part 8: the envelope

the postman has been at his job for over a decade, he knows all the little sidestreets of every main road, he knows all the names in all the families in the small town, he knows the Harold who has just passed away, he found the address that looked to match that on the envelope. he held the letter in both his hands and said a prayer. he was very curious as to what the whole letter was, he stared at the window on the envelope, he ran his finger across the seal...to his surprise, it was not sealed.
the postman looked around and saw no one, he hesitated, then he understood. the semetry is not guarded even though what is held here is the most precious to the deceased's families. he could not open the envelope just as he couldn't so disrespectfully disturb the dead by looking into the coffin. little did he know, that this particular coffin not far from where he stood was a little different.

part 7: the first letter

When the postman saw the address on the back of the envelope, he instinctively thought that it was a prank mail and put it aside. when the letter was laying with the window facing up however, something caught the postman's eyes.
On one side of the envelope it was written:

My dearest Harold
the semetry

which made it look like someone is messing about, but in the window of the envelope, someone seemed to have carelessly put the letter in in such a way that the following writing can be seen:

...ings only come to being when I lookat them, time...

...you only die when I look at you. perhaps you...

the postman was tempted to open the envelope, but in the end, he kept the letter in his pocket, and delivered it later on that day.

part 6: the clock

In the town where she lives, a river cuts the town into two halves. one of the tourist attractions on the river bank is a dome like structure which has four rings on the edge of the dome. the outermost ring has a male figure placed on it who faces inwards, the second outermost ring has a female figure facing outwards, the two inner most rings have one child each facing towards where they are travelling.
the two children mark the 0 minute of an hour and 0 hour of a day position, where the woman is the mark of the first day of a week, while the male figure marks the first week of the four weeks in a lunar month. the rings are constantly spinning such that the position of the family can be used to indicate the current time and day of week and the phase of the lunar month. the children hold hands once every one hour and 5 minutes, while the couple kisses roughly once every 9 days. the dome is entirely powered by the river. next to the dome there is a table on which instruction is given as to how to convert what is on the dome to the familiar western calendar.
many come in summer to watch the moment when the couple kisses and the children hold hands at the same time against the background of the gently flowing river, and they, were no exception. many summer evenings they spent sitting in the middle of the dome, watching the hour child run pass in front of them time and time again, chatting, laughing, cuddling, kissing...

it was a cool evening, a full moon was hanging from the sky. since it was Wednesday, she knew before she got to the clock that the couple will be kissing. when she reached the dome, the female figure was slowly moving towards the man, they showed no hurry at all as if they knew that they will have their brief but regular romance as long as the river flows.
she walked to the river, and she imagined herself standing in it, her giant hands blocking the water flowing into the dome so that there is a power cut. will the couple then regret not to have hurried? will they charish their moments, however regular they are, a little more?
she looked at the dome again, and by now the couple were kissing, she watched until they moved apart, and she went home.
she remembered someone said to her once that when a tree falls in a forest where no one hears, no sound is made. she said to herself, "this, is the last time they kiss..." it suddenly dawned on her that he has not died! he is only dead when she looks into the web cam, he may still be alive when she is not looking!
with that, she picked up a pen and began to write.

part 5: the poster

there is a small church right next to the park, a small crowd came out after the sunday service. they all looked generally happy despite the fact that they had to change their plan for barbecue because of the rain.
when they reached the side of the church, someone spotted a poster on the wall. from distance, they could make out two figures, one looked like Jesus, and the other looked like a Greek God of a kind. when the crowd gathered in front of it, they saw jesus setting up a barbecue, and the Greek God pouring down rain for a bunch of kids to enjoy splashing water in a puddle. the congregation stood there wondering, while some took their umbrella out. suddenly, someone from the back shouted, "what a horrible poster!"
he came forward and tare the poster down. to everyone surprise, there was another one underneath it. the second poster looked almost the same as the first, except that the children are now crying, and the charcoal is beginning to burn. one of the children said "you got what you prayed for now have you?"
the man who tore the first poster down was visibly angry. he tore the second one down, and there was a third. he tore it down without looking at it, and finally, there was the bare wall they never paid attention to but familiar with. on the bit where the posters were, it read "tare me down too."
at this, the man punch the wall, and someone next to him shaked his head "that's the church you're punching my friend."
she stood by and saw the whole scene unfolded, she was struck by what has changed in all of those people in just a few minutes. she realised, that what left behind, was not the posters, but the idea, the trick.
she wondered, what was left in her, that was left by him?

part 4: the rain

she finally turned on the computer to look at the video the next day. she felt surprisingly calm, the pale face, to her eyes, looked like ... the chicken piece. perhaps because of the lack of emotion she felt, she was disappointed.
it was raining outside, she took her umbrella and left the house. it was a quiet sunday afternoon, the kind of days they'd enjoy the tranquility together in the park because no one likes going out in the rain, like the way that peace only comes when the chaos brought about by war is fully realised and everyone is exhausted.
she felt cold, and realised that half of her body was soaked because half of the umbrella is covering an empty space. there was water dripping from her hair: "Water?" she exclaimed. "when did the rain die to become droplets of water?" at that point it was more like a storm. she pictured herself watching a scene in a movie where millions of rain parachuting down, falling to the ground, dying, screaming, trying to hover in the wind, but in the end, all swept down to the river. and the river...as one body, it runs to the sea, the river dies, and all become part of the ocean. and the ocean...always evaporating, ceasing to be part of the ocean, rise up to form clouds. a strange thought appeared in her mind: "if people know that their bodies do nothing but recycle, will they still commit suicide? won't they need to do more, like totally destroying themselves, or ejecting themselves into space, in order to escape the horrible cycle?"

part 3 (e): The Camera

when she was back in her flat, she was exhausted, she was not in the mood for food but she went to the fridge. the images of the dead came to live when she saw the piece of chicken breast in the box. at this point, she began to consciously realise that she really was a little tromitised after the visit. she was absolutel overwhelmed emotionally, as if she was the midwife who had also given birth. she fell asleep on the sofa...
she felt hot,, dry heat, there was a burning smell and she could see smoke coming out of the kitchen. she struggled to get up because her hands were tied, she screamed for help...
when she finally woke up, she ran to the kitchen and saw that the fridge door was left opened, no smoke, nothing was on fire, she was relieved. the chicken breast caught her eyes, she touched it with her hand but she didn't feel anything. her hand was numb from how she slept. she thought to herself, "my hand is...dead?"
she took the chicken out of the fridge and closed the door. the box stated that the chicken breast was produced 4 days ago, she took it out of the box. the smooth, pale, moist surface of the chicken horrified her. she imagined herself to be a maggot, eatting away the chicken breast. it was revolting to think of maggots rotting away flesh, so much so that she almost sick with an empty stomach. but the more she thought about herself and the chicken, maggots and the body, the blurer the difference becomes - she really is just like a maggot feeding off some food. she put the piece of chicken in a box and had some pieces of bread instead. she wanted to turn on the computer, but she had seen enough that night.

part 2: the box

she dreamt about him last night, his smooth, clean-shaven face touching hers, she put her fingers through his hair and to her horror, his hair just came off.
on the same day after work, she went to the semetry. she sat in front of the tomb stone, and turned on her computer.
a few weeks ago, her aunt gave birth to her first child, she remembered watching her aunt when she was about to go to labour. she asked herself "perhaps this's how she felt?"
she turned on the camera remotely from her computer, she stared at the screen, she imagined herself to be a midwife...... finally, the head came into view. "push!" she exclaimed, wanting the whole body to come out. soon, she came back to the reality that the camera was placed on his chest.

part one, the coffin

finally, the time has come when the coffin has to be closed. He lays motionlessly, expressionlessly inside, while everyone in the room gathers to see him for the last time.
Jane recalled her 17 years old birthday party which happened just a week ago, the roses are replaced with lilleys, the candles are turned into incense. She looked at him intensely trying to comprehend what it means to be seeing him the last time. a rotten corpse which she saw on tv some time ago appeared in her mind, it made her hair stand on end. Then she remembered the cryogenic program she watched, cant that preserve his body so that she can see him again and again? Someone murmured a prayer and asked everyone to look away, and proceeded to close the coffin. She screamed, '
'no!' she dashed forward and placed the little box she prepared in the coffin, and she could no longer hold her tears.

friday joke

Last month a world-wide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was:-
"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a huge failure because of the following:

In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest" meant. In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant. In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant. In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant. In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant. In South America they didn't know what "please" meant. In the US they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant.

And Finally...........................

In Australia they hung up because they can't understand an Indian accent.

Yan's speaking from top of his head, bottom of his heart

this is my theory of human nature, businesses which are successful are the ones capable of capitalising on various aspects of the theory regardless of the nature of the business.
in fact, there are only two aspects of human nature that can be capitalised on:

• Competitiveness
• Nosiness

the more competitive you are, the more nosy you are too, since you need to find out how much more other people are making, how much faster the others can run, how much sexier others' partners are etc in order to be able to compare.

however, nosy people are not necessarily competitive, therefore it is possible to capture just nosiness and be successful.

the way to tell whether a nosy person is competitive or not is by examining the things they are nosy about, competitive people are nosy about things that are measurable such as wages, speed, and more complicated properties which do not have absolute values but have certain established norms among a culture such as beauty.

those who are nosy but not competitive tend to be more interested in, or are not picky on what they are nosy about, they will be satisfied to know whether you like orange juice or apple juice, orange juice with bits or without, a cat-person or a dog-person etc.

facebook can satisfy all of the nosy people, but it is not capable of capitalising on people's competitiveness.

to create a site that will both capture people's nosiness and competitiveness is therefore my goal:)