Reason To Write

***

The dim yellow glow of the street lamps, the bright red lights from the traffic signals and the slight drizzle all accompanied him as he made his way back home last evening. Such weather, be it in the Mediterranean-like Albany or tropical Singapore, would put a dampener on one’s moods. As he contemplated the day’s events and the prospect of plunging into the big unknown, the shivers did not come as a result of the cool breeze which serenaded him in his rainwater-drenched shirt but all the uncertainty with regards to his future.

He plodded on at eight in the evening, when most were already tucking into their dinners or were engaged attentively in a film with their significant other. The only highlight of his day was a brief chat over a food-court meal with a couple in the hospital. It might seem shabby to some, but for someone who looked forward to meeting friends he loved in small groups, it was just about decent. The conversations were mainly centered around his dire situation in the gulag (his umpteenth attempt at making people at least appreciate the dread in a dead-end job), his attempt at getting his way out of the gulag and of course, the recent developments in the local blog scene (which for a moment, he was surprised at how agitated he was and thought he was manifesting as some bearded local opposition politician). Then, that was that and he left the couple alone to spend time together. Off he went into the drizzle and the twenty-minute walk home, during which he would have loads to think about.

The pretty prospective lady boss did not contact him the whole day, so he took it upon himself to give her a call. Perhaps it was an indication that she was indeed swamped with too much things to do on her own managing her fledgling business, she told him that she had intended to email him a formal note on the job offer. When he heard that, his heart skipped two beats and visions, real ones at that, of how he would be drafting the first resignation letter of his life came flooding in. Later in the afternoon, he would look a little dejectedly at the terms and requested for a meet-up to clarify, if not negotiate them. Despite the uncertainty, he had enough faith in the pretty lady boss to want to go on board.

It was not so much the desperation to leave the gulag which convinced him to take up the offer. It was the prospect of going back to doing things which he would be (a) interested in and (b) adept at. It was the opportunity for him to pit himself against the challenges. Granted the move would not bring him to the next level, in terms of tangible career developments, but the exposure and the possibility of getting a beefier resume out of it if the business would take off, moved him to think long-term. The down side would be the (hopefully) temporal massive pay cut. However, for the first time in his career, the amount he would take home every month would be directly pegged to the performance, i.e., how well the business was.

He would bid farewell to the days of doing up spiffy Powerpoint slides for his bosses so that they would invariably take all the credit during meetings which he would never be able to attend, or to write minutes just to stroke the egos of the few who were very careful not to displease the man-in-charge. Since it was a fledgling business and that there would be very minimal politics, there would be ample opportunities for him to bring up ideas without being shot down because of the “we do not want to reinvent the wheel” mentality. He would no longer be on the beck and call of his bosses who believed that the only way to solve any problem would be to throw in massive amount of seemingly infinite financial and manpower resources, or that all of his weekends and public holidays would be burnt doing duties. Most of all, he would no longer be on the wrong end of an illogical decision made by someone upstairs, or worse, be made wholly responsible for it as part of the well-known, tried-and-tested “find-a-scapegoat” method.

Yet, his heart sunk with every passing step he made in the drizzle and under the dazzling street lights. There would be days ahead when he would have a lot of explaining to do to his parental units. There would be days when finances would have to be monitored. No longer would he be able to pay more than $2 for a meal without thinking twice. He feared that his impending trip to the former British colony on the eastern coast of China would be his last for a very long time to come.

The big plus factor in all of these would be, as how someone he had a chat with last evening put it nicely, all about getting his self-worth and his self-esteem back. The days ahead would be fraught with uncertainties but no longer would the spectre of death dominate his mind. There were now more than enough reasons to continue living and writing, writing and living.

The drizzle continued long into the night but by the time he got into bed, he knew his face was within a hair’s breath of feeling the sweet morning sunlight for the first time…

… in a long while.

***

Addendum - Definition of "Gulag"

* Gulag - gu·lag also Gu·lag n.

1. A network of forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union.
2. A forced labor camp or prison, especially for political dissidents.
3. A place or situation of great suffering and hardship, likened to the atmosphere in a prison system or a forced labor camp.

***

Linkworthy

(a) Why You Should Never Use Your IC Number As Your Password

Gee... and I thought she was less bimbotic.

(b) Ancient phallus unearthed in cave

"Female representations with highly accentuated sexual attributes are very well documented at many sites, but male representations are very, very rare..."

Ahem...