His Name is Kenny (January 26 2018)

 A very rough, unedited piece of work. Playing with some character development and conversation.

His name is Kenny. I’ve recognised him now and then as we attend the same modules in University. Occasionally, we do end up in the same tutorial group. However, other than a few cursory conversations about workload and essays and standard perfunctory talk, our conversations with one another have never progressed past the superficial. Yet, it’s not difficult to see Kenny as a bit of an oddball. It comes off quite distinctly in the way and the things that he says during classroom discussions. He will sporadically throw up a new interpretation or observation about a particular topic that we are studying. And for some reason, even though the general populace would never mine that same piece of knowledge, he seems to make sense. Kenny gives fresh insight and meaning into the material and I suppose its an acquired taste but I’ve gradually come to appreciate the things that he says. I would fancy him as a pretty brilliant person. Not just that. Kenny articulates his words with flawless precision and poeticism, as though he was literally breathing life and vitality into his words. Past the initial phase of judging him as a pretentious “liberal arts” student, one could very well fall in love with his character on the very basis of his contributions in class.

One thing did fascinate me quite a fair bit and that was his dress sense. On first glance, Kenny looks like the typical University student. He would sport a pair of red Nike sneakers, dark brown trousers, blue shirts and finally a black cap. All these seem fine and ordinary until you begin to realise that Kenny never changes this combination. And by never, I mean never. I used to brush it off as mere coincidences. Perhaps it just so happened that on this particular day, Kenny pulled these clothes off the top of his shelf and didn’t give two shits about his dress sense. However, I began to realise that I always saw him in this outfit. Curiosity began to gnaw at my brain and eventually I decided to pop him the question.

“Hey Kenny, how is it that I never see you in any other clothes except that one you’re wearing?”

It was just after class ended. People were packing up their things and were preparing to leave the classroom. Kenny upon hearing my question looked at me with a sly little grin. It was a grin that made me realise I was not the first person to ask the question and something else about the mischievousness of his smile made it seem as though he actually revelled in being asked that question.

We both stood up and his smile was replaced now with a more contemplative ponderous look, a face I had grown accustomed to whenever he prepared to speak in class. In his usual eloquent manner, he began to speak.

“You see Liang, my clothes have a particular symbolic significance. It starts, firstly, with the shoes” he said, gesticulating at his red sneakers. “Right at the centre of the earth is a gigantic core, flaming red hot and its temperature, if I’m not wrong, is the same temperature as the surface of the sun. This centrepiece keeps the earth together. Without it, things fall apart. As a planet, our existence is predicated on this molten core. Our tiny little lives, our meanderings and all our pursuits would be pointless and pretty much end in a second if the core somehow imploded. This core keeps us grounded. Keeps us together.” He paused for a slight bit. “So that’s why I wear the red shoes. To symbolize the molten core that keeps the planet together. With my feet, I am grounded and I can stand”

While the symbolic significance of his little monologue was rather bizarre, I decided to let him continue.

“My pants then, the dark, earthly colour of it, symbolizes earth or dirt. My pants is the surface of this earth, the ground by which all men tread.”

It was’nt hard to follow his chain of logic and so I pointed to his shirt, a sky blue colour and asked “And the shirt? It represents the sky?”

Kenny nodded approvingly and said “Yes, the sky.” He then proceeded to uncover a tiny chain around his neck from the cover of his shirt which I had hitherto not noticed. At the end of the chain was a tiny dove holding in its beak a tiny olive branch which brought immediately to mind the story of Noah’s Ark. Kenny flashed it to me for a momentary second and then tucked the little trinket back into his shirt.

I guess Kenny did have a certain logic to his actions. It wasn’t hard to follow how his red shoes represented the earth’s core, the brown pants the earth and the blue shirt the sky. Kenny’s dressing essentially embodied Planet Earth. It was certainly strange but at least there was an internal consistency to his thinking. Yet, what about the black cap that found its way into his specific dress-code? What enigmatic explanation could be given for it?

Kenny read my mind. “And that leaves the cap doesn’t it? Well, this is actually the most important part.” He took off his cap and pointed to his head. “You see my head right? And yes it’s a head. It has hair, it has little creases here and there. If you’re really observant, maybe you can spot the dandruff. But you don’t see what’s inside it. You don’t see my hopes, dreams and ambitions. My likes, dislikes, pet-peeves, people I love, professors I hate, memories of my childhood, fears, thoughts and ideas. Yes, ideas.”

He took a dramati pause.

“I’ll save the poetic rhetoric. Beneath this head is what makes me me. And so this black cap is the vast, black space that constitutes the universe. On this blank, empty canvas, I give life to stars, constellations and asteroid fields through my thoughts. I imagine and think into existence blackholes, supernovas and just about every astronomical term possible. I create possibilities, things beautiful and things ugly.Then I destroy them and then give them new life. What is truly beautiful about me is my thoughts and my ideas that fill this universe of my brain.”

He gave me a smile, his mouth curving into what I swear looked like the crescent shape of the moon. He allowed himself a small bit of respite before continuing.

“We humans marvel at the earth and the things within. We marvel at scenery and earthly nature and what is present before us. And so, you look at my body and that’s all that you see. A living person before you. By no means am I suggesting that I am beautiful. Rather, we humans focus and judge things based on what we visibly see. And hence, you judged me based on my appearance and how I am perpetually wearing the same outfit. But you never roamed beyond that. Until today when you asked me about my clothes, you never had access to my thoughts and my consciousness. The true me. Just like how people fail sometimes to look up into the vastness of the universe, to the far ends of the cosmos and imagine just how grand it must be. My thoughts constitute the universe and my physical body, the body you see, is just one tiny planet in the grandness of all that exists in my brain”.

If any doubts existed about his brilliance, it was completely dispelled now. I don’t think Kenny was being arrogant in stating that his thoughts were like stars that illuminated our dull ignorant minds. He was simply making a social commentary about people. By using his clothing as a metaphor, Kenny was pointing out the very real truth that we rarely see the beauty in thoughts and ideas. We don’t peer into the vistas of men’s imagination but focus on such superficial looks and first-impressions. Kenny outfit was a symbolic testament to society’s superficiality. I was amazed.

Kenny still had that small little smile on his face. Just as I thought he was finished. Kenny said “But you see Liang, there’s one little detail about this outfit that I failed to mention.” My curiosity was again piqued and I look quizzically at him. What else could be missing from such a captivating explanation?

He continued “Well, I’ve talked about the universe and Earth but I never did include in water bodies.”

It was then that his smile erupted into a full blown grin and to my horror, my eyes trailed down to his crotch where a dark, watery stain began to form on his earth-brown pants.

“You forgot the oceans of piss.”