Title: Sisyphus Falls Off His Bicycle at Jurassic Park
A tale of falling that turned into Rain and Sun
Blog #6
October 5, 2025
My retirement trip started wrong. I booked my flight one day early. Fourteen hours from Malaysia, then stuck in Schiphol with smelly people, recycled bacteria, and Kafka. Truly Lost in Translation, only without Scarlett Johansson to save me.
Daughter finally arrived. We had pizza. Five times the price, one-fifth the taste. Welcome to Europe, where Dostoevsky's despair meets Domino's quality.
We went to Maastricht, city clearly named after a dinosaur that signed a treaty. I suggested cycling. Forgot I'm no longer young, more like a Murakami pig pinned to a tree, chain-smoking 20 sticks a day, pretending to understand jazz while staring at a lonely cat that never speaks back. Still, I crossed the Belgian border for ice cream like a Hemingway hero chasing meaning. Then promptly fell off my bike while admiring a real eagle on a lamp post. Priorities. At least I didn't end up like Icarus.
Back in Amsterdam, my daughter zoomed ahead with wifi while I wobbled behind. I scolded her for being full of herself. I sounded like late-night Charlie Kirl, all fire and fury, railing against the youth with his now-echoing cries of, "College is a scam!", "Abortion is inhumane.". Meanwhile, English Literature students still think Jane Austen is a summer promotion at Waterstones.
Then I lost my wallet and 450 euros on King's Day. Kafka would've it justice. The whole city reeked of cannabis. Every pub smelled better than my cigarettes. Like Before the Coffee Gets Cold except before the coffee got cold, everyone was already high.
I limped back to see Selome, hoping for comfort. She greeted me at the door. I told her I came back with a broken leg. Handsome. She offered no sympathy just updates about her married man. Bee Gees called love a tragedy, Selome called it Black Tuesday instead of Ruby Tuesday by Rolling Stones.
So, I lit another cigarette, sat down, and realized there is no comfort, only despair. Like Camus' Sisyphus, I rolled my manuscripts up the hill of my desk. Three weeks of smoke and madness later, I finished the book which I first called. No More Rain, before realizing that was too sad. I renamed it Rain and Sun. While writing, my tears drowned so many tissue boxes that Greta Thunberg probably filed a protest.
*Sisyphus falls at Belgian-Netherlands border because some falls are worth it, they give rise to a book.
*Maastricht is too beautiful not to trip over, and the Netherlands make every stumble look like art.
Because to write like an eagle, you first have fall like a pig. That fall made me an accidental writer, broke, bruised, crumpled in airports and bicycle lanes, but still carrying a story in my hands. In the end, everyone falls: Sisyphus from the sky, Charlie Kirk from his podium and when people fall. others write. If literature teaches us anything, it's that the fall is not just funnier than the flight, it is the only reason that we ever write.