Free

Bring her to this field of exuberant color and grandeur,
let her hum a medley of joyous tunes,
as she darts across the narrow lane in warm uncontained glee,
leaving a trail of crumpled leaves and rattling twigs,
worry being systemically crushed beneath her soft rhythmic footsteps.

As dawn descends,
tiny points of twinkling shiny light,
delicately decorate this canopy of dreamy heaven,
she gazes upon the illuminating moon,
and marvels at the eloquent beauty of nature,
is this wishful thinking? She asks.
now in a faraway place,
her heart sees a Neverland of promises,
where dreams will be realized,
and she yearns to fall among the star..

REALITY needs to momentarily stay clear from her territory,
just for this little while, she pleads softly,
where she is all alone,
gingerly cocooning herself in a land of make believe,
and smiling her warm glowing smile,
she’ll spend some tender loving moments,
with her once too often neglected inner child…

An evening with Royal Sabah Turf Club

Way back a year ago.

The day that was : 1 October 2010

I was having a stressful day at work for missing an important official document and have searched high and low yet of no avail. Several calls were made to ensure the documents has indeed been returned to me and I was inevitably exhausted by all the worry and unsettled thoughts until when it almost come to the end of the day where I managed to figure its whereabout, inside a printer where I had meant to scan it the day before, but the procedure did not work out and I forgot to take it out from the machine. -___-

When your mind is out of focus, things like this do happen. And you end up wasting the whole of your precious time trying to disentangle the mess, physically and mentally, brought about by your occasional lack of attentiveness when performing your duties at work.

It was drizzling when after work I drove to Sutera Harbour to attend a dinner function, I was representing KKCF, the charity organization which I am in, to receive donation from Royal Sabah Turf Club during its Annual Dinner as well as Gold Cup race 2010. Very tired and a little haggard looking, I decided to head to the rest room to put on some foundation and lipstick. Some pretty girls were inside the room, all of whom were impeccably made up and dressed stylishly. I observed a girl who was engrossed in taking pictures at the reflection of her image at the mirror, in a vain effort to immortalize her beauty into timeless youth and eternity.

And now there’s a new word for this, in the online world at least : camwhoring. -__-

A staff member of the Club led me to a table where I settled down after shaking hands and introducing myself to the guests at the table, all from different charitable bodies coming here with the same purpose as mine.

The dinner function commenced with some opening speeches from invited dignitaries, then dinner was served and some programmes lined up to entertain the guests; a singing band got onstage with their quite pleasing renditions of evergreen songs of yesteryears from the likes of numbers by Elvis Presley to those of the Beatles.

The evening progressed with the donations presentation ceremony where each of the names of the charitable bodies were called out and the representatives asked to come to the stage. I received the donation from Datuk Edward Yong who gently asked in Chinese whether it was `KK Tze Chi’ I was representing. I said yes. For more than a decade Kota Kinabalu Charitable Foundation has carved a name for its generosity to reach out to the poor and needy, near and afar, irrespective of race and religions. I felt blessed to be able to be a part of the group, even in a less active role now.

A magic show was presented afterwards by a teenaged magician. In an instance our minds were entirely hypnotized, our vision similarly deluded by the perceived grandeurs concocted by this young girl, churning out tricks after tricks while performing slick and alluring dance moves accompanied by a fast-paced Indian song, all with the sole intention to entertain and mesmerize such that we were constantly spellbound into believing that what were merely illusionary images, were indeed the real things.

And during those spellbinding moments, I truly felt like an impressionable and innocent five years old all over again.

Later, a fashion show was put up by the same girls whom I encountered earlier in the restroom, they are all winners of various titles from beauty pageants in and around the state, parading their beauty as well as willowy figures on stage with casual clothes, swimwears and evening gowns. These girls appeared to be a little flattered at the attention being showered upon them by the audience, and flesh was bared a little when they sashayed down the makeshift runway during the swimwear segment to the glee and excitement of the male crowd all were seen and heard wooing in sheer delight.

I couldn’t quite fathom as to whether a middle-aged man who suddenly rushed to the stage to present a flower as well as kisses on the cheek for one of the beauties was lured by his drunkenness or his mere desire to get a little closer to the girl, and her skin, for that matter.

Perhaps his frustration at his impending advanced in years would somehow be soothed by the presence of this girl, and she was his best answer to showcase the last vestige of his youth?

As the evening wore on, one of the VIPs was invited to perform and with his powerful voice churned out some melodious English numbers. A guest at the table informed us that he was the father of popular Taiwanese star Gary Chou Ke. Out of curiosity I quickly performed a scrutiny of his appearance from afar and indeed found a slight resemblance to his famous son.


Now that was the closest I could get to a superstar, vicariously through a fatherly figure, literally. -__-

After the lucky draw session I made my way home . It has been a very tiring day but I was nonetheless contented to be able to fill in the invitation on behalf of the Foundation, an organization that’s close to my heart, for a good cause.

When I got back to my apartment it was in total darkness. Power failure is a normal occurrence here at my place. Knowing this, I have got myself ready with candles in the kitchen. We should never trust the power company for making claims that they are doing their utmost to make our lives convenient.

It’s just an empty promise.

There is something being in pitch-blackness which would immediately elicit a perpetual sense of fear and hopelessness in me, like there’s something lurking in the darkness that would come out to intimidate and knock the life out of me. If I am rational enough, I will understand that it is just this unfounded paranoia triggered by my own feelings of insecurities and the fear of the unknown. The fact that my house was broken into once only serves to intensify the helplessness in me.

But sleep would soon alleviate those feelings…