I am only

Ok so I went to Bahrain. Highlights:

1- They didn't have Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

They did, however, have The Final Destination… IN 3-D!

I honestly couldn't say no. And I'm glad I didn't. Because it was friggin amazing. It was the goriest one.

Honestly. Before the opening credits have even rolled, you'll already have seen...

#$%#$SPOILER ALERT%^#$$....

Two people being sliced in half… loads of people being crushed by concrete… people being burned alive… poles and broken pieces of wood slicing through people... umm... a tire flying through the air at turbo speed smashing into a girl's head from behind, leaving her lying on the ground with her head all blown up into smithereens…
Look up 'The Final Destination Nadia's death' on YouTube if you're interested… You know you're dying to.
Anyway. You need to get your butt down to the nearest theater to watch it.

The dialogue is awful, the acting is pathetic, but it's awesome. There's just something in me that secretly likes peeking through my fingers and biting my ring to keep from shouting the vile curse words going through my head when I see blood and guts and intestines.

2- Went to the bookstore again.

My copy of Everything is Illuminated hasn't arrived yet -_- Even though it has been 3 weeks! They said it should arrive next week. But in any case. I bought a book called She by H. Rider Haggard; it looks interesting. Then I went to another mall and I went to the same bookstore (different branch) and bought yet another book. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It's an addiction. I'm spending all my Eid money on books.

And now! New novel excerpt.

It's a combination of Leila's character, thoughts I've shared with my cousin, and feelings I think all humans are afraid to let themselves feel sometimes. Here goes.

(random, but i was listening to this while i was writing)

The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

-

It is another slap in the face from life that I have morphed into the hermit I am today. I - the social butterfly, seemingly excelling in everything I try – would rather be alone than surrounded by a group of people who say they care, but never in quite the way I want them to.
It is also another slap in the face that I've come to realize I don't like being on my own. I don't like being left forlorn with my thoughts. They take me to places, little nooks and corners in my mind that I really don't want to visit… Or, rather, I'm not ready to yet.
I am a loner who doesn't want to be left alone.

Am I really the only person who feels this way? Or do I share these thoughts with other people... with you, but you are just too afraid to voice them?
I think you should. Voice them. You never know, it might end up like that time when you told your best friend in second grade that you are dying soon, because you have a worm in your eye socket that's been twitching on-and-off for two weeks, and it's probably already made one hundred and three holes in your brain, and she said, No, you silly goose! Those are just your muscles! Twitchy eyes are normal!
No, you silly goose… Feeling empty is normal.

So let me ask you.
Do you ever get the feeling that you just don't want to talk to anybody? You're tired of smiling and laughing at jokes and pretending to be happy, but at the same time, you don't understand why you have to fake being happy in the first place, because, last time you checked, nothing in particular was bothering you?

You tiptoe around life. Hardly anything warrants a reaction from anymore. You stage your smiles, your laughs, your tears, your gasps of shock. Facial expressions become difficult for you to arrange, because you feel (or, rather, not feel) the same way about everything.
You run into your old 3rd grade teacher, and she tells you that she remembers you used to be sad and withdrawn all the time. You start to question your childhood, and whether or not you were ever truly happy. You think long and hard about the last time you had a good, genuine belly laugh that rumbled from the center of your very being and made your insides hum… and it scares you that you can't remember.

You start to hate your friends for seeming so… normal. For talking about TV shows you stopped watching; for giving a crap about their future, when you can't seem to bring yourself to care about yours.
You start to feel as if the world is one big theater, and you are just an inexperienced crew member who's been pushed on stage. You are clumsy and awkward; you stumble everywhere you go. You search endlessly for other people who seem to be out of their element, just like you, because you know that'd make them fit perfectly into your own… But you don't find anyone.
Your edges are jagged, but everyone has been artfully mended at the seams. Everyone is pretending to be someone they're not; fitting into their self-assigned personas, playing roles they think they ought to be playing. They listen to "cool" underground bands that'll make them come off as artistic and cultured, regardless of whether or not they actually like the music. They style their hair a certain way and wear clothes that "express their individuality," as if individuality is some sort of ultraviolet beam that's supposed to radiate from strange clothes and funny-looking haircuts.
You begin to stay away from those people, those actors, because no one can get close to you without tearing themselves up trying to fit into the constellation of your jagged edges - and you don't want to hurt those people, who glide gracefully across the stage, seemingly at peace with the characters they've created.

Despite the emptiness, you want to be alone. People have stopped being comforting, but being alone never was – it isn't supposed to be. And that, in a sense, is comforting: at least one thing in life still makes sense.
At least when you're alone, no one keeps asking you what's wrong. No one will refuse to take "I don't know" for an answer. You keep waiting and hoping for the feeling to pass, so you can finally go back to being yourself again… except, for the life of you, you can't remember who that is.

You pass a dusty car on the road, and you notice the message someone has scrawled on the windshield – "I am only." And instead of wondering, "Only what?" You think to yourself, "That is a complete sentence."

I am, only.

-

fin! So here's the deal. I'm thinking about discarding the whole novel idea (not that I was seriously considering it in the first place) and just sticking to short pieces and thoughts like these - something my fellow blogger and friend Wuthering made me think about. My plot isn't really shaping up, and I don't think most people would appreciate a "novel" that basically consists of thoughts :P

So, 1- What do you think?

2- Ever seen any of the Final Destination movies? Do you like 'em? Or am I just weird?

Take care, lovely people who still read my strange strange blog.

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I'll be as real as faeries

Just a quick one today.

I need to find a way to harden these tear glands
And maybe my heart in the process.
I'll numb myself down
I'll stop myself from feeling.
Because if feelings are what make me real
Then I don't want to be real
What has that offered me but misery?
I'll be as real as faeries
And a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow
I'll be as real as monsters underneath my bed
I'll be as real as love.

I hate it and I'll most prolly end up deleting it.

Hey tell me a joke!

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Sometimes

5:23 am in the morning, I was tossing and turning in my bed. I was so tired but I couldn't go to sleep! I had a migraine and a tummy ache and yet my insomnia was kicking in. My fingers were itching to write something. So I pulled out my big blue notebook and wrote something for the story I'm working on.
I know it's bad, and needs editing, but it shall do for now. Here it is:

[pssst! in case you didn't read the one I posted before, go here]



Sometimes I feel trapped by what others expect of me. Every move I make has to add up to the carefully painted characters I have fabricated; a different me for every different person I meet.

It might sound complicated, but it is actually a matter of simple mathematics. Here's how you do it: analyze the person you want to impress, add all the parts that will make you desirable to them, subtract all the parts that don't, and voilà – there you have it.

But it is also a matter of simple chemistry, and - just like in chemistry - some equations are reversible. You think you're only heading in one direction: the end products.
Little do you know that another reaction is simultaneously taking place, quietly simmering in your insides, turning your end products back into their original reactants, until you reach a point of equilibrium.

But to every rule, there is an exception.

And, surprise surprise, that little exception is me.

Because every night when I lay on my bed, waiting for sleep to creep up on me, that equilibrium is gone, and I am stuck with nothing but the lies I have told, the ugliness, the emptiness - the original reactants, with none of the fascinating chemistry that created the desirable "me."

I tell myself,

There are so many people right now in my life, and they're all very different.
They all bring out different sides of me.

I tell myself,

I am not being hypocritical; I am not 32-faced – This is just human nature.
Different people have different opinions, different personalities, and different ways of accepting things. And so I expose different parts of me and keep others somewhere close to my heart for later use.

I am not lying to anyone.

My heart still feeds on those precious secrets that I haven't told anyone of, and that's why I keep them there.

Once they are gone, I am exposed, raw, unmasked – and I don't think that what I am at the core is all that pretty.
I am not sure if something still exists under all these layers of personalities I've created.
Once they are gone, I have nothing.
Once they are gone, I am nothing.

When I told you that my heart feeds on my secrets, I was only telling you half the truth.
My secrets feed on my heart, too.

The more I keep to myself, the more alive I feel.
But also, sadly, ironically – the less alive I am.

Maybe I am not lying to anyone.
But I am lying to myself - if I still classify as a human being anyway.

Because no, it is not human nature to have two MSN conversations at the same time and feel like I'm two people at once; trying to live up to the separate images I've created of myself.

Some people see me exactly how I want to be seen: Funny, clever, social, maybe even okay-looking.

And some people see me exactly how I don't want to be seen: jealous or arrogant, a loser or a freak, a misfit or a conformist.

But in the end – Everybody sees me.

So why can't I see myself?

***

I slowly drift awake, and I don't know where I am, or who I am. My view is fuzzy, and painfully, blindingly white.

Am I dead?

But there is a dull, throbbing pain in my head, and somehow it is hard to believe I am lucky enough to be that.

Pictures begin to fill my head: a woman grabbing me by my hair, a woman kicking me, a woman smiling coldly at me, and a little, still, blue-faced girl.

That woman is my mother, I realize.
That girl is my little sister – or was, because she is no longer with us. She is in a better place, I've been told. Why can't we trade places?

I am Laila.

Except I don't feel like Laila at the moment. But then again – when have I? Will I ever?

I don't know who I am.
Or what I am.
Except stuck.
Stuck in this drugged body on a hospital bed.
A body that doesn't feel like my own.
A body that doesn't belong to me, and a body that I don't belong to.

Maybe because I don't want to.

Who is Laila? Where has she gone? Why has she left me behind?

All of a sudden, I am filled with rage.
Rage at myself.

Rage at my mother.
Rage at the God that gave me a life when I don't recall ever asking for one; then tells me that I can't take it way, nor give it back.

No refunds.
Especially when the currency you've exchanged with is grief.

------





So what do you think?
Tell me how I can make it better, please!






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