I was leaning against the railings in Taman Tun's answer to Lake Gardens, sipping coffee after a night of insomnia surrounded by octogenarians taking walks and practicing tai-chi, when I noticed the bird.
It looked like a kingfisher, though I'm not sure that particular breed existed in this country. Nonetheless, it took me by surprise. The bird seemed to be staring at the turtles just in front of it, popping up and blowing bubbles in the water, poking their noses out. Perhaps they were having a conversation, I don't know. What I did know was that at that moment there were no one-way conversations going on in my head that had kept me awake the whole night through.
Over 62 hours ago on a Friday evening I was sat in The Hub helping out TripleVI transfer footage from a camera to a hard drive. There were four tapes, a long and arduous process, and as customary for TripleVI whilst waiting he lit up a joint. After a while I got bored and decided to join in, only taking one or two puffs, just to pass the time.
And that's when it began.
I decided, whilst waiting, to put on a DVD - the Coen brother's "Burn After Reading". Perhaps it was the weed or perhaps the movie had been hyped up a bit too much by my fellow filmmaking friends. Regardless, we both starred at the screen wondering what the plot of the movie was whilst I, slowly, was losing the plot myself.
Five days prior to this event I had a revelation after a number of heart-wrenching moments with the Tamagotchi. The biggest revelation came when the Tamagotchi sent me a song that she had recorded for me many moons ago but at the time I could never receive it. Listening to that song made me realize more than ever that she did care for me, truthfully and honestly, and I truly understood two things. One, the immensity of how much I must have hurt her, and two, how much hope there was in the world.
The second part may seem confusing, especially in a post that offers no backstory nor names or faces of the parties involved, and especially since it's all written in a style that's a poor imitation at best of the great Gonzo journalist himself, Hunter S. Thompson, but in a nutshell what transpired in my head and heart was this: the Tamagotchi made me feel a sensation towards another person that I hadn't felt in more than a decade, a sensation I thought would only happen once in life and was gone forever. And the fact that it happened again, against all odds, is truly a sign of hope - that things do get better. I had ruined my chances with the Tamagotchi but in the long arduous process of pouring out our hearts and brains I was, in a sense, reborn in a strange way. I could see the path that my life was taking and I knew what that path lead to, and it was a path I had made a promise to myself as a child I would never take. It was this revelation that lead to my post on Love.
It was this revelation that kept me going through most of the week, together with the help of John, Paul, George and Ringo. But after TripleVI left, I realized the effects of that stinking weed.
Introspection, paranoia and increasingly negative and completely irrational thoughts swirled constantly through my head and my gut, coursing through my veins and all the hope that I had believed in throughout the week felt lost. Though I knew that there was nothing wrong with feeling emotions, whether good or bad, this feeling was completely irrational and, worst of all, fucked beyond compare.
The sensation continued over night, and stayed for the next two days. I'd alternate between having a level head and keeping things in control to feeling the insane urge to punt a terrier. On Sunday morning I woke up after a disastrous dream involving the Tamagotchi saying something so painful it bolted me out of the bed in an instant.
By Sunday night I couldn't sleep, for fear of more dreams.
From 1am to 6am I tossed, turned, switched positions and air cond temperatures, but nothing worked. My shoulders and neck felt particular fucked and nothing could be done. By 6.30am I thought to hell with it and had a shower. By 7am I was in the park.
At 7.15am I saw the bird.
Now, as I write this, I think most of the crap is out of my system, though I still feel some of it lingering.Most of it, however, dissapeared when I saw the bird. As the bird looked in one direction one of the turtles out of its sight popped up and faced the opposite direction, upwards.
And for some reason I was fascinated.
I tried to capture it in the picture above but I was too far away and didn't have my zoom lens. Regardless, I had to capture it. Like the dancing plastic bag in American Beauty, there was something magical happening before me.
Behind me, a muzak version of 'Rasa Sayang' was playing on a boom box as the golden oldies clapped through their exercises. Health buffs jogged with iPods on their arms and a bottle of water in one hand. The sky was a watered down version of night, with a stream of day trickling through it, slowly seeping into the world.
Somewhere, out there, was hope.
It looked like a kingfisher, though I'm not sure that particular breed existed in this country. Nonetheless, it took me by surprise. The bird seemed to be staring at the turtles just in front of it, popping up and blowing bubbles in the water, poking their noses out. Perhaps they were having a conversation, I don't know. What I did know was that at that moment there were no one-way conversations going on in my head that had kept me awake the whole night through.
Over 62 hours ago on a Friday evening I was sat in The Hub helping out TripleVI transfer footage from a camera to a hard drive. There were four tapes, a long and arduous process, and as customary for TripleVI whilst waiting he lit up a joint. After a while I got bored and decided to join in, only taking one or two puffs, just to pass the time.
And that's when it began.
I decided, whilst waiting, to put on a DVD - the Coen brother's "Burn After Reading". Perhaps it was the weed or perhaps the movie had been hyped up a bit too much by my fellow filmmaking friends. Regardless, we both starred at the screen wondering what the plot of the movie was whilst I, slowly, was losing the plot myself.
Five days prior to this event I had a revelation after a number of heart-wrenching moments with the Tamagotchi. The biggest revelation came when the Tamagotchi sent me a song that she had recorded for me many moons ago but at the time I could never receive it. Listening to that song made me realize more than ever that she did care for me, truthfully and honestly, and I truly understood two things. One, the immensity of how much I must have hurt her, and two, how much hope there was in the world.
The second part may seem confusing, especially in a post that offers no backstory nor names or faces of the parties involved, and especially since it's all written in a style that's a poor imitation at best of the great Gonzo journalist himself, Hunter S. Thompson, but in a nutshell what transpired in my head and heart was this: the Tamagotchi made me feel a sensation towards another person that I hadn't felt in more than a decade, a sensation I thought would only happen once in life and was gone forever. And the fact that it happened again, against all odds, is truly a sign of hope - that things do get better. I had ruined my chances with the Tamagotchi but in the long arduous process of pouring out our hearts and brains I was, in a sense, reborn in a strange way. I could see the path that my life was taking and I knew what that path lead to, and it was a path I had made a promise to myself as a child I would never take. It was this revelation that lead to my post on Love.
It was this revelation that kept me going through most of the week, together with the help of John, Paul, George and Ringo. But after TripleVI left, I realized the effects of that stinking weed.
Introspection, paranoia and increasingly negative and completely irrational thoughts swirled constantly through my head and my gut, coursing through my veins and all the hope that I had believed in throughout the week felt lost. Though I knew that there was nothing wrong with feeling emotions, whether good or bad, this feeling was completely irrational and, worst of all, fucked beyond compare.
The sensation continued over night, and stayed for the next two days. I'd alternate between having a level head and keeping things in control to feeling the insane urge to punt a terrier. On Sunday morning I woke up after a disastrous dream involving the Tamagotchi saying something so painful it bolted me out of the bed in an instant.
By Sunday night I couldn't sleep, for fear of more dreams.
From 1am to 6am I tossed, turned, switched positions and air cond temperatures, but nothing worked. My shoulders and neck felt particular fucked and nothing could be done. By 6.30am I thought to hell with it and had a shower. By 7am I was in the park.
At 7.15am I saw the bird.
Now, as I write this, I think most of the crap is out of my system, though I still feel some of it lingering.Most of it, however, dissapeared when I saw the bird. As the bird looked in one direction one of the turtles out of its sight popped up and faced the opposite direction, upwards.
And for some reason I was fascinated.
I tried to capture it in the picture above but I was too far away and didn't have my zoom lens. Regardless, I had to capture it. Like the dancing plastic bag in American Beauty, there was something magical happening before me.
Behind me, a muzak version of 'Rasa Sayang' was playing on a boom box as the golden oldies clapped through their exercises. Health buffs jogged with iPods on their arms and a bottle of water in one hand. The sky was a watered down version of night, with a stream of day trickling through it, slowly seeping into the world.
Somewhere, out there, was hope.
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