The Path of Time

It was like every other day for Murugan. He gets up by 4.30 in the morning, has one slice of plain bread for breakfast along with a glass of warm water and he heads off to work. Works starts at 7.30 for him but he needs to leave home by 5.30 to catch the earliest bus to his workplace. It's a good 45 minutes bus ride for him because he rents a room at the outskirts of the city. Not that he wants a place so far but it's the best he can afford at a nice MYR30 a month with bathroom sharing. He reaches work about 6.45, gets to his locker, puts on his uniform and his signature Nike cap of which he bought with one year's saving. It was something he rewarded himself with after all the hard work he had put into his work. On top of that, he needed a cap to keep the sun from frying him whilst working. It was a pretty tiring job, having to wake up so early in the morning and work about 10 hours a day. It was never easy for him, hauling bags over his shoulder and piling them up into a s

Another person decided to leave the firm I work in. After 18 years with the firm, he finally threw in the towel. It was surprising to say the least because he didn't seem the type that would leave especially having spent a good half of his life in the firm. He was nice guy I first met about 3 years back when I first joined the firm. He was a funny guy and always cheerful every time I met him and there's was plenty of jokes when we had small talk in the lift, passing by in the loo or by the water cooler. His resignation did come as surprise even for the top brass. Corridor talk has it that he was never really a performer in the firm, wasn't someone you'd know for being very good at what he does. I guess after 18 years, some people need a change. At least that's what I thought. Not until I had a short conversation with him. I thought he had a better job offer somewhere out there. It was quite the opposite actually. "I heard you decided to leave. When's your

The alarm clock rang when the digital clock hit 6am in the morning. It was a cold, chilly, Saturday morning with a bit of rain when she looked out the window of her apartment. Gets out of bed, brushes her teeth, do a couple stretches and she heads down to the kitchen. Standing at the entrance of the house kitchen, Meg rolls up her sleeve, takes a deep breath and start rummaging the kitchen for all the ingredients she bought a couple of days ago to bake a cheese cake. Meg had been reading up on baking books for the past few weeks for this day. The day she would bake a cake for the guy she secretly had feelings for. Meg was anxious but all excited about it. She wanted to do something different for him this year compared to the typical birthday gifts. She wanted to make this year's birthday gift a memorable one for Ryan. It took Meg a good 5 hours to bake the cake. She really put her heart and soul into it. From her heart, her feelings for Ryan flowed into her soft, tender hands and f