Beng Love Thalia Long time

Beng Love Thalia Long Time

Prologue

Thalia was the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, mother of the nine daughters of song and poetry. She wielded the power of inserting beauty into comedy and passion into poetry. On days when the air was warm on the brown soil, she would roam barefooted on the earth and dance in the minds of those that desire to write or paint the pictures that were imprinted on her soul.

She would dance with her delicate fingers on their heads, as her hips swayed, everything that was carved on her white body would glow in an unearthly colour, vermilion like the spots of the serpent that charmed the boy from Crete, a deep maroon that cripples like the venom of a scorpion and black as the dust of a phoenix. Through her light twirls, she would feel a hole inside, Chronozon, the demon of the abyss had touched her once and left his seed there that would engulf all. But those words that glowed entered the lips of the humans that she touched and they swallowed her body, breathed in her soul and caught the faint scent of lilies she had carried.

And one night, when the evening sky was a deep blue, sprinkled with stars that were the color of a pale man’s face shredded into a million pieces, Thalia dove deep into the Underworld, and searched for Creon, the boatman of the Underworld. A man that she loved was killed by a speeding Mercedes when he went to buy her a teddy bear that said ‘I Love You’. He died in the hospital with the bear in his arms. She stood by him in the emergency room and whispered the words, “Cupid, I shall find you in Styx.” And he wore the grin of death.

His name was not really Cupid, his ravishing good looks just reminded her of the vengeful Aphrodite’s son. His mother was Mrs. Tan and she named her eldest son Tan Ah Beng. This came to pass because she wished her son all the luck and the prosperity that the Goddess of Mercy Kuan Im bestowed upon him when he was born as small as a Mexican bean and yet he lived. Thalia could not pronounce a name as exotic as Tan Ah Beng, therefore she whispered that name of the cheeky Seraph that desired Psyche and gave it to the poor deluded Chinese boy.

“Thalia, I love you long time,” he smiled, wiped the snot that was coming out of his nose and his breathing that was forever heavy because he had asthma and a ton of mucus would never be heard again.
“Cupid, please, I beg you, don’t leave me alone. I would never find a man as sweet as you,” she begged her Cupid, but his pulse stopped in her pale hand and hymns of lamentations appeared on her hands and face, in the color of pain.

She felt his breath leave his body, the soul fluttered like a tiny butterfly and passed through her. The passing was slow, unsure, as though a virgin was making love for the first time and wished not to forget one second of the sweet love and bitter pain. For one moment, he resided within her and she did not wish to let him go, but her Cupid was wrenched away from her and floated out the window, singing ‘Crazy Frog’ as he did.

Through the dawn of mankind, Thalia was conceived when Zeus kissed her mother and they dwelt on Olympus. This was when the sun was still the color of a gas fire; a clean bright blue because the earth was still young and the sun was still a baby. Never, had Thalia raced through the soil to reach Styx until now.

Chapter One

The news came as a shock, I got it when I was finishing a group project on my own because Ah Beng never showed up and his ex-girlfriend was crying at home when she found out about his new ‘Ang Moh’ (white person) girlfriend. So I had to write about Malaysia’s beginning all by myself, cursing the two lovebirds as I worked into the early morning. Ah Beng was my neighbor, quite a nice boy, excellent in Math and always willing to help, he only wore shirts and three-quarter pants. The only t-shirts he owned had holiday destinations emblazoned on them such as, ‘I Love Langkawi’ and ‘Come, come to Pulau Ketam’ which proves he only goes shopping at duty-free tourist shops.

“Sara?” my mother was up at three a.m, the hour that mocked the holy trinity of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit because the phone rang at an unearthly hour.
“Yes mama?” scared out of my wits.
“Something has happened,” there were faint tears on her face, “Ah Beng just died in an accident.”
“Huh?” trying to digest the news, it was depressing because we were classmates since Secondary School, I briefly remembered teaching him how to ask girls out and to take rejection like a man.

The work was to be abandoned and I lay in bed the entire day, ignoring the incoming messages, which depressed me even more. I listened to his stupid ‘Crazy Frog’ CD because it reminded me of how he stood on my study table and started to shake his booty with his tongue sticking out in sync with his thrashing hands.. Ah Beng could not die, he needed to take more white girls to the hawker center at SS2 and introduce them to Char Kueh Teow. He needed to take them shopping for pirated VCDs and buy from people who looked exactly like him.

With no food, the day passed slowly, I was plagued with thoughts of Ah Beng, the many times I had poked fun at him for his orange hair and his ability to go ‘Ding Ding Ding’ in the most annoying way. I started to draw, under much duress, I could only draw pictures of twisted veins inside a beating heart, thorns surrounding a screaming man’s face and all these flashes were given to me inside the smoke of my cigarette.

A gentle whiff of orange lilies came gently, I don’t know if there were such things, but it definitely smelt like lilies. It settled gently into my nose, as if it were going to stay there for eternity.

“Aurora, how are you?” it was Ah Beng’s girlfriend, the ‘Ang Moh’ (white person) climbing through my apartment window.
“My name is Saraswati, please get it right, Thalia,” I hurriedly put out the cigarette and helped her in my room.
“You remind me of the daughter of Hyperion, the sun, and the father Of Sol,” she smiled brightly, she was so beautiful, with her long golden curls and ageless eyes, they shone blue marbles from another universe. “I miss Cupid. No man could ever laugh the way he did,” He laughed like a hyena with snot dripping down his cheeks.
“Gosh, are you okay?” I saw the burning tears still pouring down her creamy rose petal cheeks.
“They took him away from me,” she stood, towering over me, she must have been almost six feet. She was a head taller than Ah Beng. “I will wither without him.”

My room was a mess and I lived in an apartment ten floors above the busy city. There was no fire escape. Only then did it hit me, how on earth did she get up there?

“How in the world did you get up here?” I started rubbing my head, maybe I did not hear her come in through the door and only saw her at the window, I wondered if I was starting to hallucinate, seeing fairies residing in the cracks of my bathroom door.
“I need your help to get Cupid back. Many Lords and Dukes have courted me, but Cupid, he would run across the streets to greet me and he would never stop smiling. He must return to my side, or I will cease to exist,” she said breathlessly, clutching at my plump hands. “Could you, Aurora?”

I must have been drinking too much, I thought, because I opened a bottle of whisky, a hole inside was just gaping when I tried to grasp the idea that I would never, ever see Ah Beng again.

“What do you want me to do, dear?” I saw that she was ripped apart.
“Lady Aurora, I beg of you to follow me down to the gates of Hades and go down to Styx to retrieve Cupid’s soul,” she was on her knees.

I was silent for altogether, five minutes.

And then, I took another long drag at the Dunhill, the taste stayed with me longer than any of my boyfriends ever did. It took on the face of a large mosquito, within my lungs, stretching each of its six legs and sat down.

The pain of losing Ah Beng was down there, underneath the dark color of the whiskey and I did not know how I would feel when my heart stopped beating louder than the thoughts in my head. Whenever I drank too much, I would feel my heart beat mad, in a crazy frenzy that eclipsed thoughts in my head and nothing could be heard.




Chapter two.

“What?” that’s all I could muster, “Follow you to Hades? You mad, ah?” I shouted at her, too loudly, because the buzzing of my heart was too loud.
“You are mortal, you do not believe in life after death, do you not?” she touched my forehead lightly and smiled, there were words written on her hands, they were as white as the bottom of a rose.
“God, what are you?” I swore when I saw the words of my writings, my poetry etched on her right hand that was touching my forehead and I smelt a faint burning smell coming from her arms. “Holy Jesus!” I leapt back on to my bed.
“I am an immortal being in love with a dead man’s soul. Help me retrieve him. Like how Orpheus rescued Eurydice, the way Hercules saved Megara, please, please, Aurora, daughter of Hyperion, I beg of you,” she was on her knees.

I was silent. “What are you, really?” she did not look human at that moment, her voice was like bubbling honey and her pearly white body glowed with vermilion writing, I recalled ‘Lamia’ by John Keats, “You’re freaking LAMIA, aren’t you?” I started to yell; I think I must have been high at that point.

In a mad frenzy, I started to point at her and scream, “Oh holy Jesus, you’re going to eat me aren’t you? You’re a serpent in disguise! Oh, God, what the hell is LAMIA doing in my room?” there was too much alcohol in my blood. “Please don’t change into a snake, Thalia, God, even your NAME sounds like Lamia. Thalia, Lamia, why didn’t I see this before? I’m terrified of snakes, please don’t.” (Lamia was a serpent that turned into a chick to get a guy)
“Aurora, I’m not Lamia. I’m the daughter of Zeus, do you not know of the nine daughters of Zeus?” she said calmly, her hands still on my forehead, her veins appeared, with thorns sticking all over her face. Just like my drawing.

Once more, a moment of silence occurred. “You’re a muse, aren’t you? For real?” I said softly, tracing the thorny veins up her white hands, her body was like a canvas for all my artwork, I saw the winged fetus I had drawn two weeks ago and a picture of earth being ripped apart by a chicken. I drew all of those about two to three weeks ago.

“Yes, Aurora, yes I am. And you are to help me save Cupid,” she spoke softly.
“Can you actually do that? How’s his body and everything?” I lit another stick, this was going to be a long day. “They did not burn him or anything, right?” the funeral was in three days.
“They put his vessel into cloth. Inside a box. I followed him and rested within his body for a moment to feel his heart,” she smiled faintly.
“Don’t tell me all that man, gross,” I sucked another cigarette; I needed to quit because my skin was looking more and more awful by the day. She looked as though she was going to choke to death.
“Will you come with me, to save him? Put his soul back into the vessel and allow us to live as happily as before?” she ran my hands over her face, feeling the pictures that were carved into her face and she looked scary, “I sing and you sketch dreams, I breathe and you sprout poetry. Without me…” she paused.
“I will cease to be,” I finished her sentence. I could not live without my mad sketches and poetry riddled with teenage angst. She knew it.

Chapter three

“Okay, so how do we get there?” I sat on a swing in the playground.
“Your spirit must depart from your body,” she smiled softly with those pink lips.
“So I have to die for your Ah Beng to live? He’s going to inhabit my body while you guys have the lesbian relationship?” it did not occur to me that she might have needed a mortal to do a soul trade.
“It will only be temporary. Your soul will return to your body and you will live as always,” she was digging a hole in the ground with her hands and ordered me to lie in there. “You will feel a shock, but do not break the silver rope that holds your body to your center,” she pointed to my belly button stud.
I nodded silently; I was scared out of my wits.

I closed my eyes and laid in the cold earth, the sky must have wept when Ah Beng died. The words of Edgar Allen Poe boomed in my head about being buried alive when I saw the earth being shoveled over my face and I felt my body splitting into two, like a cold shower. Then, I became a warm puddle of thick substance, vacuumed into the ground.

“We’re in Hades, Aurora,” Thalia’s hand was warm in mine, “I am ever grateful.”
“We seek Cupid, he bears the mark of Thalia,” she spoke softly to the guard of the boat, he was kinda cute, actually, except that there were tattered wings that hung limply and this black hole in his left cheek. There was misery in his gray, gray eyes.
“Wait,” I stopped her, “Tan Ah Beng, little Chinese dude, a bit clumsy. He bears the… what?” I turned to her.
“He has my mark, the mark of Zeus, everyone that the immortal touches shall leave a small drop of my blood within him,” she spoke softly. “He was a most gentle lover.”
“You made love to him? Ah Beng told me he was a virgin,” I was grossed out.
“Yes, one of the many lovers of the muse, he is within Styx,” the boatman pointed with a gnarled finger, there were fires reflected in his eyes.
“What must I do to retrieve him?” Thalia’s arms were encircled by his black wings.
“My lady muse, you must speak to his charge, I do not know,” the boatman dropped us off at this piece of blackened stone, surrounded by greenish sea with people floating slowly.

This is Hades.

I saw myself in the pool, my reflection staring back, and I had two faces, but both were inside my soul, I knew when I was a good person, who could help and love. There was also this other side, blackened by many years of smoking and lying so I would not get hurt. This scared me. Nothing terrified me more. A woman in red floated from the reflection.
“My child, mother can show you how you will meet your end. My eye can see where death shall enter your soul and eat you. Death will come like a lover for you, he will be gentle on a warm rainy night,” the old woman smiled charmingly.

I wanted to cry in fear. I did not like people talking about these kind of things. We kept a look out for Ah Beng but no Ah Beng floated out. I could not see him. There were no cigarettes in my pocket because they were still up in the physical world. That pissed me off.
“Proserpine, my immortal kin, I beg of you to help me,” she called upon the wife of Pluto, the beautiful one.

Proserpine did not appear, but a tiny butterfly did. It fluttered around wildly and since it was so pretty, I decided to follow it.
“Mortal you need to leave this place. Any further, you will surely face the destruction of your soul. Styx will pull you in,” Thalia faced me seriously, forgetting my false name altogether.
“Then why did you make me come, huh?” the woman speaking of my death still haunted me. “Is there nothing I can do?” I almost cried with helplessness.
“You must make a sacrifice, Sara,” she called me by my real name. I smiled.
“What kind of sacrifice? You are going to do that soul exchange, aren’t you?” I sighed.
“No. You must give up something great, that would make your life miserable,” she pointed to the mouth of Styx, the stream we had been traveling on was not the pool of souls quite yet.
“Tell me, then I will decide,” the fear was settling in, like a crow.

“You have to give up your ability to sketch your emotions and write of vengeance. You must give me up to eternity. I can no longer be a part of you, Sara,” she gently stroked my face, “All those that are inspired by the muse belong to her. You cannot belong to me any longer. This is your sacrifice, as it is mine,” there were cold tears running down her cheek.
“I cannot draw anymore? I won’t be able to write?” that did not seem that bad at the time, when I was thinking about death and rain.
“You will have my eternal gratitude, Sara,” Thalia kissed my cheek. “I will miss you, my little vessel of Apollo.”

Her teeth tore at my face like a tiger, scratching the skin off the bone and I felt something leave me, I heard the fluttering of wings and they left my body, beating wildly. They did not leave gently, but pricked my insides till I could taste the metallic blood in my mouth. Then, my entire throat and nose went numb. I woke up underneath the sand in the playground under a pale breathing moon.

The next morning, Ah Beng telephoned me, they had revived him after they heard knocking inside the morgue and he was in shock for the next five hours. After he regained consciousness, he telephoned me immediately. Crying softly into the speaker, thanking me for my sacrifice. I said ‘no big’, because it sure felt like nothing then.

Epilogue

His mother fainted when she saw Ah Beng alive once more. Thalia lived in a secret world, because I never saw her again. He told me that they were happy together because she takes him to Mount Helicon, a sacred mountain for the muses. I don’t think she realized it but the act must have made him partially immortal or something, because he changed a little. Just a little. He remembers his dreams. He even knows the most secret of my dreams.

“Thalia, your Cupid come home,” his voice was innocent, like a child.

Her silent tears were the last I ever saw of her. She clung to Beng as though she would never let him go, because he would float away in the river Styx once more. They vanish sometimes.

My art scholarship was revoked because I failed all five practical exams. I also stopped providing the magazine with articles because I blacked out.

I even stopped smoking. The thing I loved most.
Because I was numb for a long, long time.

A long story short, I flunked out of college and I had to start a business diploma from scratch because I could not draw any longer. It felt like someone hacked a pit within my skull after a while. There was no way for me to feel the blackened pencil lead flowing through my veins and see it lurching out on paper. Ah Beng and I still hung out. He told me stories of Gods and demons. And still danced on my table whenever I played ‘Crazy Frog’ on the stereo.

“Sara?” he looked meekly at me.
“Yes, Beng?” he was still as kind as he was before.
“I love you long time, old friend,” he placed his arms around my shoulder.
“I love you long time too, my dear. So much.”