Picture a Venn diagram with two cells, the future and the past.
Where the two intersect is the present, and that's where we live.
Without the past, we would have no future; we would be trapped in a dimensionless present, a null set.
We live because we tell stories about what has been, and dream of what will come.
The present-tense self has no identity of its own,
it's just a bitty band of flesh between memory and anticipation,
and each of us converses with many pasts,
and when we're history, just ink on paper,
we will converse with many future ones.

Last night I couldn't sleep at 9pm at night. Watched Day of the Dead on DVD (pirated of course, it's not even screened in Singapore yet). It was freaky but I'm so sensitised I don't feel a thing when the leads cut the cute zombies' heads off. I think Laimeng will die screaming if she watches it.

So anyway, at 9pm I started watching the show and at 9.10pm I felt sleepy. Not because the show is boring, it's quite exciting lah. I continued watching the show with my brother because I was eating Doritos and drinking Meiji milk. At a particular part of the show where some random zombie suddenly jumps out and say Boo (okay something along that line), my brother got a mini-scare. Thing is, his mini-scare had mega-actions. So he jolted pretty badly, knocked the table, which knocked my chair, and I knocked over my Meiji milk. D:

And then I turned to glare at him, and he responded by saying HAHA. WHAT BARNEY. >:(

I didn't cry over the spilled milk. Didn't clean the floor either because it's him who knocked the table which knocked the chair which knocked my Meiji milk over. Ha.

By the way, I finished Half Life last night, finally and I still think it's a great book that gives people headaches. There was this really interesting part about One and a Half, who's actually a real person, dead and his skull, or skulls (you'll see why) resides in the real Hunterian museum. He was born with another small head on top of his head, and that head never opened its/his (?) eyes or talked.

And then this Song of One and a Half gave me nightmares repeatedly for the past week. I hope it gives you nightmares too. :D

Song of One and a Half

Some people are born with too little,
Some people are born with too much.
At the College of Surgeons Museum in London
You can behold many such.
There's a boy who was born with no fingers,
And a girl who was born with a beak,
And a boy with a head on top of his head
Like the crown of the king of the freaks.

The duplicate head was much smaller,
And stiff as a porcelain doll;
The delicate mouth only opened to drool
And the eyes never opened at all.
His mother decided to keep him
See what kind of luck he might bring
And as he was falling asleep every night
This is the song she would sing.

Well it's under the blanket with you, my dear
And it's under the blanket you'll stay
The world's already so ugly, dear
So we'll hide your face away, away
We'll hide your face away.

One and a Half's what she named him
And she gave him a box for a crib.
The only possessions he had in this world
Were a short piece of string and a bib.
She covered the box with a blanket
Which she would remove for a fee
And once in the morning and once before bed
She fed him on gruel and tea.

The boy loved the smell of his mother
And the tread of her two horny feet
Sometimes she blew him her cigarette smoke
As a rare and particular treat
The crack of her ankles was music
The sound of her farts was a bell
Except for the roaches that lived in his bed
There was no one he loved quite so well.

When the blanket came off with a flourish
She taught him to lower his eyes
So he lay in his bed and was looked at instead
And he basked in their fear and surprise
Not the one pair of eyes nor the other
Returned the inquisitive stares
Then the blanket came down and with barely a sound
He whistled the following air:

Well it's under the blanket with you, my dear
And it's under the blanket you'll stay
The world's already so ugly, dear
So we'll hide your face away, away
We'll hide your face away.

One day a viper discovered
A good place to hide from the sun
He slid in the crib so neat and so quick
The roaches did not even run
The boy was so happy to see him
He patted the snake on the head
The viper, surprised, sank its teeth in his thigh
And One and a Half was dead.

But the second head's eyes started open
The minute the other one died
And the boy who had never once uttered a word
Opened his mouth and cried
"Mother," he said, "come help me,
"For I have a pain in my head."
His mother strolled over and lifted the cloth
And saw that her firstborn was dead

He was curled like a cat round the viper
His lowered eyelashes at peace
But the head on his head
Lay awake in his stead
And his eyes all around him did feast
She trembled to see those eyes looking
She trembled to hear that mouth speak
"My brother was fond of his mother," he said,
"I'm afraid that my brother was weak."

His gaze was the law and the sentence
Her judgment was sorely beguiled
How sharper, in truth, than a serpent's tooth
Is the gaze of an ungrateful child!
She squeezed herself into the cradle
And gathered the snake to her calf
And the very last thing she heard as she died
Was the Song of One and a Half:

Well it's under the blanket with you, my dear
And it's under the blanket you'll stay
The world's already so ugly, dear
So we'll hide your face away, away
We'll hide your face away.

Now his bones are hung in the museum
With the bones of a myriad more
Who fell with too little, or fell with two much
From the crotches of ladies and whores
A crooked and yellow stick figure
Two skulls eternally wed
Press button at right to turn on the light
The sign by the showcase said.

.

8:30:00 AM because I say so