WorQz

The Man Who Can’t Be Moved

Quartz — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:28:37 +0000

2011.
Christmas came. It left.
New Year came. It left.

2012.
Two days of Lunar New Year came. They left.

Then there is the slew of other milestones such as gatherings and birthday and pieces of news, some not quite significant, from various sources that have largely gone by unrecorded save for snippets on Twitter. And so it seems I have lapsed into another period of blog-writing-drought…

Even as I write this, the first month of the "new year" that is 2012 is coming to its end.

Perhaps the result of the piling of ages, perhaps a consequence of an expanded circle of social interactions or perhaps change, I have come to realise this almost-hollow feeling growing inside of me, one that can neither be accurately described as dissatisfaction nor general lack of patience. Life carries on as it has always been but this awareness has been eating at me, something I think I have long known or come to terms with but have yet to find the courage nor word then to express it explicitly. Whether I was running away from it, or avoiding it or maybe even having once professed it but with no present recollection, I now feel it is perhaps the time to place it in writing again.

"Hollow", yes. I have mentioned this before.

Some people have a theme song, others some iconic phrase or string of words in English, Latin or otherwise, or a sliver of experience that resonate deep with them akin to a personal motto or even the very summation or definition of their existence. I had one once, I think, but that must have been too long ago for I am not sure of it now. These years of life, they don’t leave without an impact and they don’t leave without taking something away and leaving behind something else in its place.

It will seem, in the basest way I can hope to express this, that I am "searching". Not particularly for a person, someone or something, I am searching for what I believe is an abstract or to be as precise as I possibly can, a "quality".

Yes, I am searching for a quality.

Like a puzzle piece missing from a greater picture, incomplete, in need of meaning and self-understanding. Like that aforementioned theme song, lost in expression over time. Like a gear dislodged from an intricate series of similar gears. What am I lacking and perhaps, hence looking for? And of silly questions: how does one know they have been answered if they do not know what the answers are?

My only faith is that I will know it if I find it, even if I take a lifetime to reach this "quality". That if I am meant to receive it, it will be found even with eyes shut. That I will come to accept that I may never find it. That after all, ex nihilo nihil fit.

And that miracles, they do exist.

Filed under: cryptic, life

The Underground Arcade (II of II)

Quartz — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:36:05 +0000

The Underground Arcade
*******
Not many players use Tyrell – too many moves to input and not much high-priority attacks. But he was different.

Cute, an unblockable grapple timed in anticipation, and secured his victory by the skin of his teeth. I had not lost matches, and consecutively, for a while now. Curious, the way he played, almost as if he were randomly mashing buttons but really in an intricate manner.

Asking him out and eventually dating was easy, for the common interests were already established even before we first held hands. It may have seemed a bore to others but our love for beat-’em ups kept bringing us back to the underground arcade. Sometimes I wished he was more creative, yet mostly it was through our constant matches I remembered why we were together in the first place.

But good times never did last and like that time I popped the first question, I too took the first steps to end it. With the Plan brought forward by months, my time surveying the arcade and the area was almost up. There was just too much to explain to him in the hours we had, to tell him what initially started out as covert and deceptive birthed something quite unexpected and wonderful.

And with that reluctant parting, it was time to concentrate on the true task of my purpose being here…

Filed under: fiction

The First Corruption – Prelude

Quartz — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 15:57:43 +0000

If reality is an amalgamation of perceptions, can there exist a wish so strong it alters reality?

Magic, miracle or technology sufficiently advanced.
Action, reaction and the law of balance.
If this universe changes drastically so, is there another world undergoing a similar change in the opposite direction?

Selfish desires and broken dreams, of an emotion so strong, it burns into the core.
Desperation is a driver but is it enough, yet perhaps too much?

Once he dreamt, but like many others before him and those who will come after, they will never comprehend.
Some dreams, can never be perfectly realised…

Filed under: fiction

The Underground Arcade (I of II)

Quartz — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 14:59:58 +0000

The Underground Arcade

*******
Where we met, fell in love and parted.

It was indeed a rare sight to behold, a female gamer furiously tapping away on the video games consoles. What was indeed even more rare was to see her hold her own against the so-called seasoned male gamers. Two wins, four wins, six, nine, eleven and counting. She was no pushover and every challenger that came along was taught a lesson on that. Twenty-three would be her last match, but this long-haired wonder had already made her mark in the dimly lit arcade, and outshone the competitors.

Rows and rows of consoles, and neon lights flood the underground arcade, drawing crowds over the weekends to let their hair down and immerse in this reality quite unlike that of everyday life. This time round, she swiped her game card and sat next to me, ready to oust me from my current game to start her streak again. There is something about a female gamer that male gamers look down upon, or underestimate. Something, almost chauvinistic. It is as though games were the sole domain of gentlemen.

"Good luck," she says to me, with a rather radiant smile, or so I thought I made out in the ambient lighting…

Filed under: fiction

Ian, the Wanderer

Quartz — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:13:45 +0000

Ian
the Wanderer

Alignment: Jet

Basic Traits: Body 8, Mind 5, Soul 5
Other Traits: Endurance 9, Heat/Burst 7, Influence 3

*******
Possessed of a unique ability to access an extra-dimensional space he has come to term the Oblivion, Ian has spent many a time honing this skill to bridge spaces in the shortest possible time. Not quite teleportation and not yet super-speed, the Oblivion allows him to travel from Point A to B very much like that often proposed by either concept.

Ian came to first realise his ability at the age of seven, never quite understanding it till another ten years later, when he used it in earnest for the first time to drag his co-worker out of the burning building where he was doing holiday work as a data entry clerk. Yet another ten years have passed since and while he has yet to repeat that heroic act, the Oblivion has many a time saved him from the wrath of friends when it came to punctuality.

When the Bibliotheque was first established in the wake of the First Corruption, he had contemplated giving up his day job to join it in the hopes of unravelling the mysteries of his ability and the Oblivion. Perhaps procrastination, perhaps a general sense of distrust of the establishment, Ian was eventually contented to limit his power for his use at his leisure only.

"Let others handle the paranormal phenomena", he thought.

Filed under: fiction

The Derelict Fountain

Quartz — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 15:41:35 +0000

The Derelict Fountain

*******
What was once an iconic architecture of the City-state now a taboo landmark shunned by the people. Like much of the structures around it, the Fountain lay in ruin and abandonment, overrun by strange energies of the Second Corruption.

While the authorities are said to be looking into reviewing the one-kilometre exclusion radius but a lack of on-site surveillance has made the task if not difficult, near impossible due to a previous mishap involving a high-ranking Librarian. Most recently the Bibliotheque, a governing body tasked with the training of Librarians and arcane work, has issued notice it will be commencing new studies to examine the phenomenon and promise to detail a full report of corrective action by the end of the year.

As of present, the curfew and spatial-lockdown measures will have to stay for the time being.

Filed under: fiction

Domus Chang, the Librarian

Quartz — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:14:37 +0000

Domus Chang
the Librarian

Alignment: Crimson [Bias: Focus]

Basic Traits: Body 4, Mind 9, Soul 6
Other Traits: Arcane 8, Heat/Rage 2

*******
I can scarcely remember the first time I raised a defensive ward through the arcane. Each time I am quizzed about this by those outside of the Bibliotheque, they would laugh at me. "Are you sure you do not remember? You are a Librarian!" they used to jest. But that is the crux. Knowledge and memory are fundamentally different from one another. Librarians do not record, we keep.

We keep the pages of the arcane bound close to us and recall them, but we do not record them. Information is translated into application and stored as knowledge. If only they could even begin to comprehend what I know. Then they would begin to realise the immense power flowing around them all this while, touching and impacting their everyday lives ever since the Second Corruption, or even the First.

Then they would realise the Fountain of Wealth is a lost cause.

One need not be a Class Five Librarian to see the region of influence of the Second Corruption is far extent than that the Bibliotheque had first reported. There is no hope of countering it, only containing it with wards. Perhaps that is my true mission here, not to merely "investigate" it, but the Bibliotheque had hoped I would be able to exact some form of corrective action. If I am successful, the collateral damage will be minimal and that will buy us more time to take a proper course of action.

But if not…

Filed under: fiction

Turn Back Time

Quartz — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:57:29 +0000

A different life.
An alternate past.
Change that which we have no control.
Meet people who would otherwise have not met.

Different lives.
Indeterminate future.
Unpredictable consequences of the action.
Not acquaintances any more.

I am not Legion, nor do I have such aspirations.

Is time a resource, a commodity, magic, or perhaps simply immaterial?
A giant clock hangs in the sky, ticking the seconds of all life away.
Perhaps even gods will advise against rewinding hands.
If only there were somehow another way…

Filed under: comics, cryptic, life