I feel like a damn loser.

I'm online but can't be bothered to go on MSN.




I swear, probability is deriving me of my sanity.



Oh well.


DEE-VEE-DEE-EX!



Oh hello.

Bloody gah.




Writer's block again. Overdose of Probability.



Kathe clutched the thin, woollen blanket closer to her shoulders. The cheap, railed wool did almost nothing to shield her from the cold biting at her skin, setting off uncontrollable tremors through her body, leaving her teeth rattling and her head spinning from the shivering. Next to her, Hans seemed to sense her discomfort; he wrapped an arm protectively around her shoulders, pulling her closer. Kathe nestled into her brother, leaning into his back. For a while his scent soothed her, but she soon forced her eyes open once again. Something had awakened her, and it was not the cold.

She turned away from Hans, sitting up and rubbing the back of her neck and shaking her shoulders to rid herself of exhaustion’s empty, cold grip. She stretched restlessly for a while, before turning to peer blearily out of the window. The night outside was silent, lit only by the faint, weak light from the streetlamp outside. As she stared listlessly, the light flickered for a moment before returning to its normal, muted glow.

It should have been snowing by now. She desperately wanted to stand by the window and gaze out at the winterscape. Perhaps it would be better by night. She remembered the day she had first seen snow, since they had first arrived in Cologne a year before. It had been such a disappointment. Instead of the background being covered in a deep layer of lush white like Aunt Elise had said, all she had seen were clumps of frost layering over puddles on the sidewalk and icicles hanging off the roofs of the shop houses. Now all she would see would be the endless spires of shop roofs across the city. All she could see from the small window in the tiny, cramped apartment she and Hans shared with their Tante.

Tante Elise had forbidden them to go near the window at all times. Kathe bit back the stab of instinctive frustration. Her Tante had a good reason. Barely two days ago she had been sitting against the wall under the window colouring a picture with the stubs of the cheap crayons that Abel, the young shopkeeper who ran the grocer’s downstairs, had given her, when the glass had shattered, showering her with brittle, glistening fragments. The glass had scattered across the floor, across the two cheap beds which stood nearby, across her drawing. The thin shards shone in the light streaming in from the window. She peered up, gazing at the window above her. The damage was so obvious, a gaping hole smack in the middle of the panel. Tante would not be happy when she got back from the synagogue. And Hans was at school.(she was too young to go, and Tante had told her that she would be better off not going.) She was all alone in the apartment.

The glass looked so beautiful. The fragments looked so delicate, fragile bits of shimmering light. Like snow. She was six years old. Too old not to go to school yet too young to endure what she would face there. Too young to understand, and yet too old not to learn. Too young to see beyond beauty. Too long had she been kept from it. She reached out, picking a shard up. A sudden streak of fire across her skin. She dropped the shard in shock and stared at her palm. At the red welt which ran across it. At the scarlet that dripped across her drawing, seeping into the paper. In her shock, she realized that the red blotting into the fibres of the paper, spreading out in a sort of spidery, web-like pattern across the white possessed a kind of beauty, like the shattered glass, capturing and holding her in a sort of daze as she stared at it, spellbound. Yet, the fire in her palm burned fiercer, and soon it jerked her out of her trance. Biting back the tears that came to her eyes, she pulled herself to her feet and staggered down to the grocers, where Abel had been waiting on an empty shop. Of course. The yellow star on the door said everything. No one would dare risk the trouble of patronising a shop with the yellow star stuck on the door so blatantly. Kathe had seen the star before. It was a bright, glaring yellow, so startling it seemed to snarl and pounce out at her. Even before Tante had dragged her into the store and told her why, she had already feared the star.

Abel had bandaged the wound, then locked the door and come upstairs with her. He had stared at the window for a moment, staring at the crash, then across the floor. He walked around a bit, peering under the furniture before bending down and reaching under Tante’s bed. Kathe caught a glimpse of green before he straightened up. In his grasp he held a beer bottle, like the type in his shop below. He came over and knelt down next to her, peering at her drawing. The crayon colours had been dotted with drops of scarlet. He picked up the paper, running his finger along the parchment, along the webs of red which had seeped into the paper.

“Kathe,” he had told her in a soft voice, gentle and calm, yet hinting of what she could only place as sadness, “Were you scared when the window broke?”

She shook her head. Truth be told, she had only been startled.

No. I was colouring and all of a sudden, these sparkly things rained down on me, and I reached out and touched one and all of a sudden I felt fire in my hand and then I went to call you.

Abel only nodded. He shut his eyes for a moment. Kathe saw something glisten out of the corner of his eye, sliding down his cheek before he reached up and wiped it away. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

It was beautiful… wasn’t it?

She nodded eagerly, her pigtails swinging across her shoulders and beating against her worn sweater. Abel smiled gently. He picked up her hand, running his finger gently across the white cotton wrapped around her palm. She followed his touch, and was startled to notice that some red had seeped up into the cloth. The scarlet stood out starkly against the white. She looked down towards the paper. Red against white, red against colour. All of a sudden, she felt a wave of grief washing uncontrollably over her. Reality overwhelming her, dragging her ruthlessly back to the truth of the drawing. She shook her head sadly.

It’s ruined, isn’t it? She felt the tears prickling against her eyes, but she brushed them away. Abel patted her cheek comfortingly.

It’s all ruined. And… and I spent so much time on it. It was all so beautiful. And now it’s spoiled. It was for Tante. More tears prickled, and her world grew misty as they threatened to spill over.

Cry, Kathe. Cry if you want to.

I can’t. She shook her head fiercely, wiping and rubbing hard at her eyes. Tante said I couldn’t cry.

Why?

She said that in a time like this, everyone feels like crying but no one can because…

Because why?

She… she never told me.

I’ll say why. Because then she’ll feel like crying. And once she starts, she won’t be able to stop. And then, she won’t be able to take care of you and Hans anymore. She’s scared of that, you know.

Really? She’s always been saying what a bother we’ve been to her.

If that were true she wouldn’t have taken you in. Kathe, your Tante loves you and your brother more than you will ever know.

Really? She does?

It’s like this. He picked up the drawing and held it up to the light. The crimson droplets against the colour glistened like liquid rubies. He rubbed across the crayon drawing. The red dripped off to one side, leaving the colours untouched.

You see? Love is like that. All you see is pain, all you may feel is pain, but underneath, it remains something beautiful. Love is lies beyond the grasp of pain. It is something which can withstand any kind of pain. Something which will always remain and shine to the end. Something that will stay beautiful for someone else forever.



Shouts jarred Kathe from her reverie. She slid off the bed. The worn wood felt cold beneath her bare feet. Hans sat up right behind her, his face tense in alarm. On the bed next to them, Tante was climbing awkwardly to her feet. Slowly she hobbled to the window.

Kathe, Hans, you are not to go anywhere near the window, you hear me?

The window smashing into a thousand fragments of glass, each fragment catching the light as it spins, falls, tumbles through the air.

Instantaneously Kathe felt a wave of dread.

Before she could cry out for Tante to get away from the window, the glass shattered, breaking into a million uncountable fragments, falling away and glimmering in the night air. Tante wavered for a moment, stumbling backwards before collapsing, slowly, almost gracefully, to the floor. As she landed on her back on the worn wooden floor, he eyes gazed upwards one last time, out of the window. As Kathe stared out, following her aunt’s gaze, she saw the night sky above the tops of the spires. The sky was a dark canvas, smudged with the pale, chalky wisps of clouds, pierced with a thousand glittering stars. She saw the corners of her aunt’s lips stretch and settle into a contented smile as her eyes fluttered close.

Behind her, Kathe heard Hans scream. It was a scream of horror, a scream of anguish. And it chilled her to the bone. Yet she stood stock still, frozen to her feet, unable to move. Her gaze lingered on the glass on the floor. Catching the light.

So beautiful.

In that instant, she felt Hans tugging on her hand, dragging her from the room, staggering down the stairs, towards the grocers. She was suspended in a daze. She saw everything around her as she stumbled helplessly after her brother, yet she couldn’t move, touch, hear. And she couldn’t care.

She was frozen. Like ice, like the glass in the window pane. Before it was broken.

The shop was in chaos. Baskets of potatoes and grain had been overturned, the shelves knocked over from the walls, the wooden racks littered with the remnants of shattered jars of preserved fruit. The door hung askew on its hinges, and the cash register lay on the floor behind the counter, the cash drawer overturned, coins spilled around it. The shop was empty. Hans staggered out through the door, kicking it so he could pass. As they moved out into the street, Kathe caught a glimpse of yellow in the snow. The star, on the door. She looked up into the sky, towards the millions of stars which twinkled down at them. She remembered the contented smile across her aunt’s lips before she had fallen. Then she looked down at the star on the door. How could something so beautiful, so beautiful that a tired, exhausted woman could be so contented to gaze upon one last time before dying, be so ugly as to keep the people in the streets away, chasing them away in fear of their lives? The yellow star glinted once more in the light of the streetlamp before shards of glass rained down upon them. She gazed up and saw that someone had shattered the glass around the bulb, rendering the light useless.

She looked across the street. People fighting, men in brown uniforms, people in their nightclothes, engaged in struggles, wrestling, raining punches on each other. She saw the scarlet of blood as Hans ran towards the main road in the distance.



It’s all ruined. And… and I spent so much time on it. It was all so beautiful. And now it’s spoiled. It was for Tante.

It’s like this. He picked up the drawing and held it up to the light. The crimson droplets against the colour glistened like liquid rubies. He rubbed across the crayon drawing. The red dripped off to one side, leaving the colours untouched.

Like the stars, like the broken glass. Like the crayon drawings spattered with drops of crimson dripping off to one side with a single rub, like the blood seeping through the paper, through the bandage, like the crimson glistening, glimmering in the faint light streaming in from the broken window. Like the broken glass, the shower of fragments all down on her. Like the fire in her wrist, the red dash across her hand after the entrancing sound of tinkling, breaking glass. Like the way she had stood up afterwards and all the fragments had swept off her, onto the ground. She heard Abel’s voice echoing in her head.

Love is like that. All you see is pain, all you may feel is pain, but underneath, it remains something beautiful. Love is lies beyond the grasp of pain. It is something which can withstand any kind of pain. Something which will always shine and remain till the end. Something that will stay beautiful for anyone, forever.

As they passed and wound their way through the chaos, she saw a man, the cobbler who lived in the flat across the road, fall backwards, reeling from a blow from a man clad in khaki and stern leather boots. As the cobbler fell, he knocked into a shop window behind him. He crashed through the glass. The window shattered into a million uncountable shards, spinning through the air, into the cold, bitter wind, catching the light, from the weak streetlamps, the stream of moonlight, and the sudden, bright flares of orange and yellow she saw erupting from the policemen’s pistols. The shards flew through the air and landed in the lonely, frost covered puddles and the snow clumps on the road.. Snow, white...

Stained with red.

Yet as Hans wound his way through the chaos and fought towards the main road at the end of the street, pulling her along behind him, Kathe felt herself smile despite the chill of the night, the biting of fear. The paths before them were covered in a deep layer of lush white, glistening in the faint glow of the weak streetlamps and the thin, wavering streams of moonlight. Just like Tante had said. Just like Tante had promised. Streets covered in a deep, lush layer of snow. Glistening.

Catching the light.









You Friendly, Understanding, Caring, Kind, Intelligent, Novel and Generous aethist.
You go, man (:



The phone call had come two weeks before.


Walter and Krystal are dead. Their daughter Engelsina is missing in action. We believe that she has escaped.

James… how could this have happened?

Walter had opposed the Pact. It had been a brash decision upon his part. And yet.. I cannot think of who could have been ruthless enough to openly show his disagreement. But.,

It is a horrible crime that has been committed against the Board.

Walter had put himself at an open vulnerability.

What about the others? Rolfe.. Ernest…

Rolfe is currently missing in action. He has deserted us. Ernest has been placed under house arrest. We cannot see him; I have sent diplomacies into the Council requesting visit. And have been refused.

And… and what about Gustav?

His condition is deteriorating by the day. Doctors say that he cannot be healed.

Aster?

I have not heard from her…

I cannot believe that Ernest would have done that to Gustav…


Times are hard, Yuriko. These are trying times.


James.. have you sought the Advice’s counsel…

Yuriko, I must go. I have a pressing engagement…


James… hold on..

Good bye, Yuriko. Good luck.

~Coming soon.

U2: Sunday Bloody Sunday

Yes...
I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes
And make it go away

How long...
How long must we sing this song
How long, how long...
'cause tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...

Broken bottles under children's feet
Bodies strewn across the dead end street
But I won't heed the battle call
It puts my back up
Puts my back up against the wall

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

And the battle's just begun
There's many lost, but tell me who has won
The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

How long...
How long must we sing this song
How long, how long...
'cause tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...tonight...

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Wipe the tears from your eyes
Wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
Oh, wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Oh, wipe your blood shot eyes
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

And it's true we are immune
When fact is fiction and TV reality
And today the millions cry
We eat and drink while tomorrow they die

(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
The real battle just begun
To claim the victory Jesus won
On...

Sunday Bloody Sunday
Sunday Bloody Sunday...



Of course, we all love Kok's rendition of the song:) he was doing a solo shortly before Ms Faith aired the track. We could hear the "how long... how long must we sing this song..."



My god, I'm reading propaganda. OK, OK, social studies just got more interesting when it came to chapter 4.




Mdm Ker's Sri Lanka notes have some really graphic pictures, though.

Just thought of something someone drilled into me a couple of months ago...


"Look, are you going to remember this test for life? If yes, look back to primary school, try to remember every single grade for every single CA1 and SA1, even your listening and oral papers. If you can, then you can remember this test for life. Move on. You'll have to let go. Keep moving. You can't afford to look back anymore."


and another...


"It's going to be a harsh wake-up call for all of you this year.... all your pretty grades in the past aren't going to hold anymore..."


Is it just us fading, or is it the time covering the shine up?

I found it hard to believe. The same person came and said later on...


"Don't care about the pretty grades anymore. Stop worrying and fighting hand tooth and nail for them. Save the effort for next year. For this year, just hope to survive long enough to make it to the next."


Dump us all in an icy ocean after we've been raised in a warm pool, and force us to fight to reach the other shore.

"Only next year, hope to get all the pretty grades."

Force us to survive long enough to reach the next shore, only to fight against each other up a down-rushing waterfall to reach paradise.



A passage in my chinese paper read:

There was a mountain, a high, craggy mountain, on which grew an orchard of fruit trees. The fruits looked so tempting, so luscious to the eye. A group of brave monkeys attempted to scale the cliff in order to reach the orchard.

Many were killed in the attempt to scale the cliff, for it was rocky and the stone crumbled easily, making it difficult to grasp any handholds in the rockface.

Finally, a group of surviving monkeys made it over the cliff and scampered to the orchard. Once there, they climbed up the trees and tasted the fruit which they had yearned and risked their lives for.

The fruit was bitter.

















Don't do this. I'm seeing you kill him. You rejected him, and yet, even though he follows you around, you make use of him. You're struggling in the current, and you're dragging him along.

And then again, it's not as if you want to. I can't believe how much you've changed.

A Sidewalk to Picket Street
Griet's Theme - Girl With a Pearl Earring OST
Theme from A Beautiful Mind - A Beautiful Mind OST
May It Be - Theme from LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
In Dreams - LOTR Trilogy Suite
Return - Pearl Harbor OST
War - Pearl Harbor OST


Dangerously
Dangerously In Love - Beyonce
La Cumparsita - Traditional Argentinian Tango
Tennessee - Pearl Harbor OST
Santa Maria - Shall We Dance OST
Crazy In Love - Beyonce
Opening from 1984 - 1984 OST
Theme from Requiem for a Dream - Requiem for a Dream OST
A Kaleidoscope Of Mathematics - A Beautiful Mind OST
Stay With Me - Danity Kane
Lies - Evanescence


Of Stars and Shattered Glass
A Kaleidoscope Of Mathematics - A Beautiful Mind OST
Theme from Requiem for a Dream - Requiem for a Dream OST
Clair De Lune - Claude Debussy
Closing Theme from Sophie Scholl: The Final Days - Sophie Scholl: The Final Days OST

Circles
A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics - A Beautiful Mind OST
Theme from Requiem for a Dream - Requiem for a Dream OST
Attack - Pearl Harbor OST
Sons and Daughters - Theme from War and Beauty
Plaza of Execution - Mask of Zorro OST
Lies - Evanescence


White Houses
White Houses - Vanessa Carlton
Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows (Shrek 2 OST)
Cool - Gwen Stefani
Lady Marmalade - Moulin Rouge OST
Diary - Alicia Keys
A Thousand Miles - Vanessa Carlton
Too Little Too Late - JoJo
Rodrigo - The Planets
Ever Ever After - Carrie Underwood (Enchanted OST)
Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
Glamorous - Fergie ft. Ludacris
I Want It That Way - The Backstreet Boys
Larger than Life - The Backstreet Boys
Potential Breakup Song - The Pussycat Dolls
Stickwitu - The Pussycat Dolls
Stay With Me - Danity Kane
Far Away - Nickelback
When It Was Me - Paula De Anda


Living, Dead
Angels - Within Temptation
Going Under - Evanescence
Bring Me To Life - Evanescence
Lies - Evanescence
A Kaleidoscope of Mathematics - A Beautiful Mind OST

archives

layout: detonatedlove
inspiration: wordpress