Coins and wealth they imply…

This is my first ‘wisdoms’ post in many weeks. Lately, I was talking coin collecting and how different countries issue different styles of coinage. My theory is that the form these takes underlines the way the country derives its income / revenue / GDP etc.

For example, the American Quarter is (from appearances) cheaply struck and crammed with text and details. My specimen even has a rim of coppery material uncovered by the nickel outer coat but it is neat tho.

Then there are countries which issue aluminum alloy(?) coins like China’s 1 Yuan. It feels like plastic and may be plastic, IDK.

Malaysia used to have a 1 Ringgit coin which was well-designed but tended to tarnish easily with handling. It was somehow soon discontinued and replaced with a plastic 1RM note which unfortunately tears too easily.

The powerhouse of coinage (to my mind) is the UK whose former 1 Pound coin was a stout and proud standard bearer of their former empire. It was usually untarnished even after much circulation. Under financial pressures, the Royal Mint introduced a new, bimetallic hi-tech 1 pound. This indicates the status of London as a trusted financial hub.

Contrasting, is the US, whose coins look dated and a little cramped / squarely designed. A country with much symbolism and Masonic roots. A spiritual nation where paying sometimes means less than a generous tip.

Back to my country of residence, Malaysia. If I may comment a little bit, it seems that coins are being ‘eaten’ from the bottom up as well as the top down. 1 sen gone, 1RM gone, 5 sen seemingly regarded as worthless. What’s next, 10 sen too? Will people pay by the half Ringgit in the near future?

Like China, Malaysia is fast adopting e-payments in an effort to command people’s purchasing power after the 1MDB debacle saddled the country with massive debts. Newly introduced taxes on the rich and middle classes combined with a generous new minimum wage and significant inflation mean that efficiency is paramount. That the government is using the country’s / rakyat’s collective savings to offset a redistribution of wealth -the Madani initiative. 

The face of the Ringgit may soon be forgotten and with it the identity of a nation and its financial role in the globalized world. 

Fiction: Inexact Science (chapter 7)

7

Marjorie tapped on the armrest of the Asian-made light passenger jet as it made its approach to Lhasa airport. A small cup of complimentary flower tea in her left hand. She emerged into the thin Tibetan air. The sunshine was deceptively mild, belying the UV pouring out of the bright blue sky. She thought of Gracie and Saim -the only Asians she knew. Both bested her mentally. But here in Tibet, she would meet those more gentle and righteous in their simplicity. Down history, the more men tried to achieve, the more they offended one another.

He awoke in the embrace of the girl he found the night before. Reflex, he checked his damaged finger. Its ring spring was missing. 

I was afraid it might scratch while we slept.

I’m most grateful, he replied as confidently as he could.

She handed it to him from off her study desk and he slipped it back on, relieved.

Why are men harder first thing in the morning? She toyed with him playfully. There was a lilt to her voice as to her linguistics. Soup in China was still soup, just served with porcelain spoons. Californian sunshine could be bought by the bottle at any winery. The chowmein takeout girl had a better complexion and bigger boobs but his freshman, her crackly black horsetail hair and skin like powdered sugar dried melon, after you licked off the sugar, she smelt of his Mom’s coat cabinet on a Summer’s day, pressed into his back and it felt like being hugged by left-out, half-eaten milk candy, He turned her puffy face, and their salve mingled, sweet as mallows.

In the nerve center of the inexact war machine, carved deep under an unspecified mountain, Frederick and Matthew were shown the e-bomb.

Nobody sees the bomb and leaves this base alive, warned the colonel, dead serious. Until we win this war.

We were told it was a mass emotion manipulating device.

That’s not a lie. What else do you know?

Frederick and Matthew shrugged, that’s all.

It really is a bomb, the colonel explained, but one that feeds on hearts. It destroys everything unholy -and we know many Chinese were / are greedy and unscrupulous. The moral superiority of the West will tip in our favor. That is the inexact Science of the weapon. It feeds on our hearts too.

It’s like balancing two elephants on a see saw, Frederick told Matthew. One of them gets nervous, then… kapow!

The colonel nodded.

Where’s the kid?

He’s in Kunming.

Already?

Well, it’s up to him to keep the inexact time. Frederick felt like they were rolling dice on the Chinese -the military top brass and political bigwigs. Dice with millions of sides while Seth, up-front flipped a coin -heads or tails. That they presumed to know the answer to. Reverse random prediction. Would their gamble pay off?

Her name was Ri (pronounced ‘Rherr’) and she studied guitar at Kunming University. Also the PiPa. Her group of musician friends treated him to black coffee and sweet bean-filled biscuits.

What’s the latest from the West?

They’re planning an attack and it was to be through me. I ran away. I’m not sure why.

It’s because of this, I reckon, one said, pointing out his finger spring. Tell us about it. It’s Asian-made is it not?

Seth related the sequence of events, how he was seemingly betrayed by Gracie, how she and Saim Ye left him to suffer -the American Asian trainers. Then how an Asian engineer repaired him with inexact physics.

We’re trying to avoid a confrontation too, Ri said.

But once the machines press behind me, I’m afraid it will be too late.

That must be why you are here.

Marjorie began to understand what Gracie and Saim had done. How they pushed Seth forward, gave him hard lessons and threw him off the deep end. Granted, he was fine aside from his still-healing finger which apparently was sprained when he saved her life. And he was wiser for it -she felt so. This threw wide open the war plans. Maybe it was safer that way. Maybe Asians truly only wanted peace, prosperity. Seth would do the right thing -he had self pride and that doesn’t go away overnight.

That afternoon, Seth bedded Ri. He removed his knuckle ring as it abraded her skin. There was no danger as the biogel adequately protected his torn joint from infections and sudden moves. But as he moved in her, he noticed the joint swelling. First the knuckle, then it pulsed slowly down his hand.

*Tear it off!*

He pulled at his finger in panic and it ripped off. Ri screamed as blood spattered her face. Seth stopped the wound with her cast aside tee-shirt. The torn digit fizzing on her belly. What had happened, he didn’t know. Most of the biogel oozed out and the swelling in his hand went away. The remnant of the chemical sealed his vessels, stopping the loss of blood. Had Honda betrayed him? Was this the Asians’ plan?

Nobody was laughing. He searched his heart.

It took a while for Ri to recover. In a way, it made him stronger, more accepting, when a weaker person also suffered along. They were still naked and unfulfilled. He felt a sense of closure, a weakness and a worry no longer attached parasitically to his heart, demanding attention of it all the time. He put his maimed hand over her waist and her hand moved to cover it, pushing it down between her spread, as they carried on where they left off.

Little did Seth suspect that the West had struck in his moment of panic. The eastern coast of China, from Hong Kong to Shanghai, a burning heap of rubble. Marjorie watched the carnage through her inexact scope, from atop the Tibetan highlands. She would face competition so it seemed.

Fiction: Inexact Science (chapter 6)

 6

The loss of his finger function worried Seth like never before. It was like a dullness swelling and subsiding in his chest. Like holding back a floodgate of emotions that would overcome his young mind / heart -whichever psychologists termed it.

Sitting in the shower on his relaxing stool, he tried to wash, which set his finger flapping painfully, at odd angles. Later, he cut some spongy fabric and hot glued it into a brace. At least he wasn’t rotting or bruised. He reinforced that with strips of aluminum from a soda can. 

How would he pull a bowstring now? The question was an important one -a missing rung on the ladder towards mind mastery of the gun, later the e-bomb itself. He cried tears of dejection.

*Seth, you’re the only one*

The heart whisper from Saim came to him, kind as usual. The Asian Trainer hadn’t eaten in 36 hours but it didn’t show.

There isn’t any time left, Gracie. His sister nodded.

Seth hid his weakness from the others, from Marjorie, saying it was just a sprain. His girlfriend had recovered from her near-fall. There were minor scrapes on her arms and face but those were healing well.

We’re going on another vacation, she told him. To open up investments in the Polynesian Spice Isles. Not all business -just informal talks and lots of sightseeing. Mr Frederick asked me to take you along. Said it would be educational -for the cause.

*Go with her, brother* whispered Saim, palpably weaker.

On the super jumbo out of California, Seth and Marjorie held hands. She was careful not to jar his ‘still healing’ finger as she moved his hand under her blouse, and over her breast. Odd emotions overcame him, now part metal, part flesh. He looked distant, nervous, as she tried to kiss him. Like a fish out of water, gasping for breath. That special feeling he once had for her, eclipsed by his increasingly troubled mind.

The skimmer dealership in Jakarta city was owned by Marjorie’s father. Skimmers made use of the Bernoulli and Coanda effects to propel the bike-like craft using virtually no fuel. Props set into the undulating belly of the craft fed air into a tube running lengthwise through it. Thus the faster it flew, the more air was forced through. It was like an aerodynamic flywheel.

Seth longed to ride one, and with the chief engineer explaining how inexact Science made it work, bending physics into an all but perpetual machine, realized he might have hope for his funny finger.

The engineer’s name was Honda. Japanese. He was also blind, relying on a continuous network of feeds that clucked and whirred in his ear. The sound frequency and slight delay between either eardrum fed his brain with a soup of information that was visually projected via a custom tailored hallucinogenic. He could read minds, sometimes predict the near future.

Seth’s heart thumped within his chest as Honda peeled off the improvised finger guard.

There’s almost no joint left.

His heart sank, but can you help?

Maybe. If we can bypass the knuckle. Meanwhile, it’s to be filled with non-Newtonian biogel. I’ll inject it now.

Make it fit under a glove if you can, he said.

Marjorie and Seth both got skimmers from her Dad to ride on and show off to the islanders. The gel in his finger joint made it bendable again as it absorbed shock by hardening in the right directions. There were no electronics, just a curl spring by his knuckle held on by rings. He admired the Japanese engineer’s succinct design. By regulating the speed of his muscle contractions, the gel and spring worked in unison to effect movement of his index finger. He fidgeted with the tension dial, trying to get it perfect, squeezing Marjorie’s hand confidently and bathing in the glow of her usual smile.

But something had gotten into him during the time he suffered. He wanted to be alone for long stretches of the day and one morning, Marjorie found his bed empty and his skimmer missing. There was a note on the hotel dresser,

See you in Kunming. Love, Seth.

She crushed the letterhead paper to her chest and said a silent prayer for good fortune.

He’s going for it, she informed Frederick, -alone.

Off the coast of Hanoi, the speedy craft reported it was low on fuel. He ditched it by a tourist beach where it had ‘almost’ crash landed, nose buried in the flat wet sand of low tide.

That evening, as he lay in the cot of the overnight sleeper bus to HeKou on the Chinese border, he thought of Teacher and his inexact bow, the dimension-dividing blade, the e-bomb he was supposed to detonate. He flexed his fingers. He had had quite a scare. Shortly he fell into a turbulent but dreamless sleep -his mind working out its trauma like coughing up phlegm after a bout of flu.

From HeKou, a semi-arid trading post, he weaved his way through the weathered faces, the snake oil swindlers who were probably as good as they were earnest, boarding the train to Kunming city in China’s lower-western province of Yunnan.

Like Saim, he made do with little food. A bag of fried locusts and a recycled bottle, half filled with Chang coconut and sweet potato beer. When his credit ran out, he proceeded on foot to the city center, through the poorer precincts where street doors were left ajar in the hopes money might enter. Nothing being allotted for repairs. Paper cut graffiti on the high walls and granite pillars. Underwear hung from shutters, pools of condensate and wastewater he avoided, unsure which was which. 

Standing among the neon of the boutique eateries and spanking new malls, he attempted to hook up with a kind soul for the night. Only his heart knew how far he had traveled from home, afield from the ‘prophecy’ made up over him, the passersby, blind to his purpose. He used it to snare a local college girl: Have you heard of the West’s latest inexact weapon?

Plotting the 2nd quarter of Inexact Science...

Roughly 20 pages have been written of my novella, Inexact Science (IS). That's abut 5k words. And it's time for the action to heat up some notches. Intrigue is on the cards in chapter 6 / 20. SPOILERS AHEAD...

Seth goes AWOL deep into Asia and meets China's simple people in Yunnan, traveling north from Jakarta to Hanoi to HeKou, and into Kunming, tailed by the Asian Trainer duo and his girlfriend, Marjorie. At home, Matthew and Frederick ready the e-bomb, thinking Seth is in position due to his Asian surroundings but due to his wound, it misfires, wiping out China's Pacific coast.

Seth is remanded by Chinese authorities who somehow identify him with a Messiah figure and wait on his every command. He tours the damaged cities and vows to pay back the inventors of this IS technology. Gracie is confronted by Marjorie and they debate what they both did to Seth, causing the debacle -or could it be a blessing in disguise? Whose side is everyone on now -East or West?

Seth runs away from Gracie, Saim, and Marjorie, forming a group of anti-IS fighters, noted for their ruthlessness. The energies he contained burst forth against the West who shield effectively behind their half-Asian population.

A crack special forces squad is sent to assassinate him but he takes them down with the help of monks. Marjorie is told by Matthew to kill Seth but Gracie protects him. The 3 of them break down, requiring special counseling from white witches.

Frederick vows to break his rebellious protege, confronting him with his witch wife and Matthew. There is an epic battle in which they discover Seth's bow pulling finger is disjointed. Matthew reaches for his bow, which Seth can no longer draw (naturally) but the arrow misses due to Saim's intervention. Saim dies for Seth but not before imparting the final bits of his training. Marjorie stabs Matthew in the back and there is darkness -for now.

Fiction: Inexact Science (chapter 5)

5

Mr Frederick and by association, Seth, were under interrogation, at the emergency PTA meeting. It was over the newly mandated schools and colleges military recruitment drive, or SHCEMR (pronounced ‘Shimmer’ or ‘Schemer’ depending on one’s alignment).

The night before, Seth had a dream. It wasn’t of Marjorie or the council but that he would lose something important to him. It was on the tip of his tongue but being un-hearing and un-seeing, nobody could reach out to assuage his worries. He tried hard to be himself.

Teacher did his best to convince concerned parents over the taking of their children as soldiers / to wield IS weapons they didn’t fully understand. The plan was to stem the Chinese-led advance in the betweens with a strong spearhead led by Seth or others like him -when in fact, there was but one suitable.

With a spear of gifted, special people stabbing deep into the heart of Asia, we can insert the e-bomb we’ve been developing.

What does it do?

It’s an emotion altering weapon, that was all Frederick was cleared to know.

And when you’ve mangled the hearts of the east, then what?

We invade and impose correct appreciation. You see, we export not just goods and services, but paradigms suitable for the times. Any Asian can understand a shift in thought. They had Confucius and Buddha. They can be persuaded by a higher principle -it has been shown.

We only have one chance.

Frederick and Seth shook hands with the parents. Later that afternoon, at Science club, Seth was made Leader in place of Matthew who had left for his service.

Saim, who was in detention, was represented, mentally, by his sister who was half White -they had different fathers. Seth never imagined Marjorie could turn so green.

What do you think of the plan?

The e-bomb? It’s the only chance we’ve got.

Don’t misunderstand us, said Saim’s sister, Asians mean the West no harm. We’re just different.

And the difference is annoying, said Marjorie.

Down right dangerous, quipped Frederick, you kids don’t know the half of it.

All witches know, said Saim’s sister, withering visibly.

And you’re one?

As you like, she shrugged suggestively by nature, as their hearts began pumping faster.

Show me your blade.

It’s not much but you can have a feel.

By the way, my name’s Gracie, said the slender, big-hipped brunette with her mop hairdo.

Of a sudden, Seth trusted her, her fingers running over the dull gray e-matter surface.

Saim says to complete your training -immediately.

Can I come along? Asked Marjorie.

Sure, sister.

Matthew Fastener lay in his cot drained. The target was a loose-cannon Chinese bureaucrat forming laws banning American IS / e-products from reaching eastern markets.

He had scouted out the target by watching many Asian movies and eating takeout Chinese food, studying the official’s body language in the briefing room. In the 3 lenses of the inexact gun sight, the image of the Chinese politician became clearer as it bounced from emotion to intention in the young soldier’s head. A spark ignited within the e-matter barrel. He could feel it, and the ghost of someone tottering and falling swept through his head -his awareness.

That night, in the debriefing room, the spearhead of 12 specialist soldiers watched the satellite broadcast of a senior party member being honored outside the Great Hall of the People at Tiananmen Square. His first kill as squad leader, and gun carrier.

You’re clear to access the e-bomb, brother.

Matthew smiled. He knew the spear tip would be Seth. Everything would go according to plan.

That night, Gracie and Marjorie got into a heated argument at the outcrop by the canyon, opposite from the cave witches and their roaring bonfire.

Without her blade, Marjorie was no match for Gracie’s witch skills and she reached out for Seth’s help through his natural curiosity.

The e-bomb. What do you Asians know about it?

Of course that’s double classified. You would have clearance too if you were bolder, You’re mild, Margie -too mild for this war.

And you’ll soon be labelled a traitor just like your brother.

Betrayal only begins when you’re hurt. Go home, sister. Saim and I will tell Seth everything he needs to do the job OUR way.

Seth felt for his blade. Next he knew, it was in Marjorie’s hand. Gracie drew hers as dimensional energies wrestled the two young women towards the canyon’s edge. Once again, he saw the blue neon streaks and Marjorie disappeared off the outcrop.

Gracie turned to Seth. She sounded like Saim as she took his right hand and their fingers meshed. Then, with a snap, his index finger popped lose and went dead.

Do you trust me, brother?

But Seth backed away, shaking from the wound she had inflicted.

Come at me with your powers. Or can you not see yet?

Gracie waited, Saim waited, then the Trainer’s sister turned to leave.

Go save your girlfriend, You’re not ready.

What about my hand?

Beseech the council, it’s the only way, barring major surgery that’s 50/50.

Marjorie! Seth cried, running towards the canyon’s drop. He looked all round by the moonlight and saw three fingers quivering over a rock, They were sore and bleeding. He could hear heavy breathing. He reached out his good hand but it wasn’t strong enough. He had to use his right hand damaged as it was.

If a pin dropped in Seth’s heart, Marjorie would have heard it. She grabbed for his hand greedily and he hauled her to safety, through the agony of losing his finger.

She didn’t know what he had sacrificed. His limp and numb digit that now hung by sheer thread, stuffed deep into his jeans pocket as they kissed, trembling less from it. So much as love does to a man and a woman.