Just Another Day...

“Two Caesar Salads and a Greek lamb kebab”, were the first words Mark heard that day; not that he pays attention to anything else anyway. Aside from interrupting the song Vivace from Brahms Orchestra, playing in his head, it didn’t bother him at all.

Pushing his black fringe back on his head, then tucking them in place with his toga, Mark throws the knob on the stove to medium, then heads to the fridge to gather other cold ingredients for the orders he has just received.

Just as he had put all the things he needed on the counter, Jeff walks in. Mark looks up, and Jeff quickly tilts his head to one side, indicating to Mark to drop whatever he is doing and get out of the kitchen, which Mark obediently follows.

It is not uncommon for Mark to receive orders like that, especially from Jeff. He doesn’t mind it at all- having to leave his work undone, not that the patrons at the restaurant would dare to complain anyway, in fact, most of the dishes Mark made never made it to the table because the patrons had already left. That of course was not due to the extreme long wait, but due to the fact the restaurant wasn’t really a friendly, peaceful place to have your lunch anyway.

Mark sits on steps leading to the back alley, reaches into his apron for his cigarettes. Just as he lit one up, Jeff started screaming something at another person who retaliated with his own yells. Mark being himself, didn’t pay attention to the contents, all he knew was those two men were disagreeing about something.


The kitchen soon sounded like it was being trashed. Metal clangs made from falling steel Tupperware, knives and cutlery falling off the counters – sounds all too common for Mark. The only thing that disturbed him was the fact he had to clean the floors again, and possibly pick up some human entrails while he was at it. He looked at the smoke emanating from the cigarette, took a puff and thought the cigarette was justified. He then looked at the tip of the joint, and somehow knew that the life of the person who was getting beat up by Jeff, would not last longer than those embers.

He took another long drag, hopefully the cigarette will burn out quicker, and somehow to him, that might quicken Jeff’s beating and end the poor sod’s life faster as well. For some odd reason, Beethoven’s 3rd symphony, like a travelling circus, pitched a tent in his mind.

True enough to his theory, the fighting did cease before Mark’s cigarette went out. The kitchen was quiet again. Jeff walked out of the kitchen to the alley where Mark was sitting.

“Sorry bout the mess mate... you got a spare cigg?”

Without saying a thing, Mark again reached into his apron pockets and handed Jeff a soft pack of Marlboros.

Jeff lit one up as well. "Cheers buddy", his words muffled his inability to open his lips fully because they were busy clenching the cigarette between them.


After getting the pack back, Mark, as obediently as he walked out- went back into the kitchen. The kitchen, aside from the displaced wares and a body who appeared to have drowned in his own blood - was the same as before. He then had a dilemma; should he clean up the mess Jeff has made first? Or prepare the two salads and kebab. Since the chicken needed to be pan fried, he thought he could do both at the same time.

The metal heat-rings on the stove were charred with something unidentifiable, and were releasing this weird smell. Mark glancing over his shoulder only to see a few black stripes on the body’s face, still hissing with smoke, solved the mystery of the once-unidentified chars.

As the pan started to heat up, the olive oil in it started to crackle. Fillets of chicken breasts soon joined in and danced in the golden-blonde puddle.

While the fillets were getting acquainted with the oil; Mark took out a mop and started pushing the pool of blood down the pipes.

In his mind, there were no thoughts –none other than the humming of Poco Allegretto.

Virgin Tears

...tears of the year fell today.

Another Rave About EVE

I know I know, I've been talking about EVE nonstop, and some of you might have already heard my ramblings of this recent interesting encounter in the universe of EVE.

But, here goes...

So, EVE is an open ended mmorpg, where the players themselves create and write the story of the game by playing it and "making" events happening. One of the most recent "universe worthy" news (they have news bulletins and "E-New Papers" in the game) was the loss of a Titan-class ship belonging to one of the greater Corporations of the game. Abit like real-life i might say, where a flagship of a certain country gets sunked by opposing forces..

But, there are things that happen in a much smaller scale, which also seem to resonate with the themes in real-life. I very recently had such an "encounter". To put things into perspective, I shall begin, at the beginning.

There is a universal channel in EVE, called Rookie Help, which acts as a newbs instant forum. Newbs in the game can post their questions and queries in the channel, and whoever knows the answer to those questions could reply them in-game on the spot. pretty handy, but since there are so many new players, the channel has to be monitored, and the users will have to abide by rules set by the game masters.

one of the rules of using that channel- it has to be in English. non-english speaking players could join their respective channels, all coded by a language.

So this guy comes on, and started speaking Russian, shortly after, he was directed to the Russian channel, intrigued by this, i wondered how many languages the game does support? so i poked around and learned that there are over 40 languages and each having their own channels. Being able to speak and write Chinese/mandarin, i hopped into the Chinese channel, and to my surprise, everything is in Chinese!! even the MOTD (message of the day) was in chinese.. it said "welcome bla bla - discussions on tribes, races, government issues and topics are dissallowed in this channel", "typical" i thought to myself.

eager to join the Comrades, i quickly poked around my Vista OS to look for the language pack, so i can type in chinese.

All of a sudden, this guy comes on and says "Hey, can anyone help me translate American into Chinese? I need to tell my chinese corp member something".

No one replied, being "affluent" in both languages i volunteered.

I was invited to a channel, and had to run through several procedures with the Corp guys so i can tell the chinese guy what to do. all the while translating from english to chinese, so the dude could understand what was required of him.

Soon, i learned that, the Corporation was sort of a "gangsta" corp. what they do is, recruit chinese isk (game currency) farmers to their corp. Since corps can tax their employees of their income (then some would be returned as "paychecks") the corp could benefit alot by having lots of chinese farmers in the corp (who presumably do nothing other than get isk-which is sold for real money in return),If youve played an MMO, you should know exaclty what im talking about.

So, the chinese guy was "recruited" into the corp, he didnt speak any english.

The guys at that corp then wanted me to find out more about the guy they just recruited. the most important info of all was "does he have any friends?"

surprised but not surprised at the same time, the guy said he has around 50 friends, working in the same RL-company as him, as ISK farmers. These guys mine in-game money to be sold as RL-RMB -as a living. 24/7, their job is to get in game isk.

The corp wanted me to negotiate with them, asking them all to join the corp, in return the corp would provide military protection against rogue pirates, who quite often prey on the poorly-pvp equiped ships of these farmers. other benefits of being in the corp includes getting a reduced - docking fee when docking at a space station, in low security sectors. The corp would also provide them with "ratting" space (killing NPC pirates with bounty on their ships placed by the ingame police- the CONCORD). these spaces are controlled territories, and are relatively free from rogue pirates. (the guns from the POS-plyer controlled stations, will rape ships entering their space without a starbase security code, which of course, corp members/alliance would have access to)

If the income of the corp was good (supplied by the employees/farmers), munitions, repairs and even entire ships will be given as compensation, if they were to be lost in their line of isk farming duty.

In the end, I managed to sway the chinese guy, to join the corp, and bring in a few of his friends, just to see how the corp treats them, and did they hold true to their word, and if the conditions are right, all 50 and more people will join the corp.

This is a huge advantage to the corp, having people like that under their control. the income-tax gathered by the corp would be enourmous.

the chinese guy thanked me greatly, for securing a protection-deal with the company, and the company too, was grateful for my negotiation/translating services. they were so glad i got them possibly a multi-billion isk deal, putting their recruitment/contracting requirements aside (being a large corp with controlled space, they only hire well-established players) they wanted to recruit me on the spot because of my supposedly-rare ability to speak a few languagees and dialects. they also promised me a large paycheck.

thinking to myself, if i were to join the corp as a full-time translator, id be talking most the time, not shooting. that would be abit boring imo :P so i kindly refused, but offered my services as a free-lance translator.

for my "troubles", the corp awarded me with a gratituie gift- of 22million isk. which was o.O alot for a newb player like me.

all in all, it was great fun.

Janitor

Welcome Scipio, The which toked Hanyball.
Welcome Arture, the very Britain Kyng.
Welcome Defence to England as a Walle.
Cadwaladers Blodde lynyally descending,
Longe hath bee towlde of such a Prince comyng.
Wherfor Frendes, if that i shal not lye,
This same is the Fulfiller of the Profecye.
(Leland 1770: IV, 196)

The End of Remorse and Regret

Streaks of light were able to enter the office, only through the horizontal slips in the metal blinds. Its journey through the room first met Franks left shoulder, then the apparition-like smoke, curtailing away from the ambers of his cigarette, mixed with those coming out of the barrel of nine millimetre Glock, which Frank had just fired.

Gesturing at the hapless corpse on the floor with the gun before setting it down on the mahogany desk, “Are you going to just sit there like him the whole day?”, torrents of smoke pouring out from his nose and mouth, “or do you want me to give you a push like the one I just gave him?”.

Blood was starting to seep and spread on the wooden floor in a circle, originating from the hole of the faced down corpse. Like a wildfire in the middle of a draught ravaged field - it seemed as if it was going to stain the whole floor maroon before running out of texture to paint on; like wildfire in the middle of a draught ravaged field- it seemed unstoppable.

The man across the table from Frank gulped, one could almost hear a whirring noise made by his brain turning, desperately seeking for an answer for Frank’s question, or Frank will be shooting more than just queries in the next few seconds.

After what seemed to be the longest two seconds of his life, he asked, “can I have a cigarette?”. With his index and middle finger Frank reached into his coat pocket, eyes still firmly set on his unrehearsed, suddenly-made hostage, pulled out a soft pack half filled with Marlboros, and lightly flicked it on the other edge of the table.

The man reached for it, while slightly tilting his head towards the floor to have another look at his not-so-fortunate counterpart. Like a wildfire in the middle of a draught ravaged field -The red was still advancing; like a wildfire in the middle of a draught ravaged field- it started from a spark; a spark no bigger than the muzzle flash of the Glock.

Taking two deep puffs as if it were the last two, “look, I’m really sorry we did it wrong, if only there is a way we can repay you...”

“Who is ‘we’?” Frank interrupted, pointing at the corpse under the desk using the two fingers he clenched his cigarette in, “if you’re referring to Roy over there, I don’t think, ‘we’ would be able to repay me...”

Making a case for himself “Well I’ll do it then!” exclaimed the man, still trying to avoid Roy’s fate.

“You and what army?”

“I had Roy before you capped him”, A pathetic attempt to instil the element of fault onto Frank, “now...now I’ll just have to make do with it, you’ve got to trust me! I can do it”

Frank, raising one eyebrow, “Like the last time I’ve trusted you when you said, I could trust you?”

“It will be different this time! I promise!” Begging for Frank’s trust.

Leaning back on his chair, Frank gave an empty stare at the desk for a moment, then said “Alright. Go.”

The man, Very surprised, could not believe what he just heard. He jolted when he tried to leave his chair but stopped for a second just to make sure, in that next second he established that it was safe to leave. “Thank you Frank, thank you, you wont regret this.” He got up and then bolted for the door.

As he placed his hand on the knob, instead of feeling the cold metal on his palms, he felt it in his back. The room had flashed at exactly the same time he felt this weird sensation. He was halfway collapsing to the floor before he realized what had just happened- Frank had shot him in the back. He fell knee first, then tried to look at Frank- he fell sideways to the floor as he did. The room was a blur, although one of the strips of light coming into the room through the slips in the blind landed on eye, it did not hurt, he didn’t squint to its intensity, but half-welcomed it.
Frank becomes a silhouette sitting on the chair, the square desk starts to lose its square edges and Roy’s corpse, suddenly bears his face instead.

He could feel everything around him, its only his vision that is fading out, he could smell the gunpowder, he could feel the ground he was lying on, and he remembered the cigarette Frank had given him- still between his fingers, still alit. But as his blood started to paint a second red circle, it touched the lit part of the joint, snuffing out the amber with an insignificant sizzle, just like a lone twig in the path of a wildfire, in the middle of a draught ravaged field...