it was cloudy, and the temperature was just right, not too hot nor cold.

To be honest, we barely talk. We don’t know each other that well. But this time, in some way, we both felt we knew each other for a long time, like we were childhood friends.

We walked together aimlessly, like we were strolling in a park, beside one another. We didn’t mind where we were heading. We just talked; we exchanged our friendship and shared our stories.

We came across a building that seemed haunted. The walls of the building were dirty, and the grass around the building were half-dead. It looked like an abandoned school. I believe we stumbled upon a ghetto, where everything appeared awful.

I began to feel concern of our surroundings and what could happen to us. So I asked her, “Aren’t you scared walking through here? I feel like it’s haunted.” “Not really”, she responded in a calm behavior.

I strike her as a person who’s not afraid of horror films nor ghosts. Perhaps she has a strong spirit within her that causes her to react calmly in danger situations.

“Well, I am, because it’s creepy and it’s giving me the heebie-jeebies, and I feel weird about this place” I informed her. “Well, that is true”, she agreed.

She was lovely, friendly, honest and sweet. The point where we walked together and talked was where I felt like I’m home, as always when I’m with her. Seemed like we were close friends; we acted like there was no history between us, we just went with the flow and we weren’t shy of each other anymore.

Re-imagining the moment again and again makes my eyes misty and warms my heart. But ever since then, my heart felt emptier than before, because it felt real.

Diamonds

We are all diamonds, the precious stone, consisting of a clear and typically colorless crystalline form of pure carbon, the hardest naturally occurring substance. But none of us are flawless. We’ve been through difficult situations that made us flaw. In fact, we were already flawed from the start, where we were founded. The flaws we have won’t stop us, because every one of us is strong enough to deal with them. We went through thick and thin in our lives that made us, diamonds, scratched. Yet we won’t give up. The flaws are the ones that made us unique. Some of us might have different shapes, sizes, and color; but don’t worry, that’s what makes us special.

Tale to tell?

            Some of you possibly ponder what this post is about. Well, I do too. I sometimes wonder what it will be. Will it be fiction or non-fiction? Action or Romance? Will it be an inspiration or a mediocre? The majority of people in this world, including me, likes to read non-fiction romance novels. Immediately after we started reading one, we can’t seem to stop. Well, this also a concern when reading action novels. Anyways, we would promise ourselves, “one more page”, maybe because we have to rest for the night, but somehow we ended up reading 5 more. Causing us to sleep behind schedule, and be late for school the next day. We do this too often because reading is fascinating. You can visualize the story with your imagination when you read.

            Reading a non-fiction, romance novel gives us the feeling that we are the couples inside the novel. We would hope this could happen to us in the real world. The way how the couples met each other, how they ended up together, the conversations they had every night through the telephone line, how they express how much they care for their significant other. ‘O.T.P’ is an acronym that repeatedly crosses my mind every time I read this kind of novels. It means ‘One True Pair’. Fate chose these couples to be with each other, like it was destined for them to end up together.

            I occasionally wonder how it’s like to encounter your significant other. People say they can turn your whole life around, in a good way though. It’s like they’re the manoeuvres in your life that guides you into something great that no one else can. Well, basically to put it in cliché words, they’re the one part of your life that is missing and once you have that part, your life is complete.

            Furthermore, people say that, ‘love at first sight’, will take place after you see or meet your significant other. Where your heart starts to race. You would stop whatever you were doing, and you would only focus on that person. You wouldn’t think of anything else because your brain would go blank for a while; you would only think how beautiful and lovely that person is. That’s what I heard when you see your significant other for the first time. Unfortunately, some of us inevitably fall in love after first seeing or meeting someone who is nice and entertaining, or good-looking to us. This usually occur to us, like it’s a habit that we never asked for in our lives.

            On the other hand, action novels, well to be honest with you, I never read an action novel before, so they are enjoyable to read too? I don’t know. I suppose people can get the ‘thrill’ when reading an action story. Where the hero would jump off of the helicopter, parachutes and make a landing on top of a roof. He draws out his favoured assault rifle and starts to save the day. Killing every bandit he sees. Rescuing the hostages and gets the sexy girls at the end. But that’s what I understand when I watch an action movie. Perhaps in novels, the action story would be more detailed than what I’ve just summarised, as always.

            Anyways, regarding this post, I don’t know what to write. Should I do non-fiction, romance? A biography of me? An action story? Because some people are interested in romance, and the others are more into action stories. I should try to make non-fiction, action, romance novel! Where the main character and his significant other were on a date and suddenly, there’s an alien invasion. The alien captures the main character’s significant other and the main character, then realises he has the potential to stop the invasion and save the world and his girl. The guy will obtain superpowers along the way, and would destroy every alien spaceship orbiting the Earth. Little did he know, the girl he was trying to save was actually an alien too. Apparently she was the queen, the commander of the alien invasion. Capturing the girl was just a bait to kill the guy. The guy, then releases all his superpowers and explode. Killing him, the queen of the aliens and part of the Earth. A huge crater was made on Earth. Ever since then, people mark the crater as a memorial for the main character, or also known as ‘Hero of Earth’. Regrettably, the queen laid eggs somewhere on Earth because of the one night stand she had with the guy. The eggs then hatch, and another alien invasion begins. The main character is not the Hero of Earth. He is the Destroyer of Earth.

            Enough of that. We’ll just see how it goes. Let’s see how well this teenage brain of mine in creating stories for my blogs. Yes. Blogs. With an 'S'. This blog and shortstorytoshare.blogspot.com Check out the other blog if you have the time! New post coming soon! Stay tune!

Dad's journey to Annapurna

 

Dad posing for a silhouette picture
 

In this post I'll be talking about my dad's trip.

My dad, Shukri, also known as Uncle Bono (some of you might know him by that name), have a lot of interesting hobbies. At first, his hobby was fishing. He created a blog about it (http://croxfiber.blogspot.com/ - if you want to check it out. Last updated was on 2012 by the way). Eventually he was done with fishing. However, he found another one: editing pictures and post them in Instagram. Sometimes he would follow competitions in Instagram about editing a picture, ask us (my brothers and I) for suggestions, and if it looks good or not. Sometimes he would use his own picture he took and edit it, and sometimes he would travel out of the country and take pictures. Believe me, the pictures are beautiful.

Then suddenly, somehow my dad is interested in hiking. He would hike every hill in the country, and he did. Well, most of it. Sometimes he brings my brothers and I along. It's tiring if you ask me. I don't know how he has the energy to hike, and I can't believe I don't have much energy as he does. I'm so proud of him! Since last year, my dad went to Indonesia and other countries, just to hike the mountains. He climbed many mountains last year and this year as well. He would go for hiking training so he would be able to climb mountains easily.

Earlier this month, he went to Nepal for 14 days (5th until 19th May 2016) with his team, Team Bruneian Mountaineer and with Ravi Everest (Malaysian Mount Everest Solo Mountaineer). The Brunei Mountaineers: Shukri (Uncle Bono), Duan, Pg Sulaiman, Romie, and Zul. They have hiked 27,444 meters / 90,039 feet + - elevation in total and a total of 55 hours! + - trekking.

They trekked Tadapani (2,630 m), Chuile (2,110 m), Gurjung (2,050 m), Chhomrong (2,210 m), Ghore Deurali and Myagdi (2,860 m).

They also hit Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) twice! On May 12th for sunset and on May 13th for sunrise. Must have been beautiful.
 
Here are some pictures they took:

 

A cool picture of my dad hiking

 

 

Picture of some of the team

 

Dad reached Annapurna Base Camp (ABC)

 

Group photo of the team with Ravi Everest

 

Country flags, who climbed with the team during that time

Map of the journey in Nepal

Sooner this year, my dad will go for Everest, not the peak of Everest, just the base camp. Have seen the movie Everest? If you have, the base camp is the place where there are lots of camp tents settled there. Anyways, all the best to my dad!

Trying something new!

Hey everyone! This is going to be a short post. I'm just telling you guys that I have created a new blog. A blog where I make short stories (true and fiction) and share them with you guys!

Check out the first short story here!
( http://shortstorytoshare.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-witching-hour.html )

I hope this goes well, and I hope you like it!