to the storytellers

For as long as I can remember, I've always loved stories.

One of my earliest memories is of me sitting in my old living room reading Read It Yourself Books, which were extremely simplified versions of morality tales like The Emperor's New Clothes and The Stone Soup. I never had a clue what the hell they meant, but I just read them anyway.

Then I started watching Snoopy cartoons and reading Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts strips. I didn't get the satires then, but I was still continually fascinated by Charlie Brown's sad attempts at baseball, Lucy's "The doctor is in" booth, Linus's blanket, Schroder's piano, and most of all, Snoopy's little red doghouse. I do adore Snoopy :)

Then, as I got older, I started reading books like Encyclopedia Brown and Babysitter's Club (which I have since found out was almost entirely ghost-written. I feel so cheated). Then I started reading Sweet Valley and The Nancy Drew Files (all ghost-written. Bah). I wanted to be a detective like Nancy Drew when I grew up.

And then one day, my mother took me to the Kallang Theatre. Les Miserables was in town. Right then and there, I fell in love with musicals and the stories told through beautiful music. Which was why I pretty much starved my way through London so I could watch Chicago and The Producers and, the one that started it all (and my fave of all time) Les Miserables. (I missed the 21st anni by 3 months which had Colm Wilkinson singing Jean Valjean. Bah and double bah.)

The years passed and I found myself drawn to television shows like Buffy and Roswell, taking your average teen dramas and tossing strange phenomena into the mix. Around the same time, my mother bought me the first Harry Potter book. And there I went, jumping right into the incredible reality of the fictional world, where literally anything and everything was possible.

Somewhere along the lines, I began enjoying the visual storytelling of film. I longed to sit in the DeLorean with Michael J. Fox's Marty and Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown. I wanted to visit Timon and Pumbaa's slice of paradise and live a hakuna matata life.

And then, at the rather late age of 16, I fell in love with the stories told through artwork. I was swept away by Neil Gaiman's Sandman series - with his bold, if somewhat disturbing, stories; with the broody and pale Dream King; with Lucifer, the fallen angel who gave up hell; with the bicolour-eyed Delirium; and, above all, with the most human of the Endless - Death, Dream's older sister.

The years have come and gone. I've read millions of other books since my hands first touched a Read It Yourself Book, from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to chick-lit candy-for-the-brain Little Black Dress books.

I've seen several (and still not enough) other musicals like The Phantom of the Opera and We Will Rock You.

I've laughed and cried with more films than I can count (and baffled by quite a number of others too).

I've gotten hooked onto countless TV series from all kinds of genres, from political dramas like the fantabulous The West Wing to family dramas like Brothers and Sisters to conspiracy theory shows like Alias to the wonderful decade's worth of the indomitable sitcom Friends.

I've been absolutely amazed by the genius of Will Eisner, enjoyed the crash-bang-boom of X-Men comics, and finally understood the satires of Schulz's Peanuts.

My love affair with the fictional world has lasted nearly my entire lifetime, giving me countless hours of pleasure and entertainment in realities that could not exist otherwise.

So here's to the amazing storytellers of the world. May your minds continue to create and flourish so the world of fiction can continue to sparkle and shine for the rest of us.