Chrysalis [ 09. Amnion ]

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It was all darkness.

But it wasn't unsettling. Sometimes, blinding brightness can keep us in the dark -- like when the stars can't be seen for the sun -- similarly, darkness sometimes illuminates.

In the far off, I thought I heard  gentle sounds of water burbling, like when you are underwater. Maybe I was. But I knew I wasn't, because somehow, I wasn't suffocating. Also, there was no water around, or, I couldn't feel it. It was like waving about in empty space. Yet somehow the darkness itself had resistance, giving that wrap-around, warm feeling. Velvety darkness.

I tried to move about, but there was no up or down, no left or right. I was a suspended point in space.

I remembered one time I had sneaked in late at night to a nearby pool. I didn't swim; I just waded through the water to the middle and flailed about so that I floated on my back. I stared at the sky, at the black cloud curtains behind which the moon and the stars had shied away. 

It felt great to be suspended by the water below. When I try to look at the sky while standing up, I feel so overwhelmed  and along comes the spell of dizziness that makes me feel like toppling over. If I lie on my back and look up, I would feel vulnerable, as if the vastness of the sky itself will come crushing down and hammer me to the ground at any moment. Floating on water, I was able to take in the greatness of sky: sans the dizziness, sans the vulnerableness. To contain that infinite stretch into the finite frame of my mind.

It is reassuring to feel water resistance. In the dark, there were none of those fascinating dynamic brilliance of the silvery liquid the water has turned into during a sunny day. There were no ripples of light moving lazily along the bottom of the pool, like a huge net made up of strands of light has been cast, like a graceful, giant, transparent jellyfish. Yet you can feel it: the smooth friction as it slides along your skin and slips away between your fingers, the chill as it evaporates and leaves your body carrying your body heat away, the heaviness when you shove it around, the buoyancy on your back, the urge to dance.

That was the feeling of this liquid darkness surrounding me. 

If this were a dream, maybe I should wake up; if this were illusion, maybe I should seek the reality; if this were death, maybe I should be reborn. It's just,

What if I got those all wrong? That this is actually awake; that this is reality; that this is life?
I felt like Zhuangzi's butterfly, flapping about between two realms, not even sure whether I should be flapping, or even whether I was a butterfly to begin with. 

Chrysalis [ 08. It's Still Raining Inside ]

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You are Alphonse. 

You are sitting at the piano stool, fingers still standing rigid on the piano keys, tingling from swift and complicated manoeuvres. The smell of rain is in the air, but the rain itself is letting up.

You have just finished playing a song, which promptly slips out of your mind, already forgotten. You don't know what possessed you -- a while ago you were sitting by the window staring and listening to the rain, the next you plunged into a kind of trance. But you do remember an emotional outburst. The body remembers; and it's as if the melancholy is echoing still, resonating in the air, in the strings, buzzing about your ears like the insect's singing on a summer's day, in the strings of your own heart. A twang of pain deep in the chest.

Like angina pectoris, the heart is lacking oxygen. Your heart is lacking something.

You try to think about other things to distract yourself. Let's see. You find it peculiar that sometimes it feels like there are different entities inside you. The you playing piano just now, who was it? The you talking to your parents not often enough, the you giving up your seat to an old lady this morning, the you thinking those suicidal thoughts, the you crying too often when you flip the newspapers, the you in the eyes of others, the you (you think) in the eyes of others, the you still buried deep in the iceberg under the sea level, the façade of you, the awkward you in front of the person you like, the scheming you, the simple-minded you, the you who loves to crack jokes: these are all you.

You know that there is something called author's persona. This means that the writer projects himself on paper. This projection, however close to the author himself, deliberate or otherwise, is a separate entity from the author. The persona is, in other words, a 'façade'. The opinion on the paper is not the author's opinion, but the persona's. The 'I' on the paper is not the author, but the persona. This is why you get that strange feeling sometimes: the moment you put down "I" then it stops being yourself, it's another person, though it is infused with your person. Like a part of yourself is pulled out like a dough, estranged, alienated, transformed to something else. That is a persona.

On the other hand, a persona is also a 'shadow' because at the same time, the persona takes after the author himself: his opinions, his thoughts, his emotions, his idiosyncrasies. From the pool of all the different you's, you choose. You recall that Yeats once said that "[t]he creations of a great writer are little more than moods and passions of his own heart, given surnames and Christian names, and sent to walk on the earth." You think: how true.

Carrying the monologue further, you ask yourself, so there must be something like reader's persona? But of course. Again, a front -- you may not agree with the author's opinion (or his persona's for that matter), but at least you can understand, you can see it from that perspective, you are willing to make space, some allowance. This is your front as a reader, your persona. 
A market is the meeting of buyers and sellers but a book is the meeting of the author's and the reader's respective personae. In this respect human beings are dastardly beings, unable to take it up properly vis-à-vis, you think? The thing is, humanity is so fragile a thing that you need to build the hardy outer shell, lest it is weathered out and breaks down.

But you digress. So what does it mean? That 'you' comprises many different you's, with possibly more unawakened?

You are tired of thinking all this. You are closing your eyes. As the rain is fading away, your consciousness is also whittled little by little, fading.

A pitch black tunnel.

--

You are Alphonse.

Are you?

No?

Then who are you? 

Chrysalis [ 07. The Rain Dazes ]

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I must have fallen asleep. While rubbing my eyes sleepily, I noticed the rain was letting up a bit, even though it was still there, the constant pitter-patter rhythm like a lullaby persuading me to go back to slumber.
But my mind was already awake, though not fully -- you know, like a trance, dazed, between reality and imagination, the state which you can tip over to either side.
I love rain because it's like curtains. Curtains separate. Sometimes you need your privacy.
I also love that smell of dampness of earth that precedes a downpour. Those organic gases, released from the soil because the atmospheric pressure is lower. To me it's like a promise, a certain sign that a bucket is about to tumble, up there in the heavens. People usually forget this, that something begins; you always remember when it ends, the rainbow appears. When do we all start? When the sperm meets the ovum? When you start emitting brainwave? A beginning is so hard to define.
I also love writing. You know how writing, or a painting, or any piece of art for that matter, has this timeless quality? Time freezes, you can read or view or feel or hear that particular part over and over again. The essence has been captured. The description in a paragraph, the scenery in a painting, the arrangement of sounds in a song, the scene of war on a frieze, the shapes in a sculpture. That frame, or several of them, has been fixed, becoming something that withstands Time itself.
But writing doesn't limit oneself to the freezing of Time, but also the stretching and compressing of it. In Ulysses, James Joyce stretched one day to 265,000 words. I remember my first time seeing the book -- I thought it was an encyclopaedia or something; no, it's a novel. Compression of time is even simpler: "A child was born, grew up until ripe old age, died". In fact, a writer has more mastery over Time than other artists do; a time travel at the flick of the wand: "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive".
This manipulation of Time is intoxicating. Perhaps in a few hours the rain would have stopped, but you can go back a few paragraphs, and it was still raining. Every time you come back on this page to this little universe, it is still raining. And it won't ever stop. It's like you've made a rip in the space-time continuum, taking a glimpse of eternity. Isn't it maddening? Isn't it like getting drunk?
A cool breeze gently passed and it calmed me somehow. I sighed. It must have been my daze talking.
I thought I can hear faint sounds of piano -- I think I'm tipping over to dreamland -- no one normally plays at this hour.
Back to sleep.

Chrysalis [ 06. The Sound of Rain ]

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The Piano

The grand piano stood out prominently. Against the background noise of pouring rain, it is silent. Like how silence can be deafening, being still can convey much.
The piano can be compared to an old man, who has grown old gracefully, retaining the knowledge of the experienced, exuding charisma of seniority, of the one who knows the way of the world.
A piano, nonetheless, is a tool not a person. A piano, like any instrument, is a mirror to the soul. It absorbs emotions and thoughts from the fingertips, transcribing it into hammering of the strings, which translates it to a language we call music.
Music is a language. From rhythm, from tempo, from arrangement of melody, from discordant and harmonious chords -- that's the whole phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatism -- a language.
Countless people have played it. It shared their joys and griefs, and every emotion in between and beyond. In the story of Narcissus, the Lake cries because it can no longer see its beauty reflected in Narcissus' eyes. The piano is the same: it feeds on the language it was transmitting to hear its own beautiful sounds.
Now here come its Narcissus, sitting by the window, watching the deluge forlornly, but now was making his way towards it, fingertips ready to dance, a Creation is about to begin. Let there be light. It is said that when Haydn's oratorio Die Schöpfung (The Creation) is performed, when Chaos ends and the first movement is about to begin, when the orchestra burst into fortissimo on 'Licht', so great it was that the audience can see light flashing. Something like that, creating something out of nothing.
As soon as its Narcissus started to play, a lightning bolt struck. It has begun.

Chrysalis [ 05. It's Raining Contradictions ]

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Alphonse
Usually on rainy days like this I prefer to take advantage of the coolness and sleep. Grab a blanket, go into foetal position, and go into the darkness of slumber. Like a cocoon. Waking up, I would have sprouted wings to fly in the freshness of the new day.
Today, however, I felt like going to the common room where the piano is. I didn't plan to play it; to me, the rain sounds like an orchestra in itself, a harmonious cacophony. That is an oxymoron, but it is not to me. Somehow I can accept that order can arise from chaos. That something can arise from nothing.
So there was I, sitting by the large window, listening to the pitter-patter melody, daydreaming. If no two drops of rain are alike then no two sounds are alike. The strumming of a guitar, the hammer hitting the piano string, the plucking of the harp, the vibration of the violin string: say, all are playing A, that is frequency of 440 Hertz, do they sound the same? Obviously not. That is because they don't produce a singular peak at 440, but each is a sum of several frequencies, peaking at 440. So timbre is like the uniqueness of a sound. Like a name. Splash sound, trickling sound, pouring sound, gurgling sound.
Jake can make the tremolo sound using the piano (which I cannot produce). His nimble finger would fall in quick succession one after another. The notes then become overlapped over one another; coming out as a trill. It sounds like a gentle rain. Warm in certain way. Cool in another way.
I remember my teacher who taught about oxymoron and paradox. "Contradictory but not contradictory -- oxymoron and paradox are paradoxes in themselves." His saying of this stuck. Oxymoron is an exhibitionist. It blatantly display its contrasting words. Paradox is shy. It hides its contradiction under layers of words. Perhaps it is 'sly'; well, it is only one-letter difference. In any case, those contrasting words or ideas are not really contradictory, because they belong to different contexts. Imagine that they belong to different planes -- we can find a common plane where they can co-exist, where they are co-planar.
But I digress. Contradictory. Aren't we all?
We are full of contradictions. Some are obscene like oxymorons, or morons, that will do also; some are discreet like paradoxes.

Chrysalis [ 04. It's Raining Outside -- and Inside ]

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Alphonse is a ghost.
He appears and disappears as he likes. Come to think about it, I've never seen him in the university grounds. Sometimes it's as if he's transparent. There, but not there.
Sometimes I would not see him for a few weeks. "Where did you go?" I would ask, but in response he would mumble something inaudible. Transparent words. I never press the issue, but somehow I could sense the change in him after such disappearances. He is more talkative. But the kind of talkative that is sadder; like a cover, a distraction from the cause of the sadness itself. This repeated quite frequently.
Repetition.
I don't like the sound of it; its meaning, either. Rinse, lather, repeat. Like you are stuck in a vicious cycle, a never-ending loop, a snake eating its own tail, a downward spiral into oblivion.
This happened to me quite a few times: sometimes you consider a word, repeat it several times, say it aloud, spell it out on a paper, dissecting the syllables. Suddenly the word loses its meaning; suddenly the word becomes foreign; suddenly it is disjointed from the rest of the knowledge inside the head.
Isn't it ironic? Maybe you intend to repeat the word endlessly, its variations, visiting every possible meaning, considering every nuance, like Edgar and his bastardy soliloquy. But in the end the meaning is exhausted, the meaning is thrown into nothingness -- after that, nihil ex nihilo fit, nothing comes out of nothing, my fair Cordelia, so speak it again, again, again, spiralling to the selfsame nought.
Like a droplet of rain, coming down, coming up, stuck in the eternal cycle. "But, Jake," Alphonse would say, in a manner that always tries to neutralise my dour philosophy, "Every droplet of water is different, just like every snowflake is."
"As a big drop of rainwater condenses from the cloud, it plunges down. When air resistance is so great due to downward acceleration, the drop bursts into numerous droplets. The explosion of this water bomb goes to every which way. Jake, the water may be stuck into an eternal cycle. But it's not grumbling. Once in a while it goes parachuting. It must be feeling really happy."
I chuckled. As usual, I'm no match for Alphonse.
As I'm looking out of the window, it started to rain lightly. A runner ran past, droplets off his back, like a choreographed slow motion; like a dancer, gracefully, solemnly.
A boy and an old lady on a bench. A fountain nearby. The lady put down her newspaper and took off her glasses; something must have been caught in her eyes. The boy had his cheeks on his knees, shivering? The downpour was getting heavier. But the pair on the bench stayed, perhaps, it was not very clear, my vision obscured by layers of rainwater curtains.
I closed my windows.

Chrysalis [ 03. Chrysalis ]

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"Jake," he said, eyes fixated on his dancing fingers across the black and white ivory keys. Even I was amazed by how much progress he had made. Innate talent, which I didn't really have. Soon he would surpass me.
"Jake," he repeated. "Do you know how a caterpillar morphs into a butterfly?" His hands stopped moving. He stood up and gave up the seat. My turn to play.
A non sequitur. Of course I know. I studied a fair bit of biochemistry in my course. But as I saw his eyes growing larger with enthusiasm, I knew he wanted to answer it for himself, so I let him.
"Metamorphosis is really a trickery of nature. The term itself is a misnomer because there is really no transformation occurring. The pupa simply has another set of embryonic cells in its body cavity, remaining dormant throughout the larval stages. Inside the chrysalis, everything disintegrates except those embryonic discs. They consume the nutrients surrounding them to develop into a new structure altogether. New organs, new exoskeleton, which are vastly different from larval stages."
"I detest the butterfly." I interrupted. "It is a parasite inside the pupa, waiting to consume it from within." I stared at the ceiling, my fingers on the sombre, black keys.
"I prefer to see it as being born again. The pupa and the would-be butterfly are the same organism, carrying the same genetic code. They are not separate entities. Think about it, the pupa has chance to be reborn again. To change its appearance. To gain the ability to fly."
I felt as if something inside me was disintegrating. Would it develop into something that can flutter its way up to the blue sky as well?
"Alphonse," I stood up. "It's a pretty picture, but as you said, it's still a trickery." I walked away.
"We'd like to think that we have been deceived. But in fact, nature has always been that way from the start. Humans were the ones who decided that the pupa must somehow have transformed into the butterfly when the butterfly struggle to get out its wings to break free from the chrysalis."
Alphonse's words echoed in the common room. I felt it echoing many times in my mind, too.

Chrysalis [ 02. Alphonse ]

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I went to the service five minutes early. The church is packed with mostly students from our college, but there are many who came from nearby community, too. A young man in front of me looked rather bewildered. I guess it is his first time too in this church. I took a seat beside him. His face was kind and pleasant. When he smiled at me, I couldn't help but begin a conversation.
"Hi. Are you in junior year, too?"
"No, I'm a sophomore."
"I'm Jake." I offered my hand.
"I'm Alphonse." He shook my hand.
"Just moved in?"
"Yes."
"Me also."
Silence.
After a while the service began. The songs were unfamiliar to me and the sermon was a little bit bleak. Or perhaps it was my mood.
After the service ends, I talked a bit more to Alphonse. For some reason it was comfortable talking to him although he and I didn't talk much. We talked about which part of the hostel we live, what courses we are taking and about the college in general before going our ways.

I went up to my room. I unpack my things and began arranging my room.

Night quietly fell. My labour was largely finished. I went to a 7-eleven nearby for a quick dinner.

Quiet. The streets were bustling but it is quiet. The chatters of people filled the air, but still, my heart was quiet. I returned to the hostel. Not many people there since the term hasn't begun.

I couldn't find my towel in the morning so I tried looking for it again but to no avail. I took out a spare towel and went to public bath. Nobody was there.

I took my time bathing and since there was no one, I hummed some songs that were sung in the morning service.

The following Sunday I was a little bit late. I spotted Alphonse and quickly occupied the empty seat beside him. He was mildly surprised but soon smiled with a silent "Hi again".

"Hullo," I replied.
I could recognise some songs in the service and the sermon was not bad. Alphonse and I had lunch together afterwards. Then we went our ways. I tried playing the songs in the service. There is a grand piano in the common room and it is open for public. Since the common room is usually quiet on Sunday afternoon, the piano was all mine. I'm not that great a pianist. I've never had a real piano lesson, so I can only play simple songs. But I often feel satisfied after playing, as if I have poured my heart out.
The next Sundays I looked forward to meet Alphonse in the service. We would have lunch together and had a light conversation then I would go to common room if I am in the mood.
On one Sunday afternoon, Alphonse asked, "What do you do after lunch?"
I said I usually went to common room to play piano.
"Oh, that's why sometimes I hear someone playing piano. So that's you. I never bothered to check."
When I went to the common room later in the day, Alphonse walked in when I was playing and sat at a chair nearby.
"Continue playing," he said, when I stopped.
So I continue. At the end of the song Alphonse said, "Can you teach me? I play, too but I'm not that great a pianist. I've never had a real piano lesson, so I can only play simple songs."
Exactly, I thought.
"Well, I don't play well, either."
The next Sundays, my routine includes playing piano with Alphonse listening faithfully, sometimes playing tunes that he knew.

Chrysalis [ 01. The Beginning Proper ]

It was the beginning of my junior year when I moved to the university hostel. What I needed was an escape from home. I felt that my runaway father and overprotective mother too much to handle. It was a wonder in the first place that they allowed me to move out to live on my own.

I was at the door of my new room. I saw nobody at the corridor. I opened the door and looked in. The room was quite big for one-bedded room. I climbed a bed beside the window.

I was tired. Tired of studying. Third year materials of pharmacy course are simply too much.

I was also tired of living, I admit. I looked around my room. All my needs had been delivered beforehand. Just a few adjustments to make before I go on with life. New life? Not necessarily so; it was just a new place but the person is still me. So the living also remained just as I remained who I was.

I imagine the life is kind of a video: I had paused it for a while but now I had to resume. Sometimes I wonder why the video was played in the first place. And when the video has stopped playing...What will happen? What is its purpose?

My cellphone vibrated softly as a text message came. It was my mother; she wanted to ensure that I would go to church the following day. It was a bright Saturday afternoon, yet I felt so bleak.

I already checked up on the church. It was not far; in fact, they used one of the university's multi-purpose hall to conduct a service. Yes, Mom, don’t worry, I already found a church. My fingers played on my cellphone for a while.

I had no intention to go out for a walk. Not even out of my room to find out who the people next door were. That is just the way I am. I was just keeping myself to myself; is there anything wrong with that? At least it is better than some people who are over-friendly. Isn't it hard to keep the mask of friendliness? I can sense it - most people are getting friendly to others for their own ends. Since when having the President of the student body as a friend becomes a person's worth? Some others measure their worth by the number of people in their contact list. There are a lot of other motives of course - popularity, money, politics to mention a few. Rotten.

I did not realise that I was slipping away from reality to dreamland. There in my dream, the people are wearing masks to hide their ugly face. Some even have astronaut suit. I suppose their rottenness make their stench unbearable to that extent. Not funny. I know.

When I was awake, it was already midnight. I went to the public bath to wash up. Since the weather was cold, I only washed my hands and feet with hot water. Afterwards when I brushed my teeth, I realised that there is someone in one of the cubicles. I did not really notice because it was late and I was lethargic. I brushed my teeth a bit longer because I was a little curious about the person. A little like me this person seems to be. I guess he is kind of lonely too. Since when I finished brushing he had not come out, I gave up and went back to my room.

I then realised that I left my towel in the bathroom. I guessed the reason behind my absent-mindedness was that I was not used to the new place. So I went back again to the bathroom after arguing against my own laziness. I could not even remember where I put it. After searching for a while, it occurred to me that I even doubted whether I brought a towel in. So I went out my way. At the door, I remembered about the person from before. He was already gone. Perhaps if I had gone a little bit earlier, I could have met him and confirmed whether I left a towel in the bathroom. Oh well.

I woke up the next morning at 8. I went out to check the service time and its exact venue before having breakfast. It was at ten - there was a plenty of time. So I ate my breakfast. Real fast.

I am a fast eater. When one of my few friends point that out to me I think it was quite natural to me. At home, my mother had to leave early for work and came back late at night, so we never had our meal together. Mother was working hard even though father sent some money for our living expenses on a regular basis. Well never mind that. I finish my meal quick simply because there is no interruption. I've seen some people eating and chatting at the same time. I could not do that because there is no one to talk to; I was always eating alone. I chuckled, If I'm chatting to myself, then I will soon not eat alone because I will be admitted to a Mental Hospital. Not funny. Yeah I know.