2

From my abode, I would walk downhill every morning on my way to work, following the road as it unwound, bending slightly with it as I accelerated. This was necessary to first avoid the zealous man posted at the minibus stop. He was a charismatic eagle- eyed man in his seventies and overseer of the minibus drivers. He made sure that every driver took the time to step up the gas to my stop, so that each green- topped vehicle could fill up their seats with those passengers entitled to them- those living down my road. Before his interventions, most drivers would simply collect those from beneath the slopes and infinitely leave the upscalers in their fruitless queue.

The man would be scanning the slopes with his back to me, but would still glimpse my face as I passed and hail offering his services. Most of the time I would awkwardly refuse and sail past, feeling his chiding stare near the back of my head as I took the pedestrian staircase downhill. Other times I would relent and sink gracefully into the well-worn seat of a greentopper, after wincing slightly at the merry beep which deducted my fare from my travel pass, knowing full well I had paid the price for my comfort.

The pedestrian staircase was by no means a bad option. On mildly sunny days, it was in fact the better option, much like a fun orienteering course where I needed to navigate through domestic helpers led by their gleeful schoolchildren or early runners led by their boisterous canines, sidestepping random lumps of canine waste. Knees a-clicking, I would finally arrive at the station of the mass transit railway in a warm layer of perspiration to continue my journey onward.

Drowsin’ on the MTR

The small-scale rumble and shakes

Tilt you from the waist so your nodding head

Gently draws little concentric circles from its tip.

One pliant ear stands to attention of its own accord,

Receiving next-station information in three languages,

Along with constant murmurings for good behaviour.

Resistance increases with insistence.

Together this grandma and child escalate and whirl

Their audible audacity into a tight plosion

Whose updraft scrapes through the soft mesh of my consciousness.

The Banshee Riders

The news said that the riders would come that night. Everyone in the city was nervous. Whenever I peeked at others’ screens on the mtr, all were concentrating on that sole headline, housewives sacrificing their usual  melodrama shows, old men their 777 gambles, and youngsters their fashion inspiration. Someone over in the Philippines had recorded the passing of the riders there, and this was viewed by many. In addition, all were hurrying home as quickly as they could in this city of downturned faces. Of an entire household, someone of course was responsible for pausing long enough to subsequently purchase packing tape, suddenly a novel task with a novel queue which stretched for miles from every supermarket and corner store.

Finally, after an extended deathly silence, they came.

They came, tossing their heads of creamy white, vying with each other their speed and strength; descendants of both Ursula and Lucifer. Their terrible cries penetrated each corner of the city and were so chilling that children hid under their beds and wept with them. The race was on and there was nothing us mortals could do to stop it. The riders kept on, driving their liquid wolves ever faster, jeering at each other over the loud excited howls. They were so fast that all you could see was a blur of watery motion and, even behind closed windows, the accompanying gusts would be felt keenly, not least due to the disquiet you felt from the turmoil unfolding around you.

Whenever a rider fell behind the pack, she would dash madly around the vicinity in a frantic attempt to regain height and composure. The truly lost or desperate would attempt to enter a human home, throwing themselves against window panes and shattering the glass. The ghastly breach of etiquette would be frowned upon by the others, verging briefly around the fallen to gesture mockingly at the glass panes already human-touched by crosses of tape thus marked: ‘Do not enter’. Then, they’d all take to the skies again and continue on their merry patrol, unleashing their pent-up energy in water and wind.

 

Episode 1: From my abode

I lived right at the end of the road atop a hill, from where a winding concrete path led down to a minibus stop, and then an actual bus stop. The stops had a single route for each, and were the only means of public transport down to the city.

If you would walk downhill from my building at a leisurely pace, alertness would be required right after you passed the guardsmen at our entrance – cars would erupt in front of you after their sudden sharp turn from your left. You’d think you could relax after that, but no – the pungent aroma of the combined piss of countless (domestic) canines would cause you to wrinkle your nose and accelerate to a brisk walk, right in time to catch the only minibus to the city. On an unlucky day, no amount of wide-eyed staring into space would bring the green-topped menace into view, and your beaded perspiration would propel you further down the road to the bus stop, whose vehicles were even more infrequent than the former mentioned. Once there, re-enactment of aerobic movements worthy of a Reddit .gif would be necessary to combat the hordes of watchful mosquitoes hiding in the bushes. Often, I’d pause whenever a taxi sailed past, fearful of misleading them into thinking I was a customer and reminding myself that I mustn’t give in to the luxury of air conditioning so soon. Of course, it wouldn’t be an issue if the taxi fare didn’t cost quite as much as two full meals at the hospital which I worked. I knew that soon enough I’d step on gratefully onto the colourful deck of my determined vehicle and sink into its plush seat, nipping secretively at the fresh welts present on my limbs and rejoicing at the little money I’d saved.

TBC

(Episode 2: I wasn’t always this frugal)

Infection control

Clean blue cloth, thin white strips.

Loops snugly onto the ears and stays put.

Perfect for avoidance of unnecessary verbal exchange.

The machines strum as her hands move swiftly.

Rows and rows of tubes are fed in, the last tubes of a long day.

Her throat feels dry and her nose is pinched by her heavy glasses.

They slide down from sheer exhaustion onto the blue cloth.

It’s ready! She gives the final cue, raspy through the mask. Her supervisor gives in return an unwilling nod- and one final poisonous glance that did not quite pierce through it. She turned away, and permitted her facial muscles to relax while she was undercover. She turned back.

I’ll be going, then she informed her by way of a goodbye. Another crisp nod.

She spied the clock out of the corner of her eye, concentrating on noting the exact minutes. It was definitely high time to head out into the toxin-free environment.

Poetry: The Treatment

I don’t usually try my hand at poetry, but this tidbit was inspired by changes in my own life over the past two to three months. Sadly, I tend to procrastinate and make important decisions at the last minute because I either don’t know my own mind, literally change my mind at the very last second, or I’d decided on something earlier on but had been unwilling to tell people about it for fear of being chided. It’s not so much about avoiding responsibility per se, but side baggage of being someone with ever- changing goals and rather bad analytical skills, coupled with an annoying tendency to overthink and chase after (unattainable) perfectionism?

To put it simply – if you strive after everything, you’d achieve nothing, simply due to not harnessing your energies long enough to see an effect. And if you worry as well, then your desired effect can actually be staring you in the face and you wouldn’t realize because you’re too busy worrying about some other outcome that stemmed from your original action. That’s key advice to myself, actually, and I hope it helps if you, my reader, are a worrier like me. Please gather all the information you can, make your decision and then live with it positively instead of thinking mindlessly about the could-haves and would-haves!

Anyhow, the piece below was inspired by life and my recent revision on medical imaging. A form of imaging works when you ingest a drug, and after a while when it’s metabolised and carried throughout your body it emits signals and the signal is detected, telling you about your disease/ treating your disease. Just like blurb you’d get before disease therapy, the overall message of the piece is one of encouragement.

The Treatment

In the monotony brought on by reality

I keep my lips pursed, my position supine,

Saving my energies for whatever may come.

Life is as if someone strokes your throat lightly;

Not ticklishly, but

In the reverse direction, from the base upwards,

A routine motion that causes your muscles to stiffen and seize.

There is no other cure.

I swallow a bolus –

It is no drug!

The decisions hit me in the stomach –

Saying goodbye, moving out, applying again… getting a pet.

All decisions, decisions I did not want to make so soon.

The huge snowball hurts me. Yet, it settles.

After a short? while I no longer feel cold. Snow has turned to sugar,

And I am enlivened.

 

So life is itself a drug, whose stresses themselves both cull and cure.

 

 

Jumanji: Relived. (A new HBO series)

At long last I’ve watched Jumanji 2, and been more than a little disappointed with it. The story lacks depth, I think.  Doing an actual tv series would have fleshed the story out a lot more, taking just the basic concept of (four) people getting sucked into a virtual reality game. Making all four of those people teenagers the same age who entered the game at the same time – that’s a definite mistake, too. Jumanji 2 turned out to be a high school chick flick, utterly predictable and one I would not rewatch, a far cry from Jumanji 1 which had powerful themes of human-ness running through. Jumanji 1, I must have rewatched 10 times in my childhood. I especially loved the bit where the little guy’s monkey tail being stuck in his trousers was bothering him and he was too ashamed to mention it until late. That little detail is brilliant film directing in itself.

Anyway, crappy Jumanji 2 inspired me to wordsmith as follows. In hindsight, I should probably have rewritten the whole plot as if I’d not seen Jumanji 2 at all, since I don’t think that particular storyline would be interesting even if you lengthened it out into a tv series. Maybe next time!

Time taken: 1.5 hours

Research done: None

Jumanji: Relived

A new HBO series

The re-adaptation of the much- loved novel, Jumanji, starts with four very different teenagers being forced into detention together. The first episode has the protagonist, Fish, discovering a dusty game console and powering it on, transporting himself directly into the virtual realm of the game together with his classmates-turned-teammates. All four take on the bodies and attributes of game characters. Fish, the real- life nerd, turns into Bravebroom, a hulk who fights incredibly well with household objects, his weapons of choice being a plain metal saucepan and a 100,000 watt cordless vacuum. The objects originate from the bottom of a backpack belonging to his nemesis, now sidekick, Asher, who has diminished from his sporty six- foot stature to become the tiny, wheezing five-foot Midget with extensive knowledge in the mechanics of artificial intelligence. As the team travel through the virtual landscape, Bravebroom and Midget concentrate their efforts on physically and mentally hacking through incessant hordes of steely robots, while the other two personas, Scarlett and Yorha, utilise their feminine charms and navigational skills respectively. Early game ends with the return of a jewel into the eye of a marble panther and the release of one of the earliest trapped prisoners within Jumanji, but layers of reality run deep within the decades- old “entertainment”, who has secretly managed to connect to the global internet and generate new levels with its downloaded knowledge. Enter Lorelei, the gifted I.T. student who happens across the connection while browsing on his home computer. Able to track gameplay in real- time simultaneously while examining Jumanji’s source code, Lorelei must guide the four characters through the constantly changing levels by leaving obvious clues, essential equipment and spare supplies. Would the four humans succumb all their lives to their characters’ weaknesses, or would Lorelei run into an unsolvable bug and crash the program forever? For now, the drums of Jumanji thud on, and the game continues…

Original Character: Biscuit

Biscuit adjusted his helmet so it better fitted around his soft foxy ears and pulled his short cloak tighter around himself. It was his favourite waterproofed one with ermine round the neck, one of many gifts from his traveller father. It was thin in some places but still good to wear, gotten even shorter in recent years as he’d grown. His lighting jiggled with the adjustment, as the headlamp attached to his helmet moved slightly.
Sinking his heels deep into the cervices of limestone, he successfully steadied his position and was able to use both hands to re-tighten the screws on his headlamp. It wouldn’t do to have it swinging around as he needed the light focused precisely in order to plan his route. Still in his heels- down position, Biscuit deliberately pressed the soles of his feet down firmly against the vertical surface of the cave so the rubber on his shoes would adhere better and tightened his gluts to lengthen his body a little. He craned his head to the right and noted the small dents and larger holds he would soon be using to traverse across the amber rock.
As Biscuit reached behind his waist for climber’s chalk to dry his hands of sweat before this next session, he thought of his father, as he always did during his climbs. If his mother was the reason Biscuit checked his belay device and safety harness three times before each climb and always carried identification with him, his missing father was why he continued to go on his trips. He fancied that his love of adventure had been inherited, and he never quite believed that his father had perished due to carelessness or any fault of his own. Biscuit was determined to find out what had happened and he visited this particular cave in the Sacred Lands often among others, picking ones in desolate locations not previously mentioned in his father’s packages and combing through the cave systems for many hours at a time.
With nimble positioning of his hands and feet, Biscuit soon reached a small natural enclosure within the cave and decided to take a short lunch break. He switched off his lamp to enjoy the pitch darkness and soft gurgle of the freshwater spring just below where he was, and soon dozed off. Before his preset alarm rang, though, he was awakened to the sound of the twirling of gear- another traveller was approaching. Perhaps, finally, he or she would bear news of his father.

Four years down the line: an update

It’s been four years since I’ve considered entering comms/ medcomms, but I’m still based in Hong Kong and PHD-less, so finding a medical healthcare advertising agency (there really aren’t many open here) to take me will require some effort. Sometimes I still think about it and wistfully hope for an opportunity. However, I’ve determined that I’m not actually interested in doing a PhD – definitely not in the Science stream. Crafting English words was always been and will always be my passion. It’s not a fad and not something I will grow out of, and literally all these years had to pass and I had to try out different job roles before I made sure of it. That is why I’m sure I’ll keep writing because it comes naturally to me and it’s what I love to do.

There are two reasons I’d abandoned this blog though. The first is common to many – with the rise of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc I’d engaged in ego- stroking as others do, posting more about my personal life than anything. The second – I found out three years back that my UK Biomedical Science degree enabled me to directly apply for a professional technologist’s licence (this is, quite frankly, what Dad had planned for me all along and so the Family encouraged me to go down this route) and so, after a brief stint in medical sales while waiting for the licence, I’m currently working as a biochemist/ haematologist in a much coveted role at a public hospital. Much coveted, because it’s really hard to get in. There are literally youngsters who studied the ‘wrong’ degree and decide to start from scratch and study for another five to six years just to enter the profession at the ripe old age of thirty.

Being the creative and imaginative soul I am and someone who’s not required to do an awful lot at home (translation: soul who does not possess innate or acquired abilities of multitasking, careful crosschecking, and efficient timekeeping),  I’ve toiled greatly at my current operational role which focuses basically on RESULTS. And RESULTS. And time-driven RESULTS. In short, you’re allowed two hours for urgent tests, and four hours for non- urgent tests. We’re all stressed out, but we keep on and we manage it. Finally, I’ve managed as the others have, and in return I’ve gotten the salary increase I was due.

Having said that,  it was with relief that I received the good news when I was told, instead of the smug ‘I’m a great writer who writes for a living and so of course I’ll get promoted when I’m due’. If I was working as a writer – now, today – I wouldn’t have doubted myself one bit. Bringing me to the conclusion of this blog post.

I’d rather be an exceptional

• creative writer
• healthcare writer
• writer + account executive

in a small, friendly, multinational?, non- prejudiced advertising agency in Hong Kong, than a sweating, flustered 

• top medical salesperson
• good project manager
• mediocre technician/ technologist.

It really has taken me four years and a lot of heartbreaks to admit this. Even to myself.

…

And so, with renewed vigor, I shall post my written works on any topic I feel like writing on and henceforth this site will host my portfolio. I shall be calm and I shall enjoy myself, and when the time comes for me to make a move I shall be ready.

Red, shiny and delicious

Luscious – delectable

Richness – truffle centre – smooth

Crimson

Wrapper

Holding the image and idea of Lindt’s Lindor chocolate in my mind, I decided to have some fun and write some short copy for a product I came across. I decided to draw on:

– the company’s heritage

-the science behind the product

-the appearance of the product.

Beneath the crystal clear waters of the Antarctic seas, a bold- coloured crustacean lives, small in size and short in lifespan. Otherwise strongly reminiscent of its relative, the common shrimp, this creature is none other than the Antarctic krill –  Euphausia superba. The relaxed curl of its frail translucent body is broken when it is vacuumed gently, along with many others, onto the factory on board (company’s) 200-strong great ship, Dashing. Directly milled without need for cryopreservation or stringent quality testing, the resultant fine powder is then sent for extraction, where viscous crimson liquid denotes the purest omega 3 known to man*.

Behold, this heart- warming goodness packed in translucent red jelly. Its smooth shell infused with aromatic vanilla makes swallowing easy for this award- winning* EPA: DHA combination.

30%* more bioavailable than fish oil, krill oil is miscible with the fluids in your gut – softening your blood vessels without the discomfort of indigestion.

Boost your heart capacity* today with this product of the highest* quality and safety.

Heart of the ocean. Euphausia.

l   Product safety: Krill’s short lifespan ensures little pollution and product safety

l   Source traceability: Coordinates of the origin of each batch can be easily traced

l   Patent- protected vacuum method ensures little damage to krill

l   Published in Some Journal (2012), a randomised double- blind trial of X participants provides evidence that 50 mg of krill oil is more effective than X mg of fish oil over X weeks. Heart capacity is measured by the flow rate of this and that.

(next page: more technical info., company background, etc.)

The result:

I did not touch too much on the company’s heritage in the end (as I had thought of doing originally), but I felt that drawing would- be consumers in using storytelling of the little krill would be more effective and that they would naturally be interested in/ ask for further information soon. The asterisks denote parts which may have to be justified, according to whichever country’s advertising ordinances. Hong Kong has recently introduced a new law to combat “misleading claims”, but for this post I just went with my feelings. Obviously this is the non- screened version. Oh, and some of the asterisk bits are made up.

Till next post,

GC