The Broken Piece

November 5th 2007, 11pm.

The cat, with it's mouth full of blood, caught it's last breath. Kneeling on my knees next to it, deep in my heart a solemn prayer rang as I felt the last inch of life left the body.

For the past day it suffered on the no-man's-land on the 12th floor of the apartment my unit is, stuck in the tiny little space under the heat of the sun and the beatings of the cold rain. Should have it's calls not reach my ears, I wouldn't know it was there.

At first I tried to rescue it by tying one of my pails to a nylon string and hoped that it jumped in - but it wouldn't want to.

So I waited for a day - which is today - and went to it again. This time, hunger motivated it to catch this chance to jump.

But it had been something that couldn't avoided - that I did not expect the nylon used to carry the pail be that fragile. It must have taken it's toll, oxidising as the years kept in store flies by.

The cat was struggling it's last few breaths as I reached the ground floor. I carried it under the shades from the rain, and every weak moan it made for the pain strikes into my heart - but I knew I must at least hold it out and be beside it till the end.

It has been abandoned up there for long enough, after all. Saving a strand of time for it worths much more than it was paid for.

I tried to come up with a prayer but there was none I could remember. There was nothing I can do to it except to watch it pass away. One could say it died in my hands, but I know well that the blood did taint my hands, but it did not taint my heart - after all, I TRIED TO SAVE IT. Yet it was a string's length away, but so near yet so far. I was angry at myself for it too, but felt pointless to do so and decided to let that anger go.

Many walked by me, seeing a guy silently next to a cat, trying to figure out what's going on. But I told them to move on, as I don't want to have too many sympathetic eyes watching. Because, I am already occupied by a pair of eyes - the cat's blank stare was filled with pain and probably anguish, as if it was asking whether it itself had regret taking this choice of getting in the pail or not.

But Karma has such ways to bring people together. One of the guys came by and recognized the cat - apparently he has been feeding the cat for all these while. I took the chance to ask the guy to get me a box as the cat's final resting place. Shortly before the guy returned with a carton, the cat passed away, and I said my final prayers - for a better next life, and one day we might again, in better conditions perhaps - to it before placing the body in.

I had nowhere to place it's 'coffin', and even though the dumpster was the least favorable place that I want to put it, but I knew it has spent it's living days feeding and playing at that place. At least, let it feel it's familiar place just for once more...

As I wrote until here, I know well that all the bottled feelings throughout the whole incident had been placed in my words here. The song "Gentle Hands" has long stopped playing, and there is nothing much I can do now. Probably except to get a new pail to replace the broken one, and also to get a new objective in life to replace this broken piece of memory.

Mechas : Practical ?

For months and months AND months, whenever boredom hits the switch in my mind to "garbage-recycle-process" mode, the first thing that appears in my mind would be this bugger question :-

'How practical is a mecha, in terms of actual military application ?'

When I was a kid, I really like big giant robots - they are capable of demonstrating great strength, versatility and kickarse. But the process of growing up taught me that, nay nope it's impossible to build something like that in the first place.

I have left this issue to my left and right brain for discuss everytime this question kicks in, and none could came up with a clear answer for it. Here are some of the findings that were processed :-

(1) They are expensive to produce and maintain. Hell I can buy a whole panzer division with that, along with feeding the crew for months.

(2) They are quite delicate. Looks very to me. Just take out their arms and they are practically walking tin cans with the potential to become an iron coffin. Or just take out only ONE of their legs and they are truly tin cans.

(3) They are big and tall, so everyone sees them. I mean, it's not good if EVERYONE sees them. It's as if it carries an imaginary giant "HIT ME" sign whenever it goes. Also don't fit in small spaces, and mayors hate them.

(4) They fly. Yes, given the point that it's an advantage over ground units, but throwing in the 'bonus' of it being big, tall and obvious + extremely vulnerable blind spot at the back (where most of the time the jetpack is installed, ironically), it's suddenly not so much of an long-lasting advantage anymore.

(5) Some of them can actually transform. That's going into the treasurer's tab for extra research on how to fit all the parts from humanoid form to some vehicular form. And besides, it kinda beats the purpose of making it into a humanoid form if it has a vehicular form and still can perform combat equally.

(6) They were made to look cool and flashy. By far the only fact that sounds decent to me. Well, at it's own era the Spanish Armada looks cool and flashy too.

......

But that doesn't mean I despise mechas for being scrap metal or something - there are those that I actually find practical. Take, for instance, the design of the Landmates in Appleseed, which fantastically demonstrates great manueverability, speed and endurance, and can be deployed into various kinds of battle environments. If there's anything the government should invest into, it's that.

I guess it won't be that soon before we humans can come up with an actual one that's practical - we're still in the bomb-defusing bot era anyway. Maybe the aliens out there knows how, but if they invade us with that, I think we know how to deal with them now...