Lunch had always been a brief haven from the sombre confines of the office. Not today it wasn’t. I felt like a lost warrior wandering the sparse Sahara and finding an oasis, only to find the water is not cold enough for my liking.

I realised it when I turned back from the stall. A hundred faces confronted me, yet I focused on just the one. The Tyrant. How did he find us? Aware that my motionless state might prove conspicuous, I put my right foot out. Following this, my left.

Lunch was a drab affair, which wasn’t negative considering the circumstances. Mare’s face conveyed her desire to empty her hot bowl of Laksa on the head of her nemesis. Sadly, she didn’t. Then came the time to leave. Continue Reading…

I started “We prefer the previous one, to be honest. The new cover…”

“WHY ARE WE STILL ON THIS!? MY WORD IS FINAL!!” roared The Tyrant.

The momentary silence following this did nothing to ease the tension. I glanced quickly to my right. Ja and Mare looked non-plussed. They were veterans in the line. They could tell a lousy cover when they saw one. I, on the other hand, was a Beanesque ‘babe in the woods’. I couldn’t care less, but pretend I do to fit in. Fitting in is what I do, for I am Hum Drum Boy.

The Tyrant had a habit of engineering pregnant pauses, or what he thought were. I think he just runs out of ideas. A fine exponent of the deliberate awkward silence myself, I stood unfazed by the soundless assault. Ja was alright as well. Mare, I could tell, was like a water bag with too much hot water in it. Red-faced, a single vein of intense burple extruded from her forehead. She was not pleased. Continue Reading…

“You bastard! You fucking bastard!” The unmistakable voice of The Tyrant filled the previously chirpy air-conditioned office atmosphere. We had heard it before. Some first hand. Not me though. Not yet. It was building up to this. He was on a rampage. It was the second day in a row he erupted.

Mon had already been fired yesterday, leaving in a flurry of tears and bad feelings. She was a nice girl, but it was only a matter of time. It was only a matter of time for all of us that remained actually. Today it was Ham’s turn. Not that I really cared. Famed for the ability to stuff two burgers into his mouth simultaneously, he was lacking in all other areas. Continue Reading…

It was 7am. I was awake but barely. The last 10 minutes was a blur. I stood up, stretched. Nothing felt out of the ordinary, not that I bothered to check. I didn’t have to. It was the start of a regular day, and I am Hum Drum Boy.

I am of average height and built. I do not have film star looks. Nor do I look like walking debris. I am more average than Joe. You could never make me out in a crowd, not that I mind. I think I would make a great spy, much like Jason Bourne.

I am neither young nor old. Sometimes I forget my age. I work in an office. If I missed a day, no one would notice. Except the punch card machine. I am overwork and underpaid, like any other working class hero. I tell people I hate my job, yet am not searching for another one. It isn’t just acceptance. It is the life of normalcy. Continue Reading…

Remember my friend Bean, the Facebook ‘poker’ and ‘flirter’? Well, turns out things went really rosy for him on Valentine’s Day. Here’s what happened:

Bean, who has never spent Valentine’s Day alone (apart from 2004’s when he was in between relationships), was determined that this year’s wouldn’t be spent alone as well. So he asked his facebook girl, Jasmine, out for dinner on Thursday.

Now, the consensus amongst our friends is that Bean has a peculiar way of looking at things. “Good heart, strange brain,” observed Sil once.

Back to Bean and Jasmine. So Bean asked Jasmine to be his Valentine (not in those words of course). Jasmine gave an ambiguous answer that Bean construed to mean ‘no’. Bean, relentless as always, went to Plan B. Continue Reading…

“Glasses equals plastic surgery,” said Nando. The girl really looked like a different person with the aid of spectacles.

“Only if it were so big it covered her whole dog face,” Kenny contended.

Nando, discernibly enamoured by the four-eyed beauty, refused to budge. He knew he was right.

Suddenly, a look of realisation formed on the previously emotionless face of Kenny. Continue Reading…

I heard this story recently from a friend of mine:

This friend of mine has a friend, this girl. So this girl has been seeing this guy, who is about 35 years old, for about a year or so. Throughout this year, she believed that she was his girlfriend. The thing is, she never ever met him on weekends. His excuse in his own words: he was a ‘man’s man‘. According to him, he would spend the entire weekend playing computer games.

They would only meet on weekdays. And it would always be him calling her. When he was free, or felt like it, he would call her and they would meet. They would have dinner and at times she would go back to his place to fuck.

A year into the relationship, or whatever it was, she got a job offer from London. It was a good career move so she went. Then it started to fall apart. Continue Reading…

Soggy Biscuit is not a cracker that is damp. Well actually it is. But it is also the name of a game that originated when I was in secondary school. By originate I mean heard of.

It was a game that was so shocking, so brutal, so disgusting that I never believed it existed. It was a game of courage. Courage to sign up, courage to participate, courage to expose yourself to the visual torture that you will no doubt experience, courage to bear the consequence of losing. Also, no actual proof was given of the game taking place.

I have never heard an actual 1st hand account from a participant, or even a bystander, for that matter. That is, until a month ago. Continue Reading…