My room is never dark

My room is never dark. Even at night, I have my own personal constellation of lights twinkling away, pushing back the void, preventing me from being consumed by the velvet blackness. The twinkling of my cable modem constantly flashing its presence on my desk. The stark white digits on my DVD player always showing the time – counting away the minutes and hours of my passing even while I am not awake to know it – proof of time’s passing while I am unconscious. The standby lights on my TV and computer – a reminder of the convenants I have with the machines that they will spring to life at my beck and call, soldiers always ready for battle – or in my case, entertainment.

Nature is never totally dark. By day we have the sun, by night the moon and stars. Even in the deepest depths of the oceans or the furthest caves, life brings light. Phospherescent fungi and luminous fish all work together to banish the dark from all the corners of the Earth.

In the beginning, God said “let there be light” and so there was, is and always will be.

It was the night before Christmas…

Here is my entry for the AC Nielsen iScan Scan Panel short story competition, for which I won a runner-up prize of a $50 Dymocks book voucher!

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It was the night before Christmas. I was six years old and I knew this was going to be the best Christmas ever. Who would have guessed that Grandpa would drop by? It would be the first and last time that I ever see him. I still remember it like it was yesterday, because he came dressed as Santa Claus!

Gramps was a pilot, and he delighted me and my brother with tales of his travels around the world, and gifts from amazing sounding places like Switzerland, and Thailand. How could you not believe such amazing stories: the city that never sleeps! Mountains so tall that they touched the clouds! Strange and wonderful people and their even stranger languages! In my mind, I was the luckiest boy in the world… my Grandpa was Santa Claus!

The next morning, just like Santa, he was gone.

At the end of the following year, my parents received news of his passing. Dad was a pragmatic person, and that night, he explained about death. However, I wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t! Nothing would ever dispel the magic – my Grandpa, like Santa Claus, would live forever…

Oops… I did it again

Hooray! Published again, this time with my name! In response to the question “Why are the preliminary races called ‘heats’?”, I sent in the half-hearted quip: “Because they’re just getting warmed up.” Fortunately, it seemed to make the grade, and lo and behold, I have my name the newspaper! OK, time to get off my high horse now…

Wahoo! I'm published!

In today’s “Big Questions” column of the Sydney Morning Herald, you will find a Big Question submitted by yours truly: “What is the probability that your car key/remote will open another car’s door or alarm?”

It wasn’t credited, so its not like I’m going to give up my day job for a career in writing, but its always a thrill to see something that you did in a major publication.

The seasons of love

I think my last post was a little bit too controversial for some, so moving right along…

Those who have visited cyberseraphic before will probably remember the poem that used to sit on the front page:

A wanton youth spent in the sun
Chasing butterflies
Without a care in the world
Not knowing, not seeing
As she dances among the flowers

Lying awake at night, silent… still…
Straining to hear the faintest whisper
She sings a strange lullaby of things to come
Enticing, mysterious, sensuous

A storm of thoughts rages
Her shouts lost
Unable to carry her voice through the driving sleet of fear and uncertainty

Peering down from a dizzying height atop a cliff
A faint whisper in the wind:
“I love you”

In retrospect, I named this poem “the seasons of love”. It talks about the various phases that we go through when we fall in love with somebody.

In summer (the first verse), we begin as a child. At this stage, we don’t really know what love is, and we really don’t notice that special somebody because everything in the world is new, innocent and beautiful.

Next comes Autumn, the dawning of paranoia – does she, or doesn’t she? We exist as if in a dream, with a strong desire and hope for what is yet to come. Then winter, when we are asked to make a commitment. This is the final threshold to be crossed before we reach the peace of spring. We have reached the pinnacle of love, and although we feel afterwards like we are falling towards oblivion, there is still the echo of the past to remind us why we are here – and that even the faintest whisper can overcome the sadness we feel towards the inevitability of our destiny.

I can’t remember when or why I came up with this poem, but I certainly didn’t write it with this depth of meaning in mind. All of this stuff only came to me a few years later while I was sorting my old notes, entering them into the computer. This poem is probably one of the key pieces that convinced me that I wanted to be a writer, and so there it was on my homepage – while nobody else in the world (myself included) understood its meaning or significance. Well now I know, and so do you…