Story Cancellation

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to present its first global writing contest.  If you enjoy the Blizzard Entertainment universes and have the drive to pen fantasy fiction in them, here's your chance to shine.

Whether you conjure stories in your free time or write for a living, you're encouraged to participate. This contest is open to entrants from around the world, and will be judged by Blizzard Entertainment's own writers and masters of lore.

To enter, submit a 3,000 to 10,000 word story written in English and set in the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universe by April 12 and earn your chance to visit the Blizzard Entertainment headquarters and meet the writers and staff behind the lore seen in the games and books.

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Lesson learned, my friends; never procrastinate. Shame. I thought they'd love my story too. It was supposed to be epic, with…ah, let's just forget about it.

In my life there are many of my shortcomings I am not proud of. The worst one is, however, that I am a quitter. I quit when the going gets tough. I quit when everybody tells me I can't do it. And I quit when I'm too lazy to do it. Now, again, I must say, I have to quit one final thing for a different resaon. I am quitting the Warcraft story in favor of a new one, because I can't finish it right now.

I say 'Quit' and not 'Postpone' because I have nearly 100mb of unfinished stories in my hard disk. I usually keep these, reminders of previous failures, and also notes that yes, I can, if I could just finish the damned things. Well, I am not quitting writing, not yet at any rate, but I am quitting the Warcraft story. Maybe one day I'll find the guts to finish it, and you'll get to see it, but not now. Now, I move on to different things. If you noticed below, somewhere I talked about writing a love story. That is what I will focus on next. Again, don't hold your breath. But rest assured, once it's done, I'll update…and if it gets canceled, I'll let you know too.

That is, whoever reads this anymore.

NEWS: An Apology

I'm sorry I've been tardy in updating my blog. My mind has been pulled in a thousand different directions lately. Let's not speak of my heart, though I may say a few words about the state of my computer, which has currently taken to freezing at inopportune moments, and as some may know, has lost its letter 'A' key, so I need to press on the terribly uncomfortable pressure sensor instead of a nice, soft key.

The World of Warcraft story is progressing horrendously. If I may say so, I fear I've bitten off more than I can chew. I've attempted to cram multiple stories into one cohesive narrative, to make it *ugh* cooler, but in the end I realise I needed to think up ten separate tales just to complete the telling of one. Also my WoW account has expired and I've procrastinated in the renewing of my game time. However, now I am adamant; that story MUST be told at all costs, and I shall keep laboring at it for your reading pleasure. That is, of course, assuming anyone reads this blog anymore.

Still, I fear not. All the stories I have written in the past, the ones where I have to keep erasing and re-doing and editing are the ones that end up being my favorites, whilst the ones which were totally easy to write end up being so bad I'm ashamed to have to lay claim to that work. So this means the WoW fanfic is going to be epic. No pun intended there, but left behind just because. I hope there are still others who read this blog; if there aren't, I'd say a sharp reminder via the internet social networks is in order.

I may also attempt to further expand my horizons by attempting to attract visitors from beyond my social circles. That means the rest of the world. Of course, I am still not ready for such a vast undertaking, but the goal is still on the horizon. And if any of you like my stories, and think some of your other friends might like them too, then don't hesitate to spread the word! Truly, a piece of work is useless unless as many people as humanely possible take notice of that work.

New Stuff!

Hey all. Hope you liked what I've posted thus far. Here I'd just like to make a few announcements, regarding this blog and my upcoming works.

1. I'll try to find a way to archive posts by type, as links on the blog sidebar so that you can skip these often boring and out of date announcements and get straight to the stories/poems or whatever. Makes life easier.
   
2. I'm gonna change the name of the blog. Ibis and Jackal; A Collection of Works by TJ is a bit hard to remember. Makes things short and simple.
   
3. A banner is going up, though no ETA on this one. Probably a shot of me in the rain, y'know, like Russell. (You don't know who he is, read The Rainwalker).
   
4. No BGM music, because I'm too lazy.
   
5. STORY NEWS! Up and coming is a very modern and urban…uh, love story. (Crickets chirp.) Yes, you heard me right. It's a love story. Now have I got your attention? Okay, but its not like, 'Oh, I love you so much' soppy love story. Like I said, its modern, and uh, urban, so its going to be cool, not soppy. It's based on a true story, and if you know how RL is, these two lovebirds have to go through hell before they even realise they're in love. Like, nine months. Spoiler! Ahahahaha. Wait for it, kay?
   
6. I also bought The Ladies of Grace Adieu, a book by Susanna Clarke, who also wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I shall write about them once I find the time to actually read them.
   

That's all folks! Bookmark or follow this blog if you like what you see so far, because I'm on a roll baby!

World of Writecraft

Being a World of Warcraft player, I always visit the front page of the community website when I'm bored, and one day I was greeted with the news that Blizzard entertainment was organising a global writing contest. I got really excited, since I've had some ideas about Warcraft since the first day I started playing WoW. However I browsed about to the rules page and discovered the contest didn't extend to Malaysia. I got a bit frustrated, but then decided I'm going to write a story anyway. Maybe even submit it to Blizzard, later on. I don't know. But the first place it is going up is here, friends, so rest assured, you will read it first.

Fan Fiction FTW!

The Rainwalker

So here it is. Admittedly it didn't turn out quite the way I thought it would. I wanted something deep, something thought inducing, but couldn't come up with anything; one of the reasons the story got delayed as much as it did. So instead I've written it in a different way, more of a 'sights and sounds essay' than a real 'story'. Instead of big drama, we have just some dude taking a walk in the rain. Not to say this is a bad thing. For once, instead of asking you guys to listen to some drama, or idea, I'm asking you guys to just come take a walk with me in the rain, and see what we could see.

The Rainwalker

    Around this time of year, it rained almost everyday. Every afternoon, just before the mad rush of commuters getting home at about the same time it would rain. Sometimes you would get a light drizzle, the kind nobody paid attention to, and sometimes you would get a full thunderstorm, with thunder crashing and lightning flashing across a grey sky. Most of the time, though, it was heavy rain with little or no thunder, with just a soft breeze blowing the rain to and fro.

    Always, Russell would walk when it rained.

    He would usually already be off work by that time, and armed with his trusty orange umbrella, he would set off from his apartment home and walk around town, a blip of brightness against a grey world.

    He found it strange that a change in such small details led to a different view of familiar places. Right now he was walking along the wooded road that led from his apartment into town, and he marveled at how different the woods looked with an overcast sky. The woods in sunlight would be unseemingly bright and cheerful, yet plastic and unfriendly, somehow like a postcard picture, or a travel agency advertisement. In the faded light of the grey sky, the woods looked mysterious, foreboding, yet somehow more real. The muted palette made it seem more vivid, and less like a cardboard backdrop to a scenic drive.

    At the end of the road, a huge storm drain flowed from the eastern end of town, gathering all the water that spilled uselessly onto a concrete jungle of tall office buildings that did not drink or breathe, and redirected it elsewhere. During very heavy rains the flood gates would be opened, and the storm drain would appear to be a river. The road formed a bridge into town, directly towards the tall office buildings that formed the town's skyline (if it could be called that), and as Russell walked onto it from the north side, he felt the raindrops grow more frequent, and by the time he had reached the middle of the bridge he had to open his umbrella and continue his journey protected by a thin sheet of polymer fabric.

    As he came to the end of the bridge the rain was in full swing. It drenched the dry asphalt, causing small puddles by the side of the road, flowing towards the drains like small rivers with their own tributaries and small flotsam floating by. It pattered on his umbrella, drowning out all sound and surrounding him in a calm, droning susurrous of music. It covered the large buildings he now walked by, humbling their normally proud visage and turning them into bastions against the elements.

    Russell walked on the sidewalk, the tall offices to his right, the storm drain to his left. As he watched more water had begun to flow into the storm drain both from the city's roadside drains and from the rain itself. Briefly he wondered what it would take for them to open the floodgates. A lot more than this, maybe, he mused, looking up at the dark sky and its relentless showers.

    He took a turn, and it was like stepping into a new world.

    This was where he and his colleagues from work ate lunch everyday. It was a long row of restaurants and cafes, parking up their chairs tables and folding table shades illegally into the road, effectively obstructing traffic. Now, though, it was as if it had been abandoned in the wake of a disaster. The tables and chairs on the street were folded away haphazardly in front of now-closed doors, lights off except for the bright flourescent bulb lit signs above their shops. No cars were parked here; at lunch time, parking was a nightmare. Now, in the grey veil of the heavy rain, Russell felt like he had stepped into an alternate universe where the people of this town had just packed up and left, leaving him the only person left.

    Walking down the road with his umbrella, all alone in the rain in an empty space he was used to seeing crowded, he could almost believe that. He smiled, and walked on.

    He came to a busy street, which he knew led to the highway if one was headed south, and to the next town if one headed northwards. He smiled as he saw how different cars looked like in heavy rain. Their engines muted by the sound of water beating on his umbrella, the only warning any pedestrian would get from the speeding vehicle was its headlights. If you could see it, or hear it, you were too close. Russell looked both ways and saw that there were a lot of cars going either way, so he stepped a little further back and lit a cigarette to wait until traffic had cleared a bit.

    As he smoked, he glanced up from time to time, and smiled at every flash of lightning, and at every boom of thunder. Perfect weather for a Thursday, he thought, watching the grey smoke disppear in the wind into the blue dusk, changing colour from grey to blue as the day faded into dusk.

    Russell sat watching the traffic for a time, wondering if the people commuting knew what lay at the ends of their roads, until he realised he must have sat for hours and checked his watch. Sure enough, it was almost dinnertime. As much as he wanted to stay here until the rain died, like a loyal son on an ailing father's deathbed, he had to turn back: life demanded it.

    He sighed, lit another cigarette and got up, retracing his steps. He passed by the row of restaurants and cafes, marveling again at how different the place looked in the rain, and even more so as night approached. The waning light threw shadows at odd angles, hiding some things and concealing others. Now the unspoken-of-disaster that left him, Russell the last remaining human on earth seemed more distant, farther back in time, as if it had happened millions of years ago. Yet he could not shake the feeling that he would be able to see the inhabitants of this world alive and well the next day, at lunch time.

    He left that road and came again upon the storm drain, now running wild with water and roaring like its namesake, rivalling the one in the sky. The floodgates were still closed, but already the drain looked like a river, brown water rushing and forming white foam leading to The Great Unknown. He glanced to the left, and again saw the tall office buildings stand proudly against the elements, oblivious to the adventures of a man with an orange umbrella in his hand and a soggy cigarette in his mouth. Russell took a drag, raised his cigarette in salute, and turned right, crossing the bridge slowly to appreciate the storm drain which but moments before, was nothing but dry concrete blocks.

    He watched the water rush by patiently, waiting at the center of the bridge, thinking that with this kind of rain, they would open the floodgates soon. He climbed over the guard rail and sat down, hooking his legs behind the bars for support. He took a drag and marveled at the river running beneath him. If he closed his eyee he could almost imagine the drain as it were hours ago, dry and empty. He opened his eyes again and saw a river.

    Such a wonder, what small changes bring. Tall, boring buildings became shelters. Empty storm drains became raging rivers. Dry asphalt would run thick with tiny rivers on a huge map.

    Just add water.

    As he watched the river flow, counting down the minutes until they opened the floodgates, he saw the tiny drops of water that had been spattering his umbrella, changing his world, fall into the storm drain and join the raging, unstoppable body of water rushing beneath his feet. By themselves the drops of water had changed his world; they turned his lunch spot into a haunted, dead world, and turned rushing cars into moving lights. Russell wondered what would happen if the floodgates opened, and all that change came rushing down into his town.

    All the small changes, gone unnoticable until one is finally swept away by the flood.

    "All the small changes," he said to himself, "All the tiny details you'd never otice before. All the late night phone calls, the messages left unanswered, and all the times the one other person you trust looks away." He took a long drag, and before he flicked the butt into the water, he said, "I should've seen it coming."

    As the cigarette butt left his grip, dropping down into the river of change, a loud roaring sounded. He looked up.

    The floodgates had opened.

God’s Cinema

To kick things off I decided to upload one of my first finished and published/unpublished/notexactly stories, one entitled God's Cinema. I entered this in the short story competition for PASUM's English Week, but got DQ'ed for alleged plagiarism, as in 'He's too Good to be true'. (This is fact.)

This story is best read while listening to Coldplay's Viva La Vida. I'll try to find a way to make BGM in this blog so you don't have to go around hunting for the song for the full ambience experience. Why Viva La Vida? It fits the story, sort of, and what I'm listening to right now. So deal.

God's Cinema

         He pulled out a cigarette from his cigarette case, lit it up, threw the case back into the house and sat down on a chair he kept outside his balcony. He pulled the chair up close to the banister and watched as the people below him walked past. Everyday people, with their own lives to lead, with their own ends to meet and mouths to feed. People who wouldn't think twice about a man watching them from his fourth story balcony, smoking his first cigarette after a hard day's work. No one would look up at him the way he looked down at them.
         He supposed it was the fact that he was on top, and they were at the bottom. No one likes to see someone else at the top, even if he was doing nothing but smoking and watching. People felt uncomfortable. Some people don't look at all, while some people resented those at the top, probably, he thought, the same way those two homeless guys who were just passing right below him, making their way through another day of a life they didn't want. They probably resented the fact that he was the one with a three by five overcharged room with a rental which was a few weeks overdue. He shuddered when one of them spared him a passing glance. It probably didn't matter much, but the man might be thinking, someday that'll be mine, you pompous pig, and then you'll sing the blues. Oh man, how you'll sing 'em. They might be planning a burglary right now. Who knew?
         He decided he saw enough of the homeless guys, and turned his gaze elsewhere. There was nothing else interesting by anyone else's standards, but to him the entire story of the world was unfolding before him. As he watched one man walk briskly by, with a leather briefcase and clearly dry cleaned attire associated with businessmen, he wondered; how many years did he toil to get to that position? How many bosses did he have to please, or golf games he had to play, or friends he had to backstab? How many times had he come home late and worrying his wife, if he had one at all? How many times had he slapped her, even? How many divorces had he been through, or how many times did he cheat on her and with how many secretaries or interns or employees, and did he ever catch herpes from any one of them? How many people did he put out of work to get where he is now?
         Why keep at the negative side, for that matter? How much money did he earn for his company? How many times had he been promoted or how many friends did he make or how many times had he been given an award for good (if not exceptional) service? How much did his wife love him, and how much did his kids love him? How many times a week did he hear his kids say 'I love you Daddy,' or 'I'm going to be like you when I grow up, Daddy'? Did his kids talk to him when they had problems, and did his advice really work?
         The businessman put out his free hand and waved at someone further down the street with a smile. A little further down the street, a woman (looking very pretty) in a red dress waved back, and the two started walking a little faster towards each other. From the balcony, he smiled, threw down his cigarette butt and went back inside for another one. So, he thought, it was a happy story after all. He promised he'd meet his wife sometime after work, the usual place, and then maybe they'd go to that new restaurant a few blocks over for dinner, the kids were with the sitter, and there was nothing to worry about. Maybe it was their anniversary or something, but anyway they had the night to themselves.
         It was only after he had lit his second coffin nail did he realize something. That guy's story probably wasn't a very happy one after all. In fact, it could be the very opposite. That story could be very wrong indeed. That could very well be his mistress, the second woman in his life who got him laid when his own wife wouldn't do it. It could be an old friend he hasn't seen (or laid) in a long time and now was the time to catch up on things. Or maybe it was his wife, but he planned to divorce her or humiliate her or even (oh God Forbid, please oh please God FORBID!) kill her. Or maybe, even sicker, that was his daughter dressed as an older woman so people wouldn't suspect anything.
         It could even be that the guy wasn't a businessman at all.
         He quickly made for the balcony to get a closer look at the businessman (or not) and the pretty woman in red, but it was too late. The scene had passed while he was trying to get another nail for his coffin, and whatever conclusions he might have drawn from a second glance was gone forever. He sighed, sat down again and went back to watching the streets to pass the time.
         It wasn't as if he didn't have his own life to lead. He had a job, a straight double shift minimum wage job, a cash register attendant at one of the abundant Starbucks' in KL. His job was simple; know the menu and (most importantly) the prices by heart, yell at the guy who made the drinks, and push the coffee over the counter and put the money in the cash register. From nine to five, quite literally, he pushed coffee over the counter. What he made was barely enough for the rent, let alone for food and his coffin nails. He did have friends, thank you. The guy who made the drinks was one of them. His manager was one of them, thank all the heavens in all the religions in the world, and one of his more attractive 'frequent customers' was a friend. His landlady wasn't, though. Yes, he did go out sometimes, maybe for a drink at a mamak stall nearby or maybe for a frame of snooker with his aforementioned buddies, but never-not even once-before he had a lonely smoke outside his balcony, watching people go by and wondering what kind of lives those people had.
         Sometimes he wished he was down there and not up here. At first, during his early balcony smoking sessions, he felt like he was king of the world. In all the books he read when he was a kid, whenever a king or ruler of some sort was involved, he would always address his loyal subjects from up above, gazing down into the serfs' eyes and telling them that he would end/start the war or end/start an era, then go back in his chambers and find a concubine. He felt something like that on the balcony, except that his castle had a fixed rent on it and he had no concubines (not even a queen, for that matter). What mattered was the feeling, and he felt like he was sitting on top of the world.
         That was when he first came to KL looking for a job, however. Soon that feeling waned, and finally went out altogether. He was just another Average Mamat smoking from his balcony after a few bad interviews, rejected applications and overdue rent payments later. Soon he came to envy those walking below him, especially those like that cheating-on-his-wife-with-his-daughter businessman a few minutes ago. Later he came to realize that those people had lives no better than his, maybe even worse. The businessman wasn't doing so well in the conscience area. Those bums who were probably going to rob him earlier weren't doing any better financially. He himself had a taste of both, though it wasn't to such a high degree.
         That's when he realized that his balcony wasn't a king's podium, but a front row seat to God's cinema, and the movie that was playing was entitled 'Life; Those People Could Be You And You Could Be One Of Them,'. That's what kept him going, and not try to kill himself the way he almost did when he decided to jump from his front row seat or those pills he almost OD'd himself with. God was showing him His mighty handiwork, Life itself, and he wouldn't miss it for the world.
         His second cigarette was done, just at a time when the movie was getting interesting. A group of teenagers, aged maybe around 13 to 25, walked by solemnly. They were clearly metalheads, judging from the long hair and the bullet belts and the boots and the jeans. They were all wearing black t-shirts, each one bearing designs of a sensitive nature with demons and unholy symbols written all over them. One shirt actually had the picture of a demon bleeding from his eye sockets, with the words 'Death Before Dishonor' written on gold, wavy letters. He remembered the old rock-n-roll slogan 'Live Fast, Die Young' and wondered if the same could be said for these boys. They certainly looked like they were living fast. A little too fast, probably.
         Before he could wonder whether their mothers approved or even knew about their whereabouts (or even cared), he walked back in and closed the door. It was time to get back to his own life, like it or not. He had promised his buddies he'd play a few frames of snooker with them, and maybe go for a drink later. He changed and locked up his room extra carefully, all the while wondering whether he would ever find out what happened to that businessman and his daughter or maybe even about the metalheads. The movie was just getting good.

         The Christians always say that 'The Lord God works in mysterious ways'. Muslims say that the Lord God is actually Allah and the same goes for Yahweh. Jews claim that Mary/Maryam was an adulterer, and that Jerusalem was theirs by divine right. Well that didn't matter, what mattered was that God works in mysterious ways, no matter what you want to call him.
         As he made his way down the stairs from his rented fourth floor room, he suddenly felt like it was somehow his lucky night. He couldn't explain it, and even paused somewhere between the first and second floor (where the radio kept wailing for Johnny to Go, Johnny, Go, Go) to think it over.
         It was like being detached from the world, a sudden feeling of becoming untethered from reality. A great deal of research had been done on the thinking process of man yet no conclusion had been drawn. He supposed it was because no one ever felt this lucky before. It was just a passing feeling, and then after a few moments he was just that guy pushing coffee over the counter trying to go for a frame of snooker with his pals. He looked around, saw nothing out of place (except that the radio was now playing Johnny Lee Hooker) and wondered what that feeling was. He stood there for a few minutes wondering, but then he remembered he had a snooker game to get to.
         He continued down the stairs, out into the very street he was watching over. He made a beeline for the nearest LRT station, which was a few blocks away. He kept his head slightly downwards, half watching his feet and half watching where he was going. He never wondered the stuff he wondered about on the balcony while he was walking. He found it all too difficult to imagine what the story might be behind every face he saw. He couldn't see the wood for the trees, and from any man's frown he could tell whether the man had serious problems or was just constipated, or from any woman's walk he could tell whether she was in a hurry or she had to get to a toilet. He didn't like to get up close and personal with the story, like some kind of Star Wars geek. He liked some ambiguity in his observations.
         He was on the train now, standing up as it was almost full. He leaned back against the door, even though a sign clearly said to not lean against it. He kept his eyes on the little sign above the door that mapped out all the stations they were about to pass. He was going to Bangsar, so that meant a few more stations to go. He always wondered who the woman was making all these freaky announcements in a weird tone. He also wondered how much she got paid for it.
         The train made a stop at a station he never actually went to, and as the doors slid open he had to control himself from gasping in shock. The only people to get aboard the LRT train were the metalheads from before, all of them, even Mr. Death Before Dishonor. He tried to look away (he didn't want any trouble with them) but his gaze kept returning to them. As the train doors slid shut, the boys started talking to each other in normal, conversational tones, as if they were the only ones on the train. It was hard for him not to overhear.
         "Man," the largest kid with a dragon tattoo on his right arm said, "that guy sure was scared to death," he grinned, and so did the others.
         "He was just about ready to pee his pants, the way he talked to you," said Mr. Death Before Dishonor. "I could actually see him shiver."
         A mugging, he thought, these kids probably just mugged some poor kid. Maybe they worked him over too. Maybe they killed him, even. Probably took off with his wallet and his car keys, and beat him until he was unconscious and forget how he got there.
         Meanwhile, Dragon Tattoo said (as if reading his mind), "Hey, it wasn't as if we were going to mug him. We only wanted directions. It's nothing so serious."
         "Yeah, but the look in his eyes said it was," another kid said. Then they all burst out laughing, causing everyone else to cast glances at them. No one stared for long, though. No one wanted to attract attention to themselves unless they could handle that attention the way these kids could. Soon the laughter died down, and another kid was saying something about their image. About the long hair, bullet belts, and provocative heavy metal slogans, and how other people thought.
         "Well, too bad they can't see past all that," Mr. Death Before Dishonor said. "I mean, some of us are bad, doing drugs and all that retarded stuff, but not all of us are like that. Take us, for example, we don't do drugs. We don't steal, and we fight only when we have to. We've got our own set of rules, our own bushido code of honor, if you will, and I say this for everyone when I say we'd rather die than break that code. Just look at my shirt: Death Before Dishonor. It's one of the reasons I'm wearing it. I believe in it."
         "I thought you were wearing that because you got it cheap at a jumble sale," said a grinning kid not even thirteen years old.
         "Yeah, well, besides that, you punk," he said playfully, amidst the roaring laughter of the rest of the gang. More glances, yet no stares. It seems that Mr. Death Before Dishonor's speech didn't cut clear to the rest of the commuters at all, he thought, as he leaned back against the LRT doors even though a sign told him clearly not to do so in plain, simple English and Malay.
         "I guess people never change," Dragon Tattoo said, after everyone had calmed down. "We'll still be judged by our looks. And, like it or not, we still judge people by their looks. Frankly, I don't care. People can say that I've been out mugging and drinking, when in fact I've just been to a metal gig and to the hospital later, to see my sick Grandma who's just coming out of a stroke, and I don't care. I just don't see any point in caring for what others think as long as I know I'm right."
         "I'm with you, man," said Mr. Death Before Dishonor, and the rest nodded in agreement. They later talked about more trivial matters, like the 'metal gig' they just went to and the bands they idolized and even about the younger kids' homework.
         As they talked, he leaned back against the doors (he wasn't supposed to) and couldn't help feeling that he was destined to actually see the end of the movie he just watched from his three by five overcharged room balcony earlier. He saw these kids and assumed the worst, and he couldn't help feeling that by doing so, he had just committed one of the worst crimes in the world. All this while he thought God's cinema was there to show him how people were, to show him the sorry state of humanity at its best and worst (mostly worst), but these kids had just made him realize something: that wasn't the message.
         That wasn't the message, he thought, that wasn't the message the movie was trying to convey. The message was that there are those who know and those who assume, and those who assume know nothing. They may think they know it all, but they know nothing in fact, merely judging people by their own prejudices and not caring at all what the truth is.
         The hardest part to accept (and nearly made him miss his stop, where he got off just in time) was this: he was one of those who assumed. And he knew nothing, and didn't care about the truth.
         He had to sit down on the stairs leading down from the station to the streets, as his head was reeling from the sudden impact of knowledge. Did that make him self-centered? Did he still believe, deep down, that the balcony wasn't a front row seat to God's Cinema at all, but still the king's podium he had believed it to be when he just moved in? Did he still believe he was a king, so very superior over his serfs that he needed no reason to justify his thoughts?
         He sat there for what felt like a while (in fact he hadn't been sitting there for fifteen minutes), thinking about the sudden revelation he experienced. Then he stood up, still a little shaky, and remembered he had a snooker game to get to. He hurried down the stairs, and tried to flag down a cab. Dragon Tattoo was right. People never change, and the same was for him. He would still assume things about people (the businessman, was that his daughter or his wife?) and still not care about the truth. That was his nature, probably, and it probably isn't going away anytime soon.
         Some things can be changed, though. His room, for instance. He promised himself that when he got back, he'll ask his landlady to change rooms with an available one. Doesn't matter which one, really-as long as it doesn't have a balcony.

Testing Out Word and Photo Uploads.

Now here is me trying out photo uploads and MS Word posting. Bear with me okay.

Is this photo visible? Is this post on the blog? If the answers are 'YES', thank god. If not…Fuck.