Ian On The Red Dot

–

“You’re late, ” Da Ming shouted at Jessica as she reached for his bags.

“Why?”

“I had to do something, ” Jessica replied meekly. She walked to the car and opened the door for Da Ming. Da Ming got into the car, slamming the door behind him.

“Look, I’m not even asking for a reason, but you could at least make some effort to give a plausible excuse, ” Da Ming continued after Jessica got into the driver’s seat.

“I’m sorry. Traffic was bad, ” Jessica answered, biting her lips. If only he knew …

“Traffic is always bad. You should leave the house earlier.”

Jessica sighed. She did leave the house earlier today but Da Ming could not know what she had been doing, at least not yet.

“It is tardiness like this that resulted in you not amounting to anything. Do you want to live your life like that? Being nothing, ” Da Ming continued his abusive rant.

“I’m sorry Da Ming. I’m really trying my best.”

“Evidently, it isn’t good enough. For me, ” Da Ming punctuated the last sentence with a curse muttered under his breath.

The rest of the journey home continued in silence, silence that Jessica was grateful for.

–

Da Ming anxiously loaded the data from his iPhone to his computer. Today’s performance was an improvement from last week’s and he was curious to discover how he had performed against the rest.

“Damn it, ” Da Ming cursed when he saw the leaderboard. “Fifth. Damn it. I’m fifth.”

Standing at the door to Da Ming’s room, Jessica sighed. She wanted to give her son a hug, to tell him that everything was fine and that she loved him. But she couldn’t. A man does not get hugs from his mother.

Da Ming knew his mom was watching him though he was oblivious to the pain she was feeling. All he knew was that he was hungry and she wasn’t preparing his meal.

“I do need to eat, ” Da Ming said, without turning his head.

–

“Where is Jessica, ” asked his counsellor over Skype.

“In the kitchen preparing my meal, ” Da Ming answered. “Could we have this conversation with video, ” Da Ming asked tentatively.

There was a pause. Da Ming wondered if he had finally overstepped his boundaries with yet another request. He couldn’t help it. Melissa, his counsellor, was a beautiful lady and there was something about seeing her face, especially her smile, which was a balm to the pain he felt each day for not being good enough.

A window popped up on the screen. A request to start a video conversation. He accepted.

Melissa’s face appeared. Da Ming blushed.

“Your performance this week was better than last week’s but, ” Melissa paused, looking up from her screen, ” it still isn’t good enough. You have to improve more.”

“I know, ” Da Ming replied, looking down at his feet, ashamed to face the gaze of Melissa. He knew he had disappointed her.

“It isn’t about how well you do. It is about how much better you do compared to others. There can only be 1 champion. Do you want to be part of the group of many losers?”

“No, ” Da Ming answered meekly.

“You were 4th last week. Today, you’re 5th. That’s borderline acceptable. More weeks like this and you will be out of the top ten. Soon, you’ll be nothing.”

“I will do better, ” Da Ming looked up and replied defiantly, ” I will accept nothing less from myself.”

Melissa’s lips curled upwards slightly. “That’s good, ” she said in a soften tone, “How is Jesssica? Is she taking proper care of you? I’ve been looking at your dietary report. She seems to be feeding you less. Are you getting enough for your daily activities?”

“Yes I am. I don’t feel lethargic.”

“Good. We are assessing Jessica so your honest feedback is required. I have to go. Is there anything else you want to discuss?”

“No. Thanks for talking to me.”

—

After the video-call ended, Da Ming received a text on his gPhone.

“Calls with counsellors are monitored for service quality. Please enter a number from 1 to 10 to rate your counsellor.”

Da Ming replied with a 10. Seeing Melissa had comforted him.

—

Jessica measured carefully. She had been giving Da Ming less than the specified optimal amount of daily sugar intake for the last two weeks. As long as she didn’t go below the minimum amount of daily sugar intake, there would be no issues. In any case, she would soon be bringing up the monthly average in a few days time. That meal would overshoot the maximum allowed amount for daily sugar intake but it would be fine. The dietary specialists had made allowances for the rare deviation.

Besides, the forum seemed to indicate that all the mothers were doing it at least once a year. It was an open secret and the government had not taken any issue with this tip that had been posted to the forum.

Jessica sighed. Da Ming was growing up so fast. Soon he would pass that invisible threshold that marked a person from being someone with potential to an individual who will never realize his potential – a could-have-been that never was.

Family members would soon talk about Da Ming less glowingly. “He had so much potential as a child, ” they would say, shaking their heads, ” but look what happened to him. What a waste. He isn’t the best in anything.”

Jessica shuddered. The State would then add reproachfully, “It was the parents. It was their fault.”

“Where’s my dinner, ” Da Ming shouted from the dining room.

“Coming, ” Jessica replied, returning from her thoughts, leaving her worries behind. She had a meal to finish.

—

As Timothy walked into the house, his burdens were lifted. Jessica was always a sight to behold, especially when she tied her hair in a bun. He liked her hair that way. More than her looks, it was her love that gave peace to his heart. Just finally being in the same room with someone who loved him for everything, not just assessing his abilities and earning strength, but accepting all his faults.

More importantly, she was one of those rare ones, with a spirit that always saw hope even in the darkest of heartless non-leaderboards. She was determined to make a better family with him and seeing her smile at him, knowing in that moment when their eyes met each day after he stepped through the door was a sharing of joy to finally being able to see each other, renewed his strength to work for their dreams.

“How was your day son, ” Timothy asked Da Ming, turning his attention to their son.

“Poor. I dropped a position today.”

“Don’t worry son. You’ll do better. What’s more important is that you have given your best today.”

“Dad, ” Da Ming turned, looking at Timothy with a chilling stare, ” firstly I’m not worried. I’m disappointed in myself. Second, please do not waste your platitudes on me. I’m not attending some self-help course. And you of all people should know that doing your best means nothing.”

Jessica saw it in her husband’s eyes. He had instinctively retreated into his past, stung by Da Ming’s words. Jessica felt Timothy’s pain. He was once like Da Ming. Marked for greatness. The leaderboards proclaimed him in the top 1%. It was a time when percentages mattered. Now, only one number matters. 1. Be the best or be nothing.

“Son, your dad just wants to encourage you, ” Jessica entered the conversation.

“I don’t need encouragement. I need you to demand more from me and maybe then, you might start to see that you need to demand more of him.”

“Da Ming, the positions mean little in a competition.”

“The positions don’t matter? Of course it matters. It is a statement that in a competition that there are 4 individuals who will beat me. It is a measure of my total lack of chances to be number 1.”

“There is something no software can ever measure, ” Timothy said encouragingly, trying to regain himself, ” and that’s the soul of a man. I remember once playing a match against the top-seeded player in badminton and I was down 2 sets. I dug dig, took the 3rd set, fought back and I won 5 sets to 3.”

“Was that the only time it happened? When you defeated someone seeded higher than you? I bet it was. And sure, dad, ” Da Ming continued condescendingly, ” you might have beaten a top seed. Once. But before competitions, there are trainings. Who do you think will get access to the best coach, the best equipment, the best sponsorships? Once you start giving someone all that advantage, the momentum keeps him at number 1. Soon, I’m going to lose the chance to kickstart that momentum.”

The last sentence hit Timothy and Jessica with the icy impact of a doctor’s prognosis of impending death.

—

Melissa looked up at the frame resting on her drawer, and smiled as she saw the picture of her son. The picture had been taken a few days after he had been born. The nurse had brought him to Melissa before he was to be taken away by the State. He would be twelve years old soon. Melissa curled up against her pillow, trying to remember his scent.

—

Timothy and Jessica laid on the couch bed, looking up at the ceiling fan. Jessica’s head rested on Timothy’s shoulder as he used his right hand to stroke her hair.

“I’m sorry about Da Ming. I was late in picking him up today.”

“How was the lesson, ” Timothy asked.

“We did practice papers today. I got a B for all of them.”

“That’s great.”

Jessica turned to look at Timothy, resting on her left arm. “I’m concerned about my assessment.”

“Don’t worry dear, ” Timothy replied, trying to be comforting though he too was burdened about the coming assessment, ” Da Ming knows you have been a good mother.”

“I saw him looking at traffic reports from Google Maps after dinner. He was checking for traffic jams before the pickup time.”

“You told him that you were stuck in traffic, ” Timothy asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Yeah.”

“Were you?”

“I was.”

Timothy sighed with relief. Da Ming could be relentless in pursuing the truth and if the realtime data from Google Maps had shown no traffic jams, he would surely have reported against Jessica.

“Although, ” Jessica continued, “I could have been early if I didn’t stop to get a present for him.”

—

“Young men and women, ” the Minister of National Development started to address the hundreds of teenagers who were eligible for National Service, ” 15 years ago, on this 1st day of January, our government, our people, this country, finally saw the obvious. And not only did we see the obvious, we boldly made a decision that culminated in the first baby born to the state 2 years and 9 months later.”

“Let me explain to you the decision lest you have forgotten it from your National Education lessons.”

The crowd chuckled. Forget a National Education lesson? Who would dare? An ‘A’ grade in National Education was a pre-requisite for tertiary education.

“For years, we made people take a driving test to obtain a license before he or she can drive a car. Before they can take the test, we make them take two theoretical tests and at least 20 practical lessons. But, ” the Minister paused, scanning the crowd, knowing the youth already knew what he was going to say next, “we allow ANYONE with a penis and not enough money or common sense to do family planning to have a child.”

“ANYONE!”

The crowd roared in disapproval.

“We had a problem. The smart Singaporeans weren’t having enough children. Too busy forging a career. And we needed that. We needed our best to do their best. To become titans in their industry.”

The crowded cheered in agreement.

“The poor. Those who had no money. Those without any sense to hire a family planning consultant. They were reproducing like rabbits. If only they had the brains to understand the Fibonacci sequence.”

The crowded laughed.

“We were starting to have a lot of stupid. Not enough smarts. And I’ll be the first to admit, my party, your government made a mistake. Wooing foreign talents, hoping they become PRs, hoping they become citizens, that was a band-aid solution. A quick fix.”

“And we presented a new solution to you. A better one. One that went against certain social conventions. And the country agreed with us after the referendum. And that is why you are here today. To make the difference. To create our future!”

The crowd broke into rapturous applause.

“Those of you who are here have been selected because you are the best of your generation. We have found each one of you an ideal partner.”

“Your child will be perfect.”

—

Timothy reached across the table and held Melissa’s hand. Once a year, this was the only contact they allowed each other even though they had once been much closer.

They had been Partners.

The first pregnancy had some complications resulting in Melissa being sterile. After her downgrade in status, she had been transferred to the Child Raising Unit.

Who knows what might have happened if they had produced a second child together. The State actively uses financial incentives to encourage Partners to marry after National Service.

Nature and Nurture. Who best to raise the creation of two excellent Partners then the Partners themselves.

But the heart has a funny way of wandering from a plan. Even the State’s. While Timothy and Melissa had affection for each other, it had not blossomed into love largely due to Melissa withdrawing into a shell after learning she could never have another child.

During his university studies, Timothy met Jessica and while the first meeting had been anything but auspicious, eventually they gave their hearts to each other. Jessica had not qualified to be a Partner. She had only been an ‘O’ Level graduate, not good enough to be in the ‘A’ Level stream. Fortunately for them, her performance in Art School was sufficient to give her a Parent status, which is why Da Ming ended up in their care instead of the State’s Child Raising Unit (*).

(*) Melissa could not have become the Parent of Da Ming. After becoming sterile, the State disallows a woman from marrying a Partner become it means the waste of a male Partner resource as he would not be able to produce the minimum number of 2 love children which the Child Producing Act allowed and demanded. A female Partner was also not allowed to marry unfit (those not qualified to be Partners) males – they were beneath her status. Either by choice or sterility, single female Partners would then only be able to fulfill the role of Counsellor.

“Da Ming should be back from his practice soon, ” Melissa said, squeezing Timothy’s hand. “I had better go home now to wait for his call.”

Timothy reluctantly let her hand slip from his grasp as she stood up to leave the table.

“Don’t forget the present, ” Melissa reminded Timothy as she left the cafe.

—

Timothy quietly snuck into bed. He turned towards the sleeping Jessica and gently stroked her hair. Today had been the big exam.

5 papers.

1 practical examination.

The State had passed a law allowing Parents who had shown competency, if not excellence, to upgrade their Status to Qualified Partner.

The last few years had been tough for Jessica as she took lessons, determined to have a love child with him.

She needed to pass 5 papers testing her intellectual capabilities. She also needed to show excellence in her chosen profession. The State allowed people who did not display excellent results as a generalist to prove they were at least an excellent specialist. The practical examination had been prepared to test Jessica’s abilities as a florist.

Timothy was confident about that part of the review. He was concerned more about Da Ming’s feedback. Melissa had told him Da Ming’s reports had been mixed recently.

Jessica turned toward him.

“I’m sorry I woke you up, ” Timothy apologized.

“It’s alright. I like it when you stroke my hair, ” Jessica said, reaching out with her right hand to pull Timothy closer. Timothy leaned in to give her a kiss.

“You should sleep, ” Jessica said, breaking away from the kiss. “You have a long day tomorrow in front of the Partner Review Committee.”

Timothy turned to rest on his back.

Tomorrow would be a long day indeed. He would have to present his case to the PRC on how Jessica had earned and deserved an upgrade.

But whatever the result of the review, he knew that Jessica and him had to always hold steadfast to their dreams, never giving up hope in the pursuit of a better life. For once they allowed the State to crush their spirit with two digit classification codes stored as bits in servers buried deep within the Ministries, they would have then indeed failed.

1. 2009

“He raped me. I told him I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to have sex. He didn’t care. He just wanted it so badly that night. He turned me over, held me down and raped me.”

“Mdm, you’re married. Under Section 375(4), we can’t investigate your husband for violence.”

The police officer left the room.

“What’s going on in there,” his superior asked.

“Damn bitch with a headache.”

2. 2010

“Edward, look, she’s my wife. How is that considered rape? I admit I was a little rough that night, but that’s how she likes it, you know. We played games before. Sometimes she would tie me up, sometimes I would tie her up. Damn, I even pretended to be a burglar before. I mean, it was the same as the other times when she said she wasn’t feeling particularly in the mood. Once I started kissing the right spots, she got wet like a fucking waterfall. How’s that rape? You tell me. How’s that rape?”

“Bro, I’m sorry man. After Section 375(4) got repealed, getting married doesn’t mean you get unlimited rights to free pussy from your wife whenever you want it. Some judge who probably hasn’t gotten her itch scratched for years decided that marriage itself does not amount to irrevocable consent to sexual intercourse by the wife.”

“Fuck. I really don’t understand why she’s doing this. We were fine damn it.”

Edward left the room. His female colleague who had been comforting Jodie walked over.

“What did he say, ” she asked.

“What do you think he said? Of course he denied raping her.”

“If she said no, that means no consent. It’s rape.”

“You damn women. Your no can be yes. Your yes can be no. How the fuck are we guys supposed to know which no you girls are using.”

3. 2015

“Look, officer, when a man marries a woman, he gives up certain things. He gives up the whole buffet spread of cunts that he can get access to. Well, he doesn’t have to give it up totally, but he gives up the right to sample different cuisine without having to pay the price if caught. I think that’s fair. You want to marry a woman, you want to make her yours then if you get caught drinking milk outside, even if you don’t bring the fucking cow home, I think its perfectly fair if she wants to divorce you that you have to pay until your wallet bleeds.”

Nathan paused. He was pissed. He had loved Jennifer with everything. Things had gone great at the beginning of the marriage but things got worse the last few years. At first she started becoming a dead fish, wasn’t as enthusiastic and spontaneous as before. Then the frequent headaches. The refusals to make love. Cuddling even came to a stop. Cuddling, for fuck’s sake. Cuddling.

His mom was right. The success of a marriage depends on what happens on the bed.

Nathan knew he could have divorced Jennifer. Prenuptial agreements while not enforceable were being considered in determining alimony. His lawyer had said a strong case could be made for unreasonable behavior. Hell, having slept in different rooms for almost 3 years, you could almost add irreconcilable differences and separation to the mix. Plus he had been faithful. Faithful to the last fucking cum-soaked Kleenex. If Nathan had divorced Jennifer, the financial cost would be nothing.

But he wanted the marriage to work. He really did.

“It was our anniversary. 4 years we have been married. 1 great. 3 not so. I had just returned from Cold Storage. Bought myself some nice lotion and 9-ply toilet paper. 9-ply. Imagine that. The best brains in the world figuring out how to make taking care of shit better. What a waste. I came home and saw her there. Sitting at the dining table with nothing but a Manchester United jersey. How fucking sexy is that. She had cooked dinner. I went straight for the dessert. It was the best fucking release I ever had. We made love like we haven’t made love for years. It was so good, even our neighbors lighted a cigarette.”

“You do know your wife accuses you of raping her, ” the officer interjected.

“You think I don’t know that? I’m here in a police station, ain’t I. I was fucking played like a fiddle. Should have divorced that cold-hearted bitch when I had the chance. Would have saved on the god-damn tissues.”

There was a knock on the door. The officer got up from her seat, walked to the door and unlocked it. Nathan’s lawyer stepped in.

“She’s got an offer for you, ” the lawyer said to Nathan.

“I’ll let you two discuss matters in private, ” the female officer said as she left the room.

Her superior officer walked up, “He is probably going to pay for this to go away.”

“Yup. We just gave all those damn gold-diggers another shovel, ” Jane replied.

4. 2018

David slammed the table with his fist.

“I, didn’t, rape her!”

“She said you did, ” the officer calmly replied. She was used to such tantrums.

“My own wife. I know when her no is no and her yes is yes. I didn’t rape her.”

“Well, she said you did and that’s all the courts care about. You should just confess now and save us all the hassle.”

“No. The courts don’t just care about finger-pointing. We got data. You guys have the fucking data. Look at it. Get your experts to look at it. I want my experts to looks at it.”

“The data will be provided to your lawyer when the time comes. But you and I both know what the data is going to say. It’s going to say what each of us wants it to say. Come on professor, you teach at SMU. You should know that if you torture the numbers they will confess to anything. And once the numbers confess, we will be back at square 1. Your lawyer will have to prove your expert knows what he is talking about, the State’s expert will just be the one believed. Let’s save the hassle.”

David remained silent. He knew what he knew and he believed the data will exonerate him. He just needed to be patient and wait. He had earlier been goaded into a display of anger. The police officer had wanted that to happen for the cameras. That video was probably already uploaded to YouTube’s crime channel for the ravenous public to see, star and share. In less than an hour, he will be pronounced guilty by the world. The leading blogs will carry the link-baiting headline, “Husband with explosive temper brutally rapes wife”.

But David knew things will be alright. He just needed to be patient. He need to stay alert and not get mind-fucked into a confession. Once his lawyer finished up the paper work and got the data feed from Twitter, his expert consultants would be able to verify his story. Verify that he had been seduced by his wife. That it was she who had displayed heightened arousal first. That it was she who led him to the bed. That it was she who had been the conductor in their little symphony. The court could not ignore the evidence.

David suddenly remembered a joke he had read.

“Officer, do you believe in God, ” David asked casually.

“No, why, ” the officer replied with a tinge of genuine curiosity.

“Then who do you speak to when you come?”

5. 2020

“Mdm, the data does not lie, ” the officer said.

“It has to be wrong. He raped me. I know he did. The doctor says there is proof of vaginal tear. Look at my bruises. He raped me and you aren’t doing anything about it. Please do something about, please do something.”

“Rough sex can lead to bruises, ” the officer replied with a hint of scorn.

“Please look at the data again, please look at the data again, ” Sarah pleaded as she saw the last embers of hope flickering away.

“Mdm, like I said, the data does not lie. You should know how it works. They teach it at school. The device is inserted into your body and, ” the officer patronizing explained, ” it is able to detect heart rate, blood pressure, hormonal levels and all that jazz. This data is communicated in real-time to Twitter via its API and, based on the agreement with the State, stored. Basically based on this data, we can tell that you were genuinely aroused. And that it was you who was genuinely aroused first. Your increase in heart-rate occurred first and above-normal level of chemicals were detected to be released. These above-normal level of chemicals, corresponded with the onset of sexual arousal in your husband. Like I said, the data does not lie. You seduced your husband. He did not rape you.”

Outside the room, Jack was talking to the State’s expert in RTF (i.e. real-time forensics) and the officer in charge of the case.

“The data is telling the story like you said Jack, ” the expert said.

“I don’t understand why Sarah is behaving like that, it was a perfect night for both of us.”

“Well, after Section 375(4) was repealed in 2010, a fair number of women basically used the protection that the law afforded them to run racketeering scams on their husbands for a good number of years. It was only after the introduction of the Body Tracking Ordinance and the 2018 case involving the professor which led to the recognition of RTF as a valid science that things changed. Maybe your wife forgot that. That things changed. That you couldn’t be a scheming bitch and get away with it.”

“Maybe, but she’s smart. She should have know better that her lies would be exposed, ” Jack replied, fumbling for an excuse for his wife.

“Maybe. Well, who cares. I’m happy to just chalk this up as another success for BTO and RTF. Another brother saved.”

Jack shook the hands of the expert and the officer, thanking them for their support. He knew that the BTO had saved him. Sarah would probably be charged but he would appeal for leniency, saying he forgave her. He would welcome her back as his wife.

The Body Tracking Ordinance had originally been introduced to ensure that adequate and accurate data about the body would be captured during the H9N9 scare. Scientists had used the data to detect clusters of outbreaks, transmission patterns and essentially prevented what would have been an almost certain pandemic from occurring.

The device inserted into the body was able to track heart rate, blood pressure, hormonal levels, chemical concentration, chemical release and detect antibodies. It transmitted encrypted data over the waves using a dedicated frequency which would be picked up by base stations planted all over the island. The problem with the system was two-fold.

Before insertion, the unique hash of the device would be paired with the national identification number of the individual thus allowing the BTO collecting system to identify the senders of the packets of data. This pairing was done manually by the doctors who added the information via a web interface.

When Sarah needed to replace her defective device, Jack had managed to record down the unique hash.

The second problem was that while the devices were to be disposed securely because of its nature, it was still possible to gain physical access to a device and extract the embedded software. The original designers of the system had been lazy. Every single device was using the same public key to encrypt the data. Coupled with the standard known format of each message, a competent engineer would be able to spoof messages to the system.

The main problem was how to prevent the device in the individual’s body from sending any information. Jack had planned it properly and coordinated the shorting of Sarah’s device with the activation of his spoofer. The central system was none-the-wiser that information for Sarah was coming from Jack’s desktop instead of Sarah’s body. Since the system wasn’t programmed to monitor the location of the sender, it wasn’t noticing that Sarah wasn’t moving at all.

Jack couldn’t wait for Sarah to be released.

He couldn’t wait to rape her one more time.

Some links:

No To Rape

Metafilter discussion on ‘Rape, Law & Evidence’.

Some notes:

Definitely a work in progress since my understanding of public-key cryptography and protocols is dismal at best.

Length matters. Any lady who tells you otherwise is lying. Of course, the problem is, longer isn’t always better. It is about having the right amount for the job at hand.

Arti Mulchand, formerly a journalist from SPH, shared some pointers on how to write right at the event hosted by the folks from Ogilvy.

Two of the pointers:

Don’t waste words.
Short paragraphs; and short sentences.

Probably the most famous example of how austerity in words does not hinder the telling of a good story is the following six words by Hemingway,

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

The six words story is a sub-genre of flash fiction.

Googled and found these positively delicious sites:

http://www.sixwordstories.net/
http://www.flashfiction.net/

There is a twitter account for Sixwordstories.

Lots of great ones:

Computer becomes conscious. Immediately commits suicide.

Met at antiwar rally. Still fighting.

God creates Universe. Realizes mistake. Hides.

Bury the hatchet…then the body.

If you have any six words story to share, why not Tweet it and tag it with #sixwords.

Notes:

The complete list of pointers to Write Right:

• Have an opinion
• Say something they don’t know; or say it differently
• Tell stories
• Hook with the headline and the first paragraph
• Write how you speak
• Emotions beat emoticons
• Details, details, details – show, don’t tell
• Don’t waste words
• Edit yourself
• Short paragraphs; and short sentences
• Don’t SCREAM

I woke up early today to do my meditation which was disrupted by Alfred bringing me breakfast. I’m not complaining. Alfred getting me my food was a welcome change of routine. Back in India, I had to prepare my own breakfast.

India. It was only two days ago that I had said goodbye to my spiritual teacher for the last 4 years.

My mother had allowed me to go to India after the restless nights became unbearable for everyone. While at first it took only a physical toil on my mother and Alfred who would get up in the middle of the night to watch and worry over me as I tossed and turned on the bed, talking, shouting and wailing into the darkness, it weighed on them till it became an emotional burden. It was a burden that my mom couldn’t handle. She retreated further into her work, staying away from the house especially in the nights, away from the pain that was me. We drifted apart until there was a gulf so wide, that even Moses wouldn’t have been able to cross.

From the start, my ’sleep’ took more than a toil on my body. I would wake up in the morning feeling exhausted from a night of constant moving and talking, but the thing that really affected me was that I would start each day with this enormous sense of emptiness within, as if life had no meaning. I would go through the day feeling mentally drained, unable to concentrate on anything, often having to separate the images of my dreams and nightmares from my memories, sometimes even confused what was real from my past and made-belief with the images merging seamlessly.

Alfred tried recording what i spoke each night, but while I was speaking coherently in sentences, the conversations were disjointed and never seemed to make logical sense.

I started keeping a journal by my bed. Each time I drifted back into semi-consciousness, I would shake myself violently into consciousness and try to record down what i was last dreaming about. I tried to recreate the images in my mind before I lost them forever to my subconsciousness – together with Alfred’s faithful nightly recording, I tried to make sense of everything. It was a futile effort.

Somehow I could never remember clearly what I was dreaming about, the images I recreated and the voice recordings never seem to fit into a coherent narrative and there was always details missing from the images, causing them to be extremely fuzzy, as if the lens of my mind were never clean.

It wasn’t just the dreams and images that i was trying to record, i was also to record the events of my days. One thing that I regularly experience are dejavus. I would try to record every time I experienced a moment of dejavu.

My mom never gave up on me although she did try to avoid me. She would get the best doctors from around the world to come down to Singapore to check on me. They performed scans and tests but found nothing wrong with my brain. They couldn’t explain medically what was happening to me. My Mom then started sending me to see psychiatrists. I think with the amount of hours I spent on the sofas of those quacks, I personally kept the industry afloat. They tried to medicate me, tried to analyze me, but none of them every came close to explaining what was happening to me not to mention cure me. Even with the medication, I was still ‘enjoying’ my restless nights.

It came to the point that my mom broke down at the dinner table one night and started swearing, saying that what was happening to me was a curse for her previous good fortune. That the fates were making me pay for the blessing she got from God. She started swearing that it would have been better if I was not born. Although I was already 18 by then, I ran from the table crying.

Alfred found me weeping like a baby in the corner of my room that night. It was only then that I discovered the nature of my birth.

June 6th 2006 had been a day of great tragedy across the world. Typically, it would be the day that the Allied Nations from World War 2 would celebrate D-Day-the day that began the end of the war. On 2006, it became a day that the terrorists forever changed the world.

Sep 11 was a day that shook the world. It had threatened to change the way people live their lives, one constantly under fear. However, as the days after Sep 11 became weeks, and weeks became months, and months became years, even with the London, Madrid and Bali bombings, the grip of terrorism became to loosen, and people got on with their lives, acknowledging terrorism, but no longer fearing it, it becoming the crazy brother that the family never talked about, never cared about and who was never invited for anything.

June 6th was the day the crazy brother got dangerous, crashing the family annual gathering and killing everyone. The terrorists conducted simultaneous attack on almost every major city of the world. Cities like Washington, Tokyo, Beijing, and almost all the capital cities of the world experienced nuclear attacks. Singapore was spared the devastation of a nuclear attack but not the attack of the terrorists.

My parents were in San Francisco when the attacks were carried out. They survived the bomb that went off in San Francisco. However the doctors had then told my mom that the radiation from the fallout had damaged her womb and she would never have any children. Like Sarah in the bible who laughed when God told her she would have a child, she laughed when she was told she was pregnant 9 months later. I was her miracle, I was her Isaac.

After Alfred explained all that to me, I realized what she had meant when she said I was the child she should not had, and my condition was the price I was paying for her blessing.

When i was 19, I started deciding to find my own solution to the problem. The restless nights were getting worse, and this was a condition that I was not comfortable with to bring into adulthood. My dreams were getting more vivid and the emotions I was experiencing more intense. Each morning, I would be drained of energy and emotion, too tired to live my life. The only way then to solve the problem was to go for days without sleep, only collapsing out of exhaustion. That was not a tenable solution as after hours without sleep, I could not function properly.

I decided to find a solution and googled for it. His name didn’t come up in any of the first few results, but as I searched through the following pages, I found a name being mentioned in a lot of discussion forums. His name was Raj Kumar, and he was a spiritual teacher living somewhere in Southern India.

Apparently, Raj Kumar had been a top programmer for a major software company before June 6th. After that day, when he lost his whole family to the attacks, he suffered from a mental breakdown and became disillusioned with life. Like many people who survived that day, he retreated to the sanctuary that spirituality offered. Unlike most people, he stayed there and became a spiritual teacher.

The discussion forums were filled with posts by people who had visited him and through his teachings have achieved inner calm and peace. I was intrigued. I decided to travel to India to look for him. I told mother my intentions. As a woman devoted to science, she wasn’t very sure about the whole spirituality aspect of this solution but she was desperate to find a solution and allowed me to travel to India although she wasn’t convinced.

So, at 19, I traveled to India on my own to visit this teacher hoping he could change my life. When I was on the plane, I couldn’t help but daydream about how this Raj Kumar could become my own personal Yoda or Mr. Miyagi like in the old movies that Alfred would show me and help change my life.

And he did. Raj Kumar taught me meditation and many other things. Over the four years, I managed through the art of meditation to get physical and mental rest without actually going to sleep. And when I did sleep, I was able to be in control of my subconscious and view my dreams from the perspective of a third person with great clarity; that ability really helped in the accurate recording of my dreams. I stopped talking in my sleep and my body didn’t react to the dreams anymore; I was able to wake up each day without feeling drained.

I started watching the series Dexter over the last weekend. Lead investigator FBI agent Lundy taught me something – every serial killer has a pattern. Which is interesting considering there has been a spate of murders linked to Facebook.

Recently, there was a spate of murders where the victims were tertiary educated early 20s ladies. Investigators had been able to approximate the time of death for these victims when they realized the killer(s) was updating the Facebook status of the victims just after the murder.

For example, after Melody Chen was murdered, her status was updated to, “Melody is so dead…”. Her friends showed the customary concern by twittering, smsing and posting wall messages like, “hey babe, you ok? hang in there k, things will get better…..

“Funny he should say that, ” Detective A said about the wall message by John Lim, “considering that the killer strung her up from the ceiling fan with a rope around the neck and tried to make it look like she had committed suicide.”

Some other choice Facebook statuses:

“Celine is lying on her desk feeling like a knife has stabbed her in the back.”

“Christina is on her bed. She feels so suffocated.”

“Jamie is in great pain. She is dying inside.”

The two detectives while checking out the laptops found at the scenes realized a pattern. The murder victims were real Facebook junkies.

“Don’t these girls realize that they should set a password for their screen saver?” asked Detective B.

Which is so besides the point, considering they were dead. What the detectives did learn which was noteworthy was that the murdered victims all had two friends in common.

The suspects were narrowed down to a guy and a girl. Or so the detectives thought.

It turns out both suspects had rock solid alibis.

Damn.

Further investigations on the logs contributed by the Facebook admins led to the case breaking clue – there was a particular female user which had been heavily visiting the profile pages of the murdered friends of the female suspect.

The detectives and the Facebook admins decided to monitor her activities online. They noticed a sudden spike in this user’s viewing of the profile page of another friend.

“I think I smell a murder, ” says Detective A.

They laid a trap for the murder suspect using the potential victim as bait. They were right and apprehended the suspect just as she was about to slit the throat of the bait.

The trust of these ladies was so easy to gain. Everything about them is online on their Facebook page. I know their birthdays, their hobbies, their likes, their dislikes, the relationship statuses, their friends…

I’ve seen their photos. I know where they have been, who they hang out with. Gaining entry into their room, their homes was so easy. All I had to do was use Jane (the original female suspect) as a conversational starter.

Damn that Jane. I killed all these people cos of her. Friends she calls them. FRIENDS!

You know what are friends. Friends are people who have been there when your dad died. Someone who accompanied you for every single hospital visit. Someone who has bled with you, cried with you, laughed with you, experienced every fucking roller-coaster emotion with you and more. Friends are those who will be there with you.

Friends aren’t the people who cam-whore with you. Not the ones who just follow you because you’re showing your fucking cleavage in every single photo. Not the ones who post wall messages just to keep some fucking trivial tenuous connection with you.

Friends are the people your parents know. The ones you trust enough to open up your family to.

Friends…. I killed those girls because damn it, they are the kind of people that debase the meaning of friendship.

Everyone is a fucking friend now. What happened to the word ‘acquaintance’.

“She has a point, ” said Detective A to Detective B, “we’ve worked together for like 3 years and you haven’t even met my family. I don’t know a thing about you.”

“So what are you saying? We aren’t friends?”

“I’m saying you and your family is invited to dinner this Saturday, ” said Detective A.

I’ve been making notes for a story for some time. Even wrote a few chapters, if you can consider what little that has been written below a chapter. I thought I’ll start sharing them.

I remember standing at the edge of the sliding doors, making them go crazy with my apprehension.

Open, close, open, close.

I stood there with my head and shoulder lowered, as if carrying the burdens of the world. The sky was a gloomy palette, the rain lashing down on a subdued city; I wondered if this welcome was a portent of things to come.

I was standing at the entrance, like a man at the edge of an abyss, paralysed by fear. I would have stood there for an eternity if Alfred hadn’t been there to meet me. I remember hearing him call out my name, snapping me out of my own thoughts. His warm familiar smile was something I had missed.

That was an hour ago.

I had insisted on driving back despite Alfred’s protests. I wonder if it was out of fear of my driving abilities or out of a sense of obligation to his duties, but whatever the reason, my will prevailed.

I drove along the ECP. Nothing has changed. The trees and vegetation along the sides have continued to be left unattended, the buildings run-down and deserted. I heard from Alfred that the park along the coast was now called “Immorality Mile” – a place for whore-banging, where anyone with money and a deviant pleasure to enjoy can do so for the right price.

“What a waste”, Alfred had commented, “this road was once a beautiful boulevard, a healthy unclogged artery straight to the heart of what was once a dynamic and vibrant city.”

Once. The world Alfred talks about no longer exist. A world before I was born. A world before June 6th. I have often wish that I could have some contact with that world beyond Alfred’s nostalgic reminiscences, beyond books and websites with their words and pictures.

Mother was not at the house to greet me when we reached. Alfred told me that she had wanted to be there when I reached home. Yeah right. As usual, her work came first.

I am here blogging in the living room while Alfred gets my room ready. Alfred was surprised when I told him I wanted to move my study out to the living room. I believe he was more afraid of my mom’s protests when she returned from work; my mom had spent a considerable amount of money on interior designers and furniture, and i know her magazine-perfect sensibilities would cause her to be livid at me for mixing things around.

But I have my reasons. And for now, my computer cannot be in my study or my bedroom or any private area. The living room was the best choice. Somehow, I could not bring myself to violate the sanctity of the kitchen and dining area.

Once Alfred has finished removing the door of my room, and brought in some fans, I will go and sleep. I am going to stop blogging now and go for my dinner.