Author: goodnewsgeorge

  • Empty Streets of Muddy Confluence

    You know today, while singing along to Mayday Parade’s Jersey, I thought again of how poetic names of places can be in songs – when you’re not singing about Malaysia. All the names of our states here don’t really go well with English lyrics. I mean, sure I could put them in, but they would sound pretty forced. At least that’s what I think. Bangsar, Genting, Penang, Malacca – none of them have the same ring as Ocala, New York, Vegas or Austin. Why is that? I think it might be because they aren’t English words to begin with. Then again, those names aren’t really words either. Just names in English. Also, how can you write emo lyrics about a place called Happy Garden or muddy confluence? Maybe you could, I never really tried it. The closest I’ve come is using “long drives up state” in a song. I guess I just need to try harder to find a city/state that can work in a song.

    It’s great being from KL during the long holidays. You can drive around like you own the streets because there are no other cars on the road. It feels good not being stuck in traffic jams. I wish regular days were like this. Then again, if they were always jam-free, I wouldn’t appreciate it as much. Just kidding. I dislike the fact that my favorite cafe is closed for the holiday though. Oh well, people need their rest too.

    After gambling for about three hours last night, I walked away with RM4 profit. FeelsGoodMan. I’m not much of a gambler, but I do enjoy sitting around with people who rub their cards in hopes of changing their values. I guess it would be boring to gamble with a table of Georges. These guys add a lot of entertainment value to a regular session of Black Jack.

    Waking up late really is a waste of your day. But so is sleeping early. Sleep feels so good. But you only have so many hours in a day and so many things to do. I remember when I was younger, I’d hate having to nap in the afternoon. I was even beaten as a kid if I didn’t want to go to sleep. These days, I’d gladly go to bed in the afternoon given the chance. I could also wake up within a second when my alarm clock rang. I guess I just grew lazier as I got older. These old bones aren’t as responsive as they used to be.

    The other day my cousin complimented me on my watch. It’s nothing fancy. Some cheap Aldo watch I purchased from Zalora because I had some vouchers to use. Regardless, it felt kinda good. Like I did something right. People rarely compliment me on my fashion choices. Probably because I’m nowhere near fashionable. I just put on stuff that I think looks good on me, and most of the time it’s very plain. Nothing fancy. I guess I’m not a fan of loud clothing. Especially shoes. I don’t understand how people find neon colors on shoes attractive – they look so obnoxious. Different strokes for different folks. Then again, my favorite color is brown so who am I to judge?

    Every time I listen to a nice song, I feel compelled to share it online. In hopes that someone would enjoy the song as much as me. It makes me happy whenever that happens. It’s like validation for my taste in music even though in the grand scheme of things, it makes no difference whatsoever to my life. Unless our future turns into the Black Mirror Nosedive episode. I wonder how popular I actually am on the internet. Googling my own name doesn’t tell me much. There are way more popular people with the same name on the internet.

    Using the wayback machine to see some snapshots of how my blog used to look is pretty fun. But man, my writing was so cringeworthy back then. I don’t know what I was thinking, hitting publish after typing out so much crap. I can’t recall my original site URL back when geocities was organized into neighborhoods. Those should be a fun read. Haha.

  • Horror

    I’m not a fan of horror movies or video games. I could never understand why people would willingly spend money to shit themselves indulging in such media. I don’t remember where the fear started from. But all I know is that every time, without fail, after watching a horror movie, I would have the most irrational fears using the bathroom at night. I would do my best not to close my eyes. Whenever I use the bathroom sink to wash my face, I’ll try to keep one eye open at a time, lest I blink and see another face in the mirror looking at me. Washing my hair at night also becomes a bitch.

    The last horror movie I watched in the cinema was the remake of It. I jumped in my seat quite a number of times. Most of my friends said that it wasn’t scary at all. I don’t get it. The drain scene was the stuff of nightmares. And the part where the clown comes out of the wall projection. Who thinks of such things?

    I remember there was a time when I could watch horror movies without any consequence. I think I probably scarred myself for life when I watched the original Ju On home alone in the evening. By the time the movie was done, the sky outside was dark and I hadn’t switched any of the lights on. I was pretty creeped out.

    I’m just as scared watching movies on a small screen. I remember I had to watch the last few scenes of Dead Silence in a resized window on my PC desktop because I couldn’t handle it full-screen. I even turned the volume down.

    I tried playing F.E.A.R. to overcome my fear (heh) of scary video games. I only managed to play it for an hour before I gave up. I’m not a fan of jump scares. The game was full of it. It was even worse because I controlled the character and had to walk into my own jump scares.

    I can handle horror that builds up into a climax. I don’t mind gruesome or gory. I don’t mind psychological horror. I’m mostly scared by scary looking ghosts and old ladies. Watching the first Insidious movie was enough for me. I don’t intend on watching any of the other films in the franchise.

    You know what I like? Comedy. I’ll willingly pay money to have a good laugh. So much more worth it than scaring myself.

    I already have some irrational fears – like walking next to power boxes (for some reason I’m always afraid that they’ll blow up for no reason and kill me) and power line poles in Thailand (why don’t they fix that shit? isn’t anybody else scared by the constant buzzing sounds you hear walking next to them?). I’m also terribly afraid of cockroaches. I don’t need to introduce more things in my life to scare myself.

    I used to swim in the evening after work. Sometimes late at night, even though the pool lights were already turned off. Until one day I started imagining ghost ladies appearing and holding my head underwater to drown me. Now I don’t swim in the dark anymore.

    I’m glad Dota 2 isn’t scary at all. It’s a fun and great way to end the night. Despite losing more than winning, I still enjoy the game very much.

  • Eighteen

    “Come on!” yelled Sobia. “What does it say?”

    “Yeah!” said Farez. “Tell us!”

    It was my eighteenth birthday and I had just blown the candles out on my birthday cake. Fortunately I didn’t get saliva all over the cake this year. For the past few years, my friends have been calling me ‘The Spitter’ for that very reason. I breathed a sigh of relief. I had made sure I swallowed all my saliva before attempting to blow the candles this time. However, this year my friends didn’t really care about the cake. They were more interested in my final words.

    They would have appeared somewhere on my body, but I had no idea where they were yet. As far as I could tell the words didn’t appear on my face or my arms, if not my friends would have seen them already. Oh dear, I hope it wasn’t on my ass. That would be a pain to read.

    I was the youngest of my friends in the group. All my friends had their last words appear on them last year. Most of them had typical last words like, “Goodbye world.” and similar variations. Some of them had more amusing ones like, “I told you so.” Which led us to speculate how they would be leaving this world. As for me, I had no clue yet.

    “Come on guys, can we just enjoy this cake? I didn’t spit on it for once!” I said trying to change the topic.

    “Don’t leave us hanging! We’ve waited all year for this!”

    “Fine, let’s finish the cake and then I’ll go check it out.”

    Tanzeel was ahead of me. He grabbed the knife from my hands and started dividing the cake for all of us.

    I sat down there, waiting for the cake to be served to everybody before I started eating my own piece. It was a silent occasion and nobody hesitated to wolf down their helping of the delicious chocolate-flavored dessert.

    “For fuck’s sake, guys! Are you serious? Did you guys attend my birthday party only to find out what I’ll say before I croak?”

    “Yes,” Farez replied sheepishly.

    “You guys are assholes.”

    “Come on, we’re done with the cake, now go find out what your last words are!”

    “Did you know birthday parties are a celebration of life? Not a ritual to find out what someone is going to say before they die?”

    Nobody listened to me. They just stared at me, waiting for me to get out of my seat to look for my last words.

    I grumbled and got up and headed to the bathroom. A couple of them followed me to the door. I could hear them from the outside talking among themselves. “What do you think it’s going to say?”

    “I bet it won’t be as epic as yours, Sobia.”

    “What if it’s something sad?”

    “Oh shit, I never thought of that.”

    I put their voices out of my head as I removed my shirt. There was nothing on my body. Craning my neck around, I checked out my reflection. Nope, there was nothing on my back. Hmph. I guess I’ll have to check my lower body. I took off my shoes and my pants. I noticed some letters trailing out under my boxers. It was on my thigh. Not too bad I guess, it would be easy to keep concealed. I pitied those people who had messages on their foreheads. Nobody understood how these last words appeared or where they appeared. It was just an accepted fact of life. We all just learned to deal with it.

    I pulled one leg of my boxers up to reveal the full message. Oh fuck. Is this some sort of joke? I stumbled backwards and fell to the floor on my ass.

    I heard banging on the toilet door. “What’s up man? Don’t leave us hanging!”

    I took another look at the message on my thigh. I rubbed at it, to make sure that it wasn’t some sort of marker pen joke. The words remained, as clear as day.

    “What are your last words? Do you need help in there?”

    I tuned out their voices again as I sat on the floor, pondering my last words. No, this can’t be real. Why the hell would I say such a thing? I remained speechless. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell my friends what my last words were. Nobody could know. I broke down and cried.

    “Are you alright? What’s wrong? If you don’t reply, we’re coming in!” yelled Farez.

    I couldn’t reply. My friends kicked the door in and found me on the ground, a whimpering mess.

    “Holy fuck, Zoraiz. What the hell are your last words going to be?”

    I didn’t reply. They inspected my body and saw the words on my thigh, still revealed for all to see.

    “There is no God but God, Muhammad is His messenger.”


    Writing Prompt from Reddit: When a person turns eighteen, their last words appear somewhere on their body. Yours frighten you intensely.