Moving Out (updated)

The apartment was at the eleventh floor. I got to take some pictures to show to Rahmat. He had to see this - the breathtaking city view, modern interior, a refrigerator placed in a sealed box, a television, washing machine, dusty kitchen sink, bathroom and loo smeared with dirt cakes. The owner promised us to clean up all this mess after we said yes.

Our current Landlady deserves this. Rahmat felt the twinge at heart while the news has set me aflame. It all happened one day after Rahmat offered his friend a space in the house compound in which he can park his motorbike. They carpooled to Penang which was their hometown that night. I adored the cutting-edge physical of the brand new bike in bright Saturday morning. But who knew what will happen when the sky turned dark? The Landlady noticed an unfamiliar motorbike parked in the house. She turned mad as nobody in the house told her whose bike it was. Unsatisfied with the result of her emotionally driven research, she damaged the seat with a knife, leaving an almost perfect triangle cutting mark on the rubber surface.

Update (April 8, 2013):
Some women look prettier at night than during the day. Deceiving, they are. So did the house as the sun appeared. I missed Dungun's air so much as the one at our new apartment smelled like nothing but burnt plastics. My ears can still tolerate the incessant roars of nondescript machines from the nearby tireless factories. They knew no moon, no stars, no sleep. Random particles in the air probably had sunken the noise to some tolerable degree before it reaches the eleventh floor where we live. The kitchen is alright. Other housemates would normally return back to the hometown every fortnight. I'm thinking about to buy a microwave so that I could practice my pretentious Jamie Oliver's British accent when nobody's around. Whatever, mate.

November Rain

Winter is approaching in northern hemisphere. Cold winds parade southwestward from the land of Great Wall. So we have downpour over here almost every day. After winter, it is spring. Angsana would bloom resplendent yellow flowers and fall to the ground whenever new ones come out. There would be a layer of floral carpet – bright yellow and gold with brown patches here and there. It is a beautiful sight. 

Growing Up Is A Must

There is a man with hint of bags under his eyes. His bushy eye brows under the broad greasy forehead of his oblong skull are charcoal black. It must be hard for an artist to sketch every detail of his eyes only by looking at a photograph of his. His slightly sunken eyes always keep lights away. When facing the sun, one could see the irides are heterochromias, either one is like a copper nickel coin bleached in vinegar and the other one is 'dark brown' as he always puts it when filling in particular sections of any forms that require him to describe their colour. Miniscule hairs are protruding above and below his dry lips. Recently he has a habit of letting facial hairs re-grow after three days of shaving it, then scrapes them off clean to complete the cycle. He examines his face, brushes some thin strands that stand higher than other sparse remaining hair like damaged springs coming out of an old bed. He turns his neck a little to left and right to let some light paint a clearer image of the slightly coarse skin of his cheeks. There are two tiny moles at the right side. He pinches a small pimple on his temple, presses the blood and pus smeared fingertip against the dusty mirror, touching his image - touching me. Time moves on oh so swift. It has been twenty five years since this very day. Growing old is a must.

If The Sky Doesn't Fall

I leafed again my written memories, my previous jottings. I realized that I haven’t invented a decent name for the Girl in Red Kebaya. I am a beauphile, if I might say. I chose to be real than faking myself. I chose to think of a woman, sit on a chair facing the glow of laptop’s screen in a dark bed room, string up some words extolling her beauty like “her smiling lips are as sweet as the first slice of cake and I have sweet tooth. The intense heat of her body which I felt when I walked past her in one sweltering afternoon ignited fire in the pit of my belly. My eyes grabbed the ripple of the soft fabric raking her sweating lower back. I felt thirsty,” so that people will read, so that people will know that I am an honest beauphile.

Your feet get cold sometimes; your hands too. Your anatomical heart skips a beat, the urinary bladder always gets full. Ah, it is the diuretic effect of caffeine fueling your cup of coffee – the alcohol for the man mad in love – or was it just me? Falling in love at first sight always leads you to a state of excitement bordering on insanity. How powerful love can change a lovelorn man! Give him a lion and he will tame it! Give him an azalea to tend to, for it will bloom flowers whose colours of brightest hue!

It was the same alcohol that I had when my inner voice told me that I cannot carry on with the Girl in Red Kebaya. Poetic descriptions put aside, this is an electronic age where relationship works out and breaks up in a speed of cunning words running through fibre-optic wires. I unfriended her, ran as far as I can till the wind can whisper hope no more. I wondered how such effortless action literally produced so much heat from my feet and ears. It was a right thing to do. The voice whispered, “if you hate yours being messed up by somebody else uninvited, why should you disturb theirs?”

Sya, ehem excuse me, who I may now call the Girl in Red Kebaya, is now happily married to her dream man who has thicker and voluminous hair than mine, visible high cheek bones and smiles as sweet as hers, arms strong enough to steer their journey with his fast and fierce white Mitsubishi Lancer.

If the sky doesnt’t fall, I would like to see myself laying my back on beach at night in solitude, look up to see stars glitter, arms skyward, finger tips touch a star after another. The world I now live in is as quiet as a fishing village after evening rain, especially when I have wholeheartedly embraced the idea of Islamic matrimony, the aftermath of listening too much of Ustaz Azhar Idrus. My virile body says I am lonely. She must be somewhere in the galaxy, in the future.

Father Felt Like Eating It

Rays of street lamp rested on Father’s greasy face. He didn’t comb his hair like he used to. Mother was there too, stood a little shorter than Father at the parking lot. I noticed he was very tired from the way he loosened his spine. He didn’t stand ramrod. It took him a little while until I saw him cocked his eyebrows and sent me his tired grin as he saw me standing by the lobby’s entrance door with a backpack and a big navy coloured baggage fixed on a trolley. He had a habit of occasionally fixing his thick eyeglasses when smiling. I inherited his way of showing relief – he exhaled heavily a mouthful of air, fluttering lips under his thick mustache. I had to push the baggage trolley, carefully watched out for cars passing by slowly to drop and fetch people, balancing it as the wheels rolled over the coarse tarmac, avoiding wild shingles sprawling over the dropping bay at the entrance door of Sultan Mahmud Airport’s main building. The renovation works for adding more infrastructures at the airport have been going for so long.

I finally placed the last item I brought along from Sarawak in the car’s boot – a paper bag filled with a stack of glossy papers printed with fancily presented information about the October 2010 convocation ceremony. I received my Bachelor’s Degree scroll without my parents witnessing it when everybody else’s parents did. Thump, the boot was shut, and so was my bittersweet journey at the faraway land across the ocean. Mother asked me whether I wanted to take car’s key. I passed.

We were passing by the airport’s security guard post when Father panned his head towards me sitting at the backseat and said, “do you bring anything home from Sarawak?”

“What thing?” I said, bewildered.

“I asked you to buy me ikang terubok, remember?”

“I didn’t buy anything. No terubok fish. No nothing.”

“Why you didn’t buy it?” Father asked me.

“I ain’t got enough money,” I answered. “Didn’t spend on anything but food to eat.”

“Why you didn’t buy it? It’s been a long time I haven’t eaten ikang terubok,” he said. I remember I heard him making a heavily disappointed sigh afterward.

“I said I don’t have enough money,” I said, a little harsher, feeling aggravated.

“But I feel like eating it,” Father said.

There was a moment of silence inside the car. I gazed outside the car’s window, seeing neon light and cars’ lamps disappeared behind us like fading watercolors. I had never seen Father acted that way.

“You know, Along? Ayoh (Father) is not feeling well today,” Mother said.

I didn’t respond.

Mother added, “he got nocturnal fever ever since you flew to UNIMAS. So it’s been a week. For the rest of the whole day – he’s good. Already told him to meet a doctor. You know him. He relies on panadols.”

“I feel like eating satay,” I said.

“Satay? Where to find satay right now? It’s almost eleven,” Mother said.

Father spoke, “there are a lot of greasy-spoons by the roadside. Just slow down the car, let’s see which one we shall go.”

“Ah that one’s full,” Mother said. “It’s now school holidays. Already expected that.”

I watched for any alfresco restaurants that we can go in. That night, all of them were jam packed with customers. I hated all those cars parked along the grassy roadside with the registration numbers that didn’t start with a letter T (registered in Terengganu) for being uninvited cockroaches swarming this land. I cannot eat satay because of them. Fuck them all.

“How about that one?” Mother slowed down the car and pulled over. “Along? How about this one?” She signaled at a restaurant that wasn't appealing for me to end my craving because there I saw no customers even though the lighting was vibrant. Everything was not right then. Too many customers, fully occupied tables, cannot eat. No customers, the chance of getting a crappy food was high.

“I don’t feel like eating satay anymore,” I said sullenly, sinking my lower back.

“You sure?” Mother asked, “You can eat something else. I didn’t cook at home. There’s no food.”

“Not feeling like eating satay anymore,” I repeated what I said.

“Are you sure? Have you eaten along the trip?” Mother said.

“Already had my lunch at McDonalds in Kuala Lumpur. Still feeling full,” I lied.

“Alright. So where are we going now? You sure about that?” Mother asked.

“Home,” Father said magisterially.

“Home,” I said.

Father died a month later.

Happy Father’s Day.

Hikayat by Ninotaziz

It’s a big world inside the book, hence its size. It’s heavy too – with beautiful illustrations and cosmic quality stories. It’s a seventh sky high ambitious work, to make you feel like stretching the fantasy on your child’s lap who sits on yours, make him listen to your own rendition of the forgotten Malay folklores retold by storyteller and poet Ninotaziz while he brushes his tiny fingers across the fine lines of pen sketches on illustrated pages and embossed ornaments decorating the cover. Hikayat is a compilation of beautifully crafted old Malay folklores. This art of storytelling is dedicated to all children of Nusantara.

A Tale of Pulau Tenggol's Wolverine

I once wrote about the legend of Panglima Hitam Tambun who defeated the notorious pirate Lang Merah and his men by the Dungun beach during the reign of Sultan Zainal Abidin the third. Now we have a guest writer named Mr. Stopa who told me an interesting story about the King with the claw who probably still resides at his kingdom Pulau Tenggol! Here how it goes:

***

Dear SPD,

Came across your blog while strolling on blogs on Ganu Kite. Kijalian by birth (sédé mung Awang !! – oh my, your fancy rigmarole!!), Dungun was never far from me when I was swimming with the fishes in Kijal, Kemaman. From afar as told by GrandPa, Dungun and the the land around it look like a finger knuckle about to jentik (flick) a piece of cotton ball ie. Pulau Tenggol.

Pulau Tenggol, he added, was the place full of treasures with skulls scattered all over the place. There lived a man with hands like claws who was a king with many wives. "Don't harm the crab " said GrandPa, as they would cry and swim all the way to Pulau Tenggol and make an official report of your wickedness to the King with the claws. Soon an army of crabs would descend on our little kampong, specifically looking for you ie. me. "Laugh as much as you like, ridicule me if all I care, as the crab never forget about you."

"There will be a day when you least expected, their descendant who were told of your cruelty, would snap your crown jewel, should you take a dip in the south China Sea".

For that reason, from that day onwards I never did any skin dipping in South China Sea.

I am approaching my trip to Pulau Tenggol in June with trepidation. I know the story was not true, but the thought of losing (though way passed expiry date) the family heirloom, sends chills down my spine.

My question to you are: has the man with the claw hands been caught? What happen to his wives? Any of his kids got claw hands? Any of them selling ikangceluktepung (Terengganu style fishes tempura) in Dungun ??

Yours Truly
Stopa

***

I hope someone can help Mr. Stopa find the answer of his last question.