There is a strange feeling when you open your eyes to a cream coloured ceiling. It's as if the universe has conspired to place you there without your consent. You see then in most hospitals and schools like any other hospitals and schools today. Here I am, lying on the bed that is shorter than my body. My right leg was bandaged and elevated. My head, immovable. And I feel that I'm missing a right arm.

"Oh, you're awake," says a lass with a raspy voice. "I'm Doctor Eliza Finnegan. I will be your attending physician. As you can see, that's all you have... left. Get it? All left side. No right si--"

"--for the love of God, don't make that joke again. It's in bad taste." I say in reply. "Where's my stuff?"

"Shouldn't you be asking what happened to you? No?"

"I am not like most people and I need to know where my stuff are."

There were a bunch of paper being ruffled. "If you were talking about you clothes, you can have them once you've checked out. Sorry, it's hospital policy."

"How about my bag? Where is my bag?"

"It says in the records you came in here only with your clothes on. Parts of it, apparently."

*sigh* "Go on."

"All right."

"All right? I thought it was all left?"

"Yes, What's left of you is all the right parts. The rest just left."

"Now you're making me confused, Doc. Is it all right or all left?"

"Aren't you charming? I wouldn't bother you anymore so go please take your rest."

"No, Doc. What are you saying just now?"

"You know what, since you're so eager to talk despite me telling you not to sweat it, I'll indulge you with a nice chat. What you are feeling right now is just temporary. And please, don't let yourself be confused with our wordplay. Now, sleep."

I hear the doctor moving some trays around and getting hold of my fluids. Just before I drift off to sleep...

"Now we can fix your head and everything. Dear lord, there are sparks everywhere."

[Sparks 001 - End]

A small downtown office has been rather busy this morning.

Calls came one after another, trying to reach the head of an agency called Synapse, Ltd. The staff of ten people had their desk phones ringing as the head refuse the calls.

One call said "what in the light of the seven is Jarvis writing about?"

Another mumbles "is he done in the head?"

Yet another hammered the nail in the coffin. "The jokes are lame."

Many calls came that bear similar messages. A junior staffer turned the telly on and saw the breaking news. "Jarvis out of touch, releases worst story ever."

The staff have no answer as of that time for only the head of Synapse knows what's up. Out of his wits, the assistant director went into the elevator, pulled out his Glock G26, and popped it in his right temple as the elevator descends into the abyss. Why, you say?

You see, Synapse had been working with Jarvis ever since he started his writing career in 2010. Jarvis wrote many things for know publications under a different name. When he became famous, he hired Synapse, a talent managing agency, to sort out writing gigs and to deliver good PR for him. After his last break, Jarvis went out of the limelight to try living with the spirits of the Redwood Forest. Now that he had come out of seclusion and went back right into the grid, Jarvis made the agency's job a lot harder by publishing a story that involves a doctor and a patient having lost all of his right-side body parts, only to hear the doctor tell lame jokes. Because Jarvis' work is prized in the industry, having released a sub-par work tarnished his reputation.

Having heard the gunshot, the staff had rushed into the emergency stairs and tried to catch up with the descending elevator.

By this time, the agency director was heading out of his office. After reaching for a cup of coffee and some aspirin, he went closer to the TV and watched the news. In his hands are the quarterly reports from the finance department. He threw his cup and half of the coffee into the TV screen and ripped the report right there. A staffer who had forgotten her phone in the office has gone back to get it and saw the director in a deplorable state. Holding ripped sheets, TV fuming up from the liquid, and a drowsy-eyed old man staring back at her.

The staffer picked up a chair, broke the window, and jumped sixteen floors from the ground. "What a mess," she said.

What a mess, indeed.

[Sparks 002 - END]

Talking about suicide is hard. It's not as simple as going from point A to point B. Unlike most stories of fantasy that happen where the life cut short is an everyday reality, contemporary readers would find that death is a loaded topic, more so with taking one's life. As I write my pieces here at the balcony of my home, I feel regret when I wrote about people jumping off tall buildings or people shooting themselves. My readers deserve more than that. I can't talk about death without reflecting upon it. Without considering the readers who might have lost a loved one they hold so dearly.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I wasn't there to stop them.

I'm sorry because I knew and I didn't stop them.

I'm sorry I wrote that event in their lives for the pleasure of others.

To Jenna and Patrick, my editors both, I'm sorry. You don't deserve what happened to you that day in the office.

To Simon, I'm sorry about the company. I'm sorry because I've made you bankrupt and that I showed you to Jenna while you're on your bathrobe and drinking coffee that's now making the TV smoke.

Especially to Patrick. I'm sorry I really like that gun and to see you use it--*sniff*

Maybe I wasn't in the balcony of my home. Perhaps I was in Jenna's funeral. Her twin sons clutching their grandfather's hands as they weep while their mother become one with the earth. I didn't make it rain. I made it as breezy and as warm as possible.

No, I was in the hospital. I really am. My doctor told me I lost an arm and a leg. Sometimes she would come and joke around. Because I don't do much due to the casts and all, my way of passing time is through stories that I tell the nurses. So yeah, I won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

I remember once during recharge time, my doctor would have a chat with me. Because I'm turned off, I can't hear what she's saying so at one time, I tried recording her. I really don't like what she's saying. Like, what the hell are you being so racist about people like me. Just because we're made outside of human wombs doesn't mean we're not humans. We're practically the same. Sheesh.