Getting a job was as difficult as securing the old one. It was another experience entirely, after working as Sales Executive in a bookselling firm, to become an editor for a publishing firm. Actually Claude had a flair for editorials, so he just had to experiment first as freelance editor while working as salesman. It was difficult to determine whether book editing could be taught (perhaps a B.A. honours in editing would have gone a long way), or a matter of talent and experience.
Claude had...
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(Dedicated to the Tsunami Victims)
There was a prophecy that I will catch a bird. And it would be a talking bird.
It was few days to New Year. At that time I was young, and we were living in a tent. There were many people living in tents like us. Those who survived the storm couldn’t help than to live in tents, and mourn their lost loved ones.
I couldn’t find my younger siblings either, but I saw Jude’s slippers floating on the pond close to the bus stop. I couldn’t figure out what was...
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For the power to break the land was in fire, but fire wouldn’t come. And the power to kill the fire was in water, and water wouldn’t come. And the power to lap water was in wind but wind wouldn’t come. The power to suck wind was on earth, but earth wouldn’t do it. To be discouraged was to lose the essence of life – dream. To give up was to resign to the tragic power of fate.
“Tell me, is there anything impossible?” I ask myself.
But there are no rules in dream. That was why...
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Imagine you are me, and you had a friend, whose friend of his was called Mordecai. He was a poor man but had a donkey that was given to him as a special gift by his late father who had told him that the donkey would make him rich and change his status forever. It was a beautiful donkey and it stayed in his bedroom because Mordecai always admired the donkey and he told everyone to come and visit him to check out the donkey that would make him rich forever.
Mordecai’s donkey couldn’t work...
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Listen.
Did you hear them?
The hills are talking to me. They called my name. They dare me to climb and see how hard life could be.
What an ultimate invitation to a battle of survival. Problems are obstacles, obstacles are challenges. They are all situations designed to be overcome, surprise in disguise. There is no growth without change, and there is no change without fear. Why should I be afraid to dare the mountains?
I looked at the hills and I smiled.
“You are not my match” I told them,...
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You could mock an old man because you know he is close to his grave. But do not mock a young boy because you don’t know what he could become.
I am the word carver. I forge words, I make words, and I even live and sleep with words. Now I want to tell a story, may my tongue never twist. I want to play the game of words, may I never lose. May I command words and they would jump at your face.
Jade and Kade are neighbours (they grew up together anyway) but not too good neighbours … not really...
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Four days before Christmas locusts were about to invade our village, somewhere in Bethlehem province. Everyone panicked at the news. The late rain had caused the locusts to target their invasion towards the Christmas season and at our village. The farmers were confused because the warning came in during a weather forecast in the evening News.
The farmers’ council summoned an emergency meeting and Dad had to leave his supper for Mum to keep. It was late in the night; Mum was bothered about our...
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When I was young, mum told me there was man in the moon. I sat every night staring at the sky, with a thousand stars dotting the naked sky. Each time I tried counting the stars I kept mixing them up, losing tracks of recorded numbers.
One night the moon was full, and we were out at the balcony. I mean dad and I, with my younger friends from the neighbourhood. Mum was in the kitchen cooking, she was making corn porridge with rice. Dad was seated on a reliable chair, reading an old newspaper. I...
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It started like this, her father appeared to her in the dream and said, “Fear is a thing of the mind, love is a thing of the mind, death is a thing of the mind. Why suicide when life was wrought in meaning?”
Soon the father dissolves into the morning dew. Soon she sprang up from the bed only to realize it was a dream. She wished she’d grabbed him and demanded an answer. What meaning does life wrought when there are many layers to be unravelled? Why not suicide? First. Her fear, would she...
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In the beginning, when there was no time, our land was in total ruin and desolated for full disobedience and condemnation. The line between the living and the spirit was thin and transparent. But soon enmity emerged, and the contest was bent on destroying man – the most visible, the most articulate.
Then we needed the wise one to heal our land, that has refused to yield seeds, and our flat-breasted women, with no milk for the new-borns, and our lazy warriors, with blunt daggers. But who...
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