Why Would I Write

  • My Shell

    I’m not sure if it’s because of past experiences, but today I reminded myself of my hatred for being in extremely crowded places.

    I was walking around Chinatown today, and felt extremely uncomfortable being surrounded by so many people. There was a fear of being pick pocketed, being the victim of a random slashing incident and even being hit by a passing vehicle. It was mostly irrational, and I can’t really explain why I felt that way, but it was just what my mind was going through as I walked through the crowded streets.

    If it wasn’t a fear of something bad happening, there was the annoyance of having to slow down my walk when there were too many people standing in my way. I don’t know why people aren’t more considerate in public. Please don’t hog walkways. It’s like people standing on the walking side of escalators, and acting oblivious to people who would like to get to their destinations quicker. Is it so hard to a considerate human being?

    Maybe it was because of the weather. The stink of rubbish and sweaty people amplified by the scorching sun wasn’t helping alleviate my irrational thoughts.

    I like cities. But I hate crowds. I enjoy KL when everyone’s gone for the holidays. I stand at the back at gigs instead of participating in the mosh pit. I love being by myself. Am I turning into a hermit or a paranoid? Hmm.

  • The File

    “Holy shit! Did you hear that?”

    “My screams of agony?”

    “No! The computer, it beeped!”

    “You must be hearing things, now come on, get this cord out of me before the wound gets infected and I get poisoned.”

    “No, I’m serious, George! Look! she said as she turned the laptop to my face.”

    “New device found. What would you like to do with it?”

    “No fucking way! What the hell?”

    “Exactly, we’ve got to check it out!”

    “Please hurry up, it really hurts.”

    She moved the cursor onto open drive and there was a single executable file on the drive. George.exe.

    “Is that it?”

    “Uh huh,” she nodded.

    “Should we be running untrusted executables on your laptop?” I asked.

    “What the hell does that mean?”

    “No wonder your computer’s always full of malware..”

    She slapped me on my arm.

    “Hey!”

    Before I could object, she double clicked the file.

    A little window popped up with a list of options that would normally be found on a computer.

    Explore, run, shut down, restart, sleep, and update.

    “Let’s see what’s in explore,” without giving me a chance to object, she clicked it which and a gallery popped up, showing tons of folders named and sorted by dates. She clicked the folder at the top of the screen and a video clip popped up. It was a point of view video clip, showing me waking up, brushing my teeth, taking a leak and getting dressed before leaving the house this morning. Basically everything that I had been doing until I was at her house where we were wrestled on her bed and the USB cord pierced into my back.

    “Holy shit. What the hell is this shit?”

    She closed the video and selected another date at random, it was a few days earlier. It started off the same way, me waking up, heading to the toilet to wash up, taking a dump, getting dressed and heading to work.

    “You spend a lot of time on Facebook in the office,” she remarked.

    I laughed. “Alright, that’s enough of going through my memories. Let’s try plugging the cord into you.”

    “No way, I haven’t had enough yet!” she responded.

    “Come on, this is way too much, you can’t spend the whole day going through what’s in my head!”

    An evil grin appeared on her face.

    “Don’t tell me, you’re thinking of what I think you’re going to do.”

    Without saying a word, she exited to the main menu and clicked on sleep. I immediately blacked out.

    I don’t know what happened next.

    Writing Prompt from Reddit: While wrestling around on the ground with your girlfriend, you accidentally roll over onto your USB cord and it pierces into your back. You reach around to pull it out, your girlfriend screams and points at the computer where a small window says “New Drive (Q:) Recognized”

  • Drinking Ain’t What It Used To Be

    Yesterday I was at a drinking party and I wasn’t the one making a fool of myself. It felt strange. Like I knew what it was like to be that guy and I was no longer him. Trying my best to appear sober, while downing more drinks than my body could handle. Talking out of line, loudly, and acting ridiculous.

    Younger George wouldn’t say no to that drink. At least that’s what I remembered. Younger George would never say no to any drink. After all, if it had alcohol, it was delicious and bound to be fun. I wonder if there’s a way to measure how many brain cells I’ve had destroyed by drinking past my limit.

    Then again, younger George has been through some shit. Fortunately for younger George, he had amazing friends who looked after his drunk ass when he went down. Honestly, those guys are all champs. Younger George didn’t deserve them, but they were there for him anyway.

    I remember during my initial days of clubbing – a group of us would have trouble even finishing one bottle of whiskey. Then we got more tolerant and could even do a single bottle between two people. Now I can’t drink that much anymore, also I believe I’m much better at controlling my intake. Because even though it was fun talking about the adventures of younger George, it only seems funny because I was being an idiot – and I came out of my incidents mostly unscathed.

    It took a serious car accident to make me realize how stupid I was but in reality, that didn’t need to happen.

    Anyway, I still enjoy some alcohol every now and then, but I can go for weeks without a drink. It’s not a necessity in my life. I’m equally happy having conversation over sips of hot coffee or tea, and a cigarette or vape in my other hand. There’s no need for the high of alcohol when you have the company of good friends around you. Younger George would have suggested afternoon drinks instead.

    “You’re a shadow of your former self! What happened to you?”

    It’s alright, I’m okay with having less ‘fun’ these days – at least my friends and family won’t have to worry about me every time I go out. Also, I won’t have to spend so long shitting out the previous night’s drinks in the toilet or wasting the day nursing a hangover. It’s a win-win situation. Farewell, younger George. It was nice knowing you.