Sunday, 29 September 2019
Amber is not Ember
The Amber I know is the actress that starred in the Aquaman blockbuster. Not that I personally know her, of course. The other ambers I thought I knew were those red hot burning particles that come after a fire. When I wrote my short story “The Wizard and His Magic Flask”, I had used “ambers” whenever I wanted to describe the hot particles.
Thank goodness I did a search when I was looking for inspiration on how to phrase “ambers”. It took me quite a while to figure out what was wrong. My search did not return the “ambers” that I wanted. Then, I searched for “fire” in Thesaurus.com and voila! There it was. I had spelt the word wrongly. It should have been “embers”.
So… let’s clear things up:
According to Oxford Dictionary, “amber” is a yellowish hard translucent fossilised resin from extinct coniferous trees. If I’m not wrong, in the first Jurassic Park movie, researches discovered the mosquito with dinosaur DNA preserved in “amber”.
“Amber” is also a colour - honey yellow. It’s often described as the “ready to stop” yellow traffic light.
“Ember” on the other hand, is a small piece of burning or glowing coal or wood in a dying fire - precisely the one I wanted to describe in my story. I was lucky to have discovered my mistake before I posted the story otherwise it would prove embarrassing!
Tuesday, 24 September 2019
The Wizard and His Magic Flask - A Fantasy Short Story
“Seriously, dad?” a nine-year old boy said, pulling at his father’s sleeve.
“Have a little faith, son,” the father said but his quivering voice betrayed his lack of confidence. He better know what he’s doing. He’s our only hope!
In the distance, the boy wizard, not a day older than the nine-year old boy, stood with a straight posture. He was facing the throng of villagers, his back to the raging forest fire. His expressionless face did not give any reassurance to the gathered villagers.
~~~~~
The forest fire had burnt for days and nights. No one knew how it started but silently, the villagers pointed poison fingers at each other. Separated by a stream, the village had remained unscathed but the safety net was evaporating quickly. A thick layer of haze enveloped the village. The villagers were choking on smoke. It would not be too long before the fire spread across.
Everyone was in a panic frenzy but no one was doing anything useful. Putting his hope on a legend told by his great grandfather, the village’s medicine man clambered up the mountain to seek help from the wise.
When the medicine man reached the only cave on the peak, he was bemused to find a little boy perched on top of a rock. Legs crossed, eyes closed, he appeared to be deep in meditation. Aside from the age of the figure in front of him, the medicine man was rather impressed by the display of profundity, until he heard the boy snoring. The boy’s snore reverberated across the cave, shattering the man’s hope into a million pieces. The medicine man shook his head in despair and turned to leave.
“I know why you’re here,” the boy’s quiet, soft spoken voice echoed. “Do not be influenced by what you see… or hear. Come, we have a village to save.”
~~~~~
Embers floated across the stream to extend the reach of the fire, to widen its path of destruction. The boy wizard raised his hands to silence the villagers and turned to face the fire. He reached into his robe and pulled out a glass flask. He uncorked it and chanted a string of unintelligible words.
The flow of embers changed direction and shifted toward the boy wizard. In a spectacular display of swirling lights, the embers spiralled inwards into the flask, followed by smog and, finally, the fire from across. The flask glowed in tones of yellow, orange and red. Within minutes, the boy had defeated the fire. In its wake were charred remains of a once grand and ancient forest.
The wizard held the flask to his mouth and drank the fiery liquid. His body started to light up as if he was on fire. He held out his hands and pushed his body forward. A gust of wind followed by streams of energy discharged from his fingertips. Tentacles of energy weaved and intertwined with blackened trunks and twigs. Instantly, young leaves appeared and flowers began to blossom from the dead trees.
The wizard turned, smiled at the villagers, and walked towards the mountain. He was long gone before the stunned villagers recovered. They wanted to applaud but the moment was already over.
- End -
Sunday, 15 September 2019
Review: Weathering with You
Weathering with You is set in Japan during a very unusual rainy season. The movie starts with Hina by her dying mother’s bed in a hospital when she sees a ray of sunlight in the distance. She leaves the hospital to investigate. When she reaches an abandoned building, she finds the light illuminating a shrine. After she prays, she is blessed with the power to alter the weather, particularly the capability to bring sunshine into the otherwise gloomy and rainy weather.
Hodaka is a runaway underaged teenager setting out to explore Tokyo. He tries to fit in but fails. Along the way, he briefly stumbled upon Hina and was touched by her generosity to provide him with food. He managed to find work with a magazine on urban legends. Not long after, he meets Hina again and eventually teamed up to start a business providing sunshine to people.
Hodaka’s status as a runaway catches up with him as the police start to look for him after his parents filed a missing person’s report. Meanwhile, both Hina (who lives with her younger brother) and her brother are about to be placed under social services. Left with little choice, the trio decides to run away. Amid all these, the weather worsens while the romance between the main protagonists blossoms. By now, most will be able to predict what’s coming next. There are little surprises here. However, accompanied by an excellent soundtrack, the movie managed to keep my attention on the screen with its beautifully done animation and artwork.
At the core of it all “Weathering with You” is a love story that feels tepid at best because there was not much avenue for the main characters to build their relationship. Besides that, the plot about weather control appears flawed. Fortunately, when combined, the movie, with its stunning visual and soundtrack, manages to build to an emotional climax that does not disappoint.
Thursday, 12 September 2019
A Small Worlds Short Story - Love Blocks
Light weaved pass hundreds of suspended worlds in the shape of cubes. In the early stages of his experiments, he created simple shapes for his small worlds and their inhabitants. On one of them lived Alexis and Steven. Each was made out of a combination of three-dimensional blocks. The head was the shape of a single cube attached to a bigger cuboid body. The limbs were more segments of cuboids of varying sizes.
On the very first day of existence, they found each other at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. After some awkward moments, they came to appreciate each other. They held hands and stood for a long time, staring out into the open sea. In the distance, the setting sun hovered just above a valley between two great mountains. Its ray cast a beautiful golden glow on everything. They spent many seasons together and started a family.
On one mid-autumn season, as the temperature started to drop and leaves turned to shades of red and yellow, Alexis thought of baking something special for her family to celebrate their harvest. She wanted to reward them for their hard work. While Steven and the children were out, Alexis looked for inspiration. As evening gave way to night, she stared up into the sky and saw a full blocky moon rising. She smiled and moulded the dough in the shape of the moon. She had always loved the moon - simple and easy on the eyes - a total contrast from the sun.
“Surprise!” Alexis chanted as her family made their way to the dining table.
“Smells great!” Steven said.
“Mom, it looks like the moon!” their daughter exclaimed.
“Can I name it? Can I? Can I?” their son asked enthusiastically. “Let’s call it a mooncake!”
The cake tasted so delicious that it became a tradition. Every year when the air started to cool, Alexis would bake mooncakes to usher in the mid-autumn harvest. Over the years she had improved the plain cake to one with patterns on the outside and fillings on the inside. The family was content with their lives and they lived happily ever after… until Darkness passed by the cubic world and noticed the blossoming love in it. He decided it was time to intervene…
Before the sunset, Alexis washed in a lake. After she was done, she looked at her own reflection in the water. Over the years, she had acquired lines on her forehead and the corners of her eyes. Her golden blonde hair that she was so proud of had darkened over time and started to lose its lustre. She let out a sigh and was about to get out of the lake when her blocky reflection morphed into a beautiful figure with smooth outlines. She reached out to touch it but her fingers triggered an eddy of water. Her heart sunk as her image disappeared in the ripples.
“You can look as beautiful as what you’ve just seen,” Darkness’ deep, booming voice startled Alexis. “All you need to do is to wish it. Do you?”
“Yes!” she replied without hesitation.
“And so be it.”
Water swirled around Alexis, slowly enveloping her within. Storm clouds loomed above. A column of spinning wind formed a tornado that reached down to merge with the vortex of water. Intermittent flashes of lightning revealed Alexis’ shadow within the cyclone. Coldness coursed through her skin. Every edge and corner of her body transformed into gentle curves. She was no longer confined by the constraints of her blocky figure. Her body became a new definition of flexibility she never thought possible.
When the transformation was completed, the sky cleared. The cyclone receded. Floating above the lake with a full moon behind was the most beautiful woman that future humankind would come to love. Alexis looked down and saw her family staring up at her. The commotion had no doubt attracted their attention.
“Alexis, is that you? You looked... you looked...” Steven was lost for words. He could not find any way to describe his wife. He was still not entirely sure if she was, indeed his wife. The woman that slowly descended in front of him bears little resemblance.
Alexis reached out to touch her husband, “Steven, you still looked... the same.”
“Ouch!” Alexis cut her palm as she ran it across Steven’s blocky face. “I’m sorry. We can no longer be together. You are no longer… perfect,” Alexis said.
She turned to look at the night sky and flew away towards the moon. “Yes, a perfect place for a perfect person,” she whispered to herself.
As she got nearer, the moon morphed into a sphere, a ball of light. Slowly, Alexis’ new form merged with the moon. She was not prepared for the pain of a thousand needles as her skin cracked and hardened into moon rocks. Her immortalised form became encrusted to the moon as mountains and hills. Her proudness of her new found beauty made way for pain and regret. Her eyes crumbled into hollow caves as her soul ceased to exist. The new terrain that was once Alexis cast shadows on the surface of the moon that served to remind Steven and the children she had existed.
Steven brought his sleeve up and wiped a block of tears from his eye. Every time there was a full moon, Steven and the children stared longingly at the image of Alexis. Eventually, the children had come to accept that their mother would never return. They went on with their lives and left their father to grieve alone.
Light was intrigued by Steven’s persistence. Despite the hurt he felt, he was not willing to let the memory of Alexis go.
“I can never understand these humans. I wonder...” Light snapped his fingers.
Steven felt a presence behind him but he did not care. It was probably one of his children. A hand reached out and gently touched his shoulder.
“Don’t be sad, Steven,” a female voice said. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Steven turned his head and saw her. She was a complete contrast to Alexis. Her hair was dark but she had deep blue eyes. While Alexis had fair skin, hers was bronze. Most importantly, she did not possess Alexis’ curves. She was all blocks, just like Steven. He felt his heart thumping. He had not felt that way since he first held Alexis’s hand. Finally, Steven was willing to let go of the past, a past that was as distant as the moon.
- End -
Wednesday, 11 September 2019
“Let’s” or “Lets”
Looking at this title, I was pretty sure that there is no such word as “lets” but I was wrong. A quick search from Grammarly blog cleared all my doubts and queries about these two words. They both originate from the same verb “let” but their usage differs.
“Let’s” is the contraction of “let us” which is something like how “I’m” is the short form of “I am”. It is used when the speaker wants to suggest him/her and at least another person to do something together. Some examples:
Grammarly is both a website and a keyboard app that helps verify and correct English usage. The basic functions are free while there are more comprehensive features that require monthly/annual subscriptions. It’s easy to use. Try the free features by clicking on the banner below.
“Let’s” is the contraction of “let us” which is something like how “I’m” is the short form of “I am”. It is used when the speaker wants to suggest him/her and at least another person to do something together. Some examples:
- Great weather! Let’s go for a jog.
- Let’s visit Larry tonight.
- I doubt he’s telling us everything. Let’s shadow him to find out the truth.
- If Jonathan lets her go, he will lose her forever.
- Besides being a place to read, the library lets others do their work without being disturbed.
- Having produced the complete documentation, the customs officer lets the immigrant through the gate.
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Grammarly is both a website and a keyboard app that helps verify and correct English usage. The basic functions are free while there are more comprehensive features that require monthly/annual subscriptions. It’s easy to use. Try the free features by clicking on the banner below.
Tuesday, 3 September 2019
It is “all right” to be “alright”, is it not?
Are there any differences between “all right” and “alright”? Can they be used interchangeably? According to Dictionary.com, they mean the same except “all right” is the formal standard while “alright” is not. If you want to use the single word, it should only be utilised in a dialogue.
You will find that Grammarly blog and the YouTube video from Miriam-Webster below concur with more elaborate explanations.
I will not be surprised if one day "alright" will be accepted officially. However, at the moment the English teacher (or anyone else concerned with proper English use) will not be pleased with its usage. Ultimately, in most situations, it is quite “all right” to use “alright”, especially in modern context unless you are being graded.
You will find that Grammarly blog and the YouTube video from Miriam-Webster below concur with more elaborate explanations.
I will not be surprised if one day "alright" will be accepted officially. However, at the moment the English teacher (or anyone else concerned with proper English use) will not be pleased with its usage. Ultimately, in most situations, it is quite “all right” to use “alright”, especially in modern context unless you are being graded.
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