The Music Video

The Dojo

Take any man. On any Friday night. Anywhere in the world. And I can bet you there's only one place he'd rather be - Between the legs of a woman lying on her back.

Which is why Michael Stone found it slightly awkward that this Friday night found him flat on his back with a woman between his legs.

She had her fist planted firmly down into his sternum. He struggled for a moment, trying to get free. Grace Wong smiled as she calmly added more pressure against his torso. Mike wasn't going anywhere.

I can still save myself from this embarrassment, he figured. So he locked his feet together behind her back and began to squeeze her with his knees.

Grace responded by merely leaning forward and resting her entire upper body weight on the centre of Mike's chest. He wheezed like a deflatable pillow.

"You done yet, Nak Muay?" she grinned cheekily.

Mike tapped.

The first question you get asked when you join any martial art class is, 'have you trained in any other martial art before?' You'd think an answer like Muay Thai would earn you nods of respect. Not at a Brazillian Jiu Jitsu dojo, apparently.

You see, a month ago Mike's Muay Thai instructor Kiw Eikkasit disappeared off the face of the Earth. Some said he was dead. Some said he'd joined an underground cage fighting ring in Borneo. Some said he'd become the bodyguard of a triad boss in Macau. Mike says we'll never know. But I say that's a different story.

Which brings us to how Mike ended up enrolling in Brazillian Jiu Jitsu (salsa classes were still out of the question). BJJ sits on the opposite end of the spectrum from Muay Thai. In Muay Thai, the fight ends when your opponent hits the ground. In BJJ, however, the fight begins when your opponent hits the ground.

Unlike the striking arts, BJJ is made up solely of grappling, maneuvering and submission. So while you may not go home with a black eye, dislocated joints and torn muscles are rather common. The next time you see Mike, remember to ask him why he has one crooked finger.

"Change partners," the head instructor called out, resetting his stopwatch.

"Oss..." Mike and Grace bowed to each other and bumped fists. Very few experiences in a man's life are as humbling as losing a fight to a girl.

And although his next opponent was not a girl, Mike's dirt eating for the night was far from over.

Chong Kah Jin with his coloured mohawk looked very much like a DVD pirate. But the guy held a black belt in Judo. He snickered sinisterly as he bumped fists with Mike, and immediately Mike knew that this was going downhill.

Within 20 seconds of the starting whistle, Mike and Ah Jin were tangled like a pair of octopuses.

Within 25 seconds, Mike noticed Ah Jin's legs wrapping themselves around either side of his head.

Within 27 seconds, Mike was firmly in a triangle choke.

Mike began to feel like he was trying to breathe through a needle hole. His arms began flailing involuntarily... So this is what it's like to be choked unconscious.

"You know what I like most about BJJ, Nak Muay?" Ah Jin asked between gritted teeth as he pulled Mike's head closer in. "...knowing that the last thing my opponent will think about before he passes out is the smell of my sweaty crotch."

Maybe salsa lessons weren't such a bad idea after all.

The Blurry Night

The burst of cold night air sent blood surging into his muddled brain. Mike figured he still had his alcohol level under control. He didn't.

"Dei Kugan," Mike yelled over the sound of the revving motorcycle engine."Is your house after this flyover or the next one?"

"Next one," Kugan moaned, eyes closed. His arms were wrapped around Mike and his head blissfully rested against Mike's back. He seemed to have complete faith that Mike was going to get him home safely.

Mike, however, was struggling to keep the bike moving in a straight line.

Oil palm trees zoomed past at break neck speed. How fast am I going, Mike wondered. The speedometer said zero. That was when Mike realised the motorcycle wasn't his.

None of the roads seemed familiar, either. Where the hell am I, Mike looked for directions.

"Permatang Tok Hantu," Mike read the white letters on the green signboard overhead.

"You went too far," Kugan responded, still half asleep.

"How far?" Mike asked.

"You crossed the state border 15 minutes ago"

"Motherf..."

"It's ok, take the exit here," Kugan began to show signs of life. "I have friends in Tok Hantu. They're fabulous guys!"

Mike looked at his watch. 5am. They needed to be at work in 3 hours.

* * * * *

"Ey, asshole," Kai Seng leaned across the plastic table. His breath reeked of Sempoerna A and duty-free Chivas.

"Ey, asshole!" he repeated, poking Mike in the shoulder with a fork. "See your girlfriend going there,"

Mike lifted his forehead off the table to take a look. A drunken transvestite was trying to cross the busy road.

"Motherf..." he was about to go back to sleep, but noticed there was a plate of roti banjir on the table where his head was earlier.

Wolfing down two roti banjir with dhal always sobered him up. But Mike hesitated for a moment. This was the same guy who once tried to feed him to a crocodile.

The huge clock with a picture of Mekkah hanging above the cashier said 2.25am. Mike had work in the morning.

"Where are we?" Mike asked. Apart from Kai Seng, he didn't recognize any of the other Indian dudes (in various stages of intoxication) at the table.

"Shaddap and eat la," Kai Seng said between mouthfuls of nasi kandar. "Asshole."

* * * * *

The seashore stank of rotten fish.

There was the distinctive taste of Guinness Stout in his mouth. Mike stuck out his tongue as far as he could. Indeed, it was black.

The sharp rocks poked his feet.

A string of essay questions presented themselves to Mike:

1. a) Where are my shoes?

b) Where is my shirt?

c) Where are my pants?

2. Who is this guy standing next to me, and

3. why are we both wearing only our underwear?

"It's possible, joe," Underwear Guy said. "Screw them."

Mike turned around to see a group of guys sitting on the barrier of the highway that ran along the coastline. They were sipping Stout and laughing like hyenas.

"He was in the navy!" one of them hollered. "He can swim to the other side. You, the sea is going to bring you back!"

"Go and die, Kugan!" Underwear Guy yelled back. "Just watch!"

Mike looked out across the water. 'The other side' was an island 15 minutes away. By ferry.

"Motherf..." Mike hissed under his breath. This was not happening.

The dark sky was beginning to turn violet. The weekend was over and Monday was stepping in fast.

"But before we prove these dickheads wrong," Underwear Guy held up a finger. "...let's go have a Stout first."

He trudged back towards the group, leaving Mike standing ankle deep in seawater. This guy should be on a motivational poster, but Mike wasn't sure for what.

* * * * *

"I'm Nesh," in true Cassanova fashion, he introduced himself to the girl in the strapless blouse. She had nice boobs, I must admit.

Multi-coloured lights strobed across the dark crowded room and the deejay blasted Tamil dance hits.

"This is Vind," Nesh gestured. Vind enthusiasticly shook hands with Strapless Girl. She was beginning to enjoy the attention from the table full of guys.

Mike was just beginning to stumble out of mental fog. He recognized Nesh and Vind - they were with Kai Seng and him at the nasi kandar earlier. Where was Kai Seng, by the way? And how did Mike end up in an Indian pub?

The roti banjir didn't go down at all. In fact, it was threatening to come back up again. And the crazy lights and heavy percussion weren't helping, either.

"And this is our new friend..." Nesh couldn't remember. Strapless Girl extended her palm, waiting for Mike to come back from lala land.

"I need to puke," Mike pushed her out of the way as he bolted for the front entrance.

Mike and I once watched a Discovery Channel documentary where F-22 pilots, while undergoing massive G-force in training, would puke and pass out - not necessarily in that order. Mike could now empathise.

"Motherf..." Mike spat through teary eyes, vomit spouting out of every hole in the front of his face.

Chunks of roti banjir sat in a puddle on the sidewalk. His mouth and nostrils were on fire. Mike wondered why puke was always orange.

"Maik..." croaked a familiar voice.

"Kugan?" Mike recognized the semi-conscious boy lying on the sidewalk outside the noisy pub. "What you doing here?"

"Macha..." he extended a ring of keys. “Can send me home, ah?"

* * * * *

Mike awoke with a sudden jolt. It felt like there was a butcher knife lodged in his head. He recognized the house. He'd spent a night here before.

The sun outside was too bright to be morning. Mike's watch was gone. He fumbled for his handphone. There were several numbers displayed on the LCD screen: 12 missed calls. 7 new messages. But only one got his attention: 11.23am.

"Dei, wake up!" Mike yelled, nudging Kugan's rear end with his foot. "We're late for work!!"

"That was yesterday," Kugan pulled the blanket over his head.

"Yesterday?" Mike checked the date on his handphone. "Motherf..."

The Punching Bag

"You elbow very nice," Kiw said.

"Uh..." Mike hesitated. "ขอบคุณครับ"

Mike had been complemented on his looks before in the past - his ear-to-ear smile, his sharp nose, and occasionally his racehorse calves - but this was the first time he'd been told he had lovely elbows. And the fact that the complement was coming from a dude didn't make it any easier to digest.

"Long like knife, good," Kiw carried on. "You elbow people, here all broke."

He guestured across his jaw.

Kiw Eikkasit can play a bamboo flute like nobody else. His somber tunes painted pictures of the calm rivers and the vast lonely rice fields of rural Thailand where he grew up.

But Kiw had a more effective method with which he put people to sleep.

At the age of seven, Kiw was taken away from his mother's nurturing arms and sent to train in the ancestral Art of Eight Limbs. It is the form of combat the world has come to know as MuayThai.

Unlike most oriental martial arts which emphasise technique and style, in Muay Thai the main objective isn't to score the most points against your opponent- that's only secondary. It is to make sure he isn't conscious to fight the next round.

With over 150 victories (and countless broken bones) under his belt, Kiw had retired from the arena by his late 20s. It turned out to only be a temporary retirement, but that's a different story.

Michael Stone, however, in his mid-20s was just learning the ropes. He was overweight, married to his job and was in search something new to add an edge to his mundane routine. He even considered salsa lessons at one point, but there wasn't enough estrogen in his system.

Training under Kiw was a constant endurance challenge between mind and body to see which would snap first. But after the first month or so, Mike began to notice changes. Men - even his bosses - avoided prolonged eye contact. Women, on the other hand, tended to hold eye contact a little more longer.

"Come, kick beg," Kiw said. The head of the Siamese demon tattooed on his bare chest swelled. It fucked with your mind if you looked at it too long.

After a week of being told to punch, elbow and knee the air between him and his mirror reflection, Mike was finally being allowed to unleash his killer instinct on the evil punching bag. He was thrilled.

He took position in front of the dangling bag. Feet shoulder length apart. Chin against his chest. Knees angled inward. The air reeked of dried sweat and fear. The harmless sack of whatever it was didn't stand a chance.

"เร็ว!" Kiw prodded.

Mike channeled his inner Jean Claude Van Damme. Like swinging a sword attached to his hip, Mike put his entire body weight into the kick. KTHUD!

You see, Kiw was a great teacher and friend, but the one thing he neglected to mention - although he didnt have to, because Mike was an engineer, after all - was Newton's 3rd Law of Motion: when you kick a punching bag, the bag kicks back.

The sound of the bag absorbing impact was followed by the sound of Mike falling flat on his ass. Kiw laughed so hard, the other instructors came rushing out of the house to see what was going on.

Maybe salsa lessons weren't such a bad idea after all.

The Friday

"Wake up, Michael," Mama Stone said, switching off the ceiling fan.

"I don't wanna go kindergartennnnn..." Little Mikey moaned crankily, still half asleep.

Mama Stone never knew what to think. She had a four-year-old who thought he was Superboy. (Although that hasn't changed, now that he's 25)

But then again, she was not the kind of mother who sat at her child's bedside and gently patted the kid until he woke up, either. She knew that no kid - not even Superboy - could remain sleepy for very long when the room temperature starts going up.

And because Little Mikey was too short to reach the freakin' fan switch, he had no choice but to drag himself out of bed.

"Hey, don't make a fuss," Mama Stone said "Today is Friday already,"

"Jumaat?" his eyes widened. Little Mikey was just learning the days of the week, but he knew Friday was the most awesome one. Just ask Rebecca Black.

But unlike Ms Black, Little Mikey didn't have to make his mind up about which seat to take on the ride to school. There was only one seat for him - the motorcycle basket.

Papa Stone lifted him out of the basket and set him down on the pavement in front of the corner lot house/kindergarten/torture chamber.

He then licked his thumb and proceeded to smoothen the thick layer of Cuticura on Little Mikey's face as the kid squirmed to get away. For some reason, Mama Stone thought that sending an Indian boy to school looking like a Chinese ghost would make him more attractive.

Little Mikey stood at the front gate of Pets Kindergarten, looking up the brick walkway. It seemed like a mile long. And at the doorstep where it ended stood Mrs Chong, looking over her glasses with her arms crossed.

If there's one thing Little Mikey hated more than the name of his kindergarten, it was the principal. Papa Stone joked that all the kids who went to Pets Kindergarten were Mrs Chong's pets. I wouldn't be surprised - she sure treated them like little animals.

In all fairness though, kids back then weren't very bright, either. We were wildly amused by singing chipmunks and crime fighting turtles. Our little minds would have imploded at the idea of a boy turning into ten different alien superheroes. A sponge living in a pineapple under the sea would have given us epileptic fits.

Little Mikey's favourite part of kindergarten was recess. It not only meant half the school day was done with, it also meant time out of the classroom.

"Come, Mike," Palminder Kaur said, "We play masak-masak. Today I cook special curry."

Little Palminder was anything but little. She was a foot taller than Little Mikey and weighed twice as much as he did. Her idea of masak-masak was pounding a lump of flower petals and grass on the cement lawn until it turned into paste. The game usually ended with Little Mikey having to eat said paste.

Not that bread and Planta was much of an improvement, either. Little Mikey envied his friends who brought KoKo Crunch to school in their little plastic tupperwears. The little bastards would offer you one miserable flake to give you a taste of what you're missing.

Sometimes Mike and I wonder what happened to the old KoKo Crunch mascot. Back then it was not a yellow koala, it was a creepy looking windmill. It must have gone to a hell for dead brands, together with KLIM milk and Granny's fast food outlets.

Anyway, the school day was far from over. There was still the activity session. Little Mikey hated the Activity Book with every fiber of his being. The book was full of tiny pictures which you had to colour, cut and glue (in that order - because Little Mikey learned the hard way time and time again, if you try the sequence any other way you're fucked).

What sucked was the Acme glue. The made-in-China stuff came in a little plastic jar with a white cover and a white plastic paddle the size of a mouse's penis. The paddle was so small, it either went missing or got lost inside the jar. Eventually Little Mikey ended up with his fingers inside the jar and glue all over his Activity book and his shorts.

Acme glue on your shorts wasn't so bad. Acme glue between the pages, however, made them stick together and made Mrs Chong one menopausal monster. The glue eventually got phased out. It was toxic and making the kids stupid or something, I can't remember.

At the end of each day, Mama and Papa Stone would pick Little Mikey up from his grandparent's house and take him home.

"How come the moon in the sky following us?" Little Mikey asked from behind drowsy eyes.

Kindergarten had been a bitch and Little Mikey was glad he didn't have to endure it anymore tomorrow. Cars on the KL streets zoomed in every direction, but the celestial bodies up above appeared to be moving along with Papa Stone's Honda Kapchai.

Before Papa Stone can think up an explaination to give the four-year-old sitting in his motorcycle basket, the boy was fast asleep.

The next morning, Little Mikey awoke as he felt beads of sweat forming on his back. Someone had turned off the fan.

"Wake up, Michael," Mama Stone said. "Don't make a fuss. Today is Friday already,"

The Restless Night

Go to sleep, Mike. Go to sleep.

Why can't you sleep? The mattress was fluffier and more comfortable than what he slept on back home. The air cond kept the room just cold enough to snuggle in bed. And the thick wool covers kept him warm and cozy. But he couldn't sleep.

He kept thinking about Arisa Nakamura. For a Japanese, she had lovely wide eyes. And for a girl, she was generous with expensive words like 'thank you' and 'please'. Who would have thought that a boy from Seberang Perai and a girl from Miyazaki would find each other in downtown Singapore?

They spent that entire March afternoon holding hands and talking about the 20 years that had somehow passed without them ever knowing each other. He called her 'Ari', which she told him was Japanese for 'ant'.

Her flight to Narita Airport that night was delayed for two hours because there was news of an earthquake and tsunami that had hit Japan, but neither of them thought much of it at the time.

Waiting at the airport, she approved his Facebook friend request and wrote on his wall. That was the last he ever heard from her. Her Facebook page hasn't had an update since that day.

Go to sleep, Mike. Go to sleep.

Why can't you sleep? He couldn't stop staring at the painting above the TV. From the time he'd checked into the hotel, he'd spent more time gazing at the painting than watching the TV.

The painting brought to life a rainy evening in an American suburb. Judging by the cars and the way the people were dressed, it was probably the 1950s or 60s.Mike wondered what life was like for the folks in the painting. He wondered what the wet air smelt like.

There was something about the artwork that made him nostalgic. He longed to be one of the people there in that rain soaked twilight. Funny how it made him want to return to a place he'd never been to. To relive an era he was never a part of. And to reunite with people he'd never known.

Go to sleep, Mike. Go to sleep.

Why can't you sleep? Was it because of all the caffeine? This new project was sucking the life out of him. Too many cigarettes. Too many cups of coffee. His body felt like it had aged ten years in the last two months.

He hadn't even called home in a while. Last he spoke to Mama Stone on the phone, she was crying. Mike wished he were a better son. But then again, he could be a better son in the morning. If he were to wish for one thing right now, it would be to get some sleep.

He had a conference call in the morning with people from three different continents and then a flight to catch in the afternoon. If he fell asleep right now, he could still have a good three hour nap.

Go to sleep, Mike. Go to sleep.

Why can't you sleep? His back was killing him. Mike rolled out from under the covers and sat at the edge of the bed. His toes sank into the plush cold carpet. He walked over to the window and leaned his forehead against the warm glass.

Twenty-one stories below, the metopolis was still very much awake. Colourful neon lights danced as luxury cars streaked through the city. Clusters of people, small as ants, made their way along the streets. Mike wondered if his Little Ant was alright, wherever she was.

The last time he'd felt this lonely on a work trip was onboard a navy warship in the middle of the ocean. The ship was destroyed in a fire a few years ago.

Mike tried to look through the fortress of skyscrapers to see the horizon. Daybreak was a lifetime away.

Go to sleep, Mike. Go to sleep.

Why can't you sleep?

The New Housemate

"Dei, Kugan" Mike said, fighting his gag reflex as he took a shot of cheap whiskey. "What's up with your bathroom door?"

"What bathroom door?" Kugan grinned cheekily.

"Exactly." Mike said. "Your bathroom doesn't seem to have a door."

The living room of the squatter house was completely void of furniture. The two young men sat cross legged on the cement floor. Between them were a bucket of ice cubes, a liter of Club 99 and a bag of spicy murukku. A laptop in front of them blasted Tamil music videos, unnoticed.

"I woke up one morning with a monster hangover and no money," Kugan reminisced. "It was so bad, I honestly thought I was gonna die here, macha..."

"But thankfully," he gestured heavenward. "I heard a voice call, 'Sau-kau-po-chi... sau-kau-po-chi...' God appeared in the form of a paper lama lorry. So I sold the aluminum door and used the money to buy beer."

Mike was pretty sure that if you picked up the Kamus Dewan Edisi ke-5 and looked up the phrase 'keling mabuk', there'd be an illustration of Kugan there.

"You're a fabulous guy, Maik! (it sounded less gay in Tamil, believe me)" Kugan announced, raising his coffee mug of Club 99. "Housemates for life! (this one sounds just as gay in any language)"

For life? Mike just agreed to temporarily stay with Kugan because it was cheap. The landlord only came to collect the rent if he remembered - that means when he ran out of cash for heroin. The water supply was tapped from a pipe at the nearby junction. And there was enough activity going on in the neighbourhood that you didn't need an Astro Tamil Box Office subscription.

Kugan's mug was still in the air, waiting to be acknowledged, so Mike raised his own coffee mug.
"For life." Some housewarming party this was.

At this point in the story, dearest reader, I need to mention that what happened next is a complete blur to both Mike and I. The last thing that Mike remembers clearly is the sudden sound of objects being moved about in the kitchen of the house.

Impulsively, Mike pounced to his feet and dashed toward the back of the house. The kitchen was pitch black, except for the moonlight streaming in through the back door, which was surprisingly open. And in the doorway, there it was.

A tall skinny silhouette stood at the doorway, peering inside. Mike, not sure if it was because of his astigmatism or the alcohol, couldn't make out any of the person's features.

"Hoi!!" Mike yelled.

The intruder let out a strange animal-like laugh and took off into the shrubs behind the house. And again, Mike can't be sure if what he saw next was because of the alcohol, but it seemed like the dude had a strange way of running - almost like he was drifting across the ground.

Liquor courage up to his ears, Mike was determined to give chase. Just then, he felt his arm being grabbed and he was pulled back.

"No, macha," Kugan said. "Don't chase."

"Who was that?!" Mike yelled, as he finally began to feel the cold panic rise up from the pit of his stomach.

"Who?" Kugan repeated. "That's not human, macha..."

Housemates for life, indeed. Mike moved out the next day.

The Romantic Spot

"I've lived on this island my whole life," she said, leaning forward against the railing. "But I never imagined this place existed."

Mike noticed her slight shiver from the freezing wind, so he pulled her closer.

Down below to their right, a string of street lights stretched neatly from one end of the sea to the other, connecting the island to the mainland. The bridge never failed to take Mike's breath away every time he saw it from up here.

To their left, an aeroplane gently streaked along the runway and began to majestically ascend into the night sky.

"You know," Mike said. "I actually wanted to be a pilot."

"Really??" she said, in mock surprise. "...I guess I didn't remember the first fourteen times you told me."

He playfully pushed her away, and she laughed, smacking his arm.

And just then, a jumbo jet flew so low over their heads, she swore they could have reached up and touched it. They watched in silence as the roar of the engines gradually faded, and the huge aircraft receded into the sky.

"I love watching planes," Mike said.

"I don't know," she said, wrapping her arms around his torso. "...They make me sad."

"How come?"

"It... It feels like somebody's going away..."

Silence. The wing lights of the jumbo jet disappeared among the stars.


"Or maybe they're going home."

Taken aback, she looked up at him. His soft eyes gazed back. What was it about him that always made her feel like a little girl again? Slightly embarrassed, she nuzzled her nose against his chest.

"That scent you're wearing," she noticed. "What is it?"

"That's high octane," Mike replied.

"High Octane? Is that the new Calvin Klien?"

"No, not Calvin Klien... Caltex"

She looked puzzled.

"I was filling up my tank on the way here and I accidentally got petrol on my shirt."

She stepped back away from him. No more cuddling for Mike tonight.

The Long Stand

"Pulak dah..." the senior technician groaned into the dead machine.

Next to him, the trainee engineer - his first week on the job - anxiously craned his neck to get a look at what the problem was.

"Err... Michael," Fairuz said as he pulled his head out of the machine. For some reason, Fairuz Ahmad always looked like he had just woken up with a hangover. "Kamu pegi kat store department, bagitau kat dia kamu nak long stand."

"Long stand," Mike repeated, scribbling it down in his notebook. He had half the mind to ask what a long stand was, or how it looked like, but he figured he'd find out soon enough.

Mike walked briskly across the air-conditioned work floor, making his way around machines enormous in size and noise. He made a deliberate detour through the Quality Control department, where cute Vietnamese girls examined electronic components under microscopes.

In most factories where operations run around the clock, the junior engineer fresh out of the utopia of university is arguably the most useless thing on the production floor. Heck, even a broken down machine could at least be sold for scrap.

Senior technicians who've spent the last 5 to 7 years of daylight working their fingers to the bone for the company usually don't take a liking to the new engineers. Not only do the bratty college kids have to be taught everything from scratch, they also take home bigger paychecks than the senior techs. That's why it isn't unheard of that technicians occasionally enjoy pulling pranks at the expense of the inexperienced engineers.

But Mike was glad he was assigned Fairuz as his mentor. Fairuz was so cool and laid back, you can't help but wonder if his cigarettes were actually laced with weed. He had been with the company from the time it was still a small chinaman factory, before it was bought out by a global American corporation. If something mechanical was faulty, Fairuz was the go-to guy.

Mike knocked on the door of the store office and peered inside. The store manager, Mr J.B Lau ('J.B' apparently stood for Johor Baharu) was just on his way out.

"W'sup, Mr Lau?" Mike greeted. "I came to get a long stand."

"Long stand, ah?" J.B scratched his head. "I don't have one here, I ask my boy in the warehouse to bring one for you, can?"

"Sure," Mike said. "Will he be long?"

It was ten minutes to noon.

"A while only laa," J.B said. "I'm going out for a while now, I cannot leave the store office open. You wait for him outside, can? I call him bring the thing now."

"Cool," Mike nodded.

The two of them exited the tiny office. J.B locked the door, then took out his old soap-shaped Nokia to make the call.

"Wait for him here ah, Michael," J.B said, walking away with the phone still to his ear. "I call him come now."

Mike gave the guy a thumbs up and stood waiting outside the store office.

His stomach grumbled. He hoped the warehouse boy would bring the equipment over quick - Mike was missing his lunchtime waiting for this dweeb. To kill the time, Mike began counting the number of fluorescent lights on the vast ceiling of the production floor.

When he was done, the boy was still not here, so he counted the number of ceiling tiles. He wondered what made all of them stick up there. What was the probability of one falling down? What was the probability of one falling down on the head of the warehouse boy?

His feet were killing him. He looked at his watch. 23 minutes.

Just then, the Senior Design Engineer, Ted Halloway, who was here from the headquarters in the U.S passed by.

"Hows it goin, buddy?" he said in his New Jersey accent.

"I'm doin' good, thanks." Mike said, trying to keep his Malaysian Indian accent in check.

"You're the new guy here, huh?" Ted smiled. "I see they gave you the long stand."

"No, they haven't given it to me yet. I'm still wai..."

The white man smirked.

Bloody technicians and their pranks.

The Razor

"Dei, macha," Sureish stormed into Mike's hostel room.

Mike was sprawled on his bed watching Freddy vs Jason on his computer.

"I got a hot date tonite, da," Sureish said. "Lend me your shaving blade."

Mike reached over to his bedside shelf and plucked the razor from the plastic Colgate cup. He was just glad he wasn't being invited to be Sureish's sidekick tonight. Spend the evening with Freddy and Jason or with his college senior? It's a no-brainer.

"Thanks da," Sureish said, grabbing the razor and storming out of the room with the same urgency when he stormed in.

Only after the lanky figure had left did Mike question the rationality of his actions.

Mike bought a new bottle of Palmolive shower gel every six weeks. He changed his toothbrush every six months. But he'd used the same razor since he was 14. And despite the many times the razor had gashed it's owner's handsome face, it was Mike's prized possession.

He cleaned it in boiling water and changed the Topaz blade everyday. And in return, it helped maintain his 'clean and decent boy' image... Maybe trusting Sureish with it wasn't a smart move.

Half an hour later, as Jason and Freddy were plunging blades into each other, Sureish showed up with Mike's razor.

He wore a black embroidered shirt and silver jeans. His shoulder length hair was slicked back and he wore a gold chain around his neck. But what caught Mike's attention the most was that Sureish's goatee was exactly as it was a half hour earlier.

"Uh, senior," Mike said, not really sure how to ask the question. "You didn't shave, ah?"

"Got," Sureish said, adjusting his huge belt buckle. "I shave clean already,"

Time for Mike to get a new razor.