CBH - Triologue 6

THE CONSCIENCE (C), THE BRAIN (B), THE HEART (IH)

H : Hei - I see you are making the face frown. Why frown?

B : Yes - in anger. In frustration. Cheh!

H : Cool it buddy. You are a brain. Don’t heat up. Don’t frus. Then you cause stress in me.

B : And hypertension. Sorry. I did not mean to. It is just the other brains around me.

H : Who are you referring to?

B : In this instance the bodoh brains of course.

H : Be precise.

B : The politician brains la!

H : And why?

B : Any why?? Because they do not know simple basic grammar.

H : Grammar?

B : Yes. Grammar of tense.

H : You mean Present Tense. Past Tense. Future Tense and so on…

B : Yes - exactly.

H : Go on.

B : Since I can recollect …

H : That would be about 30 to 40 years ago ……

B : Yes. Since 30 over years ago. These politicians - at every rank, more prominently the senior fellows.

H : What about them?

B : From then to today … I have never heard any one of them speak in the Past Perfect Tense. It is always “we will do this, we will achieve that. We plan to complete this and that …”

H : Ya … they are notorious in saying “when completed the country will have achieved this … we will accomplish that” and so on.

B : Always in the Future Tense.

H : You are right. Take the rivers for example. They promised the rivers will be cleaned up in 10 years and allocated millions of Ringgit.

B : Ya … and now it is past 25 years!

H : And the rivers are even dirtier than before .. if not dead!

B : You remember they said “we shall be one country … we shall be one nation … we shall be one people”.

H : Ha … bullshit.

B : I cannot recollect one politician in power speaking in the Past Perfect Tense.

H : I wonder if he knows what it is to speak in the Past Perfect Tense.

B&H : And how do you look at all this?

C : Me? Hmmm. These worldly fellows! They have lost their foundation in grammar. Not only in grammar but in so many other things!

B : And they have lost their sense of self-respect … honesty … O’ I can go on…..

H : Now I understand your anger. Your frustration.

B : And what can be done about it? Send them back to school to learn grammar? Learn the Tenses and use them correctly?

C : Too late!

B&H : Then we are doomed!

C : Not really. It is they who are doomed. Not only here but also in the hereafter. Their karma.

H : Here. Doomed. Karma … also doomed.

C : Hello my friend - can’t you see. Take that once all powerful guy. Today he barks and snarls with no bite. All his snarling is going down the gutters. His colleagues now call him a gutter politician.

B : Ya … I get you, And the other fellow … yelling and shouting until one day his wig will fall off. A very rich but poor fellow.

C : Do you think they sleep easy? Even if they somehow manage to, now … do you think they can sleep easy when they are laid six feet below?

B&H : We don’t know. And really, we don’t care.

C : But I care … I care for my fellow conscience in them, As I said earlier … their conscience has been corralled…. boxed in.

B&H : Too late!

C : To be seen. Change can happen.

H : What change?

B : Wait and see.