Blog Action Day – Poverty

Separate Lives

He slit the skin of the chicken with his teeth as the aroma of the deep fried stank the hall. She thrashed furiously at the spaghetti mixed with sauce and complained that it was the umpteenth plain dinner. You licked the balls on the ice-cream cone before they melted away into the bin. Me? I savoured every grain in my palm with care and thought of paradise. I counted there were six of them.

He put on “The Incredibles” T-shirt and rolled in the mud, screaming “Goal!” She walked out of the retail with another Versace dress paid from her LV bag. You stripped your wardrobe bare, discarding the old and odd ones into the bag for charity, before dollaring it with the new and unodd ones. Me? I had this piece of linen hanging precariously round my groin, hoping that paradise will bring me something to be hung round my shoulders.

He played the toy soldiers and sent them into a house of dolls, sheltering them from the rain of shells. She had a good bath in the Olympic-sized pool before sipping orange juice on the bench made of cotton and leopard skin. You looked out from the window of your 14th floor apartment and wished you had a roomier luxurious studio. Me? I was sitting under the tree with few blades of grass that screened me away from the sun, knowing that paradise will surely be better.

He pressed the same few buttons over and over again, looking excitedly at the display smaller than my tummy. She danced on the tabletop with strange music louder than my tummy’s growl, obviously indulging in some heavenly dreams. You spent hours turning pages of papers under a warm light after kicking a ball with your crazy friends in a rain-soaked field. Me? I only played two games. I stared and I stared. Oh, when angels from paradise came, I walked. And that was really cool.

You know, as I look at him, her and you, I wish we could all swap places and enjoy each other’s life. Perhaps, next time when paradise comes, we can do that?

Shall we discuss?

What is poverty?

How relevant is poverty today?

Reasons for poverty?

Any measures to curb poverty?

A Convenient Truth (my blog action day bit)

15 October 2007

An Eyewitness Police Report

I’m not good with words. But I could try and describe briefly what I saw.

There she was, lying in a pool of blood, behind a dark alley called Slora Orbit. I couldn’t make out how she was dressed for her clothes had been torn apart. She was alive, but she was semiconscious. Under the dim light of my torch, I could see her whole body battered, and bruised marks punctured her already frail frame. It was quite obvious that her modesty had been severely and violently violated. Her breathing was slow but heavy. She was slashed at her lips and there was a gash on the left side of her head. Her left leg was lying in an awkward twist. I think it had been dislocated badly. Her nails on both hands looked partially ripped from the skin. Maybe in her struggle with her attacker, she tried too hard to crawl away on the tarmac. There was an ID card pinned on her chest. Her name was Pearl Entath and she looked beautiful in the photograph. Did I mention that there was a broken knife blade sticking out from her right shoulder?

I was wondering who on earth would do such things to her? But I refused to let her die. As a human, I knew I could not give up hope there and then. I made a quick call to you fellows. Then, I looked around on the ground, thinking that I might stumble upon something that you might call vital evidence. Several moments later, I found another ID card near a garbage bag. I shone my torch on it. It was a photograph of a man named Hening Baums. I guess he’s the man you should be after. Soon after, you all arrived and took over.

I’m writing this report not because I’m after some Noble Piece Prize that you guys usually give out to commend citizens who have performed some heroics. But I believe in humanity and no one has the right to do what had been done to the poor girl. I really think that this vicious attacker should be taken to task or justice for that matter.

Submitted by: Ablet Gorre

Dr Willknow put the paper down next to the report. He brought his right hand to his chin and twiddled his goatee with his thumb and index finger.

“This is the 23rd time Mr Gorre has written the same ‘report’, Dr Willknow,” uttered the matron of the psychiatric hospital.

“I guess some truths are too painful to be spoken, and writing is a form of therapy,” Dr Willknow replied. He picked up the report and read it for the umpteenth time. A minute later, he smiled as he began to see the connections he was reading:

Ablet Gorre, long before his well-reported breakdown, was possibly the first politician to grasp the significance of climate change and to call for a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. He was a firm believer that Planet Earth’s downhill glide as a result of constant human violation could be stopped if all Human Beings unite in efforts……

3 words from canterbury soul to all human beings on planet earth:

LESS IS MORE

things up the sleeve

first, instead of writing, i have been reading. just done with dorcas fleming, now with gregor samsa. and will move on to kaddish poznan soon. newspapers and blog reading too.

second, facebook is my current squeeze. networking is key here.

third, just started to try out “world in conflict“. again, networking is the agenda.

fourth, a writing competition for my 12-year-olds is on the way. plan to approach some writers here in the blogosphere to be the judges.

fifth, just got involved with “blog action day!”. will post something on 15 about the environment. and yes, writing will resume after that.