“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom” : THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS HERE WE COME!

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS HERE WE COME!

Bobby Jr. was entrusted by his mother Madame Fong with the task of finalizing arrangements for a Fong charter of the Eastern & Oriental Express (E&OE) train for a journey through Malaysia.

This is luxury train travel Bobby Jr. said to me and, “Rory you may have a key role to play. This is the reason we brought you to Singapore as our guest. Your job is to cozy up to Sir Nicomshire and help my mother get what she wants. I promised you days ago no harm would come to you and if Mommy gets what she wants I will personally escort you back to your home in Toronto. I will give you further instructions once we are the train which will be next Sunday, four days from now.”

Home! That set my tale wagging. I was so happy to hear that for the time being I was not asking why the big cozy up was needed.

Fifty guests were invited and the journey was to be hosted by Madame Fong. I recognized the name of Sir Reginald Nicomshire, the fellow that organized Singapore Westie of the Year, the contest I won. I attended a “victory party” at his mansion in Singapore and we hit it off spectacularly so any big cozy up would be puppy’s play!

RKS Poetry Anthology (All We Get Are The Coffee Grinds):”FRUSTRATED YOUNG EXECUTIVES”

FRUSTRATED YOUNG EXECUTIVES

Group at the bar

Hoping for that big break

Lying at the bottom of an empty glass

Castrated ambitions

Thwarted

Recalled in fantasized dialogue

Of lust frenzied materialism

Only to be lost in

Yet another glass

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: AM I LOSING MY PUPPYHOOD?

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: AM I LOSING MY PUPPYHOOD?

If you have been following my story from its inception I was deep into puppyhood. Peeing and pooping wherever I felt like it. Teething on everything. Not obeying commands. Puppyfighting. Nonstop playing. Gamboling around the backyard. Eating puppy kibble.

Then out of the blue kidnapped. Hanging around with people of dubious if not criminal character. Witnessing payola and money laundering. Associating with murder victims. Staying in luxurious hotels. Eating Asian food. Winning (sort of) Singapore Westie of the Year. Partying with the elite of Singapore. Seeing Bangkok and Angkor Wat. Drinking jasmine tea. Rat hunting training.

Add it all up is it fair to assume I have lost my puppyhood, my innocence? It seems I am not a nine-month-old West Highland Terrier but rather a nine-year-old one.

Is this maturity too rapid? I have seen in just a few weeks what most dogs will not experience in their entire lifetime.

When this novel commenced it was all sweet and innocent. Cute anecdotes but my life has transcended that. Yes, I even received a note from a reader everything has become so dark: for goodness sake murder! I just can’t continue reading any more!

Don’t we all wish we could wallow in the innocence of puppyhood forever. If wishes came true pigs would fly!

RKS Russian Literature: A Dreadful Absence of Both Good and Evil (Nikolay Gogol)

“No one had seen him, even once, being any different from what he always was, whether on the street or at home. Had he but once showed any concern for anything, had he got roaring drink and burst out laughing in his drunken state, had he even abandoned himself to wild grotesque revelry of the kind a brigand abandons himself to in a drunken moment-but there was not the faintest shadow of any such thing in him. There was nothing at all in him, nothing either evil or good, and there was something dreadful in this absence of anything.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

RKS Russian Literature: A Russian Philanthropic Swindle (Nikolay Gogol)

“For instance, having set up some philanthropic society for the poor and having contributed considerable sums to it, we lose no time in commemorating such a praiseworthy event by throwing a dinner for all the leading dignitaries of the town, thereby expending, of course, half the sums that have been contributed. With what remains, a magnificent apartment is immediately rented for the committee, with heating and watchmen, after which all that is left for the poor is five and a half roubles, and even then, not all the members of the committee can agree on how to distribute the sum, and each pushes for some female relation of his.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: BACK IN SINGAPORE TO A FURIOUS AND GREASY HAIRED MADAME FONG

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: BACK IN SINGAPORE TO A FURIOUS AND GREASY HAIRED MADAME FONG

Our private jet touched down in Singapore being greeted by customs officials in the private jet hangar. Rather odd, but perhaps so Singaporean that a team of gum sniffing dogs scoured the aircraft for that substance if found smuggled in could lead to a public caning. Who cares about heroin smuggling in Singapore when there is gum and its den of corruption to be concerned about!

There were several hundred people awaiting us as we cleared customs mostly members of the Singaporean Westie Fanatics Club. “Welcome Home Cuddlecakes” a few banners proclaimed. Home……yes I did feel Singapore was my home..at least for a few seconds!

I could scarcely recognize a greasy haired woman waiting for us in ripped jeans and a Talking Head’s T-Shirt as Bobby Jr.’s mother.

We waded through a group of cheering “fans” to Madame Fong’s limo. Amira had veered off after clearing customs. Madame Fong hated Malays and consequently hated Amira, a relationship Bobby Jr. concealed from Mommy!

A heated argument ensued Madame Fong cussing her son mercilessly calling him many unprintable names. The gist being he had met with the Shermans and the two Vietnamese Gentleman and now they were all dead. How had he a “stupid incompetent asshole” “fucked up” so miserably!

How were the murders rightly attributable to Bobby Jr.! What a nasty woman Madame Fong was. I felt like urinating on her vintage Keds.

When we were dropped off at Singapore Shangri-La her parting words were, “I trust you can prove you are not a total incompetent and not screw up our trip on the Orient Express!”

Are we going on some train trip? I once watched a movie with Bob, “Murder on the Orient Express” and it was centred on a murder. The last thing I need to be involved with is another murder!

RKS Poetry Anthology (All We Get Are The Coffee Grinds)

THE COYOTE AND THE MOUSE

While not a poet of great renown

Perhaps I relate to you a story with a frown

As a golf course Marshall my job can be seen as akin to a diplomat

Keeping the pace of play

Making impatient golfers happy and gay

I have a numbing early morning shift on a Saturday

Believe you I’d rather be sleeping away

But being mostly alone on this early morning shift

Natural beauty is not to be missed

Deer, rabbits, fox, falcons and increasingly lean and hungry coyotes

And in front of me a coyote joyfully playing

Oh my isn’t that creature cute!

Dancing, prancing and tossing something up in the air

My goodness it’s a mouse and but a part of the coyote’s deadly game

The brave mouse on his hind legs for a final defence

But he is no Repicheep from Chronicles of Narnia

And is gobbled up

The coyote smiles as he witnesses my horror and fascination

and trots away

Just another hunting day

And blissfully ignorant to what I have seen

The golfers continue their game

Robert K. Stephen

RKS Japanese Literature: Where Art and Poetry are Born (Natsume Sōseki)

“If you work by reason, you grow rough-edged; if you choose to dip your oar into sentiment’s stream, it will sweep you away. Demanding your own way only serves to constrain you. However you look at it, the human world is not an easy place to live.

And when its difficulties intensify, you find yourself longing to leave that world and dwell in some easier one- and then when you understand at last that difficulties will dog you wherever you live, this is when poetry and art are born.”

Natsume Sōseki, “Kusamakura”, 1906.

RKS Russian Literature: Russian Upper Class Corrupted by French Language (Nikolay Gogol)

“It is not inappropriate to observe that the conversation of both ladies was interlarded with a great many foreign words and sometimes entire long sentences in French. But however filled the author is with veneration of the salutary benefits conferred on Russia by the French language, however filled with veneration towards our higher society’s praiseworthy custom of expressing itself in French at every hour of the day, out of a deep feeling of love for our fatherland, of course, still, all that notwithstanding, he cannot bring himself to introduce a sentence from any foreign language, whatever it may be, into this Russian poem of his. And so, we shall continue in Russian.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.

RKS Russian Literature: Lady Pleasant in All Respects (Nikolay Gogol)

“This name she had received in a legitimate manner, for, indeed, she spared nothing to make herself amiable to the nth degree. Although, of course, through the amiability there would dart-oh! a sudden flash of the female character! And although sometimes out of every pleasant word of hers there would stick!-oh! such a pin. And God protect us from what was seething in her heart against any woman who somehow and in some way insinuated herself into the front ranks! But all that was cloaked in the most refined manners that could possibly be found in a provincial capital. Every movement she made was in good taste, she even liked poetry, she even sometimes knew how to hold her head in a dreamy manner, and all agreed that she was indeed a Lady Pleasant in All Respects.”

Nikolay Gogol, “Dead Souls”, 1842.