The WRITER'S Lounge

Every time I'm on, I never see Misaki on so it's hard to figure out when group chats/socials happen.

Just type a message into Skype or join in the conversation if you see fit. I can give you a shoutout via Skype if you want to. (My Skype is mengming.soh)

Wait, I just type a message? Does she appear offline or something? If that's the case, I could have done that days ago! Also, what's your next project, Lenny?

I am working on a guide of sorts explaining how I carried out the tests I did for a project the past 10 months. Very dry and boring unless the reader wishes to carry out the tests.

After this, I might parody a few of the contest entries for the event last December should I have the time.

Go to the group chat called "Fakku Social" and give me a holler. I am there.

I got Misaki's info, I'll send her a message that I want to be added to the group chat. Or I could ask you too... duh! One moment.

It was that time of the year when it gets hotter for some reason. The optimistic might embrace the warmth, the change in scenery and the opportunity to take a break to enjoy it all, put aside work and risk getting fired from work expelled from school. Indeed, popular media would have one believe that it is a somehow a season for romance. This story endeavours to suggest otherwise.

It tells the tale of a Jane and an Austin, a couple who have known each other for quite some time, on a summer trip to the mountains. These mountains are home to very rocky rapids that carry water from the beautiful lakes with clear, shallow and brightly blue-hued waters to short but wide waterfalls, with lush green forests nestling Tibetan villages with their characteristic buntings embroidered with Buddhist scriptures. It was all very picturesque and all very †˜heaven-on-earth’. So the travel brochure promised.

Jane and Austin, being of an impressionable (or gullible) age, saw this trip to a foreign mountain paradise as a respite from the awful heat and the mundane life they lead. Moreover, the depiction of their holiday destination as some secluded Shangri-La nestled in the middle of the wilderness with Tibetans running around unperturbed from the horrors of modern city life such as modern sanitation, electricity and clean running water sounded very romantic. Prior to setting off for this trip, they confided their fantasies of what they would do there with each other. Most of those fantasies concern behaving intimately (which is a byword for obscenely) with the water, trees, waterfalls, rapids and gawking Tibetans making up the background.

However, their hopes of travelling there alone as a couple, were dashed. The only conceivable way for them to get to their destination was by bus. They wouldn’t know how to get there by car anyway, they wouldn’t be able to read maps or ask for directions or rent a car because they don’t know how to speak or write the bloody language anyway, they aren’t really of the age to drive a car, let alone make a one day journey to the middle of nowhere anyway and they aren’t allowed to do so by the local government for reasons ranging from traffic congestion to the harm it allegedly causes to the environment and to that government being very nasty anyway.


Not only were they forced to travel in a group, they were tasked to find people who would travel with them. Quite reluctantly, they called their acquaintances, friends and people they knew if they would like to like to accompany them on that trip. They didn’t have much progress until they contacted one of their well-to-do former classmate by the name of Leonard. He thought that it would be a good idea to have a class reunion in the mountains so he went around offering money to those who were willing to come along for that reunion, never mind that it most likely costed him tens of thousands of dollars.

That appeared to be a godsend for both Jane and Austin. However, Leonard is a classmate whom they secretly loathed. Leonard was outwardly friendly and generous which was why both Jane and Austin were reluctant to openly show their dislike towards him. However, he had had a knack for getting both Jane and Austin into awkward situations like declaring very loudly to the entire class that they are a couple soon after they confessed their love towards each other. The couple still remembered that this was followed by treating them to dinner and throwing in a few gifts of questionable nature like adult material and adult toys. It is very easy to see why Jane and Austin felt a sense of déjà vu at this arrangement, not to mention a strange sense of foreboding.

Everything seemed well at first, with the couple enjoying the company of their other former classmates. The class reunion almost made the long trip on board the plane and the even longer trip from the airport to the mountains pleasant. After all, it had been quite some time since they last met and they was quite a lot of catching up to do. Yet, like an Indian summer and all things that are good and pleasant, this was short lived. The long journey by bus and plane that lasted for almost a day most certainly dampened spirits a little and then there was Leonard.

“How is your sex life?”

This was how Leonard first greeted the couple during that long bus journey. Of course, it would be difficult for anyone to give a prompt response to such a question. Before they could respond, Leonard laughed it off and started a very awkward one-way conversation that would involve Leonard regaling in some story supposedly concerning his past followed up with a question directed at the couple. The couple would then give one sentence (or sometimes one-word) responses while Leonard, being the insensitive boor he is, would utterly fail to see that the couple weren’t interested in speaking with him!

This was a sample of the conversation between them:

“My family has spent the past few years investing in jewel mines and jewel processing. You know, our business interests cover the area we are at now. So how were the past few years for you?”

“Fine.”, Jane replied curtly.

“A lot of people will suffer from shortness of breath and discomfort being up so high above sea level. Will you be fine?”

“Fine.”, Austin simply repeated the last word of Leonard’s question, apparently giving little thought to giving a proper and grammatical response.

“So how is your sex life?”

“Fine.”, replied Jane and Austin in unison, obviously not paying any attention to Leonard’s question.


Jane and Austin intended their journey up the mountains to be solely an affair between the two of them but since that was not possible it became some kind of school trip that was in fact organised by Leonard whom they loathed but couldn’t do anything about because he has very deep pockets. That awkward exchange in the bus appeared to mark another turning point where their journey turned from bad to worse.

This isn’t entirely Leonard’s fault though. Much has been said about how difficult it was to go into the mountains. However, being in the mountains is itself rather problematic especially if the people concerned aren’t acclimatised and couldn’t put up with how backward and expensive holidaying there would be because of its sheer inaccessibility!

Jane and Austin bought into the idea that the air in the mountains are fresh and good for their health. They found themselves gasping for air instead at the slightest exertion while walking on the wooden platforms cutting through the picturesque scenery since the air there was rather thin.

Jane and Austin bought into idea that life in the mountains is pleasant. They then realised the toilets were horrible and the accommodation up in the mountains and even the cuisine pale in comparison to places not of the mountains.

Jane and Austin thought the Tibetans who inhabited these mountainous regions were quiet and demure. They aren’t. They are loud, ebullient and behaved more like the Mongols who share the religion as them. A Tibetan acquaintance of Leonard made them drink a few cups of strong wine resulting in them feeling rather sick for the rest of the day. To make matters worse, Leonard spoke of how the Tibetans dispose of their dead with relish. Apparently, Tibetans think that getting vultures to strip dead bodies is the best way to send the dead person off. Austin vomited upon hearing that leaving Jane to clear the mess in a drunken stupor.

To say that the trip didn’t go as expected was quite an understatement for Jane and Austin though on the bright side, it was certainly unforgettable. Their journey back home was rather silent as most of the people joined them were rather worn out while Leonard, unlike his usual rambunctious self, was nursing a very bad bruise on his left eye.

How did Leonard end up like this? During the last day of their trip where Jane and Austin thought they finally had some privacy in their hotel room which had a faulty door. It so happened that Leonard walked into their hotel room while Austin was caressing Jane’s once voluptuous but now sagging mammary glands overcome by a lust he didn’t feel since the start of the trip. It was hard to get himself to perform and his back was beginning to ache due to arthritis and the energy it took. All of a sudden, Jane sprang up with such speed it would be appear as if she were a few decades younger and landed a blow squarely aimed at Leonard's eye in what surely must be the highlight of that trip.

Did I forget to mention how old Jane, Austin and Leonard were?!

The proverb, "as soon as man is born, he begins to die", must originate from a very miserable person who seeks to see the worst in every breathing moment in his life. Or, it could be because he is about to die and thus be more likely to ruminate and churn out needlessly depressing claptrap like that! That was certainly the case with a man named Otto was rather advanced in his years.

If there was a word that best described Otto, it would be the word "miserable". One might be forgiven for thinking that it was his circumstances that lead to his rather bleak outlook in life. However, most of his life was a story of how he progressed from relative poverty to relative prosperity in part because of his own efforts in part because of his good fortune of living through an economic boom. As the years accumulated and as the amount of wealth he held accumulated, he became more worrisome and thus more miserable.

One could already hear the rather condescending tutting from those who see wealth as an evil in itself who would conclude that it is because of his miserly attitude that lead to his misery before making silly puns about how similar the words "misery" and "miserly" are.



This epigraph, seemingly pointless like most other epigraphs, is really a portrayal of the inner anguish of a certain Otto, well advanced in his years, well reminded of how old and decrepit he is and then brushes it all aside since everyone of his age has to go through it as well. The problem with that though is not all is well.

After all, he had lived a life filled with challenges seemingly insurmountable, like attending school and struggling to attain good grades so that he could struggle to work a job for several decades so that he can struggle to purchase insurance against an accident that would never happen. Other challenges he had struggled to overcome included struggling to hoodwink a woman into a matrimonial union with him then struggle to take of her and their offspring in what was surely the worst of struggles, or so he thought.

It would appear that the greatest challenge of all for Otto was to attend (to) funerals of first his immediate relatives and friends who are older than him followed by the funerals of his immediate relatives and friends who are not so much older than him.

When his parents kicked the bucket in his forties and fifties, he had had to worry about where the funeral ought to be held, how much it would cost, whether the people attending (in contrast to attending to) the funeral would be willing to give enough money to offset the costs of holding it and squabbling over his siblings over inheritance issues (though in both cases, it was about deciding who should inherit the debts left behind)

When his friends and older siblings were kicked out of the realm of the living, he needn't worry about funeral arrangements. All he needed to do was to attend their funerals, ascertain whether they are truly dead and then ponder on his mortality. The first two acts were easy to do, but the third placed tremendous emotional strain, not because he is necessarily heartbroken to see the people he knew for so long go away, but heartbroken that these are signs that he himself is about to go away.

So, the fear of death, in addition to his bodily problems that frankly afflicts almost everyone who have lived over half a century are really the reasons why all wasn't well. It could be because of his obsessive nature or his tendency to worry about the most trivial matters but try as he might to brush them off he would still fret about them. It didn't help that he felt like going to the toilet every one hour or so or that any attempt to run would come with searing pain in every single joint in his body.

If one were in his or her teenage years and is experiencing the bitter taste of what it is like to go through the daily problems that most adults have to face, he or she might pen a whiny poem about Otto's predicament in something perhaps around these lines:



Indeed, it is perfectly normal for most of Otto's close relations to be six feet under or cooped up in an urn at such an advanced age. It is tragic but not entirely expected for his best friend to go gaga considering that his brain cells are old and worn out. Much has already been said about Otto's ever declining physical ability and it is natural for his surviving (and younger) family members like his children, nephews and nieces to treat him like a child in need of around the clock care!

So in the face of all of this what should he do? Otto being Otto decided that the only panacea to all of these problems was to worry and work to solve those problems. A less flattering word to describe his efforts can be found repeated in a bizarre fashion in the first few paragraphs of this writeup -- struggle.

It is not entirely unfounded. Most of his peers who have pushed up daisies beforehand have decided not to worry. After all, the most sensible thing to do after having worked and laboured for several decades was to rest. And rest in peace they did! Since this wasn't what Otto wanted, he did the exact opposite and behaved and worked just like he did in his younger years albeit with the aching bones, barely controllable bladder and bowel movements and the ever dwindling number of people he could call his peers.

Otto's situation is like a caricature of some killjoy Buddhist doctrine which describes life being a cesspool of bitterness. Otto certainly didn't prescribe to Buddhist methods to extricate himself from that situation and attain nirvana for he is so wedded to this primordial instinct of self-preservation. If life have to come with arthritis and finding out that you have a longer lifespan than your friends, so be it. At least Otto is still drawing breath!

For those setting your eyes on this and are feeling that this writeup is a bit anticlimactic due to a lack of resolution, rest assured this is what will happen to Otto on a one fine night:

He would go to bed with a list of worries and concerns in his head, some real while others are made up. He would expect himself to wake up in the morning tomorrow attending to these problems. What he would not expect that much however is that his body could no longer cope with the physical stresses that come along with age and then it would be

A Collection of Resumes

Leonard had the unenviable task of growing through mountains of job applications as an employee of a poorly staffed HR department of a small fastfood chain. Part of the reason why his job was a chore was the sheer banality of going through email by email, leaf by leaf of job applications that barely differed. This was made worse by an economic recession which meant that his company is inundated by job applications for people desperate to work on a minimum wage. The company, eager to profit from the labour of poorly paid workers, was only too happy to entertain these job offers.

Why though were the job applications submitted so similar? It was because the fastfood chain was in a small city. This meant that every applicant came from the same few schools. This meant that they were taught the same few subjects which were of little use in a fastfood restaurant. Even their interests, hobbies and their bloody appearance were more or less the same!

On a very bad day, Leonard would receive this:

Job Application #1

Name: A. Ginger
Ethnicity: Ginger
Address: Ginger City
Academic Qualifications: Ginger High School
Skills: English, Mathematics, Science, Ginger Studies, Cricket
Interests and Hobbies:English, Mathematics, Science, Ginger Studies, Cricket, Cricket Watching
Gender: Female

Attached to Job Application #1 was a picture of a morbidly obese, freckled faced and ginger haired individual.


Job Application #2

Name: Al S. O. Ginger
Ethnicity: Ginger
Address: Ginger City
Academic Qualifications: Ginger High School
Skills: English, Mathematics, Science, Ginger Studies, Cricket
Interests and Hobbies:English, Mathematics, Science, Ginger Studies, Cricket, Cricket Watching
Gender: Male

Attached to Job Application #2 was also picture of a morbidly obese, freckled faced and ginger haired individual with a slightly flatter chest.


Was it the same person who submitted two applications at the same time in an attempt to prove that his fastfood chain discriminates against women? Leonard, out of a curious mixture of curiosity and fear of the political correctness police decided to grant the both of them interviews only to realise that they were separate individuals! To make matters worse, they weren't very good workers too who were relieved of their jobs soon after they were hired because they were more interested in eating than preparing food! Poor Leonard himself was facing the prospect of being relieved of his job too for taking in lousy workers!

Seeing that the information provided by each job applicant wasn't useful in determining if he or she was good for the job, Leonard decided to make each job applicant answer this question:

Describe a moment when you went beyond the call of duty to help someone.

That anyone would indulge in an act of self-sacrifice while employed by a lowly restaurant ever determined to dole even lower pay is itself farcical. However, it served its purpose making each job application more different. Also, since the more earnest job applicants tend to write longer (though not substantive or impressive) stories, it proved to be a useful barometer on how desperate the applicant was. This decision marked a change in Leonard’s fortunes in the HR department but posing that question did have its problems.

As the company grew despite the economy floundering as hard as ever, there were more job applicants and Leonard’s boss expected him to recruit persons of higher calibre. This of course had ramifications on how aspiring fastfood restaurant indentured labourers answered that question, “Describe a moment when you went beyond the call of duty to help someone”.

The answers became stranger and so bizarre that merely describing them as such failed to do them justice. This story tells of a certain day when Leonard three answers to that question.

Answer 1:
Name of Job Applicant: H. De Clan
Describe a moment when you went beyond the call of duty to help someone:

There was one time early this year when I did put in quite a lot of effort to help someone I barely knew, never mind that I was called a nosey parker who should learn how to mind his own business. It involved me looking for someone who is missing for a few days.

My search for that missing person begun with me overhearing practically everyone on the street speaking about his disappearance. This of course aroused my curiosity and I decided to find out more by rudely interrupting them in the middle of a conversation. Though I decided to eavesdrop instead when I found that this is a rather ineffective way to collect information and a very effective way to be the subject of physical and verbal abuse.

There was much speculation on the circumstances behind his disappearance. Allow me, for the sake of clarity to label some of the more common explanations behind his disappearance in using letters:

a. On a bleak and frosty night made even all the more gloomy with a light drizzle, D. Hennessey, was seen by some onlooker wandering into a den. Unemployed, unschooled and unengaged, he cannot be described to be in the best of circumstances. That could explain why good judgement left him for that den is filled with poisons that numb both the body and mind, its walls adorned with sirens that disorientate and discombobulate and populated with the mythical Sirens who, if could be heard amid that senseless cacophony, seduce and ensnare them. The onlooker upon seeing Hennessey walking mindlessly into that accursed place decided that he is done for anyway and ought to leave as soon as possible in fear that he could be drawn in against his will, so mysteriously and dangerously alluring that den was. So long story short, he was dead in a den.

b. Another account describes Hennessey in the arms of a fearsome creature, accompanied with another fearsome creature and another man. The heads of these creatures were crowned with tendrils not unlike those of the Gorgon of legend, their breath and odour repellent and their skins are coated with toxic slimes. Yet Hennessey and his male companion were completely besotted by their unhuman partners as if stricken by some spell that made them impervious to their vile appearance. Rumour has it that these fearsome creatures are, in the eyes of their prey, ravishing women who are more than eager to satiate their basest of desires. Indeed, the creatures themselves thrive on the affections showered on their victims before sucking them dry, not unlike a female spider devouring her mate about their deadly marriage has been consummated. The person who recounted this event didn’t know where Hennessey and company were headed though. In fact, the scene of them together felt like a surreal apparition.

c. A relative of mine who knows someone who knows another someone who works in a detention centre who told me that they have a man named D. Hennessey who is currently in police custody. He apparently is facing indictment for a certain crime of passion.

Accounts a and b didn’t make sense to me but acting on what my relative has told me, I decided to go to where Hennessey was detained and through the pulling of strings and under the table deals, managed to secure his release. Hennessey is rather grateful to me and is now trying to break free of being uneducated, unschooled and unengaged.

After reading that long and yet bizarrely engaging story De Clan wrote, he stared at the ceiling for a good while, his brain in metaphorical stasis due to how over the top it was. Then again, as a person who has read and processed countless job applications, he shouldn’t be too surprised when a job applicant embellishes and distracts his potential employer when recounting in what was, in this case, someone helping another person who got into trouble with women. That said, Leonard was also left wondering why De Clan made the mistake of implying that he bribed the authorities who detained Hennessey.

Leonard soon mustered the energy to go through a second job application and imagined his shock when he read it:

Answer 2
Name of Job Applicant: D. Hennessey
Describe a moment when you went beyond the call of duty to help someone:
I met a stranger, inebriated and feeble
Decided to help, being gallant and noble
The stranger, into my home I led
Was bathed, dressed and laid on my bed

After one night
The stranger disappeared from my sight
Then the police came
Asked for my name
AND I WAS ACCUSED OF RAPE!

PS: By the way, you might have come across another person, a H. De Clan, who went out of his way to look for me. He submitted a job application to work in your fine establishment too. Could you please employ the both of us?

It was a short, succinct, gimmicky and a rather courageous (or stupid depending on how polite you want to be) attempt to grab the attention of his potential employer. Leonard finally understood what had happened to Hennessey and believed that the Sirens and the Gorgons De Clan described in his job application are misogynistic descriptions of women who simply wanted to have fun imbibing alcohol and making fools of themselves thereafter!

he had the urge to go to his address (that was also stated in his resume) tie and anvil to his job application and fling it into his window for having the temerity to come up with that. He let out a bellyache to his co-workers who consoled him by dryly saying that most resumes are filled with nonsense anyway. The one Hennessey submitted was no different.

Finally, Leonard came across an application that bore an exotic oriental name. Despite Leonard dreading that the answer to the question he tabled to aspiring job applicants would be as ludicrous as ever, he thought of his salary and boss and soldiered on. His hands trembling with trepidation, This was what was written:

Answer 3:

Name of Job Applicant: Shiki Nogami
Describe a moment when you went beyond the call of duty to help someone:

I am an unsung hero who has saved the world from certain destruction using liquid nitrogen, that most potent of poisons, and a hammer, that most rudimentary yet effective of weapons! I believe I deserve proper recognition for my service to humanity in a lowly but proper job as a kitchen hand in your most noble establishment.

Lend me your ears, potential employer, before you dismiss me as a nutcase destined for the madhouse! Come to my abode and you might make out the shattered corpse of a monster with many faces and many limbs. (I have attached a photo for you to see) Come to my abode and I will show you the voluminous papers that the brave diarist of a scientist wrote about that monster and its foul origins!

That thing came from the skies to create a progeny of creatures different in appearance and yet similar in nature. But like how every mare needs a stallion, and every bitch needs a dog, who will give that creature the seed it needs to bring forth its progeny? The answer lie in those gonads, between the legs of every male on this land. Yet, who would want to be in a bodily union with these creatures?

The monster, using all its evil and cunning, casted a spell on its prey. In the eyes of its prey, the monster will take the form of an alluring seductress. He will then offer his seed to that monster only to slowly but surely transfigure into hideous looking monsters. Some have tendrils for hairs not unlike a Gorgon, while others might have screeching voices and fangs that lust for human flesh not unlike a Siren. He would then possess many of the powers of the monster that took away his original appearance and search for yet another victim.

Fear not, for my comrades and I have tracked down many of those creatures and learnt that the best way to dispatch them is to douse them with liquid nitrogen and smash it with a hammer.

If you don’t believe my story, come to my place. If you do, please give me a job.

Leonard of course didn't believe Shiki Nogami's story but neither had he any intention to head over to his place. That application pulled off every single trick in the book from coming up with absurd stories to arouse interest, using words and expressions no one in his right mind would use in everyday writing and conversation to obfuscate the fact that his story is silly and the descriptions of women and girls as Greek demonesses is shockingly hateful. Was Nogami a psychopath who murdered women using liquid gases and blunt objects?

As Leonard reached out for his lighter to burn Shiki Nogami's job application, a photograph fell out. It was a photograph purportedly of the 'monster' Nogami has slain which...

SHOWN THE SHATTERED BODY OF THE 'MONSTER" NOGAMI HAS SLAIN!

Just as he sought to reassure himself that the photograph was a hoax, the door of office suddenly crashing with a deafening bang as two monsters, one resembling a Gorgon and the other a Siren, accompanied with two disfigured men with one having tentacles sprouting from his head and the other with fangs sprouting from his mouth, barged in.

The man with the tentacles croaked, "My name is De Clan."
Whilst the man with the fangs growled, "My name is Hennessey."

"So what was written in the job applications are both truths and lies!", Leonard thought to himself as his mind descended into a state of delirium at this shocking turn of events. Yet, how did Hennessey really leave prison? How did De Clan turn into a monster himself? How reliable were both of their accounts? Were the both of them so desperate for a job that they just barged in Leonard's office? If they wanted to Leonard into one of their kind, why him of all people?

It is all a mystery! As for Leonard's fate, whether he jumps out of the window to escape, whether he bends over and let them turn into a grotesque female figure or whether Shiki Nogami and his comrades save the day with their canisters of liquid nitrogen and their hammer collection, this story doesn't tell.

What is more important however is the moral of the story:

Holy Shit. I'm sorry but I just about died laughing.

The story goes on for a while, it's pretty descriptive and the build-up is slow, but that ending out of nowhere unexpectedly threw me for a loop.

I don't want to say too much and spoil it for the others, but bravo, sir.

...

I have a headache from all this laughing, I'll probably finish my own submission tomorrow (It's about 2/3 done).

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to comment on your submission, and I learned quite a bit!

I might consider giving you a prize if you can tell me the things I parodied in that entry. This entry cannot be possible if I didn't take part in a Skype chat with an acquaintance of mine.

Sorry but I'm not well-versed enough in culture, literature or media to answer that...

I know I'm disappointing but hopefully my entry is less so T_T.

I am sure you can recognise the picture I attached to my entry as that of Saya of Uta. This entry parodies that. I have included references to other subject matters too. Will not reveal too much for now.

https://www.fakku.net/forums/writing-and-fanfiction/summer-contest-entry-2016-blizzards-before-august

James was a man who is a product of his times. He is a bright and young bachelor, living by himself in a rather spacious apartment and is currently on a sabbatical of sorts to enrich himself with a university course. This is of course a tactful way of saying that he is living hand to mouth with no girlfriend let alone fiancée in a poorly maintained rented apartment after taking on huge amounts of debt to finance his studies at a university for a degree of questionable value in the job market.

He worked for a pittance in a part time job while managing schoolwork. However, since, he is unwilling or unable to set aside time for housekeeping, his home resembled something that one sees in a warzone with clothes carelessly strewn, papers littered all over the floor with the occasional vermin darting to and fro. It was not the best of circumstances but James managed to keep his sanity by ironically harbouring self-delusions of him leading the life of that object of adoration, the eligible and sort after bachelor. It was not desirable but he managed until that very fateful day in which the story will go into detail.

It all started when James woke up to the sound of a barely functional television set that was tucked in the corner of his apartment, featuring a newsreader who said the following:

"This August saw the highest global average temperatures ever since records begun. Scientists say that should the trend of ever rising temperatures continue, in less than one decade, farmers will be put out of jobs due to bumper crops decimating food prices, seal populations will drop due to thinning ice encouraging polar bear predation, textile industries will be badly hit due to staggering drops in demand of winter clothing and healthcare conglomerates will risk collapse due to a lack of illnesses brought about by the cold.

In other news, the searing August heat has sent hordes of refugees thronging the already crowded beaches. Residents living near beachfronts all over the country have expressed apprehension over the scantily clad arrivals..."

Just as the first sound he heard was the reading of the news on the television, the first action he took that fateful day was an almighty yank of the power cable that connected the television to the power source. These were followed by the first words he uttered for the day which were,

"Bloody right wing propaganda..."

James was rightly sceptical of what he heard on the news for he wasn't enjoying a warm and pleasant summer, he wasn't even chafing under the summer heat. Instead his body was convulsed an unseasonal cold spell made all the worse by the fact that he was dressed for the summer.

With his arms and legs quivering involuntarily due to the sheer cold, he stared intently at the thermostat for a few minutes which of course showed very low temperatures and then he opened the dust caked curtains only to find that the windows were covered in frost. If James thought that by doing so, he would be reassured that his sensory faculties are not out of order, he'd be right and relieved. If James thought that by doing so, the weather would revert back to normal, he'd be wrong and delusional. Either way, the more he stared at thermostats and frosty windows the more he was convinced that winter had come and that he would be badly screwed.

This crisis of sorts was accentuated by the fact that he had little money on him and that his friends and family were physically rather far away from him now. This of course made it quite difficult for him to seek help from others.

James can of course choose to help himself but there were a few impediments. First, he attempted to leave the apartment only to find out that the winds were strong and it was snowing. Second and rather damning for James, was that despite the amount of rent he had to pay, the heating appliances in his apartment weren't functioning. Third and perhaps most important of all, James, to be very polite, was not the proactive type who can brave snowfalls and think of ways to keep himself warm that do not involve electrical appliances.

This left James in quite a conundrum and he could have been on the way to a mental breakdown if not for the television, his mobile phone and his laptop, these devices to which men and women of this age look to for spiritual solace. James could at least reach out to people he knew and source for information pertaining to his wintry predicament.

He reattached the plug for his television set as quickly as he pulled it out a short while ago only to be treated to yet more dry news,

"An unseasonal cold snap is paralysing parts of the country due to cold winds blowing from the warming Arctic. Scientists are unsure how long the cold snap will last with projections lasting from a few days to a few weeks. They are however certain that this is caused by increasing global temperatures worldwide..."

James, who was rather dismissive of the news moments ago, took this report rather seriously. Waiting for the cold snap to go away and for normal summer weather to return is not an option for him now seeing that it might last a few days if he is lucky or a several if he wasn't. Either way, it was a death sentence of sorts. Yet, like any patient who is diagnosed with AIDS or any other terminal disease, James decided to seek a second opinion, this time from his laptop, searching for news from 'alternate news sites' and internet fora, those bastions of unquestionable truth for men and women of this age. He went to a few sites and read a few articles pertaining to the weather (or climate) conditions over at his place. Here are a few explanations that were noteworthy but not for reasons a sane and rational man might think:

1. Contrails are used to increase the concentration of aerosol like gases that will cool the atmosphere thereby lowering temperatures. This might explain the frequency of fighter jets whizzing across the sky spewing their climate cooling gases in the process.

2. State of the art weather machines are discreetly installed at locations around the city. Supposedly, these machines are able to create what is known as a 'endothermic reverse heat island effect' which lower temperatures city wide. The technology behind these weather machines are so 'state of the art' that even conspiracy theory websites have difficulty concocting the mechanism behind the 'endothermic reverse heat island effect'.

Here are a few suggestions about why the forces that be want such weather (or climate) conditions:

1. Malthusian and Darwinian conspiracy to freeze part of the population to death thereby saving the Earth and eliminating persons who cannot stand a bit of cold from passing their genes down to future generations. The government would not need to dole out that many pensions and they could balance their budgetary deficits from a hike in death taxes.

2. The insurance oligarchy seeking to eliminate competition from smaller insurance firms by creating extreme weather conditions that result in lots of illnesses, deaths and even more claims. These claims would of course bankrupt their competitors and in the dearth of competition, the insurance oligarchy can raise premiums that will be imposed on a gullible public who thinks that buying more insurance would mean more security for them.

3. A sinister circle of those from the baby boomer generation, colluding with the insurance oligarchy, to take advantage of the deaths of their parents who are from the supposedly "Greatest Generation" but not great enough to survive the cold once they turn old and decrepit and their "Generation Snowflake" millennial children who ironically are more likely to die in a blizzard or a cold snap than those from the "Greatest Generation".

4. The government wishes to build a large natural reserve and amusement theme park called "Winterland" around the around where James lived. This natural reserve will be home to flora and fauna that tend to inhabit the tundra. By bringing the permafrost further south from the Arctic Circle, the government hopes to reel in dollars from masochistic tourists who want to experience sub zero temperatures all year round.

Reading that warmed the cockles of James's heart that prior to this, was slowly sinking into despair. He laughed, laughed and laughed till he developed a very bad cough. Nonetheless, all of that exertion made James forget about the cold and lulled him into a false sense of security that everything will be alright.

"All of these stories in the media are scare stories. Cold snaps don't last for that long and no one can come up with something that contrived to earn money or 'save the Planet'", James thought to himself as he huddled in the corner and shut his eyes in an attempt to go back to sleep though he just woke up hours ago.

Days later, many people died due to the cold snap. However since it happens more or less every year, the media and indeed the general public paid little attention to it.

Weeks later, James's parents were cashing in from the insurance money paid out due to an Act of God which saw James's parents being one son poorer and hundreds of thousands of dollars richer.

Months later, the country enjoyed a short term economic boom brought about by increased economic activity in mortuaries, funeral parlours, insurance companies and hospitals. The government is optimistic that in the years to come, the deficit will narrow due to the drop in welfare and pension payouts.

Years later, the neighbourhood James lived in was turned into a ghost town due to the sheer cold and the permafrost conditions. This was when plans to start a nature reserve at the site where James lived came into being.


This has been a segment of the Conspiracy Theory Show sponsored by impressionable viewers like you.





Ascertain the situation
Hope it all goes away
Learn why is it happening
i. Climate change
ii. Government conspiracy
iii. Weather machine
Find a solution yourself through the internet or the television
a. Getting more clothes
b. Lighting a fire
c. Releasing smoke into the air in the hope that it traps the air.
Leave the house to be your friends / Get help

New Brave World

Once upon a time, enrolling in a good school, obtaining good grades, using those good grades to land in a good job, using the money earned from that good job to marry a good spouse and using that good spouse to raise and nurture a good progeny figured into the ambitions of many a man and woman.

That was for reasons good or bad, no longer the case for the protagonist and his contemporaries of this story. He would have been brought up to be indoctrinated to speak, think and act in the way and manner of the whoever is writing the syllabi in the schools run by the powers that be. At least he needn’t bother to look for a job after leaving school for he is allocated a job by the powers that be. The same goes for his spouse of the same gender (and sex) and he is looking forward to that red-letter day when the powers that be hand him a child that he and his spouse would adopt.

The curious nature of the world our protagonist is in is best exemplified by his name. Long gone were the days when names were meaningful. Instead our protagonist had to make do with an alphanumeric code that starts with the three numerals, 267. 267 deluded himself with the lie made by the powers that be that name of his, though utterly devoid of meaning, was unique and it facilitated identification. It was a world that absolved itself of personal choice choosing instead to conform and defer to the whims and fancies of the distant and shadowy figures that ran that world.

Being brought up in such a world, 267 thought it all natural and that anything that ran contrary to it is not only unorthodox but perverse. That was until he met a certain person who lived at a time long ago when enrolling in a good school, obtaining good grades, landing in a good job, marrying good spouses and nurturing a good progeny weren’t considered matters that are unorthodox and perverse.

It all started during one fine and utterly mundane day, at least from 267’s vantage, when he, at the behest of his faceless masters, made a living working on cryogenically frozen humanoids in a facility not so dissimilar to an assembly line of a factory. In 267’s time, these cryogenically frozen humanoids storage facilities have become commonplace and nearly indispensable. While 267 personally found frozen people who are very likely decades older than him aesthetically appealing, there weren’t ornamental. In an age where matrimonial union means marrying and then bonking someone of the same sex, intersex or anyone other than someone of the opposite sex, it was not possible for offspring to be conceived naturally. This was where those frozen bodies come in.

267 had to harvest the seed from the frozen gonads of the frozen bodies. The seed would then be implanted into wombs belonging to women whose brains are cryogenically frozen whereby gestation would take place. Occasionally 267 had to play the role of a midwife by yanking the baby’s head out from the orifice of half dead women before freezing the body again to preserve it. The child will be allocated sometimes by ballot, sometimes by decree from God-knows-who to a undoubtedly well deserving model family helmed by a transsexual and its loving hermaphrodite of a spouse.

That fateful day befell on 267 when he accidentally thawed one of the bodies.
The man, called Charlie, asked why the strange familial arrangement. He hated the people being frozen so he was okay with it.
267 explained that men cannot get along with women since they are biological and psychologically different.

It is decreed that childbearing violates basic human rights for it subjects the woman to so much pain and suffering.

Sex changes were offered to those who feel uneasy being in a certain sex.

Drugs were used to suppress sexual urges because sexual urges were the cause of rape, which were once upon a time very endemic.

Marriage as a union between a man and a woman is a ticket to a world of physical and mental torture. It is a gross violation of human rights and therefore it is outlawed.

Childbirth too

Charlie and its name
Location and nature of facility
Sexual revolution. Marriage revolution. Why families ought to have parents of same sex.
Childbirth is a violation of human rights
Requests his semen. Charlie was made to pleasure himself in front of a capsule
Charlie took drugs and discovered they removed sexual libido.
Reminds me of Amway. They make you take drugs and herbal supplements you needn’t consume. The drug company is founded by the morality is a lie guy?
Marriage is about social security



Charlie wanted to know what sort of world he is in. So he agreed to exchange his semen for information. He learnt and became involved in borderline philosophical discussions with 267



That fateful day befell on 267 when he accidentally thawed one of the bodies in a power outage.
The man, called Charlie, asked why the strange familial arrangement. He hated the people being frozen so he was okay with it.
267 explained that men cannot get along with women since they are biological and psychologically different.

It is decreed that childbearing violates basic human rights for it subjects the woman to so much pain and suffering.

Sex changes were offered to those who feel uneasy being in a certain sex.

Drugs were used to suppress sexual urges because sexual urges were the cause of rape, which were once upon a time very endemic.
Charlie locked 267 up in the basement
with tubes carrying glucose, synthetic hormones, nutrients and what not going in, and their tubes carrying waste products, urine, faecal matter and what not going out, .
[10:50:26 PM] Charlie: Try making it two men or two women model families as the government way of preventing "marital rape"
[10:50:50 PM] Mengming Soh: That is what I have in mind
[10:51:05 PM] Mengming Soh: Men and women cannot be together because of biological and psychological differences
[10:51:29 PM] Mengming Soh: Childbirth is a violation of human rights because it subjects the woman to the burden of carrying a child
[10:51:31 PM] Charlie: There is nothing more idiotic that I've heard since "marital rape"
[10:51:48 PM] Mengming Soh: Better let CO2 hear that
[10:52:02 PM] Mengming Soh: Abusive husbands don't rape their wives I suppose
[10:52:30 PM] Charlie: Mengming Soh - Today 9:51 AM
> Childbirth is a violation of human rights because it subjects the woman to the burden of carrying a child

Then there will be a woman on tv saying "oh, I choose not to be mainstream and have the baby inside of me"
[10:52:46 PM] Mengming Soh: The best is to have a transsexual family. The concept of gender is completely absolved.
[10:52:54 PM] Mengming Soh: Gender fluidity will become a reality
[10:53:03 PM] Mengming Soh: And not determined by sex and biology
[10:53:05 PM] Charlie: Mengming Soh - Today 9:52 AM
> Abusive husbands don't rape their wives I suppose
When they stay with the abusive man rather than leave- they are asking for it
[10:53:38 PM] Mengming Soh: I suppose being raped by their husbands might be the last straw
[10:53:42 PM] Charlie: Sorry but transexuals and family don't combine in my head
[10:53:51 PM] Charlie: It's similar to an oxymoron
[10:53:56 PM] Mengming Soh: Exactly!
[10:54:07 PM] Mengming Soh: This is why I included it in the story

New Brave World

Once upon a time, enrolling in a good school, obtaining good grades, using those good grades to land in a good job, using the money earned from that good job to marry a good spouse and using that good spouse to raise and nurture a good progeny figured into the ambitions of many a man and woman.

That was for reasons good or bad, no longer the case for the protagonist and his contemporaries of this story. The curious nature of the world our protagonist is in is best exemplified by his name. Long gone were the days when names were meaningful. Instead our protagonist had to make do with an alphanumeric code that starts with the three numerals, 267. 267 deluded himself with the lie made by the powers that be that name of his, though utterly devoid of meaning, was unique and it facilitated identification. It was a world that absolved itself of personal choice choosing instead to conform and defer to the whims and fancies of the distant and shadowy figures that ran that world.

Being brought up in such a world, 267 thought it all natural and that anything that ran contrary to it is not only unorthodox but perverse. That was until he met a certain person who lived at a time long ago when enrolling in a good school, obtaining good grades, landing in a good job, marrying good spouses and nurturing a good progeny weren’t considered matters that are unorthodox and perverse.

It all started on one fine and utterly mundane day, at least from 267’s point of view, where he, at the behest of his faceless masters, worked with cryogenically frozen humanoids in a facility not so dissimilar to an assembly line of a factory. In 267’s time, these cryogenically frozen humanoids storage facilities have become commonplace and nearly indispensable. In an age where matrimonial union means marrying and then bonking someone of the same sex, intersex or anyone other than someone of the opposite sex, it was not possible for offspring to be conceived naturally. This was where those frozen bodies come in.

267 had to harvest the seed from the frozen gonads of the frozen bodies. The seed would then be implanted into wombs belonging to women whose brains are cryogenically frozen whereby gestation would take place. Occasionally 267 had to play the role of a midwife by yanking the baby’s head out from the orifice of as good as dead women before freezing the rest of the body to preserve it. The child will be allocated sometimes by ballot, sometimes by decree from God-knows-who to an undoubtedly well deserving model family helmed by a transsexual and its loving hermaphrodite of a spouse. 267 fancied himself doing God’s work and so felt immense pride never mind that people in the past might consider that as Satan’s work and one of unspeakable shame.

As 267 was minding the capsules that housed those frozen bodies with tubes carrying glucose, synthetic hormones, nutrients and what not going in, and tubes carrying waste products, urine, faecal matter and what not going out, and making sure that these bodies are alive enough to be undergo that near endless cycle of exploitation, a power outage occurred. The capsules are running on backup power all 267 had to do is to make sure that the bodies are in good and exploitable condition. This was done by looking at handheld monitors that displayed information pertaining to those frozen bodies that 267 thought were infallibly correct.

They weren’t.

Unbeknownst to 267, one of the capsules begun to malfunction. Instead of keeping the body within in it in stasis, the capsule for some reason begun to reanimate the body within it. By the time 267 bothered to conduct a visual inspection of the capsules, it was already too late. The once frozen body was now a thawed-out man who somehow managed to remove the tubes and devices that were attached to him and crawl out of his capsule that was long his prison.

Upon laying his eyes on that man, he felt a mix of wonder and trepidation. Wonder because it is not an everyday occurrence for 267 to see frozen men, thawed out and leaving their capsules. Trepidation because he is approaching a man who is stark naked. That man wasn’t remarkably dashing or remarkably remarkable. He was of average height, slightly rotund with a fat and square face, crowned with a head of dark hair that appeared thin due to his large face, had a layer of blubber not too thick nor too thin around his waist and thighs with a rather small manhood to go with that unimpressive frame.

267 thought he might be descended from the natives of the Iberian Peninsula who migrated to the Americas very long ago. In the past, the word “Hispanic” would suffice as a description but in 267’s day and age, labelling him with anything that describes his race and ethnicity is considered criminal discrimination that could rupture social cohesion and create irreparable division.

“You have never seen a white Hispanic before?!”

To utter such uncouth words that described both his skin colour and his heritage was heresy of the highest order. Notwithstanding the size of his manhood, 267 thought that he must be a very daring man. He felt like screaming for help and wished to see him carted off and bludgeoned to death. The more rational portions of his faculties knew that if he sounded the alarm he might be held accountable for his cock-up of managing the capsules. Ration prevailed and 267 decided to stick with his original plan of communicating with him.

“No, sir. I have many friends who were descended from the natives of the Iberian Peninsula who migrated to the Americas many years ago. I was wondering if you could return to the capsule which you just emerged…”

“You talk weird. Who are you? Where am I? The last thing I remembered was getting a heart attack after trying to bang some Bangladeshi hoe. Not exactly the best hoe I banged with her being fat and all but she had the meat at all the right places and she ain’t got STDs! It is value for my money! Why am I here? Is that some kind of hospital?”, came the response.

That left 267 at a loss of words. Listening to him was quite alike a modern man meeting a man from antiquity or in this context, the Stone Age. It is nigh impossible for him to fully understand what a man from the past is trying to say for their manners of speech and the words use were moribund if not completely alien.

What is a †˜hoe’ and why is he †˜banging’ it? In what world does a person violently pound a piece of farming equipment? What the obsession of meat and what does he mean by the †˜right places’? How can hoes have meat on it to begin with? What is a STD by the way? Is it sexually transmitted diseases? If so, how quaint! Sex is abolished years ago ever since the invention of the facilities that artificially produce humans of which 267 is working in.

“I am asking too many questions. Let’s go one by one. My name is Charlie. Who are you?”. Charlie, the thawed-out man, must have sensed 267’s discomfort and chose to use a different approach of interrogation.
So the exchange continued with saw 267’s apprehension towards Charlie change into curiosity and wonder. Here were the minutes of that exchange:

1. Charlie asked for 267’s name. 2674r1no5l came the answer. Charlie who was the product of a more sensible time laughed at that name. “Did they name you after a robot?!”, exclaimed Charlie. A slightly irritated 267 retorted that this name is special since it is unique to none but him.

“But you are named after a robot! You are named after nonsense! I was named after an English king, you know. I think I would be proud of that! Proper names better make sense to people. I know Chinks and celebrities in my day call themselves weird names like Alien Wang and Sage Moonblood. That is why most of them are serial killers or locked up in the madhouse.”, countered Charlie.

To that, 267 had no retort other than silently thinking to himself that there are no English kings called “Charlie” but there were 3 English kings called Charles. One had his head lopped off. The other was kicked around like a ball in a game of 17th century political football while the last was responsible for bringing an end to the English monarchy. It is not flattering to be named after King Charles to put it mildly.


2. Charlie then asked where he was. 267 explained the child producing nature of this facility, his voice brimming with pride as he launched into a needlessly detailed explanation of how he gleans bodily fluids and used half dead bodies as incubators.

“That is some f***ed up sh** you have there!”, swore a very expectedly disgusted Charlie. “What happened to these people in these capsules?!” Charlie stormed to the other capsules and tried to peer into them despite 267 trying to stop him. Just as 267 was dreading the possibility that Charlie would forcibly pry open the capsules, Charlie calmed down all of a sudden.
“Meh… I know these people. They are criminals, losers and the scum of the earth. Keep them in there! Anyways, it offends me that everyone in this messed up world is made up of their semen. Why can’t we go back to good old fashioned f***ing?” Charlie’s question, which 267 found incredibly old fashioned ironically, lead to another exchange with 267 doing most of the speaking and Charlie making short and brief interjections which each one sounding angrier and more incredulous than the previous.

3. 267 expressed opposition against †˜good old fashioned f***ing”, much of it based on what he learnt by rote at school. Sex is revolting. The rubbing of genitalia, the insertion of appendages into various orifices, the vile and repelling smells and sounds that come with it and most of all the ugly and misshapen phalluses and vulvas are all sensory stimuli that strike the heart with utmost revulsion. Why the ancients were so enthralled by varicose and pulsating meat rods and dank and putrid smelling holes was beyond 267.

There were other problems too like the health risks involved since the genitalia are responsible for discharging waste products produced by the body also known as sh*t and piss. The risk of diseases being transmitted through sex was very real also.

Even worse was the courtship rituals that last for months if not years where both sexes try to coax and cajole each other into bonking each other. What a waste of time, effort and money, especially if one party, usually the fairer sex, decides to end the courtship ritual without getting to the bonking!

Before the creation of the facilities similar to the one 267 worked in, there have been calls to legalise coercive copulation, known colloquially as rape and forced marriage. Fortunately, with the advent of breeding technologies that removed the need for humans to copulate, that didn’t come to pass and so sex was abolished. Charlie wasn’t that impressed though.

“Chicks don’t like dicks and dudes don’t like pussy?! What on earth is this world coming to? Is everyone a faggot and a dyke?!” This lead to 267 lecturing Charlie on why marriage cannot be between a man and a woman.


4. “Everyone is a faggot and a dyke! They marry each other! Marriage can only be between a man and anyone other than a woman!” That was how 267 started his lecture, paying little attention to Charlie’s raised eyebrows and widening eyes which seemed to be very near to leaving its sockets.

There are undeniable biological differences between the sexes. It is a fact that people in general tend to get along easier with persons of their own sex. In the dark and backward days of the past, marriage between man and woman have resulted in immense suffering for both parties. The man is expected to invest and devote many hours of the day labouring and playing the breadwinner. The woman is expected to be a prisoner in her own home, minding the affairs of the house.

The world of physical and mental torture that marriage places a man and a woman in, reaches its dreaded climax at childbirth. Having a baby’s head the size of a large fist splitting open the cervix and emerging from the vulva subjects the woman to a pain worse than fisting. Having the man watch the head emerge from that hole between the woman’s legs is much more traumatic than whatever the woman is going through. Not to mention that he has to put up with the mood swings and tantrums the woman throws.

Is it not manifestly clear that a union between a man and a woman presents a gross violation of human rights? Is it not then ethical to decree that marriage should only be with a partner who isn’t of the opposite sex? Marriage shouldn’t be about childbirth, let the stasis chambers take care of that. Marriage ought to be a social security net exclusively for homosexual, transsexual and intersex couples. They can take care of each other and enjoy tax relief without the burden of putting up with someone biologically different!

5. “IS EVERYONE ON DRUGS ON THIS GOD-FORSAKEN PLANET?” yelled Charlie?
267, as straight-faced as ever, matter-of-factly tried to say, “Ye-“, before he was cut off by a reasonably irate Charlie, who then grabbed him by the cuffs of the shirt.
“Not sure if you are nuts, but if don’t want to get your arse kicked, start by giving me something to eat.”
He tried to fight back but despite being of roughly the same build as 267, Charlie’s strength perplexingly overwhelmed his. This brought the exchange to a rather brutal end.

Under duress, he found himself leading Charlie to where he had meals. Instead of a cafeteria or a canteen, what Charlie saw instead was what seemed to be vending machines which dispensed tablets and edible capsules. Were these the drugs 267 spoke about?

Charlie who was more used to traditional food like mashed potatoes on a plate with a side of admittedly bitter vegetables and flakes of shredded meat responded with a scrunched-up face and gave a very succinct response that conveyed much more than a long and winding speech,

“Yuck!”

267, quite hurt from Charlie being dismissive of his way of life that he thought was perfect and flawless and more hurt from having his pants removed, tried to explain to Charlie that consuming pharmaceuticals is completely normal in a long and winding speech:

“These tablets and pills are what I take for food for as long as I can remember. I understand that we once used to eat food by stripping and killing vegetation and carcasses. A bit barbaric don’t you think? Tablets and pills are much more convenient and civilised, don’t you agree? These are fortified with very important anti-depressants, suppressants and expectorants.


“People used to be angry when provoked or happy when someone compliments them. I am not against being angry or happy but these emotions are problematic when it comes to work. The food I eat plays a very important role in keeping me calm and in a daze so that I can perform well at work without the hindrance of mood swings.

“I have heard that sexual violence was a huge problem in the past like men making unwanted advances like complimenting women on their looks. You might be glad to know that with the advent of these tablets, sexual violence and rape was more or less eradicated-“

267 was then cut off again by Charlie who responded with,


“ARE YOU SAYING THAT MY DICK WILL GO LIMP AND I LIKE WOMEN NO MORE AFTER TAKING THESE DAMNED PILLS?!”

It wasn’t only one’s sex drive and drive in general that those pills took away. A constant diet of these pills must have made him physically weak also. To a person in a world with minds less addled with drugs, he might wonder if this is an elaborate arrangement by the powers that be to dull the minds and weaken the bodies of the populace, making them pliant and submissive to the whims and fancies of their rulers. That initially didn’t cross Charlie’s mind of course having to learn on what had to come pass on matters pertaining to sexual relations and the coerced consumption of drugs. At least not until 267 responded to Charlie’s exclamation at taking the antithesis of a sex enhancement pill,

“Countless people have been consuming these James Push pills without incident. I dare suggest that James Push is the most important inventor and entrepreneur in recent times.” 267 proceeded to show him a dollar bill that featured Push’s face. Yet once more, Charlie reacted in a way that cannot possibly be described as calm and composed,

“JAMES PUSH?! THAT RUSKIE DRUG PUSHER WHO PRETENDS TO WORK IN A WAREHOUSE?!”

On the face of that bill was a portrait of an older, more wizened and more corpulent James Push than the one Charlie recognised. Yet that dopey grin and those dazed baby blue eyes were the same as ever to Charlie. Before Charlie ended up in that stasis chamber, Push was indeed in a tough spot, being a man of humble origins who dealt with drugs as a means to supplement his income. Faced with ever higher rents to pay and ever more expensive bills to foot, made worse with his intransigence against finding a roommate and cutting down on needless expenses, he looked to selling illicit drugs, recreational and otherwise to supplement his income.

It might have been the trauma he experienced after Charlie’s apparent death by heart attack that lead him to realise that he should make the best of his life earning as much money as possible. It might have been Charlie’s suggestions that he is better off selling drugs illegally since such transactions aren’t taxed. It also might have been Charlie’s bad influence that have lead him to think that he needn’t take responsibility for the consequences for his actions. Whatever it may be, Push decided to devote his life to selling drugs.

Push surprisingly had the business acumen to profit as much as possible from selling drugs and soon rose to first become a high ranking member of the underworld that marketed drugs, be it recreational narcotics or pharmaceuticals. With his wealth and business contacts, he started a legal business that among many other things which also dealt with drugs. The very powerful and terrible mix of nihilism and drive pushed Push to expand his business into a powerful conglomerate with political lobbying power.

As avaricious as ever, he ironically lobbied for drugs to be made legal to indirectly eliminate competition through taxation. He prevailed under a government too eager for another source of revenue. As if having a monopoly over drugs isn’t enough, he started to come up with plans make everyone consume them like health supplements. This was when the soon to be ubiquitous James Push pill was invented and foisted on the population. 267 might not be familiar with the identities of those holding political power but he is certain that Push was one of them.

“With mad ranting James is running the country, no wonder we are screwed! Hey, 2674r, or whatever your robot name is, I am feeling quite depressed. Do you think you can put me back in that contraption of yours? I think I would rather have you extract my c*m for eternity then to live in a world where James is in charge.”

267 hesitated. Hours ago, he would have happily complied, yet now he found himself in admiration of Charlie for some unfathomable reason. Other than the seemingly superhuman strength, Charlie appeared to have something that 267 lacked. As taken aback by how dismissive Charlie was about the seemingly perfect life 267 believed himself to be leading, it seemed as if Charlie knew something he didn’t. Was the world in the past actually better than it is in the present?

Nonetheless, he agreed once more to Charlie’s demands and started to lead him back to the stasis chamber. As they slowly made their way, they passed by stasis chambers. Charlie looked around in what could be his final glance at the world and what it has become. He suddenly stopped. Charlie locked his eyes at a stasis chamber that housed the body of a lady that bore South Asian features.

“Isn’t that the Bangladeshi hoe I banged before I passed out and woke up in James Push land? Oh boy, just look at that beauty! What on earth is she doing here?!”

267, likewise, locked eyes with that capsule and an emotion that he has never felt before gripped him. He originally felt disgust towards the more interesting features of the human body but for the first time, the swollen chest, hips and thighs and whatever that was between her legs, appeared to be strangely alluring to him. He felt something stir between his legs too. He took a glance at Charlie (who was still without a shred of clothing) and lo and behold, that thing between Charlie’s legs stuck out of the mass of pubic hair, small but noticeable.

Why was the prostitute here in the stasis chamber with Charlie? Why was Charlie and countless placed inside the stasis chamber in the first place? Most importantly, why this strange attraction that lead to the stirring between 267’s legs? Could he have the answers to these questions if he opened that stasis chamber?

“Man, I don’t want to go to any James Push contraption no more. I want to finish the business I started!” Charlie exclaimed, apparently feeling lust in his heart.

“You look excited, eh, 26-whatever? I don’t get why people in James Push land want men to marry men and women to marry women and freaks to marry freaks. Screw those differences between man and woman! You have your hands, you have your whatever, you are a man, do the right thing! You go open that contraption and I will teach you good old fashioned f***ing and all the things that come after that. Worked well for everyone and no one has to be locked up to have their c*m extracted.”

Charlie’s powers of suggestion must have caused 267 to feel lust which the James Push pills artificially suppressed. Now those powers will overwhelm 267’s commitment to the facility he worked in. However, this did not mean that 267 was willing to become Charlie’s puppet. Instead of freeing that Bangladeshi prostitute, he proceeded to open the stasis chamber next to hers.

“Mister Charlie, I know how to open these contraptions. I am sure the both of us would like to know how these people ended up in these stasis chambers. Could we settle for that chamber instead? The person inside looks more trustworthy.”

Now the tables are turned. Before it was Charlie calling the shots now it was 267. If he wished to be continue unfinished business with the Bangladeshi prostitute, he would have to comply with 267 demands. As much as Charlie wanted to yell out,
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
having been c*ckblocked and blueb*lled by 267, he too wished to know more about the circumstances of how he ended up in the stasis chamber and half-reluctantly acquiesced.

The persons within the stasis chamber were released one by one but not before being interrogated and treated to one of 267’s lectures on what the world has become as they were kept in stasis. With a few inducements like the promise of food and clothes, turning the world back to the way it is and having the opportunity to bonk some Bangladeshi prostitutes, they agreed to cooperate with 267 and Charlie. Those that didn’t after interrogation were knocked out and returned to the stasis chambers.

The first few people released from the stasis chambers were indeed acquaintances of Charlie who were petty criminals, vagrants and people who weren’t exactly on top of the social ladder. When asked what were the last moments they remembered before being locked up in those chambers, they replied that they were either having near death experiences like having a stroke or on the verge of freezing to death, or that they were very sinisterly knocked out.

It was noteworthy that quite a number of those who were released from their stasis chambers mentioned that their last moments were that of suicide therapy or gatherings to prepare for mass suicide. However, what alarmed 267 was the growing number of those people he and Charlie interviewed who claimed that they voiced dissent and concerns about things like the abolition of sex, the mandatory unions between anyone who was not of the opposite gender and the James Push pill. They were as many others, mysteriously knocked out while minding their own business on some fine day.

It was very clear to 267 that everything was orchestrated by the powers that be. They first took out criminal elements, took advantage of those who wanted to commit suicide and finally dealt with political dissidents (or people with common sense). All of them were sent to the stasis chambers where there served as the tools to realise the utopia of a world free from having names that had meaning, the horrors of childbirth and unions between opposite sexes. The powers that be will be the puppet masters of that utopia using the allocation of offspring to control the masses and the James Push pills to dull their minds.

It wasn’t clear who were the powers that be that were responsible for the stasis chambers. It could not have been James Push himself according to Charlie since he was most certainly at the bottom rung of the social ladder when Charlie was sent to the stasis chambers.

New Brave World: An Appendix (May Include Romance)

Here is the tale of that hero who came from long ago
Of whom fate has thrusted him to overthrow
The transsexual druglord sovereigns who imprisoned him so
In a stasis chamber after he banged a hoe
Where did he muster the courage to go
And vanquish his sexually confused and drug addled foes?
The answer lies in what his heart knows
Of the strong passion he felt towards that banged hoe.

Before being cast into that epic struggle against the evil and twisted powers that ruled his world, our hero who calls himself Charlie was very much mundane and unobtrusive. He lived in parlous conditions, worked many low paying jobs while going overbudget by spending money on needless things like dogs and other high maintenance pets.

Understandably, he felt a little down, quite tired and a little suicidal. He needed companionship, entertainment and mental stability.

Could his best friend, James Push, the ever-unambitious small time drug dealer who pretends to working in a warehouse, provide that? No, he was an awful companion who could only contribute Charlie’s worsening mental health. Charlie saw himself as proud heterosexual too so James wasn’t that entertaining when it comes to entertaining bedroom activities.

Could his dog and other pets provide that? No! As down on his luck as Charlie was, as a proud member of the human race, he wasn’t into bestiality! Woe be on the one who thinks animals can provide any sort of mental stability and proper companionship!

That was when he realised that no man is complete until he is with his other half and off he went to further compromise his mental well-being further by attempting to court women who tended to be educated and richer than him. Needless to say, that didn’t go well. A number of rejections have wounded Charlie’s already low self-esteem and that led him to commit that act that is so emblematic of someone in the depths of despair and desperation – employing the services of a whore.

Strangely enough, one of those whores who would become the love of his life and the wind beneath his wings that spurred him to do the heroic deeds that he would be known for.
Stranger still, before Charlie decided to get to the action so to speak, they struck an hour-long conversation where they learnt much of each other from each other. She shared similar frustrations as him, namely being poor, and in need of company and a psychiatrist. Charlie came to the conclusion that sleeping with whores is a good way to cope while she thought that whoring around is a good way to cope.

When he entered her, Charlie knew that they were made from each other and that he was on the verge of attaining self-actualisation. Yet, tragedy struck, as too often it happens in epics like these when cruel fate strikes right at the very moment when our heroes are at their happiest.

Shadowy figures begun descending onto the ramshackle hostel room where they were intimate in. Like a pest controller fogging a bog infested with mosquitoes, they gassed the rooms of that hostel after knocking out the owner of that sorry establishment. Charlie was so steeped in ecstasy, he didn’t really notice that he had difficulties breathing and thought the reason he blacked out was because of a cardiac arrest owing to an orgasm.

These shadowy figures were agents of that evil power Charlie would come to struggle against. The face behind that power was a former academic and street agitator, now ambitious politician called Gleandon. Rumours were rife about her biological sex no doubt reinforced by her outlandish and bizarre teachings on black and white, right and wrong and man and woman when she was an academic. She fancied herself as an agent of fundamental change, seeking to implement what she taught on the world. And so, Charlie and his self-proclaimed lover were the amongst first victims of that push for fundamental change where they were deemed too poor and too mentally unstable that they had to be put down.

Being put down didn’t mean that they were put to sleep or killed. Their bodies would be used to realise Gleandon’s vision for the world. It was to be a sexless utopia where traditional gender roles would be switched, eliminated or changed beyond all recognition. Sexual desire would of course be suppressed and elaborate arrangements will be in place to make everyone accept that as the right order of things.

Centrepiece of this plan for fundamental change was these chambers where people were kept in stasis so that they could serve as a source of semen and provide wombs on demand to replace sexual reproduction altogether. This was where Charlie and his alleged lover were destined, the most tragic way to end a romance as soon it begun.

As Charlie remained in stasis, the foundations for Gleandon’s dystopia took form. Realising that no one in his or her right mind would follow through her plan unless they were on drugs, so that was what Gleandon decided to invest in. That was when James Push, one of Charlie’s more closer friends came into the grand scheme of things. Upset and unhinged from Charlie’s disappearance, he begun making a name for himself earning a lot of money from illicit activities mainly centred on selling drugs illegal or otherwise. Gleandon, by offering political support in exchange for his services, made James Push one of the architects of an opiate that was used to curb sexual desire and strong emotions known as the James Push pill. With the help of government agencies that purportedly ensure food safety, this pill would become a daily staple mixed in with food that is consumed by everyone just like how the water that reaches the tap is chlorinated.

With the population drugged, Gleandon moved on to turn educational institutions from nurseries to institutions of higher learning into centres propagating her worldview. Dissent became dulled by drugs and drowned out by an orthodoxy these places of learning reinforced. Still, common sense and biology were very hard to suppress. To that, Gleandon responded by sending those people to stasis chambers not unlike what Charlie was sent to.

With little to no resistance left, Gleandon finally saw fit to transform society for good and indeed entrench her grip on power by tinkering with its most basic unit – the family. It seemed the best way to go about doing it is to simply forbid any matrimonial union between man and woman. Coupled with the human producing stasis chambers, population control was now under Gleandon’s control. If there were too many people, the chambers would produce less babies and vice versa. Control over the population was also under Gleandon’s control as most of the babies produced would be herded into state-run nurseries where they were indoctrinated. It didn’t help that very few married couples, now mostly in homosexual union, wanted to adopt children.

With reproduction, education, consumption, law enforcement and everything from womb to the grave finally under her control, she proclaimed herself victorious in her “physical struggle” against her enemies and she wished to turn to a “spiritual struggle” against God knows who. This coincided with the most sinister development of that fundamental transformation Gleandon so aspired to bring about. There were whispers, strangely tolerated, of how she dabbled in the occult and how she started to possess supernatural powers from shooting projectiles to summoning zombies.

To say that Charlie’s world turned from bad to worse was a very severe understatement. It was one thing to be poor in a rough world but quite another to have a madwoman to turn that world into a bizarre and sexless hell.

However, as if by divine intervention, as if the Hands of Fate ordained upon Charlie to right the wrongs Gleandon had inflicted on that sorry world, he was roused from his long slumber by a rather incompetent denizen of Gleandon’s dystopia who labelled himself by the incomprehensible name of 2674r1no5l who was easily manipulated into telling Charlie what had happened whilst to his world while he was in the stasis chamber.

Any man who learnt on what had come to pass on the world he once knew would be driven to delirium. The thought of returning to that long slumber in the chamber crossed Charlie’s mind until he saw that his self-proclaimed lover too was in that chamber. Like a dying flame rekindled, Charlie was gripped by a powerful determination to be with his lover, not in a sexless and sterilised world but in a raunchy and filthy one. It was no use freeing her from her imprisonment only to eke a living as deviants in a world that they considered deviant. That would only serve to endanger her. There can only be one solution, Charlie thought to himself. He needed to overthrow that new order.

What was it that is in love and passion that fuels men to move mountains? Charlie was certainly burning with these two strong emotions that only grew stronger when his thoughts and eyes turned to that stasis chamber containing the whore whom he fell in love with. He begun to think like a general which was impressive considering that he started out as a hoodlum living on the streets.

Overthrowing sitting governments is a herculean task. Moreover, if the existing order and way of life sits well with the population, how willing would they be to see it overthrown? If Gleandon came down hard on him, all would be for naught and he would never reunite with his self-proclaimed lover. Best start out small and keep a low profile while gathering sympathisers to Charlie’s cause and the resources he needed to launch that revolution.

Most of his sympathisers would come from people who were themselves imprisoned in these stasis chambers and were very likely against the new order imposed by Gleandon. As for food, Charlie first relied on the feeding tubes to the chambers then attempted to grow their own food or source for sustenance that were untainted by the brainwashing James Push pills. If anyone of those freed from the stasis chambers felt down or depressed, Charlie would show them to the stasis chambers containing either the bodies of their loved ones or some voluptuous woman that would light the fires in their heart as well as in their loins. It can be said that it is love that motivates them.

After hoarding up food, making makeshift weapons stored in makeshift caches, the next stage of the revolution would involve subverting the brainwashed population. Gleandon managed to do so by drugging the entire population and indoctrinating them since young so the reasonable counter would be to put them off drugs and infiltrate some of the institutions of learning.

All of that seemed to be a very tall order but strangely enough within less than two months, a lot of the facilities that housed stasis chambers and institutions of learning were under their control. Despite all of the narcotics, potions, black magic and what not used to control the minds of the populace, depriving people of families and indeed sex goes against human nature, especially the parts of it that wants to procreate and nurture their young.

Surely enough, there was some resistance. They sent inspectors to come down but the revolutionaries converted them to their cause. They threatened then cut off funding but the revolutionaries already are well stocked. Then, they finally sent in the army. This was a turning point of sorts for Charlie realised that Gleandon’s foot soldiers weren’t armed, mainly due to Gleandon’s distrust towards having armed forces armed! The foot soldiers themselves believed arms to be inherently evil too! Instead of shooting, they yelled slogans and threw all manners of projectiles but that only served to harass and not impede the advance of Charlie’s bullets into their skulls and revolution.


It was at that point when the rebellion realised that they can potentially sweep through the country and they had to do so quickly. Ineffectual as Gleandon’s forces might be, she still can counterattack should they decide to take their time. With the desire to free his lover from her imprisonment in his heart and indeed his loins and the masses rediscovering their innate desire to bonk, a country-wide uprising was achieved. Many refused to answer the calls to resist Charlie’s advances while those who did didn’t put much of a fight.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that it wasn’t long before they eventually reached the seat of power and the heart of Gleandon’s dystopia. As one might expect, it was there when the resistance was the fiercest. The guards were like zombies and walking corpses and their cries were as boring and monotonous as ever; it was there where Charlie’s forces realised that Gleandon was into black magic and necromancy; they had to fight put up with grotesque and mutilated reanimated corpses and skeletons as well as the creepy scrawls and talismans that adorned the already ugly palace that served as Gleandon’s seat of power.

That was not the most unsettling thing however. The source of Gleandon’s ability to animate corpses comes from devilish rituals where animal and human sacrifices whose blood and gore and death throes are offered up. Did the nurseries or the stasis chambers provided the human sacrifices? The rebels storming the building didn’t know but they were all the more determined to put an end to Gleandon’s grip on the world and indeed overthrow the order she imposed on it.

That uprising taught future scholars many things from the lengths a man would go for a woman trapped in a stasis chamber to the realisation that suppressing human nature does not make for societies that are self-sustaining. It also taught scholars that elaborate Satanic rituals are not very effective when then opponent is using projectile weapons as evidenced from Gleandon being brought down by a bullet as were her close associates like Charlie’s former friend, James Push.

These future scholars might also come up with encomia boring their future pupils on what Charlie’s revolt meant for humanity. As for Charlie, as has been said time and time again, it was a fruition of his efforts invested in that massive act of love for a prostitute by liberating the masses from that sexless dystopia. A liberated world where they could be allowed to be alone to experience sensual pleasures appeared to be in store for them.

Yet, tragedy befell again. As his tan-skinned and self-proclaimed lover embraced him in bodily union, tears brimming in her eyes for being freed, Charlie managed to take a very good look at her naked body and discovered that she is a he, a Bacha Bazi.

Quite understandably, Charlie decided that the world is saved but not for him. So, he is now looking over and protecting us in a stasis chamber. Be thankful.