Cheat.

No one can cheat death several times and not pay for it!
At 18 months, the car she was travelling in with three other adults went down a ravine,
she was the baby who did not get hurt.
At 6, she was hit by a motorcyclist when alighting a public bus, she ended up
with a five-day coma in the hospital.
She was down with malaria and dengue when she was nine, they wrote about her in the newspaper.
"First dengue carrier in Pahang". No names mentioned of course. To protect the identity of a juvenile.
At 14, the car in which her father was driving met with an oncoming lorry – the family was thrown off to the side of the road, the car badly damaged;
At 21, the sampan she was riding on capsized in a crocodile infested sea. She was on a trip to Tasik Bera, to live with a couple of indigenous folks.
When she was 30, the four tyres of the car she was driving suddenly exploded, lucky there was a tyre repair shop nearby; the workman who saw her car remarked:
"The driver of this car must have died quite badly!".
When studying at the university, she fell into a drain, her left knee hurt by the sharp, rugged edge; the injury left a "V" sign on her leg.
Is that "V" for victory, the doctor who gave her 20 stiches asked with a laugh.
She was an accident prone child who lived as if there was no tomorrow.
With every fall, crash, and collision, she woke up and walked again, she ran and dived
she sommersaulted, while parachuting, and one day jumped off the Penang bridge.
She did not drown. She proved to herself at last, she was a cat who had nine lives.
But yesterday, while trying to cross the road in front of her home, a car came speeding and crashed into her. She died on the spot. She didn't know, that death, her jilted lover, had finally come to visit her.

Story of my love.

There is someone who loves me, but he lives in a far away land.
I, too, have pledged to love him, until death do us part.
Due to the circumtances surrounding his life at the moment, he says he is unable to prove just how much he loves me.
But I tell him that I don't need proof. Love's either there or not at all.
He has proven, time after time, of his commitment, during these six wonderful and passionate years of our relationship.
Don't get me wrong. He is a single man, not in any other liason or married to another woman.
He's such a simple and kind soul that no one has been able to take his place.
Not in reality, not even in dreams or fantasy.
He is beautiful and kind.
The most gentle soul I have ever met !
And unique.
I remember asking him one day, why does he not keep a photograph of me in his wallet.
"Why should I keep a photograph in my wallet of someone I have already kept in my heart"
That response swept me off my feet, like a whirlwind!
We are great companions when we are in each other's presence.
The intensity of our togetherness, though far and few in between, has kept the flame alive and burning.
That is why I let myself suffer the pain of our long distance love affair.
In this suffering, love does not fade but grows.
A long time ago, a fortune teller told me that I would be 'painfully separated' by distance from the one I love.
It did not seem plausible then but now I know our relationship is written in the stars.
That it is quite impossible for us to have chosen any other route.
Although I miss him terribly and most of the time, painfully, I sometimes appreciate his physical absence.
I have been able to get so many things done without being 'distracted' by a needy lover. Thank God, he is not one of those.
And I have been able to enjoy my independence, the way no other woman with a lover, could.
Friends ask me how do I endure such a distressing situation.
How do I trust him? Is he not fucking someone else?
I could only say that trust is the most important element in any relationship.
Trust is greater than love.
Without trust, love means nothing!
I tend to think that people perceive other relationships based on their own personal experiences.
They have blinkered views and jaded thoughts on the concept of love based on how it has hurt them or made them happy.
So I will forgive those who have no faith in long distant love affairs.
Most, if not all people need bodily warmth and sex daily to reaffirm their love or their participation in love.
They say that by only being daily together one can be assured of love.
Others are sillier in that they say that one needs to be married or have children to see love grow.
Then why do married couple break up or are unfaithful to one another?
To us, marriage is but a certificate, and kids, we do not plan to have.
My love has transcended what is physical and mundane.
My love is spiritual, magical, ethereal, and all that is godly.

Activist.

When I first met her in an international ngo conference in dhaka she told me 'you are a karmic replica of jesus christ'.

She lured me into her hotel room by saying she wanted to 'network' with the organisation I was working with.

'Take off your clothes' she said as the door closed behind me.

She was already lying half naked on the bed, one leg rubbing the other, enticing me further.

I run to join her between the sheets.

In that moment of sweat moans and groans i felt I have crisscrossed the entire world.

I have a meeting to go to, she said when it was over, though I was still buried between her legs.

'We have to discuss funding and the next consultation meeting ' she said disappearing behind the door.

The next day I saw her in a rally shouting slogans of "No to child abuse".

She asked me as I approached her "how old are you?".

Twenty, I said, and she told me to get in line. I couldn't believe she was 45.

I wanted another date with her as I gathered the courage to knock on her door.

I found her packing, preparing to leave.

"I have a plane to catch in three hours," she said.

"You took away my virginity but I love you," I said, almost sobbing.

She gave me her business card and told me to check the organisation's website.

"You might want to apply for an internship".