The Weight Of The World

So, hypothetically... imagine this: It is twenty years in the future, and we have no more petrol. Yes, we have invented the cars that run on hydrogen or electricity but there is nothing to power the planes.

The whole world, as globalised as it is, will require each individual to decide on one continent to remain in for the rest of their lives.

Would you choose: i) where you're currently living in or ii) to go back where you were originally from or iii) to move to a new continent altogether to start a new life.

You have one choice. Your time starts now.

Random Memories: Nine Years Old

I remember one evening when I fell asleep on the couch downstairs while watching G.I. Joe. I don't know how I did it, but I fell asleep on my right side, and my right ear had folded onto itself.

When I woke up, my right ear was blocked. I couldn't hear out of it at all. I told this to Mum, and she told me to go and get something to try and clean out my ears.

Being the sophisticated household that we were, we didn't have cotton buds as such, so I improvised by tearing a small piece of cotton and wrapping it around a toothpick.

I valiantly attempted to clear my ears then but with little effect. I persisted at it, but my mind was wandering elsewhere at the same time, and I saw my brother reading an Archie comic on the couch. I crawled up behind him on the head of the couch and was reading the exploits of Jughead over my brother's shoulder, my head tilted to my right, when I inadvertently pushed three quarters of the toothpick into my ear.

I pulled it out as quick as I could, and bits of cotton came out with it, but suddenly I developed this throbbing noise in my ear. I panicked and told Mum, who wasn't too pleased with me.

A church auntie had to take me to see an ENT specialist a few days later. I remember the doctor whipping out a chart of the otitis externa (outer ear) and trying to explain to her where the toothpick would have gone, and why I'm hearing this throbbing in my ear, and how there was nothing that he could do at that stage.

It took a whole year to improve, this throbbing in my right ear.

Sometimes, in the early morning when I was standing in the school bus, too tired to start the day, and hanging on for dear life at the same time, I would close my eyes and hear the rhythmic throbbing, and imagine a cute little teddy bear riding a choo-choo train in my ear. This is exactly how the bear looked like in my mind's eye. Freaky.