The Smoking Monkey Dot Com

  Aiman Arif (Working character name. I do not engage in the activities in this story, nor does this character bear any resenlance to the actual Aiman Arif. Honest to God, Your Honour! Cough. Anyway. Carry on.) bashed the keyboard with a final flourish. He was done. His masterpiece was complete. He lovingly re-read the story. He imagined the adulation he would receive, the acclaim he would acquire, the riches he would amass, the eventual meaningless sex that would soon follow. Nothing is sexier than a bestselling author, homicidal or not. He had incontrovertible proof of this fact, for he had watched Basic Instinct yesterday.

  He lit a cigarette. Ah. ‘This is the best thing in the world,’ he mused. Better than food. Better than sex. Better than boo.. well, almost better than booze. It’s the anticipation prior to the metamorphosis from an alcoholic, substance-abusing novelist to an obscenely wealthy alcoholic, substance-abusing novelist. “Maybe not even a novelist anymore,” he contemplated, playing with the idea of a purely idle life. No. He owed it to the literary community to stay ‘on the scene’ just a bit longer. Modern literature depended on him. ‘It’s a difficult job,’ he often told people, ‘but someone’s gotta shoulder that responsibility.’ He noticed that his audience always managed to maintain a mask of annoyed indifference to hide their fawning awe. Although he preferred fawning awe, he always respected their wishes. He was a people person.

  He puffed languorously, and reclined, blowing blue smoke rings into the air, imagining them turning into dollar signs. When the royalties came in, he would buy a yacht. Yes. He loved those yachts. He got a hard-on whenever he thought of their sleek curves, their snug insides, the power and throb of their engines. He hurriedly pressed down on the tent in his pants. “Not now,” he hushed, “Patience, my pet.” He gave it a reassuring pat, and focused his attention to the computer screen once more. All he had to do now was name his creation.

I hate Nagging. I enjoy Whining. So do most of the human beings my age. Nagging is a wholesome activity regularly practiced by our loving parents, and whining is a cheap way to get what we want. And how else can I elaborate on this topic, one which has been milked to the point of excruciating over-exposure? By the magic of humourous anecdotes, i.e ‘filler’, which may, or may not, be true. After all, it’s the entertainment value that counts. Add that with a few shots from O.C and/or North Shore, you have yourself a teen hit, yes you do, you do, you do!

Moving on. What have you whined for lately? A Handphone? A Walkman, mayhaps? Hmmm? I whine daily, although, more discreetly than some. Cough. My whining consists of well-placed flashes of my beat-up, malfunctioning phone. Add that to heavy sighs, and you’re on the fast track to the Nokia Superstore, yes you are!

As much as we all love whining, and yes we do, look at any random Friendster profile, and I guarantee that you will find the sentence ‘My life/parents/teachers/friends/school/boyfriend/girlfriend/toilet/English is boring/sucky/borink/bowink/any-other-variation-of-boring-and/or-bad’, we all hate being the whinee. That is, the person who is whined at. Whosoever has a younger brother/cousin/sister will know exactly what I’m talking about. They whine and screech and yell and kick and punch and bite and then you smack them and YOU get in trouble! Oh, they’re just kids, Aiman. You have to give in to them. After all, you’re the senior. Which goes against everything that is thought, spoken and implied in VI. Pfff.

And now we arrive at Nagging. Ah, Nagging. Where would we be without you? If we’re lucky, flipping burgers at Mickey D’s. No, actually taking out the trash. At a Ramly stand. Admit it. If your Mom didn’t make you read that one extra chapter you’d've screwed up your paper to no end and subsequently end up in the gutter and/or th graveyard. No, not in the grave, that’s an easy job. I mean you’ll be digging the graves. Yep. What’s that? Another example? Why, i never knew you liked them! You do? Awww..

Hmmm.

Okay, if your Mom didn’t make you clean up your room, rats and/or Aedes mosquitoes would have breeded there and therefore it would be your death! Does that count? It is not feeble. Oh, do shut up.

So, as you see in the above example, we should appreciate the nags, and savour them, because when we’re independent adults, you will miss the nagging. At least until wedding night.

Although, this Holy Grail of ideals, this apprectiation of nagging by youths is, sadly, i think, impossible. After all, the very reason we take heed of this ‘advice’ is because it so annoys us we do whatever she says just to atisfy the ravenous beast we call maternal instinct. Oops, there I go again stating the blatantly obvious. How silly of me. Hmm?

  What the hell is the problem?! Argh! God, i can’t believe I’m just sitting here, instead of just punching the living daylights out of this guy. Yes. I said ‘living daylights’.

  Okay, maybe that was a little harsh. But you’d be pissed off too if some guy muscles in on your turf! Yes, MY TURF!

Okay, calming down. Here’s the story, for those who haven’t given up on my sanity by now.

As most of you might not know, or even care, is that I started this blog, what, March? I dunno. Around there.. And since then, until today, I’ve garnered a readership of about, 8 people. In total. Half of them don’t have an internet connection. This is a fact often repeated on this blog, for those of you who can’t spare me a few clicks.

Now, I like to think of myself as some sort of a nonconformist. I’m not supposed to give a rat’s ass if anyone reads my blog or not. And I didn’t, the first few months. No readers means that I could rant about whatever the hell i wanted. Which is good.

  Then this dude comes along. He soon becomes a regular commentator on my blog. He comments on every bloody post. Which is good, i told myself. And is annoying, because all the comments are so bloody long they’re posts in themselves. And they’re full of backhanded compliments. Know what those are? It’s like, a statement that sounds like a compliment, but is actually an insult. i.g (?) ‘It’s cool when you show your sensitive, vulnerable side.’ Sounds like a compliment? He’s calling you weak!

  Agh.

Anyway, fine, then he starts up his own blog. Which is cool, cause then he’ll stop messing with mine. And his first post! Agh! He rips off my material! I swear it, Your Honour! Those ae my quips, my somewhat-witty remarks! AND HE RIPS THEM OFF!

And the most maddening part. HE ALREADY HAS MORE FREAKING READERS THAN ME!! WHAT THE HELL KINDA WORLD IS THIS!? I think up the crap, I INVENT the concept of uplifting, thought-provoking posts, and he rips off my crap, regurgitates it, and people lap it up. And i don’t even get credit! Where’s the justice?

This is all purely business, though. He’s an okay guy, with horrible disrespect for plagiarism laws.

…

Only one way to combat this atrocity. The kid gloves are off, man. Let’s see your next post. And don’t try no ‘i’m the better man, so i’m gonna let this go’, or ‘let’s be reasonable’ crap.

Come on, man. I’m waiting.

  Mmm.. suitably morbid title for a suitably morbid post. I dunno why i didn’t cry. And why I’m still not crying. Maybe I’m still in shock? Or maybe I’m just a heartless bastard who should be buried as well.

  I’ll probably get in trouble for being so open about this. Yeah, but then again.. everyone who reads this doesn’t really have the right to ground me for life. Eh.

  ..

  I sit here and try to remember the good times, the things she’s done for me, for everyone. And I realise.. apart from a few golden moments we’ve shared together, maybe i don’t really know her that well, or as well as i should, wanted, or had to. Now this thoought, the notion that i don’t have the chance to get to know her anymore was probably one of the high points in my grief. Or is it low point? Well, a very sad point. And I didn’t cry. WTF?

  ..

  I really don’t know where i’m going with this. I’m just pouring everything out. Once again, bear with me.

  Another high/low/very sad point. My late grandmother, i called her Wah, used to hang out on a single bed in front of the TV, and a huge ass oxygen tank, plus a rickety side table laden with various pills and insulin syringes, was stood permanently beside her. We came back to Seremban the other day, and as i walked through the front door, i instinctively turned m head in the direction of the bed. Little surprise it was gone. The actual physical difference was niggling, but the psychological impact was.. jarring. A harsh reminder she’s gone.

  I never thought the day would come. That bleak thursday at IJN began like every other Thursday. I had just finished my first crossword when i was called to come over to he hospital cause ‘Wah was really sick’. Okay, i thought, and i meant to go over and proudly show her the checkered scrap of paper with barely legile letters on it, and receive the familiar praise only a grandmother could give.

  I walked to the CCU, and, seeing it pretty packed, waited in a private room where my grandfather, whom i called Tok, was napping, waiting to be summoned by the good doctors at our National Heart Institute. Patiently I waited.

  1.20 pm, Thursday, 23/11/06. God. I stood in the hospital room, watching my relatives break down and the blood pressure and pulse monitor slowly, well, slowing down. I was feeling a peculiar tightening in my chest, closer to nausea, or fear, that worsened as the seconds ticked by. I was curiously detached from the scene as well. As if all of it were.. unreal, and that she’d be back up and on her usal dialysis regimen again. What of the marvels of modern medicine now?

  She looks asleep, actually.

I never really knew her. I wish i did, but.. yeah. Teenagers and grandparents. Pfff.

God, I love her, though. The unconditional type.

..

Tok and Wah. The phrase rolls off my tongue.

..

Tok. It halts. Sounds faintly cough-like. Agh.

..

  Very bad post. Agh. By 1.40, i had already outlined what i would post, until i realised what the f*** i was doing. GOD! SHE’S GONE AND ALL YOU CAN THINK ABOUT IS THIS F***ING BLOG????? AGH!

  Pfff.

I’m fine now, though. Really.

..

I miss her, though.

  Through careful scientific observation, induced by the embarassingly long load times of my laptop, as well as its constant crashes, I have noticed, and observed, with my innate observational skills that enable me to observe observations that ae worth being observed, that there are two kinds of people in this blue-green marble we call Earth. Slappers. And Scratchers.

  Again, I hear the cries of How, When, Who, Why and What, from the public. Ergo, I shall now answer those 5 questions (in no particular order).

  WHAT, you ask, are these fabled Slappers and Scratchers? WHAT is this revolution in Behavioural Science that will rock, shock and lock (to the edge of your seat) you? To answer such a learned query, I will now ask you an entirely unrelated question, and cleverly wind it ingeniously to the real issue at hand.

  What country do we live in? I presume my reader(s) will be Malaysian, and to a lesser extent, Singaporean. Alas, the slithering tentacles of my troubled psyche have not crossed the Pacific. But, one day. One day. Yes. Either way, odds are you, the reader, are currently residing in a tropical region, yes? Hot, humid little hellholes, where Third-World mentality is rampant, despite the just-below-top-notch infrastructure. A place oft-attacked by rain, haze, and forevermore fraught with.. mosquitoes. <cue dramatic music>

  WHY, you ask, WHY the mosquitoes? But consider the title, reader(s), Slappers and Scratchers. Ah, you say. Ooh, you coo. I get it. But, sadly, no, you don’t.

  Abandoning my attempt at answering all 5 questions, (2 out of 5 ain’t bad, right? Right?) I will now just get to the bloody point, for fear of my readership plummeting into the negative integers.

  A Slapper is proactive. The Scratcher is reactive. See the connection? The Scratcher is the guy you see scratching himself after getting bit by a mosquito. He doesn’t make any effort whatsoever to slap the mossies, the source of his itchiness. See it now? The Scratcher probably was a Slapper, but due to the world beating down on him, i.e, the mossies being too fast for the poor guy, and he feels like crap whenever he misses a kill, he just gave up, popped open a soda and scratched himself raw. The Slapper, on the other hand, is the ambitious young go-getter, the guy who, after a solid hour of frantic insect genocide (insecticide?), is still slapping away at mosquitoes, and has, well, at the risk of sounding corny, has not given up.

  There are multiple facets to these characters. The Slappers, for one, there are, well, two kinds of them, firstly, the Slapper who manages to kill one, or a few, in every slap (the Happy Slappers). These are the guys you see who have made it. Good grades. Nice family. Sports captain. Hot girlfriend. A success. And, finally, the Slappers who are lucky to get one in a hundred, but are still slapping away because of those damned mosquitoes. Okay, okay, the second kind of Slapper, you can either say that he’s driven by anger and/or determination. Sooo.. We’ve got Angry Slapper and Straight Slapper. The dudes who are trying so very hard to become Happy Slappers, and control their fate.

  Now, we dissect the Scratchers. We’ve got the Sad Scratcher, the loser, the guy who’s down on his luck and just gave up. These are the Slapper rejects, the ones who have been an Angry/Straight Slapper for so long, they just, yeah, they just gave up. They prefer to work with whatever life throws at em, rather than control what life throws at them.

  The Ass Scratcher. He was born a Scratcher, man. He don’t care what happen to ‘im, dude. He be ‘appy-go-lucky. The real loser. The dude you see lepaking, smoking, drinking, being an ass and generally f-cking everything up for everyone, when he could be, well, Slapping.

  I suppose you can apply these things to different aspects of life. I just used life in general. How about.. Sports? The Happy Slapper’s the star kicker. The Angry/Determined Slapper are the loyal, determined teammates. The Sad Scratcher’s the guy who’s been playing forever and has never turned pro, so he gave up. The Ass Scratcher is, well, you get the point.

  .. Hmm..

  In a romance context? The Happy Slapper’s the guy with a great relationship, solving all the problems in the relationship as easy as (forgive the analogy) slapping a mosquito. The Angry/Determined Slapper’s the guy who’s almost got it right. The Sad Scratcher’s the guy who’s seen to much. And the Ass Scratcher’s either the wife-beater, or the obnoxious dude who ruins the male race for a girl. And/or vice versa. 

  Okay, so now we’ve got four kinds of people. The Happy Slapper, I’ve got it made. The Angry/Determined Slapper, not yet, but working on it. The Sad Scratcher, what’s the point? And the Lazy Scratcher, I don’t give a rat’s ass.

Which one’re you?

<grunt> Excuse me. <gruntgruntstrainpantpantpantgruuuunt> Dammit. Can’t seem to get out of this rut I’ve dug myself into. Oh well. <pats rut affectionately> I’m starting to kind of like this big lug of emotional baggage..

As much as my overactive, albeit helpful, sonofabitch conscience (although by implying that my conscience, i.e, a part of me is an S.O.B, by that logic, I too, am the offspring of a female canine. Eh. Old news) abhors lies of all kind and creed except for the teensy weensy little white lies, like telling your best friend that the hideous sunhat she’s wearing is.. decent.. to avoid some needless feelings-hurting, I am, as the title explicitly implies, in a complicated relationship with lies. Untruths. Poppycock. Bullsh-t. Ballspeak. Penistalk. And its close cousin, Bush-beating-around.

Why, oh, why, do you say this Aiman? I hear you ask, in monotonous drones, for you are merely humouring such a soul as myself. I’ll tell you why, fools, oh, wait.. <consults PR For Dummies*> Um.. I’ll tell you.. nice-smelling and <checks book again> physically-attractive sir/madam. In.. the next paragraph. I can actually feel your attention slipping from here.

Deception is a complicated beast, indeed. Makes you feel good, great, peachy, brill, happy, glorious, contented, satisfied, satiated and other words related to ‘happy’. Oh, you’ll find this sh-t in thesaureses (thesauri?) anyway. But, but, ah, you say, ooh, you whisper. Here, is the elusive ‘butt‘ (THERE ARE NO TYPOS) he speaks so greatly of. How he loves ‘butts’ (PAINFULLY ETYMOLOGICALLY CORRECT TEXT). He also loves Ayamas** brand Drummets***(THERE ARE ALSO NO SUBLIMINAL ADVERTISEMENTS). But, dammit, when deceptions are eventually, if ever, (’cause you almost never get busted, take that from me, kids), exposed for the gi-normous charlatan that it really is, your world comes crashing, yes, crashing, crushing, collasping down upon thee, like fiery (and foul-smelling) rain from the heavens!

And here my arm grows weary. Dammit. I was gonna so a semi-emo thing today, but I guess i fail in that, too. No matter. I shall do what all great men did before me in the face of circumstances that burden impossibly. Procrastinate! Wheehee! The second part, and possibly the conclusion, depending on the state of my bowels, and the alignment of the planets at 1423 hours (1523 Phillipines) on the 13th day of the 13th month. Wait. No, my calendar’s faulty. This month, then. Heh.

*Trademark

**Even bigger Trademark

***<cowers in corner, mumbling something about class-action tort lawsuit <insert impressive, yet absolutely meaningless legal mumbo-jumbo (and sneak in some Greek, why not?) here> case precedent> Cough.

Now that that has gotten your attention, I am now sure of your complete and absolute rapt attention in this topic, which requires much attention and attentive reading to be understood fully. Yes.

  The chances of this particular post being overwhelmed by other, superior friendster blog posts are, indeed, very high. I also question my standing in life, seeing as how I’m still stuck using a friendster blog instead of a xanga, or blogger one. Then I remember the answer. I have no idea how in the hell to manipulate backgrounds. It’s all freakin’ Greek to me. So, I stick with this no-nonsense, in the layouts and frills aspect, friendster blog.

  But I digress. My initial contention for this particular post is a strange dream I had, one that has disturbed me to no end and left me shaking and sweating in my bed, generating a suspicious wet patch on the sheets, to which my brothers greeted with a horrified stare, before my quick and timely explanation that it is merely sweat.

A strange dream to be sure, and I only repeat this fact to further emphasise the facet that this particular subconscious message is, to say the least, not of the norm. I feel that one factor leading to this particular occurence is only falling asleep just shy of 7 am. I am, so far, unsure as to the nature of the correlation between bedtime and strangeness of dreams, but i’m sure it’s an interesting one. My mind is all over the place now. God.

  Anyway, last night, after finally taking the first few tentative steps into La-La-Land at 6.47 am, my senses were immediately greeted with the sight, sound, smell, feel, and ah, yes, the taste of an attractive woman, who reminded me simultaneously of all the women that I have found attractive over the years. I happily went along with this notion, content in the fact that I was about to make it with a hot chick, for lack of a better term. Unfortunately, this was no simple wet dream, oh, no. It was over waaay too fast. Usually it’s like.. oh, right.. public blog.

  Moving on, after it was all said and done, time skipped nine months and lo and behold, I was a 16-year old daddy! Wahey! I cursed my imaginary lack of imaginary condoms when i screwed the imaginary girl. And now, I was an imaginary dad. Strangely, I don’t remember her Dad chasing after me with a shotgun, marching me to the nearest wedding.. place. Probably because I didn’t bolt. Nope. I stuck by her side, yep. A regular good guy.

  As the dream progressed, many eventful events eventually occured. She left me, ironically, leaving a 16-year old who can barely keep his MP3 player from being annihilated daily with a.. fragile.. infant. I couldn’t even remember my ’son’s’ name, goddammit. The boy grew up, turning into a 6 or 7 year old in two seconds, and I barely aged. In the end, I started freaking out because I realised that now that I had a kid that I didn’t have the right to screw around, sowing my wild oats, anymore, as I was planning to do when I got into college. In my dream of course. In real life, I’m not gonna do such a thing. Nope. The thought of such debauchery makes my cringe internally. Cough.

  And so, I awoke, to my immense relief, and realised I still had the right to screw around in college, and that I was still single, and childless, and 16. Whew.

   I sat in bed for about twenty minutes then, analysing the dream. I suppose it’s because of one of my habits of keeping my options open. I hate commiting, as many of my friends can attest whenever they make me try and confirm for somthing a week in advance. Plans change, you know. And since I was a daddy, a huge part of life was barred from me. I lost my freedom, so to speak. Okay, that was a lame analysis.

  Hmmm. Maybe because I’m starting to fall in love with being single? I mean, maybe the boy embodies the essence of married life. Commitment, discipline, a requirement of love and affection, things I don’t have to give right now, seeing as i don’t have a girl to commit and/or show affection to. The boy’s a shackle, and I’m not ready to give up being single, if celibate.

  Or maybe it’s God’s way to tell me not to screw around. Or not to forget the condoms. Anyway, the arguments here are oddly weak, because the thought put into them was, well, wobbly, to say the least. I’m not much of a dream interpreter. Maybe my valued and important reader(s) can help. Anybody have any ideas as to what this dream means?

  Now that I am back home with a non-screwy mouse, I may blog in peace. Now, if only i had something tangible to blog about, things would be much more interesting, yes. Hmmm.

I have made a vow. With this year’s Raya haul, I can and will obtain my very own wireless connection, eliminating the need for and/or my dependency on my godforsaken neighbours for a means of communication with the outside world.

Through careful thought, I have concluded that I require three things, in total, in order to succesfully obtain an internet connection. Firstly, the cold, hard cash required to delve into such a costly territory, second, a computer expert, a geek, if you will, to aid me n my quest for a wireless adapter, and finally, an actual working hone line.

  I have acheived the first criteria through deliberate collecting of small paper packets filled with money, thrust into my 16-year-old hands by long-lost relatives making up for all the time the didn’t spend with me. I love you guys. I really do. Although the odds of any of you reading this post are really non-existent, the internet being something your bespectacled-16-year-old-nephew-cousin-twice-removed-from-uncle’s-side-from-KL once mentioned wistfully while casting eyes eastward.

  The second criteria being unacheivable until the restart of school, I will now skip to the third, i.e, the acquiring of a phone line from Telekom Malaysia. As I stand, quaking, outside the newly-revamped TM Point Taman Tun branch, I fear for my life, as I immediately run the risk of being strangled by red tape. Since both my parents have delinquent accounts with our friendly national telecomms provider, I am now wondering aloud, much to the worry of my brother, who sits behind me right now spending quality time with his beloved game console before it becomes obsolete and joins the ranks other Xboxes in the console genocide that will occur once the PS3 is properly out, whether TM will allow me to set up my own phone line or not. I have an IC now! They can’t deny me my constitutional right to download illegal and sexually explicit content at broadband speeds!

  Having analysed the situation, and constructing this graph on the correlation between a private connection versus blog posts (disregarding relevance of material), I predict more constant posts and a generally higher involvemet in online communities in two or three weeks. Thank you for your time, ladies and gentleman, I hope you have enjoyed our presentation, I know we have, and your information packets and refreshments are available at the lobby.

Crap. Pressed back again.

HA! Tricked you, you stupid mouse!!! I remembered to copy the text!

3rd attempted blog post of the night. Fingers crossed.

Actually there’s only one item on this list. Computer mice that have a ‘Back’ button on it, placed conveniently under the thumb. Bloody hell, I was typing a looooooooong post, and juuuust when i was about to click ’save’, i accidentally clicked the back button and just obliterated my entire post, raped it completely. IT"S GOOOONE!!! AHHHH! <cries> It was a good post as well, an important one. And the sad thing is, it was pure;y inspiration. I don’t even remember what it was anymore. Argh. Excuse me. I’m going to throw this thing out of the second-storey window of my house.

Oh, wait. <reconnects stupid mouse>

Forgot to click ‘Save".

  Anybody heard of Will Young? Slightly gay winner of Pop Idol in Britain. Unsure which year, though. Anyway, well, I doubt he is gay. I dunno, His songs are so emotional, but I write emo songs, and I’m not gay.. right? right?

  Moving on (swiftly), I’m not sure if the dude wrote it himself, but this particular chorus really, really struck a chord with me. God knows why. God. I’m going all mushy. A state highly dangerous in such a week as the exam week. Right, pulling the focus back to Mr. Young, the chorus goes like..

"Who am I to tell you,

That I would never let you down,

That noone else could love you,

Half as much as I do now.

Who am I to tell you,

I’ll always catch you when you fall,

Well I,

I wouldn’t be myself at all.."

Sniff. It’s true, y’know. When someone says he/she’ll never let you down, who is he/she to say that? We don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future. Unless Tarot cards work. And I’ve tried those things. Absolute crap.

And in an effort to end this post in a less emo note, I just wanna quickly complain about something that has been bugging me since.. forever. Japanese pop-culture. I mean, this obsession with anything small/fuzzy/deformed(chibee or something like that)/cute/furry/pink/white/purple/black/any-bloody-thing-under-the-bloody-sun-cause-they’re-insane-yes-they-are.

  Stupid slogans (Mini-mon is the number 1 ‘you love’ toy!!)(think the starry night is for your loneliness, friend, and i will be there for you), gimmicky products, questionable-anime-themed cosplay. It’s a CULT I tell you! For example everyone who is reading this, EVERYONE, has been obsessed with Pokemon at one time or another. Looking back, don’t you think it was a bit absurd? Pitting animals against each other and confining them into BALLS, for God’s sake, and they never die.. they faint! Plus they’re narcisstic little bastards, aren’t they? They’re entire vocabulary consists of their own name! Agh..

  Did I mention I don’t like cosplay? It’s not enough watching the freaky thing, you wanna dress like them?

  Nothing against Japan, though. Their medieval era is one of the grandest things ever. It’s just.. lately, yeah.

  Agh, and the fashion there. What do they call it.. ‘kawai’? Miniskirt+black knee length boots+tight top+as many bloody accessories as you can cram onto your small Japanese frame. God.

Okay, I have balanced the yin and yang of this post, for your viewing-and-eventually-closing-the-browser-window-in-disgust-at-my-arrogance pleasure.