The Ultimate Bookstore Attack

I used to feel like writing a story about robbery at a bookstore. I even searched for the weapon that the robbers were going to use (it was a QCW-05 submachine gun), studied closely the map of a particular bookstore that was located in the highest twin buildings in the world (I’m sure you have figured it out already), and gave births to the characters. I can’t remember all of them except the leader is a young woman that looks like me (ha ha). Yes, the leader is a she and feel free to blame the feminist in me.

It’s not that I want to rob a bookstore–or any bookstores at all–although I sometimes do think they are controlled by evil Imperialist. But when you stop to think this whole plan through, have you ever actually heard of one? In real life? And those attackers are just like the newlyweds in Haruki Murakami’s short story entitled ‘The Second Bakery Attack’ who seem to rob but just leave the money alone. Sacks and sacks full of books.

You can take a deep breath now, my dear cashier.

Perhaps it is not so much a mystery as to why robbers prefer banks, houses, and jewelry shops. Except for the third choice, the first two are enclosed. A perfect architecture that gives the occupants some reliefs of the heart to be in a knowledge of make-believe that their secrets are supposedly safe and unknown to the eyes of others. Indeed, but it also assures the demons that their criminal acts can’t be monitored by the naked eyes outside the premise either. This is my theory. I understand perfectly when it comes to houses since I myself will feel tremendously uncomfortable to live inside a house that is made of glass but the bank is a different story. Come to think of it, most banks in Malaysia greet their visitors with big glass windows with double PULL-PUSH glass doors but a bookstore doesn’t have a door. It has open entrances and enormous glass windows for book display that will certainly leave the robbers in a warring state of mind as they try to change their poor fate with a knowledge that some police forces are peeping through the looking glass.

So off to the bank.

But a bookstore can be a clean break. At least for the leader of a troupe of tough robbers in me. This is my theory as a writer anyway so please don’t take it too seriously. Let’s imagine yourself in a bookstore, all right? Then a troupe of robbers–led by a hot, sexy female leader (yes, that’s me. So much for self-esteem ha ha)–attack and you are trapped. There’s nothing you can do about it. People start to gather outside the safe distance of the bookstore entrance with policemen and policewomen can’t stop asking themselves whether they are not in some Hollywood flicks or something. I mean, a bookstore robbery? See, even you think it’s ridiculous. Anyway, you are not safe yet thank you very much and will you please go back inside the bookstore? A few hours pass by. You don’t know. You wish someone can tell you the time but of course, you realize that only stupid people will do that because in such a place, a wristwatch tells more than the time. Usually, pride and status will always beat the hour, the minute, and the second–be it digital or analogue.

Thanks to the lady of fate, you are blessed with family members who genuinely care for you. Before you left the house, you told them your planned whereabouts that makes them now all gather in front of the bookstore–looking worried and hopeful. Praying for your safety. You can see them clearly from where you are. In the meantime, the polices are ready to attack. They are only a few steps from the entrance as the authoritative voice from the loudspeaker command the attackers to surrender. A firm refusal (you know me ha ha). It takes only a simple hand signal for the polices to be inside the bookstore but then the leader grab you by the collar of your branded shirt and point the gun barrel exactly at your head. You come inside and I’ll shoot him/her (how do you suppose I know your gender when I don’t even track my readers? Sheesh…). The police forces try to gather some determinations when your family members start to cry out in fear and pain for the polices to put your safety first before any crazy plans that may kill you.

Why you? It’s simple. You have people who care outside the bookstore and so long as the polices keep that in mind, the robbers know that the polices will seriously think ugly reputation and legal action taken against them (by the deceased family members) that they will face after the case is over only mount to endless disaster so it’s better to follow their (the robbers) steps on the dance floor. Of course, the polices are in the most discomfort zone for their reputation is at stake with God-knows-how-many-laymen-are-watching. One dead ransom, so is the police force’s reputation.

In the end, as I keep you close by me, carry you along as my people carry heavy bags of books to my helicopter (blame Patricia Cornwell for now I dream of flying my own helicopter *sigh*), and leave you at your dream holiday destination, I have successfully attacked a bookstore!

So I imagine but it works to keep my mind off from Hull vs. Manchester United match because the last time I watched them, they lost 3-0 to Fulham so… here comes the superstitious belief of I shouldn’t watch them play again and sometimes, they win every time I watch the match LIVE.

The bookstore robbery? It can always go both ways. What if the polices notice that most of the customers don’t have anyone waiting for their release outside? What if the polices detect the sadness in their eyes of having no one who cares? Will the polices think these unloved people can be sacrificed in order to make them go home early that day? No one will mourn their deaths and most importantly, no legal actions taken by angry family members or loved ones.

Sometimes, I have lots and lots of ideas that I don’t know what to do with them. Make a movie out of it, will you? Wonder what I’ll be when morning comes.

Certainly not a hot and sexy robbery leader, I guess. No wonder some people prefer to go through life asleep.

*Song: Jenny Owen Youngs – What Beats Within. She’s so terrific and phenomenal. Wish local radio stations start playing her songs. It’s the most honest song I’ve ever listened to. To accept and love each other in spite of endless uncertainties. That way, perhaps, we’ll see familiar faces outside the bookstore who care for us and pray for our safety.

I Miss 0.25

At the bottom of the well
I look up at you
But you
Have drowned yourself in the sun
That no matter how far I try to reach out for you–
You have drowned yourself in the sun
Your eyes are lifeless
Your heartless heart remains
Ah! How you have drowned yourself in the sun
When I look up at you–
A corpse that slowly turns into dust
For me to grief upon
At the bottom of the well.

26 July 2009
9:35 A.M.

I wrote the poem when I thought Dracula was dead but then he wasn’t so I was pretty happy at that time. I didn’t give it a proper title except a scribbling I miss 0.25 so I took the two words and that one decimal number as its title.

I don’t remember if I had ever felt that way before. I don’t know. I just think that it can be used to make some things up. People are never what we think they are because those at the bottom of the well are not necessarily need to be saved.

Sometimes, it’s those up above.

Just like you, I judge too.

As to why PMR results should be announced a day before Christmas is something that I don’t pretend to understand.

Seriously.

But I tried–nevertheless. Perhaps, those people up there were very insensitive with people’s religion. So… a Chinese is always a Buddhist while an Indian is of course, a Hindu. That’s just the way it is, right? Why do I need to correct my child when he refers to an Indian as a ‘Hindu’? Oh come on! We can make a reference to anyone at all by using words that we assume define them so very well.

Unfortunately, we can’t. Religion is universal–it can be closely related to a certain race but never, fully connected– hence, just think how many students tomorrow who will celebrate Christmas a day after checking their PMR results? Can’t they (the people at the Ministry) think of the impact that the results will bring to the students’ (and their family–especially their parents) way of celebrating the festival?

Like I cared. Of course, it’s just some stupid PMR, anyway. Do we need to celebrate the brain’s success of memorizing useless facts or meaningful time spent with family members? Some of you may hate me, go on, but seriously, what is the use of memorizing the locations of copper production on the map, anyway?

However, all the best to all of you. I just hope for the students who get unsatisfactory results as according to the standard, will be blessed with the most interesting, creative, and (superb) dedicated teachers who will never ever give up in bringing out the students’ best potentials and talents when they pursue their studies in Form 4.

Once upon a time, there was a woman who had many children that she didn't know what to do with them.

Then, the wedding, of course. I will not go as far as Edna Pontellier to declare wedding as “one of the most lamentable spectacles on earth” but it is not my absolute pleasure to go to one either. Prevention is better than cure, hence, I don’t see any harm in realizing that I can never be a good wife to a man (when I happen to detest most of them) and a parent. But congratulations anyway to all newlyweds and don’t ever tell me about your first newborn for I may offer you my condolence instead. Nay! I’m sure you are not one of the sex-maniacs who have children only for the sake of enslaving them and due to asinine desire of displaying their sexual prowess to public.

Parents are supposed to pass down physical traits to their children, but it’s my belief that all sorts of other things get passed down too: motifs, scenarios, even fates.

Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)

A family wedding to attend to a day after Christmas. May be a good change of air–I hope.

* Song: Mariah Carey – I Want To Know What Love Is. It’s the first song I listen to today after waking up at 5:30 in the morning so just bear with it I will give up the unessential and sacrifice myself for you.

Happy to explain.

I. Just. Love. This. Song. Period.

My friend, Raja, who is also my ex-colleague and ex-course mate, is kind enough to share this song with me and I never stopped listening to it since January this year as I kept picturing her in my head. I know that I have it posted somewhere in my previous post but here I am, putting it again for all of you to listen to this marvelous, marvelous song. Also because I have this strange craving for sadness.

Love. Sometimes, I’m sick and tired of this word. If you look at it closely, there is always this feeling of vast emptiness among the four letters. For some of us, love is obvious. It is certain. Nothing is hidden. Everyone is free to celebrate this kind of love. For some of you, love is something in between. It is revealed. The pouring of heart’s content but with some uncertainties that you can’t avoid. The inevitability of separation. For some of me, love is you. Regardless how wrong. Or how unfathomable. Or how unthinkable. Or how stupid.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

Pablo Neruda

I miss you and I love you.

It’s strange. The way someone can change your life in ways you can’t imagine. Perhaps, that’s why you love him or her. But after a while, you figure out that it isn’t true. The big bang theory doesn’t even qualify as a reason.

You just love him or her. That’s why.

*The Cardigans – Communication

You mean, YOU bought the teddy bear–yourself?

Machines, too, respond to human love and care.

What would you do if you bought a book and when you wanted to read it as you lay in your bed, you figured out that the pages wouldn’t budge. It seemed like you just bought a book of which its pages couldn’t be opened, hence, unreadable. You tried all that you could but to no avail. So you contacted the bookstore with hope that they could fix it all at once only to be told that the words inside the book were protected in such a way so that you would never distribute it illegally to your parasitical friends who only had the intention to (eternally) borrow it from you.

That’s a different story and I’ll go back to it later but in case you’re curious–no, I never face such a problem. At least not with books and certainly not with Clifford Chase’s ‘Winkie’. I bought it three years ago (yes, the pricey hardback. I must be so miserable when I bought the book) but the first two attempts were unbearable. First, I was feeling righteous and the second time, I was so desperately needed a teddy bear to hold if I wanted to finish reading the book. I don’t know why but as I finally succeed in my third attempt, I think the book is okay. It’s sad but I find myself hard to empathy with a teddy bear. Great story and some memorable lines–a few characters I can relate to–but to reread it, I’m not sure about it. Try it for yourself and don’t tell me that you don’t feel like curling up and die as you read these lines:

So many times and worst of all when I lost my child, my eyes wanted to click and shut forever–yet somehow I still had love to give, and always have. Why, why, why? Despite it all. Why was I created and why do I love? What is it about me that survives? Despite it all, despite it all: It’s my heart: I can’t help it.

That nearly makes me cry since I-don’t-remember-when but who knows a teddy bear’s life can be so sad and lonely?

Do you still keep your childhood teddy bear or favourite toy? Do you still take it out from your chest and play with it sometimes? Do you talk to it? Do you cuddle it at night?

What about being an adult has anything to do with the need to be loved, I wonder.

I wish I still have my pink teddy bear with me. I don’t know if she was left behind in Sandakan–given to relatives or what–but I wish I could look at her again and tell her that she wasn’t less prettier than my sister’s. We bought identical pink teddy bears–for some mystical reasons, perhaps–and when everyone kept showering praises to my sister’s teddy, I applied glue to my bear’s mouth.

I know.

Right now, the only teddy bear in my possession is a GUND teddy bear that I named Lollie. Bone gave her to me last year as my 23rd birthday present and she spends her days sitting peacefully on one of my bookshelves. After reading ‘Winkie’, sometimes, I can’t help thinking that she actually reads all the books at night, travels around the world with the wooden replica ship, designs buildings with my bofa set, or now has reached the highest dan in weiqi. I just hope she will leave the 9 mm alone. Of course, it’s just a replica but the weapon is, indeed, heavy. If hit on your face, make sure you have enough bank notes for plastic surgery.

But of course, she knows that I love her. I know that I never cuddle her or talk to her but I do love her in my strange and silent ways.

Perhaps, my transformation as an adult has sadly been completed. Fuck.

Are we be too old for teddy bears? I don’t know but I think we the older we get, the scarier we become–oh, it’s up to you to decide on the meaning by yourself. A Gruffalo toy may look cute but after making the midnight toilet trip, you snuggle into your blanket only to catch sight of the Gruffalo’s shiny, scary teeth, and how can you not telling yourself that the moment you see him wink an eye or even smile 1cm longer than its stitched mouth, you would definitely run and sleep in your car? Tell a child that her doll can talk and she will feel very, very happy for having a friend to talk to. Try telling the same thing to an adult–I wonder… In Asian community, animism usually means the object’s being possessed by a satanic force or black magic so even a force of gravity–you know, the doll naturally falls from the chair–can be fatally frightening.

I realize that one thing that makes a teddy bear always special in our lives is the simple fact that we don’t buy it ourselves. You know, it’s always my mom gave it to me. Or my auntie. Or my girlfriend. Or my husband. Never oh I bought it myself.

It sounds so sad, don’t you think?!

Now back to the different story. I think I’m not the only one who hate DRM but now I despise it–including the brains behind the stinking copyright idea. Even if I declare myself as free from illegal MP3 download, I love to share my favourite music with everyone. I despise it when I know that I can afford the songs myself but there are some people who can’t and I’m happy enough to share but the DRM is so silly. Now there are some songs that can’t even be played on my computer. *Sigh* I wonder. We pay for it and yet we don’t own it? Thanks to my genius friend, one song is saved from the deathly curse. If you excuse me, I have to burn a few songs that I just purchased, thank you.

*Song: Leona Lewis – I Got You. The best thing about dream that I read (from somewhere) is that you dream about someone because that someone misses you. That’s a happy thought. Wish you a lovely weekend with your loved ones and family. I got you.