Bitter-sweet flavor of the king

I am starting (typing) this post with my left hand cause my right hand, my mouth and the rest of my peripheral senses are busy tearing yellow flesh from seed. It’s amazing how these small things, hidden underneath the cover of hideous monstrous-looking thorn-laden fruits, can have such an impact on one. As I tussled over yet another one of its seeds (the last one), I feel honored and glad that such a fruit should only be found in the tropics; in the places where the sun always shine and snow is nothing but artificial shavings and dry ice.

What’s so amazing (and disgusting to some) about the durian (shucks it’s not even in the MS word dictionary) fruit is its smell. It is often so powerful that it lingers, like on the tips of your fingers, your breath, your burp and even your fart. To some Asians and most Caucasians, durians are worse than cigarettes (true to a certain extent since cigarette smell only lingers on your fingers, clothes and breath). To them, it is like the epitome of evil and foul, and the appearance of the fruit itself often bears testimonial to that as well. But after shaking it, smelling it well, distinguishing it and carving it open with a chopper, you will realize that it’s not that evil after all. Fellow durian lovers will understand the emotions involved when a row of neatly arranged yellowish looking, plump fruits greet you once you get beyond their cover. You will smile, “awww” in delight together with your gang, before dipping your finger down under to taste the bitter sweet flavor you are so accustomed to. You feel victorious.

Someone should start a band called Durian Durian. I bet the fans will be “hungry like the wolf”.

To me, life’s often like this as well. Challenges often await you: no, they would not appear soft and cuddly as marsh-mellows or sweet-tasting desserts; they would manifest in the form of ugly, foul smelling durian fruits, purging your senses till you surrender. But if you put the smell and the sight beyond, and go for the kill, the lethal blow that will break your challenge (and your durian), you will actually see the fruits of your labor, those little yellow seeds, and they will be all the more sweeter in your mouth since you have bruised and bled as you clawed past their thorns.

I think I could have written a thesis on durians and life but this is roughly enough for a blog post.

Anyway, J. K. Rowling’s last book for her magical wizard and friends are back in bookstores. I am not an avid fan of wizardry, and of boys and girls involved in magic and broomsticks, but I do admire her for her perseverance (after all she’s the richest woman in U.K. now). I read a story on another blog about a teenage girl that committed suicide after reading a bogus version of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows online. That version obviously ended in a very different ending as the actual intended, and had caused the girl to suffer from depression and to take her own life eventually. I don’t exactly know how true that is, but my point is:

Always buy the original book. Don’t read pirated stuff.

That’s all for today. And my keyboard smells of durian now.

~ by mortasins on July 22, 2007.