This is a Paul Di Filippo-inspired fictional (satirical?) dystopic, sorta sci-fi/fantasy tale that is serialized on this blog every week.
Part 1: The Political Activist And His Murderous Little Birds is here.
Part 2: Bloggers Who Do Lots of Cutting And Pasting is here.
Jeff Ooi
Liewcf
Kahsoon
I wrote their names on a piece of paper, taking note of the once-mighty Malaysian bloggers I've met in Kuala Lumpur thus far, and then struck them off, a reminder that I won't interview them for a future documentary, considering their rather unstable emotional state.
Petaling Street was near, the omnipresent stalls, the pirated dvd and vcd vendors, reduced to half of their original number since the death of the Internet, yet the rumbling and buzzing of noises remained, people screaming the prices of their wares, and potential buyers haggling with them. Rumours have said that many bloggers have chosen to stay here, Petaling Street, the place, the chinatown in Kuala Lumpur, being treated as a replacement of the former blog aggregrator, Project Petaling Street. Oh the irony.
Yet I was weary and hungry, especially after all those running, hiding, sneaking, snooping and emotionally-charged confrontations I had with those 'big-named bloggers'. (pardon the inverted commas, but somehow, to regard bloggers as celebrities is still too strange a thing for me to do)
My stomach groaned.
I was hungry, and there wasn't a sight more welcoming than the familiar Golden Arches sign. The McDonald's near the entrance of Petaling Street. A calming presence before a maelstrom of Chaos. I would've prefered a Burger King, since a regular Whopper was twice the size of a Big Mac, but I wasn't in the position to choose.
I walked in.
Not many others were in there, the workers were already cleaning the floor and only one girl remained behind the counter. I ordered myself a Big Mac (since there weren't any bigger burgers in this sorry place). She disappeared into the kitchen, and reemerged moments later with a tray of food I've ordered.
Finding a seat at the corner of the place, I started eating in solitude.
That was, before a group of black-hooded midgets entered. Their skin were shrivelled and pale, their eyes piercing and fierce, searching, scanning about, until they fixed their attention upon me, and headed towards my direction. I ceased eating and looked at them.
"My good sir," said the midget leader. "I can see from the weariness in your eyes and the sorrow upon your face that you have suffered much from the negative influence of Xiaxue. But fear not, we will help you purge this venomous presence that linger within your innocent soul. Please read this expose, that exposes all her evil deeds, and also, sign our petition."
"Hm? What can the 'Blogging Queen of Singapore' do when the Internet has died and she has lost her blog?" I stared in confusion.
"Continue spreading filth as columnist of Strait Times." The midget leader said. "The traditional media remains a dangerous tool for her to further her own evil ambitions. The youth of Singapore, nay, not just the youth, but people of all ages are poisoned and corrupted by her malicious words. We need more people to sign this petition. She must die!"
"Will it be effective?" I frowned.
"Aye, if she sees the petition, with hundreds of people signing it, she will be ashamed of her sins, and chooses to step down. After all, people of pure evil like her can never withstand the collective fury of righteousness and justice." The midget leader said. "Yes, we will send her the petition."
"Yes, it is a pretty impressive number." I said.
"Otherwise, we can send the petition to her superiors at Strait Times. Although we form only a tiny percentage of the entire populace, our souls burn brightly with anger, our cries of anguish will be heard! The people of Strait Times will ignore the fact that there are thousands and thousands of readers who are reading her filth and cave in to our demands. The people of Strait Times will preserve their integrity and fire Xiaxue!"
"Yaaay! Let's run her over with a truck!" Said another excited midget.
And then they all burst into a song, for a few seconds, before the midget leader continued speaking.
"After all, there shouldn't be any shades of grey in this world of ours! There can only be black and white. And nothing can be blacker than that racist black-hearted bitch! We are white, you see! Everything we do, we do it for the sake of humanity and justice. We are smart, thus we know what is right for everyone. It's either you are a XX sympathizer, or you're with us. XX sympathizers are poor wretched fools, we must approach them one by one and convert them. There is no other way, they MUST conform to our ideals, otherwise, the world will continue its decadence."
"How noble." I said. "It is rare to see people fighting so hard for the things they believe in. Sad sacks like me are too indifferent to such matters, I doubt I can ever generate enough passion and spend almost every single minute of my life fighting against a single person like that. And to force everyone to follow my ideals! Geez, that's even more daunting!"
The midgets glowed happily at my praise. The midget leader spoke out. "Ah, you flatter us, yet this is a difficult mission, and we are forced to mete out punishments against those who have fallen too deeply into Xiaxue's web of lies and deceit. We need a new world, a world without sinners. Those who have sinned will have to pay, even though it is painful for us to be their executioners. But everything we do to bring Xiaxue down is justifiable, since we ARE doing it for humanity, whilst Xiaxue's a bane of mankind. We are good people, but we are often misunderstood. No one can blame us for trying to make the world a better place. People are stupid, once they don't take what Xiaxue writes seriously, they'll all burn in hell. There is nothing out there that can remedy the seeds of evil Xiaxue had planted upon their minds and soul. Xiaxue deserves no sympathy, that vile bitch isn't human, she is merely a personification of everything that is wrong with our world."
"Ah, guess I'll have to sign the petition." I said cheerfully, eyeing the petition.
"Your aid will be invaluable to us in this noble quest to liberate the minds of people from Xiaxue's curse." The midget leader said. Meanwhile, the other midgets have removed a sack from their suitcase, covered entirely in blood. They opened the sack. Stench of rotting flesh assaulted my nostrils. "This is baby Penny. We visited her parents begging them to sign the petition, yet they turned us away. We killed them, and then we smashed the baby's head into the wall. The filth that linger within the treacherous place known as their home can only be cleansed by the blood of sinners. We were emulating the execution of Caligula, third emperor of Rome. After all, he was an evil man who disembowelled his sister when she told him she was bearing his child."
"Yeah, Caligula's an asshole." I said, signing the petition. "I'm sure you were doing the right thing. You guys always do anyway."
"Thank you." The midget leader wept tears of manly emotions whilst the others were carefully keeping the baby's corpse into the suitcase again. "I assure you, we will continue our crusade against Xiaxue, and soon she will be overthrown. I swear by my soul. And can you spare some change? All proceeds will go to the Exelex foundation. It will be productive, I swear."
"Sure." I rummaged for some coins in my pocket and handed it to them.
The midgets bowed in unison and left, continuing their noble quest to supplant this dehumanized evil entity known as Xiaxue.
I continued eating, the Big Mac was becoming more tasteless than ever.
Technorati: xiaxue, Wendy Cheng
Part 1: The Political Activist And His Murderous Little Birds is here.
Part 2: Bloggers Who Do Lots of Cutting And Pasting is here.
I wrote their names on a piece of paper, taking note of the once-mighty Malaysian bloggers I've met in Kuala Lumpur thus far, and then struck them off, a reminder that I won't interview them for a future documentary, considering their rather unstable emotional state.
Petaling Street was near, the omnipresent stalls, the pirated dvd and vcd vendors, reduced to half of their original number since the death of the Internet, yet the rumbling and buzzing of noises remained, people screaming the prices of their wares, and potential buyers haggling with them. Rumours have said that many bloggers have chosen to stay here, Petaling Street, the place, the chinatown in Kuala Lumpur, being treated as a replacement of the former blog aggregrator, Project Petaling Street. Oh the irony.
Yet I was weary and hungry, especially after all those running, hiding, sneaking, snooping and emotionally-charged confrontations I had with those 'big-named bloggers'. (pardon the inverted commas, but somehow, to regard bloggers as celebrities is still too strange a thing for me to do)
My stomach groaned.
I was hungry, and there wasn't a sight more welcoming than the familiar Golden Arches sign. The McDonald's near the entrance of Petaling Street. A calming presence before a maelstrom of Chaos. I would've prefered a Burger King, since a regular Whopper was twice the size of a Big Mac, but I wasn't in the position to choose.
I walked in.
Not many others were in there, the workers were already cleaning the floor and only one girl remained behind the counter. I ordered myself a Big Mac (since there weren't any bigger burgers in this sorry place). She disappeared into the kitchen, and reemerged moments later with a tray of food I've ordered.
Finding a seat at the corner of the place, I started eating in solitude.
That was, before a group of black-hooded midgets entered. Their skin were shrivelled and pale, their eyes piercing and fierce, searching, scanning about, until they fixed their attention upon me, and headed towards my direction. I ceased eating and looked at them.
"My good sir," said the midget leader. "I can see from the weariness in your eyes and the sorrow upon your face that you have suffered much from the negative influence of Xiaxue. But fear not, we will help you purge this venomous presence that linger within your innocent soul. Please read this expose, that exposes all her evil deeds, and also, sign our petition."
"Hm? What can the 'Blogging Queen of Singapore' do when the Internet has died and she has lost her blog?" I stared in confusion.
"Continue spreading filth as columnist of Strait Times." The midget leader said. "The traditional media remains a dangerous tool for her to further her own evil ambitions. The youth of Singapore, nay, not just the youth, but people of all ages are poisoned and corrupted by her malicious words. We need more people to sign this petition. She must die!"
"Will it be effective?" I frowned.
"Aye, if she sees the petition, with hundreds of people signing it, she will be ashamed of her sins, and chooses to step down. After all, people of pure evil like her can never withstand the collective fury of righteousness and justice." The midget leader said. "Yes, we will send her the petition."
"Yes, it is a pretty impressive number." I said.
"Otherwise, we can send the petition to her superiors at Strait Times. Although we form only a tiny percentage of the entire populace, our souls burn brightly with anger, our cries of anguish will be heard! The people of Strait Times will ignore the fact that there are thousands and thousands of readers who are reading her filth and cave in to our demands. The people of Strait Times will preserve their integrity and fire Xiaxue!"
"Yaaay! Let's run her over with a truck!" Said another excited midget.
And then they all burst into a song, for a few seconds, before the midget leader continued speaking.
"After all, there shouldn't be any shades of grey in this world of ours! There can only be black and white. And nothing can be blacker than that racist black-hearted bitch! We are white, you see! Everything we do, we do it for the sake of humanity and justice. We are smart, thus we know what is right for everyone. It's either you are a XX sympathizer, or you're with us. XX sympathizers are poor wretched fools, we must approach them one by one and convert them. There is no other way, they MUST conform to our ideals, otherwise, the world will continue its decadence."
"How noble." I said. "It is rare to see people fighting so hard for the things they believe in. Sad sacks like me are too indifferent to such matters, I doubt I can ever generate enough passion and spend almost every single minute of my life fighting against a single person like that. And to force everyone to follow my ideals! Geez, that's even more daunting!"
The midgets glowed happily at my praise. The midget leader spoke out. "Ah, you flatter us, yet this is a difficult mission, and we are forced to mete out punishments against those who have fallen too deeply into Xiaxue's web of lies and deceit. We need a new world, a world without sinners. Those who have sinned will have to pay, even though it is painful for us to be their executioners. But everything we do to bring Xiaxue down is justifiable, since we ARE doing it for humanity, whilst Xiaxue's a bane of mankind. We are good people, but we are often misunderstood. No one can blame us for trying to make the world a better place. People are stupid, once they don't take what Xiaxue writes seriously, they'll all burn in hell. There is nothing out there that can remedy the seeds of evil Xiaxue had planted upon their minds and soul. Xiaxue deserves no sympathy, that vile bitch isn't human, she is merely a personification of everything that is wrong with our world."
"Ah, guess I'll have to sign the petition." I said cheerfully, eyeing the petition.
"Your aid will be invaluable to us in this noble quest to liberate the minds of people from Xiaxue's curse." The midget leader said. Meanwhile, the other midgets have removed a sack from their suitcase, covered entirely in blood. They opened the sack. Stench of rotting flesh assaulted my nostrils. "This is baby Penny. We visited her parents begging them to sign the petition, yet they turned us away. We killed them, and then we smashed the baby's head into the wall. The filth that linger within the treacherous place known as their home can only be cleansed by the blood of sinners. We were emulating the execution of Caligula, third emperor of Rome. After all, he was an evil man who disembowelled his sister when she told him she was bearing his child."
"Yeah, Caligula's an asshole." I said, signing the petition. "I'm sure you were doing the right thing. You guys always do anyway."
"Thank you." The midget leader wept tears of manly emotions whilst the others were carefully keeping the baby's corpse into the suitcase again. "I assure you, we will continue our crusade against Xiaxue, and soon she will be overthrown. I swear by my soul. And can you spare some change? All proceeds will go to the Exelex foundation. It will be productive, I swear."
"Sure." I rummaged for some coins in my pocket and handed it to them.
The midgets bowed in unison and left, continuing their noble quest to supplant this dehumanized evil entity known as Xiaxue.
I continued eating, the Big Mac was becoming more tasteless than ever.
Technorati: xiaxue, Wendy Cheng
