Shieldtox, Many Roaches, And A Chance To Live

They would pay me my extra hours if I went back late, but why should I? Out of office 1740hrs on the dot, shortly after the automated time bell blasting its sound in the air inside that four-wall air conditioned room. The Mood was not as good as any days before. In fact, I had no clue how did Good Mood look like. Clear definition had not being brought up, so a plain straight face throughout the day could be defined as Good Mood.

Cheerful heart brings to the face.

Crap.

On the other side of the world, spring has just begun. With petals of Sakura thick on the road, I would love to lay flat on it. Golden Week. Recession. A week off from work. Maybe a few weeks off from work. Then it should be renamed to Golden Weeks instead. I am on the other side of the world. I should be spared from any Golden Week. Or Weeks.

The mood was still indescribable, cranky at one time, better at another. This fluctuation sometimes bring a wee bit confusion to my body coordination, sure it did not bring any good when I was behind a steering wheel, but an old EX-5 bike with a huge metal box with stains of paint and rust on the rear seat, did transform a Crappy Mood to a Good Mood.

"Uncle, putu mayam ada lagi?"

"Awak nak berapa?" a smile that denoted a kind gesture one should give to one who had a Crappy Mood (though OBVIOUSLY unnecessary).

I smiled in return (an honest smile, not a doctored smile. That kind of smile could be seen miles away!)

"Kira macam mana ye?"

"Satu lima puluh sen", struck by the underprice, I asked for four.

"Uncle bagi satu lagi untuk awak", while pouring a hell lot of brown sugar and grated coconut alongside the weavy steamed flour.

"Cukup tak gula ni?"

"Cukup cukup", there you go, my diet, my time wasted in the gym.

"Terima kasih uncle" an honest smile.

My mood lifted up, like smelling the gentle perfume from someone you adore. And I wondered how fluent he spoke in Malay, without a hint of unwashable Tamil accent. They knew how to speak my language. I meant, flair and without hiccups.

Impressive.

I reached home. The smell that I love. The comfort and the security. The feeling that I owned everything inside. It may not be huge as any houses I saw in TV, but it still huge and awesome like any other houses that I did not see in TV. It made me feel Good.

Got into the bathroom. Two roaches inside. One on the wall, swerving its whisker(?) right and left, looking for direction. The other one static inside the bowl. Maybe waiting for its companion that was lost in between Wild Cherry body wash bottle and Seaweed facial cleanser.

Why the fuck people scared of roaches? If they are scared of mice and rats, it does make sense. Roaches? Are you trying to make me barf?

I did not hate them. But still, they had to live in the other world. Like the other world with Golden Week. Except they were going to the other world with Roach Angels and better bedding than petals of Sakura.

There was a huge blue cylinder. SHIELDTOX in an unknown font looked so bold, just like an insect repellant should look like. I did not know if that little chemical thing could put them to R.I.P because there was only a picture of two mozzies being attacked with a down-pointed arrow. But I assumed, based on my engineering knowledge, that it might kill that little roaches too.

I sprayed each one of them. Clearly it took a while for those two to get high. One inside the toilet bowl dropped down in the water. With its back on the surface. And legs (they had a lot of legs!) crouching for any thing, ANY THING to cling onto. But I flushed down the bowl. And I knew, it was going to the other side of the world.

The other one clearly afraid. It knew what would happen and it ran like a roach! Of course cockroach should run like one. I sprayed it, twice. Alive. Another time. Still alive. Another time. It was going cooky. And fell down in the sink. With feet in the air. And struggling. And I left it like that.

If the chemical did it work, it would bring the other roach to the other part of the world, if it did not, the roach would live. Maybe longer.

I went out of the loo, washed my hands. Feeling rather murderer.

I opened up the plastic bag with putu mayam inside (five of them and a lot of fat!), and started eating. Small take at a time. With a thought in my head.

If I could be happy eating my favorite delicacy in front of the TV, the roaches had had the rights too. But this is how life works. Sometimes you are on top, sometimes you are buried underneath. Sometimes you are flushed down the toilet, sometimes you are spared a day to live.

The roaches should be happy with the Roach Angels right now. And I know how to define Good Mood already.

Bad Girl Gone Fishing

It was my second time I went fishing. With a net. And a lot of men. And a container filled with a huge gunny sack for keeping the shrimps and fish and jellyfish, apparently.

I got stung by a jellyfish, and sole of my feet bled because of sea shells.

And it still did not deter me to go again.

This time I went down for once and got up, and thinking of going down again, next time. A few years later, maybe.

And a friend of mine asked,

"Habis tangan merah merah. Air laut tu kotor. What made you do such things?"

I may have a good job now. But I want to have a clear idea how do these people make a living out of struggle and a bucket load with sweat.

Learning is not necessarily comes from a class.
Malays who complaint too much on something that make them what they are today, are a bunch of useless.

I just hate pretentious Bitches. And Bastards.

Shit Shat Shouty

I stepped on a pile of shit from a cat who shat at the edge of my lawn. Cats should be slaughtered.

November Rain - The End

“Do you have in your mind who will be the last person that you want to see when you puff your last breath?” water splashed. Feet swirled to keep balance. Fish underneath.

“Probably Ummi. Or Abah”, water swirled like a tiny tornado.

“I am tired”, water splashes a little less than before. Feet swirled to keep balance. A little less swirl. Fish underneath. A lot of them.

“Hold my hand”, water swirled like a baby tornado.

It was cold that night. A sheer disparaging cold night. So frosty they could see smog of steamy breath came to level with their eyes, blocking their almost blinded sight. Razi had lost count on how many days he’s been floating in that open sea – the only thing he could recall was moon and sun obligatorily taking turn to light the surface of the Earth. But how many times, he would rather take it as zero.

Ooh forgive me stars for leaving you behind.

“Razi honey, do you know how big our galaxy is?”

“I don’t really know”

“Have you ever heard of Milky Way?”

“Milky Way as in milk poured on a pavement?”

“Razi dear, I'm sorry. I didn't tell you"

"Tell me what? You shake your cock in my loo?"

"I'm sorry"

"Shit"

"Haha. Razi pumpkin, how thick is your skin? I can't see you shivering. Razi, I want to go home"

"Look at the stars up there. Have you imagined how lonely they are, staying apart million years away?"

"Let them be, we are not stars. Far from shining. Not even remotely glittering"

"Razi knows. Razi wants you not to think about what mess we are in right now"

"I miss Ummi. I miss Abah. Razi dear, please don't die"



“And (We sent) Lut, when he said to his people: What! do you commit indecency while you see? What! do you indeed approach men lustfully rather than women? Nay, you are a people who act ignorantly. But the answer of his people was no other except that they said: Turn out Lut's followers from your town; surely they are a people who would keep pure! But We delivered him and his followers except his wife; We ordained her to be of those who remained behind. And We rained on them a rain, and evil was the rain of those who had been warned.”

Al-Naml (The Ant, The Ants)
27: 54-58

November Rain - Four

“I almost got the space. But that bloody fat Zikri took the spot. So no Tarawih tonight”

“Shut that, midget. Last night you told me you farted on the brink of prayer, now tonight, the spot taken. God knows what will be your excuse tomorrow”

“Bahhhhh. And you?”

“Shhhhhhh”

“What the hell?”

“I said shut your oversized mouth up!”

“What? What did you see? Where?”



********



The moonlight was smooth. The whitish color was soaring yet soothing. Soaring or soothing or the combination of both, or maybe he didn't feel it at all. It was awkward. They felt awkward. Like their first date. But their first date wasn't awkward, catastrophic was a perfect word.
He didn't want to recall.
He tried to ditch but the memory slipped. He giggled.
He watched him giggled.
He stopped.
He giggled.
He giggled.
They giggled.
The mood lifted up.
This wasn't like their first date at all.
This was like they never met and they never knew each other.
And this was like they had nothing to say.
Bugger. Why he chuckles?
His hand clutched his. He pulled him hard. He pulled him back, harder. He smiled; he pulled him back, harder this time. Harder than what he could do. He smiled too. He didn't want to lose. Pulling him back toward him was a hefty job. He leaned and lied beside him. The coarsened sound of the dried leaves underneath them was harmonic.




***********




“Ayah!! There under the coconut tree! Rafeeq and Razi! Razi put his penis inside Rafeeq’s mouth!”

“Ayah!!”




***********




Suddenly lights were everywhere. Torches lit up. People ran towards them.

“Shit! Rafeeq, get up! Run to that jetty and hop onto that boat. Come on! No need to wear that!”



It was one bright night of twenty fifth Ramadan, like any other usual nights during the month of fasting where almost every person in that village out for Tarawih. Except tonight, Razi and Rafeeq colored them with torches and yelling.

November Rain - Two and A Half

Tap tap tap.

Water drips enchantingly like beads dropping to the floor from an untied necklace, splattering upon striking a hard surface. The zinc roof Hussin had salvaged from a junk yard 14 miles from his home now is badly rusted and stained. Tiny holes with various sizes are everywhere, scattering from one end to the other on that perforated sun shield which the shaft of dusty sunlight seep through on hot sunny day, resembling strand of light sabers pointing sharp to the ground. That tiny cubicle covered by the roof had served Hussin for many years (half a century, more or less) and is the abode for Hussin, once. But now, the clean entrance that leads to his house is coated with grime and dirt – waiting for someone to sweep it away, just like it used to be. At one corner in his no-room house, a woman just as old as he is, lies statically flat and stares blankly to the splashing crystals that drenching from the wavy roof.

Nature is playing its melody outside. The sound of wind is so eerie that it brings together a massive gush of torrential rain. It is enormous. The sounds of clapping thunder, howling wind, tapping downpour and streaming water are so eclectic that somehow it is a reminiscent of an orchestra with its grandeur masterpiece, performed meticulously by an invisible conductor. Sarimah – motionless on the floor, religiously listens to this song of God. She has been listening for more than a month now and yet she could not remember how the lyric sounds like. Because the tunes keep changing everyday, she cannot cope to attend to it anymore.

She is helpless in her grubby robe, no shampoo smell but stinky and her stench is so sickening. Sarimah just like that for weeks and she refuses to bath, change her clothing or even move to the lavatory for a session of pee. God loves her that her neighbors are so sympathetic that they give her foods and to some extent, feed her not to let her die, alone. Her lips utter the prayer just like Hussin does.

“Allah Thy Creator! Give me strength for Thou art Thy Beneficent, Thy Merciful. Show my son his way home if he is alive and wash the sins he had succumbed if he no more breathing. And if he is really died, I beseech upon you My God, Thy Greatest to show me his body, not to let him afloat in open sea”

Anger is not the feeling that bulging but the pain it is that pounding inside her heart. Such a long wait is so throbbing which every second that passes by is nothing but mere a lethal torture.

“Ummi misses Rafeeq so much”, the unabashed tears pour again, she wipes and it leaks for one more time – and she counts (with a little bud of blooming hope) the day when she will see her son again.



Some times, or maybe some days, on the designated times when the neighbors flock in her house, some of them gleefully shoot a jealousy look to her, envying her courage and how sanguine she is waiting for someone who cannot even be sure whether he is coming back home or will never show up at all.

“There is no harm on waiting, my sisters”, she smiles, revealing her almost non-existent stained teeth, weaved with a series of small coughs from her dry throat.

Birds chirping from afar. At times, the East Coast breeze blows her whitish hair to prevail her wavy wrinkled forehead, an anecdote of many chapters on how long she has survived on this harsh land of either opportunities or calamities.

“Enlighten me, what else I can do except lie on this cold floor, staring blankly to this rusted roof and praying to our Almighty Allah that he will, on one sunny day, show up on that door, and tell me with his purest regret, that he has repented, following the route like our Muslim brothers go after.

“There was a moment, when the terror frightened me to death, I almost flat to black-out. Masha-Allah, unimaginable it is my sisters, for how tormenting it will be when the time he needs to cross that siratulmustaqim, the brutal repayment 6-feet under and the foremost, the ruthless interrogation by Munkar and Nakir”

Literally there is no sound transcends the moan from the crowd of seven people, delivering a sincere gesture of remorseful sorry to Sarimah, for what it seems an appropriate act for someone who needs a pat on her back. That gloomy rainy day on the mid October 1972, Sarimah’s prayers have exceeded her uncountable dripped eye tears, which is without a doubt, almost dried by now.

And Kassim’s voice still reverberates, finding no end.

Backspace

Still. No sign of blinking. His gaze penetrates through the bulky CRT screen.

"You should be happy. It is not easy to get any interview, let alone a job nowadays"

"I am worried. My last interview was ten years ago"

No one spill a word.

His anxiety has its point.

November Rain - Three

It started with a look. An inexpressible kind of stare one could not resist but ponders of what it bears inside. Just a normal glance anybody on a busy street will shoot, or sort of look one should smile to. Rafeeq needed months to figure that out, as the number of stares from that strapping handsome lad increased day by day. An average man would have been disturbed by that kind of uninvited attention, but Rafeeq settled in pleasure, enjoying the little attention he got from a man he barely knew (of course he had the knowledge that ‘the man’ was someone from this vicinity. He remembered him from Sankranthi many months ago. Yes, he was the man) on a daily basis.

He’s nowhere to be seen today. I wonder.

Rafeeq was so accustomed with the existence of that man, whom later he discovered was called Razi, that a day without him would be such a big loss, would be something to be thought of for the rest of the day. As much as Rafeeq stuck in a whirlpool of confusion of what actually was the feeling he had for Razi, Razi made it clear that this was exactly the thing he wanted ever since. And he was having it right now.

****************

For many people who still can recall, this is the ground where Rafeeq translated his closeted love for Razi into a string of forbidden emotional acts, just beneath the coconut tree, a few yards from the jetty, above a thick layer of white sand, showered by the lights of the full moon, a week away from Eidulfitri, 1969. The night where people flocked to every available mosque, a chance considered once in a lifetime to wash every sin of one’s body, in a month filled with blessings and unimaginable offerings of merits, contaminated with what supposed to be discreet.

“What I did to you was flirting. It is called flirting, stupid”, Razi tossed Rafeeq’s head - a cute joke between two lovers trying to survive on a land where blood spilled to let Islam stood.

A smile.

“How am I supposed to know? I thought you were that loony bastard having no job other than walk around and shoot people with a mysterious look. Luckily your look is slightly better than Saleem. If not, I think you are playing love card with that monkey over that tree now”, Rafeeq retaliated without even looking to Razi, but with a big wide smile carved on his face.

Razi comforted Rafeeq with a warm strong cuddle. Muscles bulging on his arms, and a strand of veins denoted how well built he was. And Rafeeq always loved this part when Razi knew how to tackle his heart back. Even though the mockeries never got too far, pulling a face surely touched the soft part in Razi. While many people might suggest the sin they committed was a pure lust, lured by a constant appeal of many demons, the thought never crossed Razi’s mind.

This is love.

Two persons, one emotion.

And the greatest sin prevailed.

Some News Better Left Unsaid

I did not make it.

Better luck next time

Too Much Sins A Night

There was a night.

And many hoped that it was not a night people would have, ever in their life.

They Say..

I am not in my element today, as what many observed. They told me that I looked different, out of my zone. What was that supposed to mean, I rather not to understand.

Monday blues strikes many people on Monday.
Monday blues makes many faces turn sour.

I love Monday. And I have no problem whatsoever with Mondays.

And today is Thursday.

Thursday supposed to make me feel happy. A day away to long awaited weekend.

I feel rather empty and hollow.

And I am not in my zone.