Smitten At Sunrise

I woke up at the doorsteps of dawn

And waited for yesterday’s sinking sun
Rubbed my eyes twice or thrice, I can't quite surmise,
Waiting for the pretty soul
For whom I’d suffer more than a broken nose

There I sat on the curb
Where I tripped and fell head over heels
When I saw her on two wheels
With her ponytails prancing and dancing,
A ballet around her peachy pink helmet

So I said to me,
“Why, now’s not the time to simply be waxing lyrical
About a faraway miracle
So how about
A shiny surprise in something small and cylindrical?”

But I don’t even know her name
Only that she’ll be riding by again
Maybe next time it won’t be the same
We’ll play the giggling game
And see the sunset by the end of the day

So as I savoured my ice-cream dream
The squeak of brakes sounded right in front of me
She was off the seat
My heart raced at pedal speed
And she said, “Well, aren’t you going to let me in?”

In sweet shock I had the door unlocked
And we stepped through without the tiniest clue
What we could do before we’d even said “Hi”
So I took her to my rocket science room
Waiting for a carnation chance to bloom

And there we saw me, curled up like a baby
Floating on the folds of my bedsheet
With glowing stars on the ceiling
Encyclopedia cities and a wooden box with steel strings
I could feel her looking at me

Then I woke up again with a sunnier start
My limbs sprawled like a renaissance work of art
And I heard from outside a bicycle ring
Like how a songbird would sing
The sound of the doorbell to my heart

The Efficiency of Inefficiency

We have become so efficient at doing inefficient things that this paradox deserves some elaboration.

As much as the rationale eludes us, we have been presented with a need to stencil our four-digit numbers onto every little piece of equipment we have. You ask, why not simply handwrite? Wish I knew.

Maybe it's because we want to give our aggressors the impression that we are really, really neat soldiers; it might actually scare them. Maybe it's because we want to use penmanship to boast of our robotic philosophy. Maybe it's because using stencils elicits within us a measure of kindergarten reminiscence that never deserves to be forsaken no matter how much innocence we may think we've lost ever since we stepped through these doors! Oh, my Wilfred Owen!

Nevertheless, we are not daunted. We must demonstrate our fighting spirit. We must be thinking soldiers. And so we divide the labour, and valiantly sacrifice our period of self-study for the noble and divine sake of nattiness. (Indeed, we found a way to do it quite quickly nonetheless, which is really the point of the title.)

And so it goes, another day to be laughed at in retrospect, another day that re-affirms the wise and practiced adage – Do or die, don't ask why.