Journal Therapy: Hero Of My Story

Mood: Afraid 
Location: Sydney

Rationale: I've been watching a docu-series on Netflix - Myths & Monsters which discussed the pattern of stories throughout human history. This got me to thinking about how I could use this plotline to influence my subconscious and navigating my 'mindgarden'.

If the purpose of my journal therapy is to create a more orderly, positive landscape within, what better way than to overlay a heroic story for myself, combining my love for creative writing with the emotional need for a relatable storyline. So I shall begin...

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PART 1: A STORM IS COMING

Once upon a time, there was a young boy, and we use the term 'boy' loosely, as sometimes, he would prefer to be a 'she', not a woman or a girl,  but a more effeminate form of himself, with a large range of states in between. Suddenly conscious of sitting on a stump in the middle of a wide field, a single street lamp shone down from above. 

The landscape was dark, the sky above cloudy like a storm was about to arrive, but it seems to have always been like this. Instinct nudged against his mind, a soft alarm to find shelter, a safe space where there would be peace and comfort. 

Despite not wanting to leave this familiar spot, There was a fluttering of shadows that he thought must be his friends. They were black ravens, diving sharply from above and right past him. 

He cried "Wait! don't leave me alone!", but deaf to his words, they flew onward into the pitch black sky, melting as if they were the same essence of the gloom ahead, leaving him to run in his slow, sluggish footsteps. 

In the silent dark, not being able to catch up, it began to feel truly lonely, quiet tears streamed down his face, each drop marked the heavy expression on his face. He had walked so far that his sitting stump was no longer visible. He decided there was no choice but to move ahead, tucking his hair  behind his ears in the blowing winds.

He came upon wild brambles that had strange whispering plants. A wet sheen covered the leaves, reflecting his own blurry image that he realised he had never seen before. What did he actually even look like? He stopped to smell some roses that he liked a lot, he named them and decided they were his sisters. He asked them why was he lost, but each gave him a different reason from their limited understanding. They spoke lovely words and comforted him, but he knew they had not given a true answer as none of them resonated with him. Walking slowly and cautiously, there were also thorns that hurt his feet as he made the journey towards the garden. Again he wanted to stop but had nowhere to rest. A scary lightning snake flashed through the clouds. It zig-zagged across the sky, forked tongue flicking in the quick winds, heralding the storm that was about to break.

He saw a humongous tree far away, towering over layers of growth, he couldn't separate the shadowy outlines of bush and hedges, but could only stumble painfully towards the general direction. He looked back and wondered how far he had journeyed from the beginning, and he wished for someone who could help him. Another lightning snake zapped out of the sky and struck a bush nearby, lighting it on fire. The flame danced and grew, turning into a sparkling form. Long straight tresses revealed a beautiful breath-taking face with an aura so powerful, she must be a goddess!

PART 2: LADY JEWEL

The bright aura was a purple nimbus, shimmering around her long sparkling hair and naked form. She looked at him and asked, "Why are you so sad my child?" 

He was afraid, in awe and yet, desperate for a friend. He shyly replied, "Can you help me? I think I'm very lost". She smiled, eyes large and hypnotic, made of embers that gave off no heat but brightened her surroundings. "Do not hold onto your fears, you are stronger than you know, your search will be blessed as it will also bring joy to others, so I will lend you my strength", she said as she held out her hand.

Afraid to be burnt, he crept slowly towards her, wanting to be like her so he could shine a light into the darkness, and bring joy to others so that maybe his friends would return, ending his solitude. He squinted his eyes and touched her flaming hands, the flames didn't burn but instead flowed over his skin and melded through him. The electric fire swallowed him as she and he became one. For the first time, he felt what must be Courage, warming the chilling grip of fear and loneliness. He glowed with an aura of different colours, letting him see more of the path ahead. He heard her voice within, telling him to continue on and not to give up.

Suddenly he floated above the thorny path and could see that the shadowy outlines resolve into a maze of hedges and bushes stretching much further than he first thought. The winds seem to push him ahead like a bubble caught in a breeze. Floating past the last bit of the field's edge, he arrived at the huge leafy wall of the hedge maze. The entrance was to the side, its opening guarded by three large statues, towering over him with a stony gaze that brought some of the dispelled fear back into his heart. Each guardian sent a fierce thought into his mind, challenging him, blocking his path until they deem him worthy to cross.

PART 3: THE GUARDIAN OF BODY

The first guardian statue had a large platform before him, the platform had numbers and an arrow that pointed at 0. When he stood on the platform, that arrow spun to a humongous number, indicating how cumbersome and heavy he was. The guardian said "Thou shalt not pass! you are not the ideal weight", then proceeded to show calculations of the correct size he should be for his current state of being. The guardian struck at his mind and from the impulse blossomed a sense of deep shame. An awareness of his shapeless wobbling form dawned upon him, causing him to suddenly expand and contract just as quickly. He tried running around the walls of the maze, stretching himself this way and that to become the correct shape, but he would always snap back in the wrong position, size and weight. 

With a sense of despair, he sat on the judging platform and stared at the large scary numbers, absently he plucked at a nearby fruit and started to chew, then to munch, later to binge on the entire fruit bush before stopping himself. The arrow on the platform swung up and up, numbers growing ever larger, making him panic though he just ate more in response. His mid-section soon bulging like rolls folding on top of each other.

---

...Will he ever get past the first guardian? tune in next time on my next Journal Therapy entry.

Moon Rabbitch

illustration by Royce Tan T.G. (The Great)

When the moon disappears from the sky, we know that it has been eaten.
Because on the moon, there lives a creature with long sock-like ears, huge padded feet, as cute as a bunny.
BUT, this adorable sack traps a dark soul and is called ... the RABBITCH
(*A terrifying creature created when a bunny voodoo doll was used to trap that spirit in The Ring's horror video... I digress, ehem.)

The Rabbitch is trapped on the Moon with no body and no food.
The Rabbitch is always hungry and she is always angry.
Angry enough to eat rocks; and she does.
Piece by piece, She eats the moon in 28 days.
Her bite marks are craters, her crumbs are comets.

The Rabbitch has done this over and over again for eons.
Perceivable only as the Moonshadow.
Every once in a while, she gets powerful enough to eat the sun, which they call a Solar Eclipse.
The Chinese characters for Lunar eclipse are = 月食Yuè shí

月= Moon

食= Food/Eat

When the moon is full you can see the Rabbitch'es shadow with a good telescope.

Over time humans have collected proof of her existence.

Now you know why the moon gets eaten every month.
Appreciate the Moonlight, before it is consumed anew.

Learn more about Japanese Moon Rabbit Legends on the WIKI : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_rabbit

Prompted Writing: Tell a story set in a place where the landscape reworks itself nightly.

Working Title: When All Was One

0.1. One. Many. Humongous. INFINITE.^1000

Our existence expanded from the smallest of pinprick of vibration into a massive cataclysm of exploding energy.

The blossom of energy thrust itself forward at the speed of light and left a stream called Time.

The next few seconds, we were One no longer, but disintegrated into many impossible divisions, with such force that we are still expanding as you are reading this.

In those first billion nights, our universe was but a swirling mess of  cross-elemental marriages between Protons and Electrons, turning us into unions called Hydrogen.

It was always night then, for we were the stars.
We had only the consciousness that we prefer to stick together than not, and so, clusters of our Hydrogens gathered and exploded in constant Hydrogen bombs (which was a form of copulation).

Each night was a dance of creation and destruction, and to us back then, each night was a billion years.
Then suddenly the dance...changed. We created unions called Helium, then more complex unions came from our reshuffling.

EONS.

We have mastered the dance of creation and destruction. We gathered in such masses, and with such closeness, that we were called the planets

Gigantic clouds that danced to destruction pressed against themselves so tightly that they tore through the stream of time, falling into a sucking black abyss.

Other Clouds danced to creation, releasing massive waves of energy which formed the light of our universe.

The most basic of our dances is called Gravity. The pulling together. We find similarity, direct and complimentary, and attempt to regather in the semblance of our past One-ness.

Warning: Over doing Gravity will cause everyone to trip on each other and implode into a Black Hole or fall outwards to trip on all surrounding Clouds and spill their essence as a Supernova.

Our Music is Electromagnetic, a system that governs our steps at every level, pushing, flowing, repelling...it compels our motion.

Finally, Our gathering was called Mass. clusters of us so tightly gripped that we formed a one...not quite the One we used to be, but at least partially fulfilling our desire to unite.

And there is one of our largest mass, a Galaxy, milky swirls of glitter parading down the streams of time.
Night was our state for we are the stars.
In our dance, the light shall ever blaze as the glory that was once One.

Those Eyes of Blue Skies

Those Eyes of Blue Skies  


Light refracted in those clear blue eyes, seemingly to capture the exact hue of patchy cerulean sky above our heads. Those pair of lash-framed pools smiled, fleeting hints of secret knowledge danced in its depths. They seem to be focused on something in the distance and then back at my own deep brown irises, smiling right into the core of me. Transmuted into an old and familiar ache that begins to thump...thump...thump, somewhere much lower than where my heart should be, and simultaneously in my throat as well.


I held his gaze a moment more than I dared. Mentally chastising myself, I tear my sight away to find sudden interest in the floor. Side by side, two pairs of footsteps walking down a busy street, indistinguishable from the cadence of city-dwellers going about their lives, only separated by my own  mental bubble of 'Us'.


A fleeting taste of disgust creeps inside my throat.

'Weak.'

The thought came unbidden. A statement. It just felt like I shouldn't be so weak from a simple look! Do I not have any sense left in my head? Has all my past experiences not thought me anything?

He stops by the cold grey marble tables at the cafe, just as the light of day faded. With a twinkle in his now darker blue eyes, he announced that he will get us both Chai Lattes. I smiled, nodded and I kept my shroud of mystery as tightly as I could, betraying nothing in my expression.

The quicksands of time had robbed us of 2 years and it was the last day that I could still see him face to face. I stared at his back, scanned his leather jacket, willing a hole to sear through it as he waited in line. Perhaps if my wishes began to come true, I could wish us together...

I held the brown corrugated cup in my hands; Steam wafted in the air; a busker sat across the street strumming his guitar and a breeze blew twirling leaves onto the ground.

We were talking and I wanted to hold him like that in my head forever. Spirited, smiling...warm...

"Hey?" he asked.

His voice broke through my reverie.

"Hmm? Oh sorry, you were saying?"

I smiled gently to reassure him. He probably knew what was going on in my head, but tried to cheer me up anyway.

He was always trying to get me to see the brighter side of things... and I even saw it sometimes... but only through his eyes.

I absentmindedly tugged on my left earlobe again. A tell-tale habit of mine when I felt insecure. I took a deep sip, felt my heart climb up my throat again and said :

"I'm going to miss you."

yet the unsaid words hung in my mind.

{[ I still love you ]}

We locked eyes for a moment, the briefest moment; but to my bared soul, it was a silent eternity, sinking into the depths of those eyes...

************

My lids swept open and my pupils dilated in shadow-streaked darkness. (Inhale.)

A dream of a memory, one year past.

It had seemed so real, but leaked away as soon as I tried desperately to grasp it. Like slipping quicksand through fingers, only the sensation is left when you close your palms.

364 days and a quarter make up one year, but a year means very little when you've left your heart to drown in someone else's eyes. I regain an empty calm, staring out the barred windows into the abandoned night.

Awaiting the dawn to paint the skies, the color of his eyes.

Short Fiction: Girl of the Gale - Part 1

   

Girl Of The Gale

           The wind whipped her hair in the custard yellow light. Each buttercup blossom nodding its head back and forth. Green eyed and innocent, Aurai's face lit up as she took in the scent on the breeze. She took care not to step on any blossom for fear of damaging the delicate wild flowers. She sang:

"Are you going to Soveren Faire? Flowers bloom,~ Rosefairy and Tyme~" (sung in the tune of Scarborough Fair)

The breeze picked up.

"With song, this Spring, shall fly on the winds~ There was once a true love of mine.~" 

With that last verse the winds rushed past her dark hair and sent a whole field of pollenated seedlings into the air.

Like fairy dust, the seeds spun around her and flew across the hills towards the desert. She stared into the horizon, willing the seeds to take root in the Starving Lands. Calming her heart, she brought the winds back down to stillness.

She heard a rustle from a specific spot now, She turned to see someone hiding among the thrush. She was being watched.

"Come out! I know you're there, do not think you can conceal yourself and watch me! Pervert!"

In anger, she drew a circle at her feet and a small stirring of air spun itself into a fast funnel. Aurai opened up her palm and the funnel rushed into the direction of her spy, tossing dirt and dust in its path. The little tornado threw the person into sight. Aurai heard loud coughing, as if whoever it was swallowed a good amount of dust. The brown powder settled and the form of an old woman in worn out clothes raised her hand in defense.

"Please, kind Magess, do not harm poor old Vate, Vate means you no offense."

Aurai ran to help her in alarm, she had not thought it would be a weak old woman hiding by the river. It was usually the town boys whom tried to play pranks on her. Aurai lifted Vate's slender frame slowly, at a closer look, she noticed that this woman wasn't as old as she thought, simply emaciated from hunger.

"I am so sorry Vate, pardon my transgressions (she intoned formally in the Aniki tongue with a slight bow to her elder) Are you injured at all?" Aurai's face blushed with a rosy glow.

"It is alright, peace to the contrite (she replied in a different accent of the tongue). I should not have concealed my presence Magess, it is my fault. I simply did not want to disturb your ritual." She smiled a weak smile and tried to arrange her garments as best she could without looking into the river's reflection.

With another embarrassed smile, Aurai looked away and said: "Oh... this was not an actual Sidhe ritual. I...I've have simply been practicing you see. My mother is the town's Prima Magess and I am simply her apprentice." She did not want the traveller to know that she wind summoning without permission.

She quickly asked:

"Your accent and dressing are not familiar, Did elder Vate travel far from the west?" Aurai guided the older lady to a boulder nearby, it wasn't comfortable for sitting but it would have to do for then.

"Thank you Magess." Vate winced as she sat on the sharp rocks and Aurai quickly replied "Your gratitude is admired" (in the formal Aniki way) "Well Vate has traveled far from the borders of the Starving lands. This winter has robbed Vate's family of her food source......"

In that moment, her eyes became haunted and even more tired. Her body sagged like a rice bag and she held her wrist looking down to the ground.

"Vate has lost her son two weeks ago." she almost whispered. Her eyes welling up.

by *DominikaAniola

Aurai's heart was filled with sympathy when she heard this, and sat beside this lady in an attempt to comfort her. "I am so sorry for your tragedy Vate. Please tell me more and you do not have to use the Low Language with me." (Low Language is the way a commoner or one of lower rank would refer to themselves as the third person when speaking to one of higher rank)

" Va... I... I have nothing left to live for in the Shara, the last winter has brought the borders of the Starving lands into my village, Enlil, . Many have left in search of new living lands. My son Amun has been lost to the hunt... Another hunter thought him prey..." At this, she began to sniff and clenched her skirts to suppress her great sorrow.

Aurai touched her silver worked Magess necklace, a symbol of good luck and her station. She silently prayed for Amun's soul as such a tragic incident would surely not let his spirit rest. Aurai lightly patted Vate's arm to reassure her.

"The hunger in my village have driven my neighbours to petty robbery." She said that with a hint of anger. "They would not even let an old woman grieve in peace. That was when I decided that there is nothing left in Enlil for me anymore."

Staring at Vate's sunken cheeks and trembling arms, Aurai decided that she will at least give this woman shelter and a warm meal for throwing her into the air with such indignation.

"Elder Vate, please accept my invitation to rest in my home and share my meal. You shall stay with me and my mother until we find you a suitable living in my town, Soveren. Mother always says that the town could use more female energy."

Vate's eyes widened at such a generous offer and before she could motion to refuse, Aurai interrupted her: "I will not take a refusal as it is my payment for inflicting injury to your body. Please, it is the least I can do. I would be dishonoring the oath of the Magess Circle if I do not help someone in need."

Weakly, Vate let her hand fall down and thanked Aurai with a defeated nod. She was much too exhausted to put up an argument.

Aurai reached into her bag and took out her feathered Windchime. Like a large dandelion puff, it had a chamber inside that rattled noisily. Aurai threw it into the air and with a sharp gesture, a jet of air sent the Windchime spinning and rattling into the direction she pointed.

"That will notify my mother and the household of my return. Are you well enough to walk elder Vate? Let me get you some water."

As Aurai turned, taking out her flask to collect water from the river, Vate watched Aurai from behind. As the fiery red sunset fanned its dying light across the land, Vate held a glint in her eye but her face betrayed nothing of what lied beneath...

<END OF PART ONE>

Theories on the Spirit World and Ghosts

This was a reply to a fellow mystic whom discussed a few ideas about hauntings. As a psychically sensitive person who has lived in a haunted house before, I feel that my personal experience on the matter is relevant and based on careful thought :Royce Tan

Hey, Thank you for the reply. I too have lived in a haunted house with a few family members. My observation is similar to yours, true hauntings rarely cause harm to the ones who experienced it.

The thing I question is, Why do only specific individuals experience the hauntings personally and almost never on an equal scale. Meaning that if the spirit were a single purposeful entity trying to communicate with us via exerting equal spiritual force on all living souls within the vicinity, should we not all receive equal amounts of it's energies and therefore experience the same thing?

In simpler terms = if a singer stood in front of us, singing for us, would we not all hear the same song? yet spiritual experience is always individual and unique, some smelling things, hearing things, seeing things. Different experiences within the same haunted location. This further supports my theory that the area has a Dimension/space-time anomaly, that leads us to perceive different strange things in very individualized ways.

The individualized ways such as hearing, seeing and feeling are again indicative that it isnt' the Singer (spirit) with the intention of communication, but the Listener (the haunted) that has the subconscious intention to 'hear' the transposed and dislocated Sounds (ghostly experiences) recorded in that space.

I am still unsure if the land is 'recording' these energies or if the land simply has a weaker boundary between different Times, allowing us to sense past or future Living people in the same location yet physically in a different time.

I've always wondered how come mediums can connect to a person from the past in the present yet have their timelines run parallel. I'm a psychic precognitive dreamer (I dream of the future) so I always saw it as connecting to my future self. Ghosts to me are leftover energies of the past because I think the original bulk of the soul & energies have moved on. This for me explains why ghosts fade in and out, they seem to be stuck on repeat and bound to certain geographical locations. It's like leaving a recording of your soul upon the land which acts as a giant recorder. You hear the sounds and occasionally see the video replay but the actual person is already gone.For me these vibrations that are picked up, are not so much significant of the 'ghosts' intentions but rather, your mind is attuned to that particular energy and that's why you pick it up.perhaps the message of the spirits is dependent on your 'mental channel' It;s like when you tune into a certain radio channel. It's not so much what the radio is trying to tell you,the radio station is going to keep playing with or without you, but rather, what your mental receiver is trying to listen to. With this, I think you have a very direct link to your subconscious and your senses are actually indicative of what Your subconscious intentions are, rather than the spirits.

I formulated this whole idea because if the Spirit world does exist as an unseen dimension side by side with ours, then it must be bound by certain laws of physics as well. Energies cannot be created or destroyed, simply transmuted into another form. The resulting conversion of such energies are usually able to be observed.

Yet, we assume that when we die, part of our energies gets turned into a 'Spirit" which is usually undetectable within the physical dimension, yet able to exert force and presence once in a while. This idea is weak to me because the transmuted energies disappear and then reappear only during a haunting. Where is the potential energy stored in between that? Energy for the most part is visible when active as fire, light, electric. When it is dormant like tension, chemical and potential energies, they need to be stored in something physical ; like a spring coil, food or ball at the top of a slide.

Spirits would need to have the power to store energy in nothing or perhaps another dimension, then the power to transmute that energy out of nothing and over to our dimension or directly into our perceptions. If a Soul is only one third of a Full human (Body + Mind & Soul) , then a full human should be three times more powerful and able to transmute invisible energies across dimensions to other people.

Reiki and Absent/spiritual healing could be indicative of that power, so maybe it is possible for energy to be stored in certain wavelengths that are undetected by us. Such as microwaves, infrared and electromagnetic fields. But if this theory applies then we should be able to "haunt" fellow humans much more effectively than spirits.

Sorry for the rant, but I just love considering the world of spirits.
Hope this is another interesting read :)

Birthday Fairy

-------Fictional story-----

Every year most people would complete a ritual to commemorate the day the were brought into this world. The Chinese do it to ward off evil that is said to follow them on this day, The Romans believed that honey cakes round as the moon and lit with tapers were placed on the temple altars of [Artemis]. . . . Birthday candles, in folk belief, are endowed with special magic for granting wishes. The Greeks believed that your guardian angel or spirit guide would attend your celebration and it had a special relationship with the deity that you were born under.


Believe it or not, I've always felt the presence of my spiritual companion. Her name is Aurielle. It was perhaps on the day of my fifth birthday that I noticed her. Aquamarine eyes smiling in the middle of a baby doll face, staring at the candles on my cake.


Have you noticed how sometimes before you even begin to blow out your candles, the candles would get blown out by the 'wind' ? There Aurielle was, her childish lips rounded, blowing as hard as she could at my cake causing the candles to go out. I remember how my parents would say " Strong winds today". But I knew better, it was my spirit companion; little Aurielle. 


Each year, she would become clearer on my birthday, the rest of the time, she was an unseen presence that could be felt strongly during rainy days and when the moon was full. I grew to understand the meaning of making a wish by the time I was 8. The party was held in my father's country club in the courtyard by the pool. Cousins, friends, enemies and parent's friends' snotty children made up the guest list. Aurielle was rolling about on the surface of the pool water, sticking her tongue out at some of the other children whist swimmers in the pool were oblivious to her presence.


I ran in circles around the big pile of patterned boxes with all hues of shiny ribbons. I inspected each box carefully by holding it up to my ears and shaking its contents. I nodded in a grave expression, as if approving of the 'shakeability' of the gift. The child guests had already begun playing catch up and down the sun dappled foyer.


Speakers were turned on, the Birthday anthem played. A scary clown came out from behind the curtains with a dripping moist chocolate cake with 8 white candles on the top. Evil clown man placed the cake in front of my face as the other greedy cake-stealers gathered around me with the intention of getting a piece of their cake earlier rather than genuinely celebrating me.
The birthday song ended. The off pitch voices of my guests hung awkwardly in the air as they just realize there was no more music.
In the glow of the candle light, I could see the very same glow around Aurielle. It was time to make a wish, the clown asked me to think carefully, but all I could see was the ocean that was within Aurielle's blue-green eyes. I knew she would grant my wish....




(May or may not be continued)

Battle with Demon

As the dream consumes me, My mind opens. When I go under, reality is suspended.

I stood in front of the white wall station of the Zoo. The colours were washed out, like someone had bleached my vision.

My family walked with me to the gates of the guard house. They went through, as the guard with the beady eyes looked at me, frowning, staring, he shut the gates on me as I tried to step through. The gates slammed into my face and I was caught on the border.

That was when I knew something was wrong with the Zoo.
*Flash*

I was walking into the room where all visitors had to stay a night before they could enter the Zoo. It had a window that looked out into the compound. The Savannah winds blew dust against the windows. There was no signs of life at all for a zoo.
*Flash*

My mom ran in the next morning, panicking that she'd forgotten something. Whatever it was, I looked up at the ceiling, and there was a hole in the roof. I simply told her, I could get it. I just knew it at that moment, I could fly to wherever I wanted.

I rose out of the building like it was completely natural. Rushing through the city with no horizon. I could not see a single inch of sky. I needed to see the sky. I wasn't flying high enough. Everytime I tried to go higher, there was another glass building in my vision. I realised that my imagination wasn't strong enough. I couldn't imagine blue skies and a horizon!

With that, the buildings gave way. and all I saw was a skyline of blue. The dark buzzing blue of a blank computer screen. The glass of the buildings showed me flying full speed, but in slow motion. I was swathed in billowing white cloth and the reflection was an absolutely beautiful lady.

*Flash*

I was back in the room, with the object retrieved, but nobody was there. There was something wrong here. I looked at the neatly manicured sheets and the laundered towels.; the neat pillows and the fake air of welcome. It was a trap for everyone who came to the Zoo. That's why everyone had to stay overnight. No one was supposed to actually get into the Zoo.

I looked behind me at the doorway. I hear someone call me out. I walked out and then at the doorway is a doll. A doll wearing something frilly and old. Then its head expands and contracts and opens its fangs. mouth. Teeth. Fangs. It screams at me! The eyes black holes of shadows, swirling spinning. It wants to eat me.

I stepped back in fear. and the fear expanded in my throat. It was a real demon! This was a dream. My dream, and what I think is real , becomes real. I knew I was talking directly to the demon through the dream, and the demon was angry.

I couldn't let this demon win. I had enough of it. I looked it straight in the eyes. It screamed at me. I shouted "That is enough! No more!" hands shot out of the ground to hold it in place. Fangs with spit shot at me, but it shrank a little. "You are but a demon! You have no power over me, no right to torture me. I am not afraid!"

*flash*

Sparkling Fingers

The sunlights peeks through each of my tiny fingers, prying them apart so that it may tickle my face.

The stubby hand of an 8 year-old is unsuitable for blocking the sun out of your eyes. I smile a silly smile. I turn around to inspect the gift machine. My favourite thing in the whole of Taman Sri Rampai.

I placed the 2o sen coin into it's slot carefully, trying with all my skills to twist its knob just right. My eyes widen as I watch the little plastic egg churn and roll out of the bottom chute. My perfect prize.

The stubby fingers set to work and massaged the little plastic egg. I hoped for that fantastic ring that seem to zap colours into the air. At least that's what it looks like on the cardboard print on the machine.

The egg pops open, and out falls a plastic star...... Were they earrings?

"Ouuhhh~~ Boy~ you gottah ear-lling~" the fat indian storekeeper looked down at me and my latest prize. "bettarr lahk nex Thyme~" and with a jingle of his head he walks back into the dark recesses of his store. The scent of shaved coconuts and something sinister wafted from within.

Oh well,The day was still bright. I took a look at the sky. A breeze relieves the foul stench of rotting coconut shells in the drains. I hopped over the drains and landed on my pudgy feet. The Bata slippers getting slightly stained with mud.

A carefree childhood, to collect dreams and memories.

Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne is not a word with a spelling error. It is a word in the dictionary. It is the name of the Greek Goddess of Memory, mother of the muses.

I shall now attempt to use this word in a different context. It is now the word I shall use to describe that familiar jumbled up place in my head; the one that is made from your memories. Everyone has a Mnemosyne. It is that place you visualize when you think of the word 'home', taking pieces of where you've lived, and the environment of your defining moments to become a single,all-encompassing place.

In order to explore this, I must now detach myself from my own identity, to get a better look at my ownself.


Royce's Mnemosyne is a curious place. Due to his nomadic childhood which continued into adulthood, his Mnemosyne constantly shifts and reconstructs itself without any sense of order.
The first inhabitant of Mnemosyne is Emerald. rumored to be the goddess of love reincarnate, she is the epitome of emotion.

During one of my explorations in Mnemosyne, I had a conversation with Emerald. She broods upon this darkened tree stump in the middle of a windswept field where it is always just about to rain. It is her throne.

As I had no physical traits whatsoever within Mnemosyne, I couldn't help but admire Emerald's haunting yet beautiful presence. Her sad smile veiled now and again by her dark brown curls in the neverending wind. Her posture was melancholy as her small frame was weighed by the emotional weight of the world. But the most memorable thing about her, were her eyes. Earthy green as mother nature herself, her irises could summon your soul into them.

She explained to me with her gentle and motherly voice, that many confuse the title "goddess of love" to be the controller of all romantic feelings in every human. When in actual fact, it means she is able to love as powerfully and deeply as a goddess. She never claimed she was the original goddess, but she might just well be the real deal.

"Being the Lover of All, is both absolute pain and absolute joy. Whichever it is, I cannot stop it, because it is who I am."

The grass of the field rippled in waves as the wind blew. The clouds were heavy and roiling across the sky. There she waits, for what I do not know. But she waits....

The first ruler of Mnemosyne and oldest resident requested solitude for her brooding. With her eyes looking straight through me, I began moving away as if through a wormhole folding in on itself. I knew I was about to meet the second.

(to be continued)

By the Power of Four

I was a senior at the Grand High University of Asian Magic. Like Hogwarts but based in China. Which looked kind of like this..
I was part of a team of four that regulated the grounds against the magical creatures or spells that go wrong. Each of us had elaborate chinese costumes, as if we were Chinese Opera Singers.

It was at night, The headmaster greeted me and my partner who were on night duty, a good night before he went to bed. He looked just like this
Me and my partner walked off into the courtyard, scanning the night for danger. My precognitive ability sensed that there would be something wrong tonight. Sure enough, the shadows convulsed and gathered into a shadowman.
I immediately raised my hands and exerted force out of my fingers and into the ground where he stood, forcing heavy gravity on its body, smashing him to the floor. My partner zapped ahead with sword in hand, slicing the shadowman with lightning speed. The Shadow melted and dissipated.

An ominous laughter sounded from the top of our building, and the scene swung to a bird's eye view. the shadowman pulled a doppelganger on us, tricking us into thinking his clone was real. He melted and entered the building. I think I was wearing some kind of boots or heels, so I couldn't really run, but I could levitate. Quickly, I glided up into the school window in chase.

The interior of the building seemed modern and bright. As if it were RMIT's buildings. The light seemingly from nowhere. Students poured out of their classes gawking at me, recognising me as one of the four guardians. I glided down a little, so as not to scare them with my levitation. The Shadowman was slithering down the corridor. With one hand raised, I exerted force outwards shoving the students aside and smashing the shadow against the wall. He simply melted like liquorice and slipped away.

I went down the corridor and found myself meeting up with the headmaster and three other guardians. It was the Hall of Entrance to Guan Yin Garden.
Headmaster said : "This is very bad, I suspect he is after Guan Yin's bracelet." The old man brushed his white beard aside, and took of his robe to reveal a wrestlers body underneath. His muscles were rippling!
I said :"Headmaster! I had no idea! How much Chi have you absorbed?" The Headmaster didn't even speak this time. Telepathically he explained that he'd been doing a thousand year's of martial arts (qian nian gong). He ran through the door and out into Guan Yin's Garden.
By then, the shadowman must have taken the Bracelet because the headmaster was knocked back by a flying tiger made of light.

"Get Out! NOW!" the Headmaster shouted. All of us guardians flew off and up. Suddenly we were standing outside watching the third floor through its glass windows. Feeling an urgency to do something, I realised I was the Master Chanter. I could try something.

"All that's been and all that's seen,
Has never happened and this I mean"

A feeble beam of light came out from my palms but nothing happened. Time magic was unable to alter this. Flashes of light emitted from the third floor.
I tried again with another rhyme and still failed.

Finally in desperation,I tried something never done before. I held all four of my guardian's hands and created a rhyme.

"By the power of four, I close the door,
Suppress the killer, there shall be NO MORE!"

Absorbing all the energies of the guardians, a huge ring of light imploded into the room, then exploded out; shattering all the glass and throwing us all off our feet in a supernova blaze.

I woke up.