Fall of an acquaintance

Fact: I've been a regular at Petaling Street.
And I have never seen a single stray dog.

Ever wonder why?

Let me tell you a story.

I treated her as my acquaintance.
They told me that she was found in a pile of rubbish.
If she hadn't been picked up, she would had been crushed to death.

They picked her up, and raised her.

I, as a passerby, played with her whenever I had the chance.

I used to think that, I will be graduating soon, I will be starting new life soon,
I will be working, and I will not be attending college,
so I won't be able to see her anymore.... and I will be missed.

Now, this will not happen.
She is gone.

I had an opportunity to save her.
And I missed it.

When I saw her for the very last time, it was late at night, after my class and she was moving in a recycle bag which was in the possession of two men.
They released her when they saw me looking for her.
I got her out of the bag, hugged her, and confronted them.
I thought that they were going to take her away and eat her but they told me they were just trying to play with her.
I believed in them - partially.

That night, she was very quiet when I stroked her back, tickled her stomach, rub her chin.
She was sticking to me and when I put her onto the floor, she tried to follow me.
The parking attendant who was on the night shift made a gesture as a command for her to go back to her place, and she obeyed.

I really thought of bringing her back but... she doesn't belong to me.
The parking attendant who is on the morning shift love her.
He fed her, and played with her.
He put bangles on her neck, and tie her - sounds like restriction of her freedom, but the fact is, he did it out of the fear of her being hit by the car.
And she has a really wide area to play around, while I could only provide a tiny front yard.

I shouldn't be too selfish, right?

He would be upset if he didn't see her the next morning, right?

Sigh. Now I am looking for excuses to justify my insensitive conduct.

The next morning, I tried to look for her.
No sight of her.
I looked at her uneaten food it sent an unpleasant chill down my spine...

When the parking attendants told me that she disappeared, my eyes welled and I thought, my instinct was right.

She was caught and brought to somewhere and.. being slaughtered and eaten.
Goodness, the vision of her helpless expression while being slaughtered kept on running on my mind.

Throughout the whole tutor, I tried to search for other possibilities.
Well, it could be that.... those two men found that she's cute... and decided to raise her...
Well, I can't think of any.
No point convincing myself, she is gone.

I'm not sure how long does it take to get over it.
I know I should get on with life because there is nothing much I can do now.
Every time I go to the parking area, I think of her and I try in vain to search for her, which of course, is fruitless.

I can't help but to think that she is now dead...
I could have brought her home but I did not.
She was so young and she hadn't even started to bark yet...

My friend told me that the same cruelty happened when a chicken is slaughtered and eaten.
It made me feel better but I still can't get rid of my own imagination...

...

I hope you will have a better life in your next cycle...
I'm sorry... for not being to help you.
You are missed, and you will be missed.

Decisions

I'm sure that you have seen this scene in some shows:
A girl nonchalantly opened the closet door.
The piled up clothes spilled out the second the door was opened.
The girl was drowned by the clothes.
The end.

It is the exaggerated version of my life.

I have two closets, approximately 3 metres wide, 2 metres tall when two are combined.
Not very tiny, but the similar thing happened.
I wasn't drowned, but the pile of jeans fall off conveniently to my feet.

In the show, the girl would bent down and scoop up the overflown clothes,
stuck them into the closet,
and before the pile fall off again,
the girl slammed shut the door and promptly leaned on the closet door using all her weight, let out a sigh of relief, thought that she could prevent the pile from spilling out.

Very predictable.

The similarities ended here.

My plan usually succeeded, unlike that girl who would face a situation that the door sprang opened, and the girl got thrown to the other corner of the room. The door would normally shut as I wished.

*wriggle brows rapidly

But cannot la.
I can't face the same situation every morning.
I get very upset for the rest of the day.

A detoxification would do my closet good.

I opened the closet door again.
As expected, some of the jeans dropped out.
I bent into the closet, swept the rest of them onto the floor.
Really cool man.

And now, the difficult time.

The apparels couldn't fit into the closet not because my closet is small - I have too many of apparels. Unused one. Decades old. I even know how an esprit tag looked like 20 years ago. (some of my mom's 20-year-old bajus are some usual wear of mine, maybe I should show you guys one day. Vintage, in a literal sense)

I have donated some of them before, but a big part of them still remained, despite the fact that I can not fit into them anymore. My meals are getting nutritious, good sign.

But cannot la. I really have to get rid of some of them.
It's difficult to depart from something I have been seeing for so many years.

So I set out a three-tier test.
If that certain apparel can't pass that test, it has no choice but to go to the donation box.

1) Do I wear that? Yes, keep. No, next question.

2) Will I wear that? Yes, one day I will be slim and fit into that again. Yes very hopeful and optimistic. No, next question.

3) Does it serve a purpose? Yes, it reminds you that you had once completed 90 pumpings on the heated tarred road, with tears on your face; and you were a kelefe in the famine-30-hour-camp, etc. No, donation box.

In the end, 4 big bags were sorted out. I hope the toxin in my body could be flushed out that easy as well.

I didn't want to look into those bags anymore la, because I might feel too upset to dump some of them away.

So now you are thinking that I will say,

now, it's time to reload.

Wrong.
You don't understand.
Or you misunderstood me.

When I decided that some of the jeans should go into the donation box, I swear not to get more jeans for the time being. What else can I get? I have all kinds of jeans. All the while I had been wearing the similar pairs because I took the most reachable pair. And now every pair is reachable. I will be having difficulty in making a choice.

When I decided flipped through the t-shirts I swear again for not buying t-shirts at the moment. I had been wearing the same color because some of them are crumpled in between that pile of jeans.

And I definitely don't need any more bags.

So yeap, my closets would remain clean and spacious for the time being, unless I'm struck by some I-must-buy-a-dress-otherwise-there-is-no-chance-of-me-passing-exam kind of syndrome.

Non-existent guilt

Apology, like a confession, doesn't imply guilt.

You may blurt out the five-letter-word under duress.
Or for sarcasm.
Or to make amend.
Or to protect someone.

Mine is to the last case.
I have heard the unpleasant mumbles.
I know that if those mumbles realise into complaints, it would make the already terrible situation worse.

So I apologised before the rotten beans are spilled.
And I suffered the mental punishment.

The fact which exacerbate the bitterness is that the person who is at fault is having fun with the punisher.
She who is blamed for something she has never done is currently locked in her own room, thought to be pondering over her guilt.

Accept the fact.
It's just a tiny weeny tip of an iceberg.
I still have an infinite way to go.

I hopes that my EQ can be increased after the incident.

Good night.
Tomorrow will be a finer day.

Muesli and apple crumbs plus warm milk awaits.
Not forgetting the warm latte which would be slowly sipped during the traffic congestion.
And Mindy Gledhill's or Soho Dolls' or Alicia Keys', depending on my mood.
Most significantly, the preparation I have done for tomorrow's tutorial. Gosh. I'm gungho.

Yes. Tomorrow will be another good day.
Again. Sweet dreams. No. Remembering the dream is the synonym of not sleeping tightly.
No dream.
Bye.