Arteri is communal enterprise – meaning it doesn’t make any money (yet! We live in hope, etc.)  – about sharing our shared interests. And something that interested at least three of us was the following fun project, which debuted at last weekend’s Art for Grabs: Assembly Yr Own Story!

Zedeck Fadzil wrote the stories (in his very own handwriting);

Sharon Siew drew the corresponding pictures (with her very own color pencils);

And Fahmi Chin made the neat envelopes to put them in (using awesome manila card).

There were 3 stories, all linked by the color green. Text and images were sold individually, so that people could ‘assembly their own story’. We took orders and had a little printer chugging out prints under the table.

Because Sharon and Zedeck are disorganised, last-minute panickers, we didn’t really present the works in a way that did justice to our brill choose-your-own-adventure ideal. So, to absolve ourselves of such shoddy execution, a fun competition!

HOLD YOUR OWN ASSEMBLY AND WIN-SOME ART!

This is chance for you to win a complete set of archival, limited edition, signed and dated re-prints. This is ARTERI’s first WIN-SOME ART contest.

Using any combination (at least two) of the 11 illustrations, create your own story of not more than 600 words. Send the story to zedecksiew AT gmail DOT com. The author of the bestest story (determined by Fahmi, Sharon and Zedeck) will receive a full set of Assembly Yr Own Story reproductions, PLUS the text of his / her / its story, hand-written! (Obviously, we’ve got amazing handwriting.) Also, the winning entry will be published right here, on ARTERI!

This contest post will be pinned for a week. The closing date: 20 June 2009. (Try lah, huh?)

Below are the three stories, with their corresponding images. Click for embiggening.

~~~

Story 1  is about a boy who turns green:

One day, my friend woke up and discovered that he had turned green.

Not the median hue of a healthy tree’s leaves, or the colour of a fashionable lime dress; not those kinds of conventionally pretty greens.

He had turned the green of a bag of Gardenia wholemeal bread.

Ngam ngam!

It was going to be an extraordinary day. He couldn’t wait to have breakfast, so he dashed down the stairs and ran straight into his mother, who fainted without much need for reflection.

~

This was because my friend had turned green, the green of a plastic toy animal, with a skin in a colour that did not occur in nature, as its manufacturer had wanted to save costs and expose thousands of working-class children to mild toxic poisoning.

My friend’s mother, who had an imagination entirely improper for her age, immediately assumed that the creature descending the stairs was a kind of alien entity, a giant intelligent reptilian from Alpha Draconis that came to war on the human race, bearing a multitude of alien toxins on its skin like a tree-frog.

She thought she was a goner.

~

My friend, being the non-filial twenty-something he was, ignored his stricken mother and set upon the nearest pantry cupboard. He opened it and found a loaf of bread, wrapped upside down to protect it from becoming stale. The packaging was green, the exact shade as him!

Mm!

~

Halfway through chewing his first bite, my friend finally realised that the delicious wholemeal slice would not – of course not, idiot – have been the same colour as its striking container.

It does not seem likely that his hoped-for morning of uncannily happy coincidences would come to pass, after all.

Idiot.

Also, there were only two pieces of bread left, and the fridge had run out of milk.

So my friend very quickly stopped being happy that he had turned green.

~~~

Story 2 is about a young man going to pray:

GOD decreed: Let it be dark and still. And so it was.

A familiar situation, around here – so Mohamad Aziz is quite comfortable with riding his bike out of the street’s last pool of light. 500 metres of black before him, and above the oil palms he makes out a hint of the surau compound.

As is typical for such nights, there is a vampire-head gliding over the tree-tops, in silhouette.

It is the night before Friday, a night of supernatural mischief-making and formal jousts between good and evil. Aziz continues on, moon-on-green-field flag jerking behind him less vigourously now, his engine stuttering like bumps on the dirt.

The bike lamp overlays swinging shadows on the vegetation.

~

Soon he slows down, dismounts, and leans the flag pole on a pillar.

The bilal says: It’s almost eleven, Ziz. Why so late?

Sorry Pak Man, lecture tonight at the hall, Aziz says, unscrewing a tap. I was in-charge of the mikes and speakers, so had to return and all. No time; now only I will do compound prayers.

See what I warned you? the bilal says. We must consider which one is best for us, for ourselves. Religious party is it, but easy only they let you miss prayers. No different for the other one.

Not their fault, Pak Man. I was lazy only, I couldn’t bother, Aziz answers, flicking his hands dry. You want to go home? I can lock up.

Remember what I said, Ziz, the bilal says. He hikes up his sarong. Soon the revving recedes, leaving Aziz alone again.

Not entirely alone, of course: GOD watches at all times.

~

GOD watches Aziz scratch his groin, then place his feet together and hold his arms. What supplications and negotiations that transpire afterwards is a private thing between them. Onlookers would be polite to turn away.

One unrepentant observer is punished by carelessness, and so loses its balance.

There is a flash of light that briefly overwhelms everything else, and a thunderous crash, and a ball of fire that that blows in the window panes and rattles the entire building. When the tumult dies, the surau sags a little to the left.

Aziz peeks out the door for a look-see.

Hello, hisses the creature, Ssssorry about that.

~

It is a scaly biped, and stands in front of flying saucer stuck edge-wise into the ground.

Aziz tries to decide which he finds more terrifying, the alien or its craft, but finally settles on screaming in reaction to both.

The creature looks back at his flying saucer, a little bewildered. It is a large round thing, made of indeterminable white alloy, the damage of impact causing a spew of space-faring fuel. Greenish vapours rise, already beginning to form a sort of fog.

To GOD – who, by nature, enjoys far-fetched metaphor – the stricken vehicle resembles the moon, in an emerald vacuum. Idly He wonders, in His omniscience, whether Aziz shares such imagination, and whether  this encounter may eventually affect the young man’s faith in political process.

And, while the sight of a cowering son is worth some pity, there is little God can do to intervene.

The creature draws a tool from its vest, sets it to Stun, and sighs. We avert our eyes.

~~~

Story 3 is about a guy getting lost in suburbia:

He makes several left turns before finally admitting he is utterly lost. It is an impenetrable neighbourhood, with streets that wind without signage, and houses that – even though no two facades are identical – fade into a memory of indistinguishably prosperous terraces.

There are three women jogging down this slope, and he picks the one with the bob-cut to ask for directions. “Kaffir Lime Road? I think I know where that is,” she says.

If he was a certain kind of person he might have noticed a bead of sweat break free from her hairline. “You keep going up this road, and then it will be a right at the lights.”

He would have watched it slip down the left side of her neck – if he was that kind of person.

There are no road-signs because banners and slogans from the general election still hide them. The road curves left, with branches to the right, but he doesn’t take the turn until he comes to traffic lights.

~

“You’re a riot!” he remembers her shouting. Sweat plastered bangs to her forehead. She asked him to buy her a drink, and he watched the muscles in her neck strain from their clavicle as she leaned across the bar to order something that was mixed with taurine.

She snatched the five-ringgit note from the cashier, crumpled and tossed the receipt, and asked him for a pen. “Tell me you have one,” she said. He did. She returned his five ringgit with her cellphone number scribbled across the monarch’s eyes.

“How am I going to use that now?” he asked. It was election day, tomorrow – that’s why everyone was out.

She drained her glass and offered him her mouth. “We aren’t going home together tonight, because I want you to call me,” she said.

Before he coul respond she was kissing him again. He tasted the bitterness of alcohol on his lips, and this sensation did not leave him.

~

A green light. Now there is a block of luxury apartments on one side of the street, and semi-detached homes on the other. A middle-aged woman walking her Alsatian informs him that this is Clove Flower Road, directs him to retrace his steps, and wishes him luck. He cannot dismiss the notion that her smile is knowing.

It is ten-thirty in the morning, and housewives are taking the hour for themselves. He half-hears the grey-haired lady in tights complain about the clutter these tattered campaign posters are making.

She tells him that he has turned into Kaffir Lime Alley 4. Kaffir Lime Road itself was further forward, and at the second turning on the left. This turns out to be a fairly extended drive: as the road curves left and down, he glances at a panorama filled with double-storey houses, the rows undulating with the hills.

There is a block of shops – cafes and closed wine bars – and another set of lights. The window of a red sedan that pulls up beside him rolls down. “Hey. Hey: Jon, right?”

He cannot remember this woman’s name.

~

“Yes, I remember,” she said. He recalled hearing a dog barking in the background. “I was wondering when you’d call.”

He asked her why – if she was really so eager – she didn’t call him instead. She said she enjoyed playing a customary role in these things. “Come and meet me. We’ll spend the night, this time.”

He felt uneasy at such presumption, and wasn’t surprised that this excited him. He reminded her that she barely knew him. He could be a freak, or violent – thugs and sexual predators infested the city these days. He could date-rape her. He could have a three-inch penis. Or two. Or a tail.

“You’re worried about me? That’s sweet,” she said.

After their first evening together she told him she was engaged. He left a bite mark on her inner left thigh, and thanked her for the privilege. After their second evening together she gave him her address, and told him that her fiance would be in Japan for two weeks.

“57 Kaffir Lime Road,” she repeated, as she got dressed to leave. “Come on Friday morning, after ten. We’ll leave a stain on his new massage chair.”

~

The lights turn green and Karina, the woman in the other car, drives off. In their brief conversation, he has learnt several things: he had licked her middle finger two nights ago; he has, once again, arrived at the wrong junction; he did not have Karina’s phone number.

He does now, because it is prudent to keep his social options open.

He makes an illegal U-turn and drives back up the hill, watching out for an alley-turning on his right. The clock on the dashboards tell him that he has been driving around for half an hour.

On the corner he sees a made-up woman in an air-stewardess’s kebaya place her drag-along luggage in the boot of a luxury German car. The road ahead tilts downwards.

He slows to a stop when he sees three women jogging up the slope. The one closest to him has a bob, and soon pauses, holding her knees and catching her breath. He watches the sheen on her heaving back for a while.

He fingers his five-ringgit note, kisses the king’s face, and worries that he is in love.

~~~

There were also four mock-Art History entries, corresponding to the illustrations of Story 1. Like so:

~~~

Money-grubbing postscript: Reproductions of Assembly Yr Own Story are still on sale. Ask us about it.

(SC & ZS)