I cried.

I was having one of my daily BBM chats with my eldest sister the other day.

“What’s up? How’s Australia?”

“It’s fine, winter is cold.”

“‘Kay. So watcha doing?”

“Watching Mao’s Last Dancer.”

“Any good?”

“I cried.”

O...kay.

One thing you have to learn about my eldest sister and I is that we’re not the crying type. The youngest of us three took all that gene, that cute cry baby. I think she’d even cry if a raven gets left behind in a storytelling of flying ravens.

Yes. You got that right, a storytelling of ravens. We all know a flock of birds but not an exaltation of larks. A wisdom of owls. A lamentation of swans. An ostentation of peacocks.

I only wish I was making this shit up.

Anyway, back to my eldest sister being an emotionless robot with impaired tear ducts. Other than events that would cause even the most hardened war veterans to have an out pour of bodily liquids out of their ocular orifices, I’d never seen her cry.

I myself cried watching a movie once, back when I was about 8 or 9 years old. Of course, the pain from rolling around the bed and falling down really hard on the floor was probably a contributing factor, but if my memory serves me right, the scene in the movie where the 5 Indian kids rode on magical bicycles into the setting sun was especially poignant too. (Again, I wish I was making this shit up).

So a movie that made her cry?

Totally.

Worth.

Watching.

But then again, there was the problem of...

Malaysian Internet.

So finally, after getting married and having two spoiled cildren, and two mid-life crises later, the downloading was finally done and I sat down to appreciate what I anticipated to be the most epic movie I’ve ever watched.

It was inspiring, suspenseful in some scenes, part tragic, part hopeful, it solicited the viewer’s empathy yada yada yada, but come on, cry-worthy? Sure it made me realise how we take life for granted at times but... Meh...

Two thirds into the movie and I was already conjuring up a torrent of insults directed to the person who cried at a movie that only made me feel almost enough emotion to not be such a take-everything-for-granted person. Almost.

Then this happened;

That one stupid sad scene totally snuck up on me. Totally. It came out of nowhere. I was hardly prepared.

Stupid movie. Stupid directors. Stupid script writers. Unfair.

UNFAIR!

But yeah, totally a movie worth watching. Was adapted from on an autobiography, written by the person who’s portrayed as the main character.

Tell me what you guys think of it. :D

P/S:

Can anyone find out about that movie with the flying Indian kids? I watched it when I was young, so it was probably made after... 1997? I’ll treat whomever that would solve this frustrating puzzle to Chilli’s or Carl’s Jr., I swear.

It's a secret!

My eyes severely bloodshot, I continue staring into the relentless glare of the laptop screen. I let out a snicker from time to time, my fingers nimbly typing away almost silently. The air hot and humid, my forehead glistened with a thin layer of sweat. I wiped it off and stared at the digital clock on the taskbar.

5.35am.

I had things to do, but I was willing to sacrifice sleep for what I was doing, for what I had been doing for the last 4 hours. My focus unperturbed, my resolution undeterred. Time warped differently when you're reining all your attention to a single task, and I noticed that when I stole a second glance at the time.

6.04am.

Like clockwork, I hear my hostess waking up and heading to the bathroom for her daily ablution and prayers. As expected, a few minutes later she was heading into the room I was supposed to be in, intending to stir me awake for my own prayers. She gave a small start as she noticed my sprawling figure on the couch in the upstairs living room instead, laptop close to my chest.

'What in the world are you doing there? At this time?'

I gave a nonchalant shrug.

'You've been on your computer? The whole night?'

I nodded guiltily.

Then, her bleary eyes and groggy expression dimmed, replaced by a sly smile that pounded down the last remnants of her sleep.

'With that happy expression, I'm guessing it's a secret boyfriend?'

...

Speechless, my fingers froze over the keyboard and time flashed into a standstill. My eyes stared into hers like a deer in headlights, strongly emphasising the guilt on my face.

The guilt that I was staying up the whole night organising my files and folders.

The guilt of renaming everything, fixing formats and capitalisation and categorising them methodically, obsessively.

The guilt of having a perfectly formatted collection of files an OCD person would be proud of.

...And having a shitload of fun doing it.

I nodded slowly, awkwardly, an outright lie that seemed appropriate at the time. She flashed an understanding smile and left with a simple message that faltered at the end as she turned to her own room, 'Just make sure you don't miss your prayers.'

......................HOLY MOTHER OF COW DID I JUST PRETEND TO HAVE A SECRET BOYFRIEND BECAUSE I'M JUST THAT PATHETIC?!