On a Dull, Early Morning

The clear, cloudless sky was a dull grey like pre-dawn. Not a bird visible. A motionless silhouette of a leafless tree with out-stretched, emaciated fingers as twigs stood on the road divider like a coal sketch: an image of despondency.

A sudden gale swept the asphalt, ominous of a storm. The morning traffic almost skipped past the box-shelter. The drivers were dilapidated shadows as if there were ghost cars. Then I realised that there were scampering, shady feet under the Hondas, Toyotas and BMWs blurring past. Such hard work, I thought.

I glanced sideway at the lady in pink suit standing next to me. With shoulder-length, curly hair streaked brown, she was in an off-to-office spirit. Didn’t she see the cars? I sniggered.

Then I noticed the lamp post, a few storeys high, standing behind her, which was as usual, dimmed by this hour. But I swear I saw something small stirring in the grimy lamp. I moved closer, almost stumbled, eyes squinting behind thick lens. Then it happened again, and I bordered on freaking out. It was the rising arm of a little fairy rolling to her side in sleep; glittering wings, pointed ears and pinkish hair. They must be exhausted, having danced all night.

My daily transport came rolling up the slope; its wheels, all wobbly, as if punctured. It churned out a trail of thick smoke, or so I thought. As the running metal box screeched to a halt, I thought I heard a collective deep sigh. I took a peep in that direction, and saw a clutter of snarling trolls, heads drooping between straightened arms, hands on the back of the transport. They were in tattered shred of dirty white shirts; heavy chains cuffed about their ankles tied them to the back. Poor creatures they were, made to labour for their keeps, roaring with foul breath pushing the box ahead.

Behind the wheel sat a blown-up doll with a potbelly in navy blue collar-shirt, plastic face with frozen smile always gazing ahead. Children in school uniforms wearing puffy, dreary eyes, herded together, each indistinct with another. Before my eyes, they shaped themselves head first into green turtles on hind legs; their enormous backpacks completed the transformation as shells, necks all wrinkled under the strains. Stone-faced, wooden dolls in office wear made up the load. I found my way to the back, but not before passing through a tunnel fringed by translucent forms of the dead, forever trapped in their memories on the way to work.

As we reached a stop, a squirrel was scrambling up a tree outside the window, into the crown of green, before re-appearing at the foot with a huge walnut - the size of a tennis ball. A tiny tremor shivered through its brown fur to its wispy tail. The next moment, its bony claws reached for the forehead to zip down its fur like a coat. A Gnome revealed himself, reaching in for a hand phone to put to his ear. I struggled to keep my hysterical cries down, but no-one noticed, not even the young woman with the rosy cheeks next to me. I mumbled under my breath. Gosh, I really got to remember my medication next time.

Some words from the writer: A subtitle for this piece is Diary of a Mad Man. Most friends love movies like The Lord of the Ring for its epic set. But still, a lot of them don’t appreciate the element of fantasy, the pushing of man’s boundary of imagination in films like Harry Potter. Such a sad state of human’s mind, don’t you think?