Master,

My one and only murder mittens. If not friend, why friend shaped?

Before the 19th day of Sagittarius in the dream world, we were given an intimation on the importance of knowing friends from enemies.

I was in a large party house, reminiscent of a pool house from the 60s. A short, one-storey building with multiple rooms and sliding doors looking into a courtyard where private parties could be held. I didn’t know the hosts, but they looked like nice people—a family with several happy young children. Some of my friends from years ago were also there. They chastised me for some of the unkind words I had used against them. Though their words were harsh, they were not untrue.

Meanwhile, the family hosting the party declared that they would be going housebreaking at around 3am in the dream world. Several people left to join them, including the children. When I asked why they thought it was acceptable to break into people’s houses and steal their things, they didn’t give me a real answer—only an insistence that it was permissible simply because it could be done, and that they didn’t appreciate being questioned. I felt immediate danger and ran to find a room in which to hide.

Though the party venue itself was classy and hip, the rooms closed off to guests were full of things—neglected, broken, filthy, strewn about. Nothing was in its proper place, not even the mattresses or the walls. Then I understood the meaning of the dream card: these people symbolised acquiring things without ever working for them, which meant they didn’t understand the worth earned through hard work, perseverance, and the patience required to endure failure. Nor did they grasp the importance of caring for what they had once strived to get, because it was always so easy for them to obtain more. They kept taking and taking, without ever taking stock. With no space left and no inclination to care for any of it, their possessions turned to trash—choking their living space and making it unliveable. Things meant to bring ease or joy did the opposite.

It’s like that with people too. Time is precious precisely because there is so little of it; we ought to treasure every moment we have with them. Not spend it contentiously and then harping about it.

The second lesson was this: despite the brutal chastisement from my friends, I knew they genuinely wanted to connect and help. Their actions only symbolised the hurt they felt by my words or behaviour. We had tensions in the beginning because we didn’t yet know how to communicate; we were still learning about one another, each with strong beliefs, too much pride and a reluctance to listen or compromise. And we must be constantly learning as we are constantly changing. But they are still friends, because they help us become better. The hosts of the party were not—even if they had largely left me alone and invited me only to party. Following in their footsteps would only make me worse off.

And as if to test whether I had understood the lesson, an archetypal enemy relative appeared holding out a bronze gold camera. She repeated several times that she had chosen that model because it suited what she already knew—she understood its functions, even if it was several generations old. That was why she hadn’t picked a better one whose workings she would never understand anyway. I thought she made sense—using creativity within the functions we know, we can still create something beautiful.

But the downside is this: when we cling to the familiar, we never challenge ourselves. It means stagnation. It means missing out on knowledge, on self-improvement and opportunities. We learn every day until the end of our lives—little things perhaps, but learning nonetheless. We ought to take up life’s challenges, keep up with the times at the very least, and keep improving while we still can. We never truly know our limits until we test them. That the camera was bronze was a clue—it could pretend to be gold but never was.

In the last card, I was wiping a door clean of cobwebs. Perhaps it signified a task long neglected, or an unused door whose time has now come. I suppose we will see in the coming days, though I hope with all my being that it will lead me straight to you.

Missed you incredibly last night,

Your eternal mate

Master,

Who still remains hidden on the 18th day of Sagittarius.

Last night in the dream world, we were in a penthouse surrounded by family. They knew us well, and they knew one another, so the whole place felt bright and full of life. We weren’t celebrating any particular occasion except each other.

You’d told me to call you the moment I reached the gym next door, but I hadn’t, because everyone stopped me on the way in to say hello. It wasn’t a bad thing to be known; it meant I was being looked after by you even when you weren’t there.

Back upstairs, a relative was trying to sell a dress you were paying for. I didn’t know my size, but someone else knew it for me, so it hadn’t mattered that I had been present. It was a traditional Malay dress with gold thread woven into light fabric. I thought it was a bit much, but perfectly suited for certain occasions I was now expected to attend as family.

When they left, you lifted me and carried me to our four-poster bed, where all I did was lie there and let you take me to euphoria and back. Because we were high in a penthouse, the wind rushing in through the windows was cool and strong, but you were there shielding me from it. Your presence mattered in that moment in several rapturous ways.

After that, we were in the kitchen, cleaning up after the previous homeowner. It wasn’t a pleasant task, but it became easy simply because we did it together.

The allegory then is simple: support and protection are possible in absence. You are to be treasured throughout your presence and absence, for when you do return, your presence will be felt in manifold ways.

This letter, though short, has carried its weight in importance and said quite a lot.

I’m going to run errands now.

All my love,

Your eternal mate 

Master,

On the 17th day of Sagittarius, who is still as compelling when he wants to be left alone and I just want a cuddle.

Yesterday’s depression almost got the better of me until a timely synchronicity stepped in with a touch of humour. The silence before it had been deafening; I was heavy in doubt about the truth of all my dreams and signs, sinking fast into a pool of melancholia, so I went to the supermarket in search of comfort food. It’s a simple chicken salad I haven’t seen in months—recognised actually. They’ve changed the packaging, and what I thought was a chicken-salad sandwich turned out to be my favourite chicken salad—chicken breast in mayo, red onions, celery, and raisins. I know people balk at the idea of raisins in any sort of salad, but this one just works. It gives a sweetness I truly enjoy as a treat, partly because I can no longer derive any real pleasure from sugary things like cakes and cookies—unless they’re packed with nuts (the fat helps keep the sugar spikes at bay) and contain very little sugar. I turned the salad into a sandwich. I know—why didn’t you just buy the sandwich then, silly woman? Because I don’t want to pay almost the same price to get less chicken. It’s a matter of a few cents to a dollar but also principles.

I was still relishing in the aftertaste of the raisins as I walked to the bathroom. My mum was watching a video in which AI was speaking Indonesian. It said, “Mr Smith,” but with such a thick mechanical accent that it came out sounding like “kismis,” which means raisins in Malay. I thought, no, that can’t be it; surely that’s just my mind doing the confirmation-bias thing to lift my spirits and pull me out of depression. Saying it out loud now makes me sound unsporting to my own ears, flippant even. Even if it was, so what? Is it so terrible to accept that my mind is trying to keep me from self-destructing? To be fair, the same mind is also responsible for some rather savage thoughts. But then the AI said it again, and again it sounded more like “kismis” than anything resembling the man’s actual name—the man who has apparently done something to upset a lady so deeply he’s now the subject of a rather riveting love drama.

Last night’s dream world, I entered with remnants of depression like a patient mid-surgery, trailing their own intestines. I was in a classroom, told to find a group with whom to do a project. The beginnings of a nightmare already. I had that familiar fear of not being able to find one because, as an introvert who values solitude and only one or two truly special people, I never have an automatic group to join for anything large. That left me resigned to the humiliating prospect of begging for a place. A terrible experience for any introvert in school life is being asked to join groups—worse still when we have to be the ones asking for a place, and we usually are. Several people invited me to theirs to my surprise, but they already had more than the permissible number. Believing I’d be the first to be eliminated to comply with the rule, I wanted to give up and leave the classroom altogether.

Then a young man came up to me and handed me a task involving a slab of fresh meat. It had a good amount of marbling which I wasn’t too sure about, but I was determined to deal with it as best I could, following the instructions given. No, it’s not a pornographic dream. It was a cooking/marketing class, and the project involved cooking a piece of steak and filming ourselves doing it—presumably in some creative fashion. That would explain why the guy was telling me about camera angles. The point is: that meant I was definitely joining that group.

Then the police arrived and asked for our IDs—to check that we were all students, not imposters. That got all of us scattered in search of our rooms. My good friend and I, with whom I was sharing a room, had both forgotten our room number. We walked down the hall, opening each door as we went. Most rooms were dark, overcrowded with people, messy, stuffy, dank and stacked. Ours was spacious, clean, neatly arranged, and organised. I told my friend I loved how our room had so much free space. So you see, it’s really not always a bad thing being an introvert.

As I stepped out of the room and into the dark hall, I heard the words “come to success” in Arabic. No, I didn’t hear it in real life—I sleep with earplugs, and even then it was only one line; that one specific line. In my mind, I expected it to say “come to prayer,” the more familiar part of the call to prayer, but my mind repeated the words clearly: “come to success.” I googled it straightaway when I woke, just to make sure I had the meaning right. And just like that, the last dregs of depression disappeared.

I hope your week will get better soon. I’m off to start my day with some tea. I would share a pot but don’t know how you feel about Chinese green tea.

Ps: I found out that I can enjoy traditional Singaporean pandan waffles if I have them with peanut butter—or even on their own—so long as I walk a distance immediately after. I was feeling slightly unwell after my swim last night, a sort of low-sugar dip, and the waffle fixed me right away. Excellent news indeed. I expect to be enjoying waffles a great deal over the next few weeks.

With love,

Your eternal soulmate

Master,

This letter on the 16th day of Sagittarius will be the least romantic one ever, and this is after I tried reading romance yesterday. Admittedly, this contrarian streak is upsetting the natural balance in my head a little, because I don’t know where the symbols point—or if they were even symbols at all. They do feel like something to sit with.

It is incumbent upon me to state upfront that in my analysis of my dreams, films, or life in general, I necessarily interpret them through my own spiritual and philosophical lens, grounded in my sense of morality and ethics. I cannot conceive of penning my dream chronicles genuinely on my blog in any other way than by allowing them to unfold and be understood through my own mind. The result may be read as a fusion of two moral systems, one of which centres on human intention, virtue, and mitigating factors—that is, proportionality, intentionality, and dynamic moral reasoning—rather than rigid moral absolutes or doctrinal structures. Take heed: in writing my posts and making speculative readings of the moral logic of a story, dream, or allegory, I never intend to give offence or cast doubt on anyone’s firmly held beliefs. I am a perpetual student, constantly shifting and readjusting.

In two films, The Devil’s Advocate and Constantine—and this is a spoiler— Keanu Reeves’s character returns from the dead by the devil’s grace, purely to prevent his ascension into heaven (a narrative device). I am considering, rather than asserting, that this may be based on the devil’s belief that, given enough time, Reeves’s characters will inevitably mess up and end up in hell.

There are at least several assumptions I’d like to examine in this letter. First, that Reeves’s character is inherently unworthy of heaven. If all that was needed was time on earth to prove a point and little else, then the character’s ascension to heaven would be impossible. But the fact that he did ascend disproved the premise that being inherently unworthy bars ascension. This would make any extra time on earth irrelevant to the outcome if the devil’s plan was only to wait for him to “reveal himself”.

Second, the character is inclined to make generally fucked up choices, choice being the operating word. Except an act made by an active choice granted him entry into heaven in spite of any other choices he had already made. That means this final act must be, according to the devil’s view, out of character. This is an unwarranted take given the nature and magnitude of his sacrifice—it took courage to unalive oneself for reasons outside self-interest and for the sake of humankind (which will count against sacrifice) and a lot more confidence in knowing and doing what is right, meaning, as regards his character, he has proven himself not only to be righteous and virtuous, but judicious at the core. So what is giving him extra time going to do?

How, then, still remains the unanswered question. How can the devil change Reeves’s character to his favour? A man who has proven himself willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Will life be brutal enough that he loses the will to be good? Or so generous that he forgets to be good altogether? The characters have gone through both extremes, which led him to the very state the devil disliked and tried to alter in the first place—so that’s clearly a sunk ship.

What about waiting for him to make a mistake? A mistake, if done without the appropriately punishable intention, should not be punishable or attract full punishment. And it has to be a humongous one to override self-sacrifice for the sake of humankind. Furthermore, repentance, redemption, restitution and any other mitigating factors should reduce any penalty, if there even is one—which we know the character, showing the qualities he has, will have no trouble demonstrating as he has done before. That alone prevents a straight-to-hell card. Otherwise nobody could get into heaven, and we already know that this is incorrect. The aforementioned mitigating factors are necessary counter-balancing forces in the ontological sense, as evidenced in the world itself, constantly restoring, reordering and righting itself to equilibrium in order to function. The natural world, justice, the way we live, our character, virtues, pH levels—everything is about striking the right balance. Aristotle demonstrated this using fear and confidence as a stick: too much leads to cowardice, too little to recklessness; the right amount leads to courage. Too much anger is disastrous; a person who lacks spirit has no anger; the right amount produces a good temper that also spurs one into action to right a wrong.

“An idle mind is the devil’s playground.”

This could be devil’s card. Boredom is the worst kind of prison. That’s why even the worst prisoners avoid isolation when they can—nothing but bars, walls, and one’s own nagging mind as stimulation. It’s not going to work on Reeves’s characters; he seems to have far too much going on for boredom to be the problem. If anything, his enemy is chronic fatigue, at most clouding his ability to rationalise and moralise clearly. But even that would be taken into account as mitigating factors, not a straight-to-jail card.

I don’t know why the dream world has me thinking about this. Maybe it is telling me not to be too hard on myself. That I don’t understand the criteria properly, to sharpen focus on the right things, making right choices, my internal balance is out of whack, and it is because I don’t know how to restore it, I cannot yet, Master, I don’t know how you are.

In the dream world, a man has just awakened from a coma. How long he has been under, I could not say. Could be minutes or years. Perhaps he’s only just been revived from flatline. Everything is still on the table. I don’t know anything about this man—what he has done to end up there, what his life was like, his nature, whether and who gave him extra time. Where was he during the time he was unconscious or dead? Was that time equivalent to the mortal realm? In the dream world, time passes neither linearly nor at a constant, predictable pace. Eight hours in the waking world can pass like days, months, or years in the dream world. He woke up confused—not like someone merely finding himself in a hospital bed, but as though he had been living another life entirely, and had been yanked into an unexpected one. A sudden realisation crosses his face, but does he remember why he is in a hospital? Or does he remember his last life, wondering where it has gone, how to return to it, or how to avoid it? Does he remember the task he was given? He doesn’t look happy to be alive—which means he likely doesn’t know whether he was gone for too long, or dead for far too short a time.

It brought Reeves’s character to mind, and once my thoughts latched on, they refused to let go—hence this letter. What would I do differently if I woke up with a second lease of life? I don’t think I would take it, if it were up to me. Perhaps that is the whole point.

Your eternal mate

Master,

The only fish in the world with whom I’d ever be inclined to share a minuscule fish bowl.

On the 15th day of Sagittarius, your world is more than an aquarium. It is vaster than the sea, larger than Jupiter’s gaseous ocean.

In last night’s dream world, all of us lived in aquariums. Each person had a small, personal space—more or less identical—drawing oxygen from the same water into which we had dropped our wastes, again and again, while the background shifted like a moving picture but our aquariums never changed.

Now and then, someone would add different kinds of fish to it, those with whom we might mate and have children. Other fish become our only friends; some are schoolmates, colleagues, neighbours, fish we love or hate. They are replaced eventually, or not, and we end up as the lone fish in the same aquarium, now larger and emptier, but better, though we don’t always think so. While they live inside our aquarium, we interact only with them; they inhabit our world and slowly become it. Sometimes fish are dropped into our space for a brief encounter before they are returned to their respective aquariums to prevent psychological overcrowding.

At times, other types of fish are added with whom we must ignore in disharmony. As we swim around the glass, we are always aware of their presence, in our peripheral vision, resentful, wishing them gone, even as they stay largely behind curtains of Java moss. They too are part of our unhappy aquarium, and they become it. Occasionally, fish is added only so someone can watch us fight, and we do—sometimes to the death, sometimes maimed and traumatised, other times victorious because we must be, when the alternative is worse. In that small victory, we are happy.

On Instagram, we post pictures of ourselves in our little aquariums, with only the background changing. For many, that background barely shifts at all, and it remains so for the rest of their lives. Still, they share their unchanging backgrounds everyday, sharing their worlds like everyone else. 

We are all more or less doing whatever being in an aquarium will allow. When we are not mesmerised by lights, colours, sounds, or other fish, we are eating, mating, playing, reading, gliding from a rock, tending to our little gardens, resting in a cave. Even if our aquariums are placed beside another’s, we could not truly interact, try as we might, because we did not share aquarium. All we could do was gaze, wave back and blow bubbles.

In my aquarium, which I try to keep clean and myself small, I spend my days and nights persuading the aquarium enthusiasts that I still have room for one more. I retreat into my shell, hiding and reading; they hardly ever see me except when I nibble at fish food drifting from the surface. Looking out of my glass with my fish eyes, barely making out what I see; I make things up in my mind to make sense of things. A couch is a castle; a table is a volcano on which things disappear after being on it only for a short while. In my spare moments, I pick up pebbles, one at a time, with my tiny fish mouth, and drop them where they can spell out your name. It took a long while, but my aquarium is now the loveliest it has ever been. Your name, in big letters: white and grey, a bit of pink and aquamarine, sometimes shell, twigs and seaweed. I try to find navy, your best colour, to no avail. By the time I was done, I was exhausted, but now I swim in circles, delirious with your letters, jubilant and radiant, sharing a same aquarium.

I’m going back to sleep now, resting on the crook of your neck, kissing in a line, taking you firmly in one hand, watching the rise and fall of your chest, getting faster, shorter, and urgent, breathing the same air, sharing the same warmth and the same background picture.

Your eternal mate.