Short Story: “The Nothingness”

Disclaimer: The story below is purely a piece of creative writing. It is not written based on my personal experience, nor have I known anyone who has experienced it. I do not understand the pain that anyone who has undergone, or who is undergoing it, has felt; nor do I presume to do so. I am truly sorry if this has brought up any painful memories for the reader.

Her feet quietly kicked off her blanket, and in the darkness, her toes seek the bedroom floor. They made contact with the cool surface and gingerly the rest of her feet eased onto it. She got to her feet and they carried her forward towards the door; it was as if they were on autopilot mode, mechanically scuffling along to take her to the place she had been gravitating towards the past few days.

Her eyes blink away the darkness of the room, adjusting to brightness of the lit hallway. They flit over to the bed she’d just left, and the figure of a man on it, tiredly snoozing away.  But her eyes quickly snap back to the hallway.

Her hand slowly drew the door to a close. It slid silently from the doorknob, and rest unconsciously on her tummy. Her stomach gave a lurch as her heart sank: her tummy never felt so empty before. Her hand then dropped and rested at her side.

Her feet continued to glide towards the room that has been her source of hope and disappointment for such a long time. They come to a stop right before the beige door and her hands instead carried the forward momentum from her legs, reaching out towards the golden doorknob and turning it gently. Working as though in a tag team, her hand retreated back to her sides and her legs took over. They surged forwards, carrying her to a pastel yellow crib standing alone in the corner of a room.

Her eyes picked out all the little things that she and her husband had placed in the room over the past four months. Saw the stuffed toy bears strewn across the room. The boxes of diapers and baby clothes that were left unpacked. The mobile hanging above the crib, softly going round and round over the head of a baby that never made it to the crib. Her eyes pushed back the tears that were threatening to fall.

Her feet stopped right in front of the crib. Her hand reached down to the contents inside the crib, fingering the soft quilt that it has spent countless nights knitting for the baby that would have come. Her fingers graze the pillow on which the baby’s soft head would have been placed.

It’s strange. How her body could function so perfectly, so harmoniously together. How her individual body parts are alive, knitting together the different senses to create a coherent picture for her. When her baby's could not. Was not given the chance to do so.

But now her body fails her. Her hand falls limp, her feet crumple beneath her, and her eyes no longer had the willpower to combat the onslaught of tears that slid down her face fast and furiously. She lays down on the cold wooden floor, curling into a fetal position, as if to make amends for the absence of one who was supposed to do the same in this very room.

She closes her eyes, and lets her hands and feet lie where they are. She embraces the stillness and darkness, and wonders if this nothingness is what her baby is feeling.

Transformers 4

Spoilers ahoy!     

     Honestly, there were so many things about this movie that make my blood boil at the fact that I've wasted a good three hours watching it. First of all: the plot. It seemed like a promising one at first, the Autobots were being hunted down and being labelled as threats even though they were clearly not. And everything seems set for a perfect action movie with the introduction of lead characters who are engineers/inventors, who might actually be able to contribute to the action. 

     Alas, it was too good to be true. 

     Elephant-sized plot holes started appearing all around. Like the fact that Cade managed to fix a critically wounded Optimus Prime in less than a day. Or the fact that Cade is able to contact Joshua Joyce out of nowhere. Because Cade apparently has the magic superpower of dodging plot holes. Plain weirdness and non-common sense reigned for about 98% of the film. Like the weird transition to China, and the convenient dino bot thingos, and the super awkward fact that the main antagonist - Harold Attinger - wanted to combat aliens by employing the help of other aliens...? Seriously, who wrote this script?

    Interesting characters gradually became paper-thin 2D characters by the end of the movie rather than being carefully and lovingly fleshed out. Tessa's character could have the potential to become the next Megan Fox character - a cool, beautiful chick who knows her way around machines and who could actually be useful to the team. But nooooo. She had to be used as the pretty face. Her character was interesting at first, she had to take care of her dad, she had to get a scholarship to go to college, her dad even said that he taught her all she needed to know about mechanics and machines. But urgh, was she a letdown. She was just used by Michael Bay as the mandatory pretty face, one whom Bay, by the way, consistently remind us is only sixteen years old. Oh gosh, if she had to be pretty poster girl, could he at least have her be a little street smart? She ran into a car which was right smack in the middle of a battle between Optimus Prime and Lockdown. Shouldn't she, I don't know, run away from the car instead? Ooh and when everyone's running for their lives, trying to escape Lockdown's ship, she suddenly has to freak out and provide an opportunity for those alien hounds to run after them.

     Shane was an inconsistent character, I don't even know what to think of him. One time he's saying he would do anything for Tessa and the next he's surrendering to the aliens. Meh. Joshua and Cade's characters are alright, but still I don't care for them much. Mostly, I was just annoyed at them though.And then there're side characters who are just hovering in the periphery of the main plot, not far enough for us to dismiss them but not near enough for us to care for them. There was Yueming, Darcy, and Lucas, all given a fair amount of screen time, but enough for us to develop any sort of liking towards them. 

    And my goodness. The movie was sooooooo long that I literally fell asleep. There was just too much going on and the way that the plot progresses was just so confused and hazy. When the Autobots manage to defeat those robots in Hong Kong, I was elated. It was like, "yes finally the battle is over!" Then Lockwood's ship started rolling in, and I could feel my heart just burst into tears. Then I settled in for a good nap, waking up at the end of the movie when the Autobots and humans were saying their goodbyes.
     Perhaps the only thing I liked about this film is the scenes with just the robots, sans the humans. The Autobots were interesting and they had a nice dynamic between the different characters. I can actually tell them apart now, which is a huge improvement from the previous movies. But it's really rather sad of a movie when the only thing good about it is the CGI-ed robot interactions rather than the acting skills of live humans. Ah well, maybe that's why even Optimus Prime decides to leave earth by the end of the movie. Perhaps he's had enough of Bay's shenanigans. 

"Bersyukurlah" - The Art of Being Grateful.

   "Bersyukur". In Malay, it means to be thankful, grateful. We know it means to count one's blessings, to be contented with what one has. On the surface, it seems to be a passive word. But why must it be?

   We shouldn't *just* be happily contented with what we have. We have to go beyond that. Neither should we keep on demanding for more, nitpicking and fussing over every single thing that doesn't go our way.

   When we see the injustice around us each day, we shouldn't just say "oh just be grateful with what you have and quit complaining". Yes, we should be grateful with what we have, and yes we should stop complaining and whining. But we should then translate our gratefulness into action. We have been blessed with so much in Malaysia, but does this mean we should be grateful by sitting back in ease and comfort, twiddling our thumbs? If we are truly blessed with much, should we not extend our blessings and resources to those who are less fortunate than ourselves? Should we not use what we have been blessed with to give back to society, to our nation, to the world? If we want to start making a difference, if we want to start becoming agents of change, we have to stop seeing "bersyukur" as a passive action and start seeing it as an active one.