a calm before the morning light downpours

You fly over the earth
I was just gazing at that
You fly over the earth
Can't you see I am tied to the ground

You keep falling towards the sky
You keep falling deeply into a bottomless sky
And you grab onto clouds. . .

You fly over the earth
I was just gazing at that
You fly over the earth
Can't you see I am tied to the ground

You fly over the earth
Soon you'll start melting into the air
You're floating in the air

As I was just staring at that...
Standing still

--from 'In the Air' by L'Arc~en~Ciel
translation by James Chertudi

In a little while, the year would say good-bye. But before that, a classmate in college already had. She's gone, and in a few minutes this year too would follow her to forever. I only learned about it today, from a bulletin in Friendster. Someone was asking who else would come to her hometown to bid their last farewells. I was not very close to this person, but nevertheless I knew her —be it a shallow acquaintance— talked to her, and laughed with her at times. When I think of her now, the only vivid picture I have of her in my memory is her smiling. The bulletin said she died of cancer and that at first it was only chronic anemia. She did not look it in college; rather she was full of life. And I cannot imagine her otherwise. Her smile is so clear in my head that the present truth seem unreal.

She will no longer have time to fill. Outside the box, outside time, and into eternity. Do words and meanings have no use to her now? Was she able to carry the memories of her life with her? And would they last outside the threshold of time? So many questions; like the stars appearing one by one at a softly lit sky at dusk, they emerge.

Ah, the sun is born of night, it sets again
Though no one's here to see - it's endless

--from 'Perfect Moment' by Hyde

If you travel far deep into the universe, will you never really reach its end?

I was in the office today when I got the news, amidst the ceaseless greetings of ‘Happy New Year’ around the office. For a moment, I was blanketed by silence, as if it was night and the cheers were in a far away place; and I was alone looking up at countless stars and beyond that the eyes of eternity were looking straight back at me. It was scary.

I pushed my chair to the right side of my station. I turned to Joey, and once we started chatting light came flooding back in and all was back to normal. I was back.

It was raining on my way home - it did not stop until I was at the gate of our village.

In a while, fireworks will light the night sky. This melancholy will be chased away by the deafening noise of firecrackers and carton trumpets. Tomorrow, 2008 will be nothing more but a mist and gone at the first sign of the morning light. A fresh, with full of promise, new year begins…