Pkchukiss – Reality Wine

I can definitely feel my stomach swell, and it isn’t a baby.

I’ll admit the truth: I have been a slob recently, wilfully ignoring my much-needed exercise in exchange for hours of entertainment in MapleStory. As if seeing my in-game character hack and slash away could reduce the growth.

The problem is that I got hooked. And with a job to take care of, and my part-time writing course to handle, there simply isn’t any time for me to keep at it without making some sacrifices. The rest was history.

But the flab was definitely bigger than usual, so I was pipped enough to take drastic measures.

I went swimming.

Foreign readers wouldn’t have realised the serious implications of swimming during this month (needless to say, so are most of the locals too!), which is rooted to a local folklore. The Chinese population here believes that swimming during the seventh lunar month is dangerous.

What happens is that the flood gates of hell opens, and spirits are given one-month visit passes to our world, a welcome hiatus to their incessant suffering.
Living descendants of the deceased then lay out feasts on the first day of the lunar month for these spirits to eat. That is why there is so much incense burning going on. The ashes that fly around may irritate the uninitiated, but it is crucial not to step on them, as it invites spirits to possess the victim.

The spirits like to play around, so kids are often restrained, or locked up in the house to reduce the possibility of trouble. Swimming pools are avoided like plague, the rumours of water ghosts grabbing an unlucky swimmer weighing heavily on everyone’s mind.

Well, not for me, initially. I was so determined to cut the flab, I had forgotten this. By the time I realised it, I was already on the bus, and halfway to the swimming pool.

“What the heck, I’ll just get on with it,” I thought.

The swimming pool was surprisingly filled, probably with non-believers, and ardent swimmers whom would do anything for their daily exercise fix. With the sun baking the ground like a huge oven, I stripped to my trunks, and hurriedly dipped into the pool. I didn’t want people to ogle at the tyre that was slowly inflating around my waist.

Surprisingly, I could still sustain a 1.6km for one hour, though I had to stop a few times to clear the fog in the googles, adjust the straps, or to ogle at the girls — pathetic excuses for me to catch my breath — I managed to propel past better-endowed swimmers. It felt kind of good.

Though the huge flab was still around, I figure that it should be reducible with a few more runs, and perhaps an odd swimming session: if I could afford to bare the buldging waist.

Filed under: General