Sorry, I don't mean to apologise, but this sort of fear calls for a bout of well-meant contrition. We'll do so much better, henceforth, I promise.

The chocolate oughtn't to have been served, if Rudder had heard Norbert well. It was uncalled for. Rudder had served below the belt. He wasn't playing fair. Oh sure, Rudder was the Dark Lord and all, and Voldemort had nothing on him, either trident-wise or serpent-wise. But, it occurred to Norbert a trustful covenant had been signed earlier in the day. Was this supposed to be Rudder's twisted way of signalling a bashful retreat? Was He being brazenly spineless? Surely not, Me Lud, if Norbert may venture to call anyone that. Usually, Norbert would never even instigate such a thing, but the gold-foiled cocoa slab really was really pushing the envelope.



And suddenly, Norbert was wishing for a world in which the law of the land was either sanity or death. It was absolute madness to have a world where one was allowed to be insane. Give Norbert intellectual liberty or give him death, Zogwarg Queen.

The repetitive clawing motion was insisting that Norbert do his utmost best to ignore it. The more it jabbed, the more it urged Norbert to build his muscular resilience. "Get stronger," it thumped benevolently over Norbert's silently screeching hypothalamus. It's a cardiac calisthenic. Breathe and jump. Rinse and repeat.

When the eye tried to stare Norbert down, he knew he must rise to the challenge and climb the stair on the double. And didn't he dare worry that he seemed not to be able to play by Their rules. Truth be conjectured, They didn't seem to be able to convey with any sort of clarity what the rules were themselves, and Norbert would be a fool to himself if he attempted to understand that which strove not to be understood.

In the meanwhile, it still remained to be seen what would be done about the insidious bar of chocolate. More on that as it unfolds, or unwraps.

Irredeemable insanity should really be banned. Just saying.

My Lord, for comfort!

The cushion lounged, sat back on its revered bum, flanked by two carefree attendants Who liked nothing more than to emulate their liege lord, albeit they were given only to produce a more squashed-looking facsimile. On that regal dais, sketchy-looking pages lay, bowed, having come unbound of what adhered them once to their hardbound face, although they still maintained sibling cohesion. And so they beseeched the royal bolsters to grant them shelter and patronage.

I find I can be quite productive when not being crushed by despair.

Breathing helps to calm my nerves and detect my bones.

I take refuge in whatever will promise to entertain me and keep its promise unfailingly.

Conversations

All the current literature state sanctimoniously that listening is a quality to be cherished and cultivated. Textbooks, morals, TV shows all talking everywhichwhere about the virtue of the listener. "Ooh, I'm a great listener," brags this friend of mine, unabashedly, just having got off a sermon of a phone conversation, in which she had delivered earnest advice to this love-lorn friend of hers for, like, half an hour straight.

Everywhere I go, though, people are actually hounding the conversation and steering the flow of debate towards their ideas and liking. It's the sign of the successful human being that he ensure that he is in full control of a situation. Allowing another person's ideas and notions to cordon the conversation, I've found in my experience, is tantamount to succumbing to death.

I'm faced with a moral dilemma everytime I enter into a conversation. Are you supposed to listen wholeheartedly, submissively even, or come to the fore with views of your own, even it they're harsh or abrasive, and potentially dangerous for that matter? I guess the key would be not to have harsh, abrasive views. Also, it so happens that I'm shit scared of advancing views these days lest they be held against me or misconstrued. This happens very often, so I find my fear understandable.

Lord, help me hold my own and not get washed down under the merciless cascade of someone else's views. I beseech yous, World o' mine, let's all just work with the power we have on our own. No one needs to stomp on another person to feel a power surge. We all have power of our own. I think it ought to be enough if we cultivate our own. I don't even wanna know how this view is going to come back to bite me.

Maybe God'll sink his teeth into me today.

Eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction

Future tidings rang out
and sounded strong gongs.
The acolyte drank in the clamour
and digested them as silken songs.
Of eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Every act and thought
became a rectifying mercy.
Steep steps climbed
all the way to pleasing surety.
In eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Three doors above,
the dragon expired with a start.
With its final blow it called the shrieking ogre
to come claim its heart.
Of eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Complexities unravelled,
subtleties ran outside to play.
In the sunny morning,
every cell made hay.
With eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Fleets came together in solidity,
captured by an even speedier instant.
Things were said as they were
and meanings, like they were meant.
For eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Survival indistinct? Kicketh in survival instinct

The fish called F swam in the sea. F had its fins to guide it through the water, its eyes to see, and its digestive system to process nutrients for its sustenance. Its gills were smoothly functioning respirators. It did not ever have to wonder about anything, for the answer was always apparent without needing even to be asked. F was very happy, for it knew its environment like the back of its fin. It also knew how its neighbours and colleagues functioned, what made them tick. Therefore, it did not ever fear what the other fish might do to it, for it knew the other fish could never gain access to its treasured pearls. The other fish would never seek to or be able to devour it, for F's success was indispensable to the ecosystem, and the other fish relied on it for their own livelihood. There was no question of worry, anxiety or trouble, for everything was negotiable, and success was a birthright. Life was fluid and nice.

One fine morning, as the rays of the sun glistened off the surface of a recumbent oyster (it was such a bucolic day as of usual), F found that something was thrusting it upwards, applying an insidious pressure on its underside. F, strangely, felt an odd resentment to this. It was odd that it should feel resentment towards this upward thrust; it was this very same ascensionary pressure that F felt and thrived on day in, day out. So, why was it experiencing an antagonism towards something it had always loved and trusted? A strange anxiety began to grip F and slowly, but surely, F was paralysed. It just could not move through the water. Desperate, F sent shooting bursts of neural instruction to its tailfin for it to move and propel its body forward, it thrashed and flailed, but the water seemed intractable. F seemed no longer to have any clout with the water. The other fish were staring at it, their big fishy eyes agape. They seemed genuinely concerned about the plight F appeared to be in. They seemed to want to help, and they crowded around F, trying to observe it from all angles.

Some told F that it had to kick its tailfin harder, that it was guilty of laziness and lacking in self-love. If F could speak, it might have been able to explain that the state it was in seemed to be one of doom, that there seemed nothing within its power to make its tailfin move. But its explanations were incoherent. None of its famed, trusted mental clarity seemed able to work, and whenever F tried to speak, only hazy spumes of seawater and seasand took shape. No communication could take place.

Soon, the relationship between it and the other fish became confrontative. F did not understand why such smart, successful diagnosticians among the other fish were clueless about how to effect a cure in him. Truth be told, F was horribly frustrated with itself and the mutinous water which would no longer be friends with it. And with the exasperation the other fish displayed at F's seemingly stubborn refrain that it was feeling incorrigibly incapacitated, F began to feel like the other fish were in some way responsible for his insane condition.

As F reflected on memories of its past triumphs and wondered how to revanche lost territory, it only encountered wispy semblances which, it appeared, need not even ever have been true. It began to doubt its past, its self, its very core right to love, success and life. These were dreary times, they were.

F knew it did not want to be swimming with the fishes. It wanted to be eligible to partake once more of the wonders and beauties of its Life.

Then F experienced a sharp tug that dragged it straight upwards, towards the light. F went along, but never succumbed to the despondent submission of labeling sadness as being its inherent nature. So long as the pathology persisted, F never stopped squirming and sulking, and thus did it confirm what must constitute success and happiness to it. F did never give in. F was a fish ordained to see the ether after all.

One fine morning, Life became a breeze. F was a flying fish.