Days of Present Past

It has been:

• 18 days since we clarified each other's doubts
• 17 days since I first held your hand in mine
• 16 days since we had our first long walk
• 15 days since I gazed longingly at you from afar
• 14 days since we wished together for time to pass faster
• 13 days since I kept you occupied even while I was not in your immediate vicinity
• 14 days since we had our first Official Date 
• 13 days since we had our second long walk
• 12 days since we watched a movie with your hand in mine
• 11 days since I began to worry for your illness
• 10 days since I begun to miss you every minute of the day
• 9 days since our first early morning weekend breakfast
• 8 days since my heavy sweetness assaults
• 7 days since we had our first spontaneous meet up
• 6 days since we had a rare private meal
• 5 days since we edged each other on
• 4 days since our third long walk
• 3 days since our first group movie together
• 2 days since our second early morning weekend breakfast
• 1 day since our first ad-hoc weekday date

It seems like I've known you for an eternity and even that is not enough.

May we have more of such days as time presses inexorably forward.

For this is the way it should have been.

Always.

Promise

The mysterious hand of Fate has opened to me a new chapter in life.

A chapter that has begun with an impeccably smooth prologue, flawlessly segueing into the first Act, with the opening paragraph a testament to the natural beauty that transcends the physical universe, a photorealistic painting of a dreamscape that can only be penned in the handwriting of God.

And it has only just begun.

For so long I have searched, it has finally ended.

For so long I have sought, I have to seek no more.

For so long I have hoped, my faith has been rewarded.

The machinations of fate have wrought a convoluted path, twisting paths paired with perilous turns, forcing me through cycle after cycle of the same emotional tribulation. My heart broke once, twice, until it cannot be broken any further.

Or so I thought.

Seeing you trapped in your own quagmire of despair, observing you struggling from the pits of damnation you yourself have condemned yourself to, my heart broke for the third and last time.

And it was not even whole to start with.

I thought my heart was shattered, pulverized, galvanized against further heartbreak.

I was wrong.

I thought I had completely lost faith in the institution I once held most dear.

I was wrong.

I thought that I had once again misunderstood the rudimentary feelings that stemmed from such an intimate but platonic association.

Turns out we both were wrong.

Finding someone who shares many interests with you is uphill enough, let alone finding another human being that is a near exact copy. The coincidences are uncanny, the similarities are astounding. I once thought we could find similarities in our differences, but now I realized that it is much easier to find differences in similarities. 

After all, birds of a feather flock together.

This is how it should have been since the beginning. This is how a union should have been since its establishment. This is how two people sharing an innate and instrumental mental connection should function.

The output must be squared, not paired.

For so long, I have made the decision to be beneath the person I cared for, to be secondary to all her interests, to essentially be a slave to her every whim. I assumed that my actions will be reciprocated, my feelings will be returned and my efforts will pay off.

Never have I been so wrong.

Now, things are different. We walk the same path together, in the same position, in step. We are no longer in different places at the same time, neither are we veering off from the same path as we advance forward. At last, for the first time in my existence, I have found the bolt who would accept this nut.

The harbor to my battleship.

The hangar to my plane.

The yin to my yang.

The Player 2 to my Player 1.

I rescued you from the depths of your emotions, sheltered you from the attacking hordes as we fled to safety, and finally told you as we emerged out into the open, out in the free:

 “Hey, the world is not so scary after all, right?”

My shattered heart would remain shattered, but you will be the adhesive to piece back the remnants together.

Better still, why don’t you be my new heart?

I have come too far now to turn back, to step back. I will never ever let you go.

Because you have become the most precious thing in my life now.

My bao bei.

And no matter what happens, I will never forsake you.

That is a promise I made to myself.

A promise that I will keep.

Always.

Fate works in mysterious but meaningful ways

A saying goes that you find treasure in the least likely of places, locations that didn't cross your mind, venues that didn't show the slightest hint of their hidden content. The same goes for people, the companions you hold most dear. They may come from myriad backgrounds, possess different qualifications and are composed of a kaleidoscope of personalities and characters, but at the end of the day, all of you are united by a single thinking - a hive mind, of sorts.

Finding someone who can tolerate your plethora of idiosyncratic nuances and habits is difficult enough, and seeking one that is similar to you in more than one way is almost tantamount to an act of God and the temptation of fate. I always had this thinking, that one fine day in my sorrowful future, someone whom I can click with - or in Pacific Rim parlance, drift with - will appear in the motion capture rig to my left, calibrating the left hemisphere before confirming the neural handshake in a samurai salute.

I don't have to fight my monsters alone anymore.

I will demonstrate my resolve and hope that yours will hold too, as we battle our demons together in the body of our giant machine.   

Feed the fish!

"If you want to beat them, you have to understand them"

After sitting through two awesome screenings of Pacific Rim, I found it easier to explain the circumstances surrounding my recent predicament, to shed some much-needed light on the matter and to finally nullify the Breach one and for all.

All of us have our own kaijus to fight. They can come in any form, any number, but one thing's certain: they are going to be big. 

To fight monsters, you have to create monsters.

Mine came in the form of gigantic mecha, the Jaeger Program.

Jaeger technology was shaky at first, and setback after setback caused me to rethink my strategy, to rethink everything. Then it dawned: I had to shed my current, childish skin and become a more matured individual, geared to the rigours of the real world in order to better fight these giant monsters. The upgrades were made, the unneeded parts were locked away, and the Jaeger was launched into battle.

For a time, we started winning. Battle after battle, kaijus fell to rocket punches, AKM missiles and plasmacasters. It seemed like the new upgrades were working, although the reactor whined as the turbines spun around the improved housing to promote bolstered output and efficiency. Danger turned to propaganda, monsters turned to toys. For a while, everything was good, peachy, under control. 

Then one day, everything changed.

The first Category 6 kaiju made landfall six months into the war and decimated an entire colony in less than an hour. Six hours later, the upgraded Jaeger still could not defeat the gigantic beast, a monster which had intimately learnt of all its combat moves, weapons and techniques. The kaiju was always two steps ahead of the Jaeger, and after 8 intense hours of battle, the Jaeger finally fell.

Desperately, I rebuilt the Jaeger, improved upon it and sent it out against the battered Category 6. It was finally brought down, but the another one came through the Breach only a few days later and decapitated the Jaeger. A replacement was fielded against the invader, and successfully repelled the attack, until a third Category 6 joined forces with the second one and obliterated the new Jaeger. When the fourth one came swimming through the Breach howling in its bloodcurdling treble, I realised this was not going to stop. I was losing Jaegers faster that I could replace them.

I could not win.

At the final Shatterdome in the heart of the capital, I made the decision to do one final push, the decisive, surgical strike to close the Breach once and for all. I looked at my options - there were not many. However, one part of the Shatterdome had remained locked and forgotten, until the key of desperation turned it open.

Outfitted with its original parts, the first Jaegar stomped into battle to face all of my kaijus, armed with seemingly obsolete weapons that would be effective against the giant beasts. However, the reactor hummed and pulsed with vigour and strength, completely at ease in its original housing and not whining to break free. 

The final battle. The last stand.

When the dust finally settled, nothing was left. Breach, kaiju, Jaeger: all were gone. The war was won, but at great cost. All that was left was the question: "Was it worth it?"

Pacific Rim references aside, I became someone I was not, someone I could never become in order to make that relationship work. I became a monster, became a machine modeled after some obscure, socially-accepted subroutine, in order to combat the kaijus that threatened my city for the better part of eight months. Perhaps I was blinded, too desperate for companionship that I dropped almost everything which constituted myself for her sake. Now I ask myself, "Was it worth it?"

To that I answer, "Does it matter anymore?."

The Vanguard

Visual representation courtesy of Frontier Trust.

The Vanguard fired a short pulse from his aft microverniers, causing his battered machine to drift lifelessly towards the planetoid, its robotic limbs reluctantly being pulled along by the forces of inertia. Devoid of motivation and drained of energy, the previous consecutive skirmishes had accumulated into a maelstrom of deadly conflict involving thousands of combatants from all sides. When the dust settled, only one machine remained.

The Vanguard, however, was not free from injury.

The Way the Wheel Turns

As the tagline for the latest Fast & Furious movie goes, "All roads lead to this." 

I should have seen this coming, should have adequately prepared for it, should have taken all possible measures to safeguard myself. Yet, when the first kaiju made landfall, I was wholly devastated by its sheer enormity, its terrible roar, its deadly appendages tearing everything that I knew and held dear totally asunder. 

And it happened again. And again. And again.

When a gigantic Cloverfield-like creature festooned with alien shards  flattened the metropolis, that was when I finally learnt that this was never going to stop. 

I had to find a way to fight back.

They counted on me to hide, to give up; they never imagined that I would rise to the challenge.

To fight monsters, I had to create monsters of my own: mental fortitude, determination and a deliberate hardening of the heart melding together to create a fearsome, intricate machine. I sent it into battle and for a while, the machine and I were winning, it seemed to be working.

But then, everything changed.

The monsters evolved, shed off their battered shells and emerged all dark, ominous and shrouded by an impenetrable black cloud. I could not make out their features from the dense disruption, much less find any weak spots to commence an attack. I got pounded into submission, my machine taking beating after beating, suffering irreparable damage to 80 percent of its heavily-battered frame. 

Now, I am on the edge of my hope, at the end of my time.

To fight these renewed creatures, I have to understand them once again, understand the vermin that they were aiming to eradicate by attacking population centers, understand the motivation for such indiscriminate genocide. To do that, I have to withdraw into my Shatterdome, to redraw the plans of battle and create another bigger, deadlier machine to face the monsters that are at my door. 

I hope that I will be able to cancel the apocalypse.

Feed the fishes.

Into Darkness

Before I begin with this post proper, allow me to provide a simple breakdown of my life’s components:

•           Work: 50%
•           Costuming: 5%
•           Gaming 5%
•           Nerf/Tactical Sports: 10%
•           Family: 20%
•           Gundam: 5%
•           Others: 5%

The above is a rough estimate of the activities that take up most of my time, the things that demand for my regular attention. However, the above is before variable A came into the picture.

Variable A replaced everything below Work.

I entered this equation filled with hope but armed with wary, as preliminary studies indicated that variable A was atypical, different from the run-of-the-mill, factory-churned specimens I was used to. The studies were accurate, the past few months had been one emotional roller-coaster ride after another. Yet, I endured, for the results from a successful solution were deeply affective and very fulfilling. Simply put, variable A completed the equation, without which it would remain unbalanced, unsolvable and useless.

Math metaphors aside, I did all I could to make variable A happy, cheerful, content. I tended to her every need, tried to fulfill her every want, stayed by her side longer than anyone else in my life and tried all ways and means to maintain the status quo. Orthodox, unethical, legal, dangerous, mortally-damaging, turnkey solutions – I’ve tried them all. So why am I teary-eyed five days a week? Why do I do to bed with a heavy, damaged heart? Why do I wake up to a miasma of dread and gloom?

I know you can’t help it, you are going through some pretty tough times yourself. But is it too much to ask for you to be a bit happier? You display that same haggard look every day, you give me the cold shoulder on a near-daily basis, you respond coldly to my texts. To put it harshly, you simply don’t give a damn, whether it is about the shit I go through at work or about the other things in my… wait.

There are no other things in my life anymore.

And when you give me the silent treatment, I honestly don't feel like living anymore. It’s akin to a red-hot katana forged from the fires of Mount Doom bladed with a scaled-down version of the Death Star’s laser driven into my helpless heart at transwarp speed.

Fate challenged me to play this game on legendary, but now, I’m seriously wondering if the final cutscene is really worth it. Perhaps, I really wasn't ready.

Everyday, I am so fatigued by any number of things. The mental and psychological stress placed on me by my mounting workload can only be laughed off but never alleviated. I live with a perpetually churned-gut, always thinking of the next project, the next deadline, the next incident which would throw an already disheveled system into total anarchy. It is perplexing, tormenting and downright destructive, yet I cannot transcend this.

I also feel so guilty for disregarding my family ever since she came into my life. My home has become just a place for me to get some sleep, a hot shower and a change of clothes, but also a refugee camp for when the damage is just too dire. I feel so, so bad not talking to my parents more, giving them simple answers whenever they ask me anything at home. I really cannot summon up the motivation and processing power to prolong the conversation, my resources have been spent elsewhere. For that, I am really sorry.

My friends have been with me for the longest time, through the period of my greatest agony, through the good times of my life. I cannot ask for finer friends, for they are the only constant in this churning maelstrom that my life has become. They will always be a harbour for my nonsense, my randomness, my infatuation with SNSD as well as the persona that is Spartan of Spectre. For that, I thank you, all of you, and ask that we continue to exist as a group, divided as we may be.

A random picture on my Facebook news feed bore the following words: "If something is not making you happy anymore, respect yourself enough to walk away". This rings frighteningly true for many, many aspects of my life right now.

Although my rosy picture has begun its descent into darkness, but I will walk it through and finish what I started.

It is only logical.

Feed the fishes.