Hafizul

I live half an hour 60mph car ride from the place where I work. It is a long journey indeed; I have to wake up in the wee hour so that I could get every incomplete chore in the house, done. It is hard sometimes but I prefer that way.

Yesterday, I woke up at six in the morning. Took my bath, did my prayer, cooked the Australian beef I bought two days ago with black pepper and a sprinkle of rosemary, packed everything up and off I went to my workplace. It was 7 in the morning; the air was so damp I could smell the dew.

I suddenly remembered you today, just when the sun light hit me right on my face when I drove on the freeway to my workplace. I remembered you. I didn’t think that I’ll remember you again. I thought I’ve erased you but the tiny dot of memory still unbroken it attached strongly in my mind. My eyes reddened, I wiped my tears. I wept but the scream remained silent.

How strong I am from the surface, I am nothing but a fractured fragile glass waiting to be shattered into pieces in no time inside. How long I’ve spent my time to keep abreast with my work, I am wailing to keep on breathing in my heart. How hard this has been for me to get you out of my system, it is a struggle to keep me hang in there.

Forgive me for what I’ve done.

Jared

It was in the afternoon. No one was there except Jared who happened to have his class stretched until 4. It was unexpected occasion but it happened by the way. How much force you apply to stop it, it won't go. Stuck and reverberates until you can't see your life anymore. Your ear deaf, your mouth mutes, your eyes turn blind, you immobilize, you are helpless.

I've gone through those.

I don't think I want have those again.

Yet it happened.

Right now.

Help me.

Star Star

My life has been so less eventful these few weeks. Things piling up on the desk, queuing to be picked and to be finished. Life so dull I scream and wail, but no one hears. It is so frustrating to be left and to see people who have been accompanying me all this while throw a cold look and a shivering shudder.

I don't really care.

I don't really care because I saw stars last night. Shining brightly I haven't seen such for years. The rain washed the clouds, the tiny dust of haze, the warm air of the night. What once was whole, now is shattered; what once was foggy, now is clear; what once was, now is cold.

I still can recall when I was a little kid with nothing in my head except an innocent thought of what life is all about. I used to lay down in the drain far from my abode with my friend, Yusman gazing the bluish sky, looking for clouds with odd shapes how did it resemble normal things we saw every day. Once there was a big gigantic cloud resembled so much like a ship but he thought it looked more like an ark. Like Noah's when he transported herd of sheep and cows and few more animals just to save them from the big flood. And somehow I came to the same conclusion that it was actually an ark because I saw clot of clouds looked so much like a sheep. Complete with 4 limbs and horns.

It was fun at that time. I spent an hour or two before the horizon being hit by the darkness, left the clouds with a magnificent yellowish color from the stray of the descending sun. It was free. Life so much like a straight path. The end was so bright you didn't have to worry about the uncertainty.

Unfortunately, the path we think we'll follow for the rest of our life has shifted, we'll lose our faith, we'll be blinded in bright light. We choose to cry and to wail. We put a hope that someone will hear you, someone will carry you away.

But everybody is blinded, no one can see your hand. At the end of the journey, all we can see is a total darkness and high pitch shrieks from someone whose hope is dying away.

I am not a wuss. Not even schmuck. Or anything so. Because I do believe that my life is way better than that. Way better than you have. So much better than I can't be, before. But now, life has shown that this is actually the way I should live it, from the day one I smelled the fresh air, up until now where there is nothing but sickening stench.

God forbids we met.

Dream

You know how when you're a little kid and you believe in fairy tales, that fantasy of what your life would be.
White dress, prince charming who'd carry you away to a castle on a hill,
You lie on a bed at night and close your eyes and you had complete and utter faith.
Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming, they were so close you could taste them.
But eventually, you grow up.

One day, you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears.
Most people turn to the things and to the people they can trust, but the thing is, it's hard to let go about fairy tale entirely.
Because almost everyone still has that smallest bit of hope or faith that one day they'll open their eyes and that will come true

At the end of the day, faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expected.
Its like one day you realize that the fairy tale might be slightly different than your dream.
The castle, well, it may not be a castle. And its not so important that if it's happy ever after.
Just that it's happy right now.

See, once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you.
And once in a while, people may even take your breath away.

As narrated by Meredith Grey

Grey's Anatomy

Dear bloody H,

As what I've expected, I aced the crucial time I had just now. Felt like I was flying on a soothing weightless feather, freed from everything that has been incarcerating me all this while. I should not expect much as there would be no more to be saved from this good-for-nothing relationship.

Maybe I had too much to endure. Maybe, but I couldn't understand the matter why this thing has to be happened to me. To us. To everybody that lives around us.

I write more after this. I want to get out of this system.

Later,
E

To H,

I'm having my big day today. Just hoping to receive a modest Good Luck wish from you.

But it seems like it won't happen.

Loving you endlessly,
E

An Open Letter To H

Dear H,

I came back to my abode this evening at 8 and straight away tossing up my keys and drove to this little Thai restaurant or could I call it Kelantanese restaurant because the guy who took my order talked incomprehensible dialect which later I found out it was a Kelantanese dialect because his dialect was so different from what I’ve heard from my other Kelantanese colleagues I had at work or when I was in boarding school and maybe it was incomprehensible because he was actually a Thai(landish?) at all.

While I was waiting for my Tom Yam to be served, I gazed up to the sky and I saw stars of varying intensity mapped onto the black night canvas were so persistent, I could see a star, shining brightly and she was the one who stood out among others and I thought a soothing Jim Brickman’s song would be nice to complement the absolutely amazing moonless night but all I heard was a shriek from the TV with a man and a woman mumbling over the death of the beauty Mongolian Altantuya whose body was blown into pieces and sometimes the shriek dimmed for a few seconds when trucks with annoying sound passed over on the street beside the restaurant.

All of a sudden, I came to think of you. Gazing at the star, the way it shone was so irritating, it did bring back the memory and the remembrance of things past that happened between us. For sure I didn’t want to think more about you, any deeper. No. I wouldn’t. But shit happened and when it happened the least I would like to do was to recall the reminiscence we had together and the least thing I would like to have was the first thing that came to mind. Because I was so miserable and pathetic, I did recall the memories back. I didn’t cry. I wasn’t that melodrama. It yucked in many ways, you did know how wretched a woman cried for a little man as though I have nothing to cry for but you.

And then I came back home, watched National Geographic about this Korean Air flight that crashed in Guam, then Supernatural whose the big brother was so hot I came to think of having his lil brother instead, then more NatGeo which the title was “The Vanishing Tattoo” or something like that and then I lied flat on my comforter did nothing but stared at the ceiling watching the comforting creamy white paint. I couldn’t stop thinking about you so I did text you which it sounded something similar like this

“I had my hair cut today. So much similar like yours when you decided that you needed a new brandishing hair style. A bit boyish but I like it. And I do hope you like it too but I don’t think so because you haven’t replied to any of my SMSs or even return any of my calls, so I guess you must not like me anymore, do you?”

I wait and wait up until now where there is still no sign that you’ll reply me. I presume the 1 cent charge for the SMS is too pricey for you eh? I think I lost you.

Goodbye H. Whatever your reason is, I still kiss you on my laptop screen every single day.

Bollock!

I have ten minutes before the clock hits 2 in the morning. Better sleep rather than dozing off in the office. In this small hour, I am starting to feel bad how stupid guys on this Earth who do not know how to cherish a girl like me. I feel so bad so that I will be running amok on the street alone, buck naked, holding lethal weapon and start to chop everybody’s head. And then I’ll swim in a pool of blood and people will leash me with torturing belts and send me to asylum and give me Valium and I think Valium is all what I needed right now!

Why he doesn’t want to reply my text? Why he doesn’t want to pick up my call? Were my messages I sent him annoying? Were calls I made didn’t ring his brain?

Guys are so mysterious and moron it is even better to be a woman. At least, we have lactating breasts and pink nipples and cute faces and the qualities that most of you blokes chase after or maybe you don’t if you are gay or a man with the endocrine gland being pressed by a gigantic deadly cancer or a lad with a low sex drive because your spouse is ugly. What qualities does a man have? Fine-looking? Well-built torso? After shaved beards?

I don’t need those, bollock! What I need is a guy who could be the safety jacket when I’m drowning. Or a guy who knows how to pretend to be happy even though he’s not when he’s with me. Maybe it does sound selfish, but every woman is selfish. And it is even more selfish if the guy we choose is the guy who can be the safety jacket and have fine looking and possess well-built six-pack salivating body and have cute after shaved beards! What a combo eh?

And I have a minute more before 2 because I don’t want to spend my whole life weeping over a stupid good-for-nothing man! Please ignore my previous entry. The one with over the moon feeling. Cut that. Pretend that you never read that. And I’ll tell you when that entry will be valid again.

Soon maybe, after I found another cute guy that has the safety jacket characteristics with extra safety features.

It is two. Better go. Good night.

*I published this in the morning by the way. Thihihihi.

?

Have you ever had a hunch that you are actually fallen in love with someone that isn’t meant for you? Like violating the law of karma or driving in the night time without having a tail light to make sure people can see you at the back. I think I did fall in love with a wrong guy, but that’s it, I love him. One’s so stupid and smug with his own sheer stupidity; the bad side of him is blurred leaving the greatest characteristics in the lime light. All these few days, I’ve been thinking of that issue, whether I’ve made a great decision by falling in love with him or am I just needed someone to eliminate the insecurity?

Looking at his face, I can see him struggling with problems he doesn’t want to be in. But for sure the trouble he had created like a plastic duck in a kiddy pool, it swirls and swirls until it disappears into the plughole down to the drain. But he is a tough guy for sure; I’ve never seen such a strong guy in his emotion – he contains every single thing not to be ruptured because dignity is what he left to save for. 

Now he is afar from me, left me all alone, reminiscing the memories he’d left me. But as wrong as the fate has been driven me on this winding road, as much as the karma laws I’ve been defied and how moron am I by seeing my future in him, I have no regrets whatsoever to be with him, up until now where love’s blossoming and keeps on flourishing. At least I can treasure the color and the sweet smell I’m having right now just before it rots and starts to poison me with its stench, leaving me perished and demolished like the pure white snow falling from the sky – it’s falling so slow and wavy until it hits the ground, safe and sound and lie over there untouched and hoping to be melted bit by bit when the sun shines.

And though this is the way I’ve chosen, I’m starting to contemplate when I write this, what if the road not taken?

Jolt

I need a jolt. A big one. The one that’ll leave you shocked for the rest of your day. Like having a pinch from your mom at the bottom of your belly when you were five because you did an art on the wall, leaving the white coated bricks with stains that couldn’t be removed. It was so painful. Throbbing. Like a sonar. And it was lasted for more than an hour, and you thought of paying revenge but you couldn’t because you were too small and eventually you lied down on your bed, head down, breathing through the voids of your mattress, hoping that your mom will come back to you and said “I’m so sorry I got angry” but it didn’t happen because your life wasn’t that perfect.

It was perforated at some points. And I wished mine wasn’t perforated. I liked it perfect.

Because when mine was perfect, I don’t need a jolt right now to wake me up from my flight of the imagination. Maybe this fantasy I made by my own self isn’t a fantasy at all. Maybe it is just the reincarnation of a night mare that has been haunting me all this while. It is just me who being ignorant, didn’t realize that this is actually the occasion I’ve been fleeing. Maybe.

I hear the singing of a bird. Far away but still can be heard. Except there isn’t any bird at all. The setting would be perfect if there is a bird chirping. I wish. On a tree at the back of my lawn. And I am on my butt underneath, reading Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth as I am having quite little time these days for a book. 58 pages in a month? I need to take a leave. A week maybe. Just to read all those novels I bought. But will those birds poo on me?

Crap.

I should resort for an ice-cream perhaps. That’ll of course alleviate a little amount of weight in my head. Some say that eating and licking ice-cream is a warning that you are in a massive strike of depression. Is it?

I suppose I am going mad. Or insane. Or kooky. Or mentally unstable. Whichever applicable. I need a rest and rent a DVD. A Beautiful Mind maybe? I heard it was all about a guy going insane. Or should it be avoided?

I’ll sleep instead.

.

.

.

.

Maybe later, I need a rush of an ice-cream right now. Vanilla ice-cream coated with thick crispy choc layer.

Then, I’ll go sleep. Or read a book. Or watch a DVD.

I am absolutely insane, now.

Secrets

I have secrets. Yes, it is plural and I have loads of them – some of it have been forgotten somewhere down the path of my living. Some of it so big, I try to protect them so hard and left the others prone to be burst out. Some say that this world has no boundaries. Yes it is and so does the blogging world. Thank god I made myself anonymous; at least I can tell my stories and secrets over here without any judgmental dickheads.

Secret, it is like an atomic bomb. Like your raging wrath inside yourself. Waiting the perfect time to be burst out. Secret, you love to have it for your own and for most of the times, you love to seek for a company to share the secret so that you won’t be going crazy talking to yourself about the thing you’re the only one know. Finding a perfect listener for a secret so deep it wrecks you when you found out that the one you chose is the one you toss. And when the secret gets its third company, you hurt and start to hinder what you’ve done before not to be blamed for the fault you’ve committed.

The secret is so big; no one would love to keep for themselves. What an evening with cups of tea without anything to be gossiped with your closest comrades? And when this thing happens you start to bawl and worry and sorry for yourself for being so stupid telling inconvenient truth to the others while it is always be safe to write it in a diary or talk to a tree like one kid’s story where this lumberjack keeps on telling secrets to a hole of a tree and eventually when the tree being knocked or hit by a hammerhead, the tree wails the secrets this lumberjack has been telling all this while. And it is safe because tree cannot tell secrets and the story is a big lie.

Secret, it hurts you. It possesses you to an extent when you can’t take those anymore, you rupture your own secrets, you cry and couldn’t stop feel sorry for yourself. Secret, it is damaging. It eats your flesh and bites your freedom of living. Secret doesn’t need to be kept because the way to keep a secret is to spill it out.

It Is The Thought That Matters The Most

I hardly know you. We've begun to get acquainted maybe less than a month? I couldn't recall how but oh yes, of course it was through the unbounded blogging world. How 5000 miles air trip could be shortened by just a click on your PC. And yet, we've shared quite a lot except what do I do for a living. I've told you, I am a toilet cleaner.

May your day at Samui will be filled with joy and happiness. Lotsa hunky guys to be flirted with. And more hard abs.

Happy Birthday Kuzz, May Ladyluck Always be by Your Side

Steven Strait

Caleb,

I watched The Covenant just now at 3 in the morning, having no worry at all about getting stoned and sleepy tomorrow morning when I have to go to work (I don't drive. I am an avid public transport user). Finished up at 4.30 and seriously it wasn't the storyline that hooked me up. I'm not a fan of this pagan sort of thing where you have these descendants and there is something to be streamed down through the bloodline. It is not just my thing. That's why I didn't watch this movie in the first place when this movie was out back in 2006. Truth be told, I can't relate. There's something inconvenient watching this kind of genre, like Smallville or Heroes or even Spiderman. It annoys me. I feel stupid watching this kind of movie where there will be no one on earth would like to wear that stretchy webby lycra with blue and red spots on that suit. It just YUCKS!

And same thing does apply to The Covenant too. Those spooky stuff... Erk, are you kidding me that you have that kind of power (like Naruto doing his Sharingan sort of thing)? yea, I watch anime. Naruto was the starter for all this anime thing.

BUT.. as far as the stupid movie is concerned, there's something made me hooked up, till the last words, where credits started to roll. It was Caleb. His deep voice, his after shaved beard, his eyes, his hair, his Roman resemblance, his smile, his macho act to this girl, were so watering! I'm not that desperate though I know that I'm this wrinkled prune mama. Tsk. And not to forget, his dark shiny hair. It is like a bunch of Lego. You have this wheels, some shafts, some blocks, and you assemble those together to make a very hot looking toy vehicle. Caleb is that toy vehicle.

I think, he was the factor The Covenant made it big. Steven Strait is just a hunk! During my years in Uni, I'd known a lot of hunky guys named Caleb. It just like natural to have Caleb as a handsome guy, girl's walking magnet. Even in TV series, Caleb is portrayed as a cute guy, stone hard muscle, fully developed washboard abs, etc etc etc. Put every good quality over there and you'll have Caleb.

I know this post isn't really me. I'll be back. I'm having a post-caleb disorientated mind disease. I'll post more Zubaidah Arshad's type of entry later on.

Right now I wanna go to sleep because I had enough of Caleb already and I need to wake up at 7 because I have to catch my train tomorrow morning. Otherwise, I'll be dead meat.

Ahh yes, I'm just a toilet cleaner. Giving the best quality for those in need!




Good night!

Wang Saku

"Opah, atuk cakap atuk nak bawak Wawa pergi pekan. Atuk cakap atuk nak beli barang. Wawa nak ikut Atuk. Boleh tak Opah?"

"Atuk kamu nak beli apa kat pekan? Dia bukan ada duit sangat pun"

"Entah Opah. Dia ajak Wawa pergi. Boleh tak Opah?"

"Tunggu sekejap. Opah nak kirim beli tembakau"
.
.
.
.

"Atuk boleh ke bawak motor nih? Wawa takut jatuh. Nanti Umi marah"

"Awat Umi hang nak marah? Dia anak atuk"

"Kenapa anak tak boleh marah ayah dia?"

"Nanti Tuhan kerat lidah! Nak kena kerat lidah?"

"Taknak. Takut. Nanti tak leh panggil Atuk gemuk dah. Hihihi"

"Budak nih.. aku punggai satgi"

"Atuk nak pergi pekan buat apa tok? Opah cakap Atuk bukan ada duit pun"

"Mana dia tau aku takdak duit? Hang tak tau Pak Su hang, Mak Ngah hang, Umi hang, Pak Long hang semua dok bagi duit kat aku tetiap bulan. Opah hang ja tatau"

"Atuk ni jahat la. Tak baik tau"

"Awat tak baik pulak. Pak Su, Pak Long, Umi hang pon dok bagi kat dia duit jugak. Tu Opah hang dok sakan tempah baju kurung dia tu, mana dia cekau duit? Depa la bagi"

"Hiks. Atuk gemuk yay! Atuk gemuk yay!"

.
.
.
.
.
.


"Lamanya pergi pekan. Wawa beli apa?"

"Wawa beli cekak rambut"

"Mana tembakau Opah?"

"Kejab ek Wawa ambik"

.
.
.

"Opah, nah!"

"Erm.. terima kasih. Ni apa dia ni dalam kotak tembakau ni?"

"Hiks.. Entah. Opah tengok la"

"Ish.. ada kotak. Sat Opah nak baca"

"Cepat Opah.. Wawa nak dengar jugak"

"Siah, Abang Sarip sayang Siah sampai bila bila. Terima lah cincin murah ni dari Abang Sarip"

"Opah! Siah tu siapa? Abang Sarip tu siapa?"




Opah tersenyum. Bingkai gambar lama yang sudah berdebu digilap dengan hujung lengan baju. Sarip nampak segak. Siah nampak cantik.

"Wawa, bagi tahu Atuk kamu, I LOVE YOU"

Shalt I wish thou good night?

Prior to his departure, everything seemed so bleak, the despair they had to bear, overwhelming. She sat by the chicane, pondering on the words she wanted to pull out. Blanked. She lost her temporary memory. She was contented. Indeed.

"I'm leaving"

"I know, I saw your luggage"

"I don't want to. This is what I have to do. For a better life"

"I know. You said that before"

"You seem unwell. Hit the clinic, shall we?"

"I am completely well. Great. Nothing major"

"You seem so red. Come on. I don't want to leave with you looking like this"

"I said I am okay. Don't have to be worried. You have a lot more to be stuff in your head. Stop worrying on me. I am okay. I am okay. I am okay"

"No you don't"

"Yes, I am not okay. Please don't leave. I can't breathe. All this while I thought I could stand on my own. There will be nothing to stop me from doing every single thing that I loved"

"I have to. I need to move on. Life like this"

"Why you have to when there is a better life looking forward to be reaching upon you?"

"No, I don't see anything"

"Please don't leave. I need you"

"I have to. Get some rest. Good night"

"FUCK. Don't leave me for God's sake"

"Night"

"I love you"

There was a silence. Everything seemed so quite she couldn't hear anything except her own rantings smashing over her head silently.

"All this while, I keep my own feeling covered. Better not to wish that I've fallen in love with you. You seem not so into me. I remember the day. The day you said no when I asked you out on my ride to Aldeburgh"

"I thought it was a joke. We were about to travel across the country!"

"I think I have to go. It is getting late. Soon it will be foggy"



The night stopped. Like there was nothing revolved again.

She stumbled. And cried.

There would no reason to live for. Maybe for now.

Then she heard a beep. She received a text. She read. She smiled.

"I love you. And always love you. I just want you to be sure what you want in your life. Sorry I am for being so pessimistic. I am sure what I want from my life. It is you what I really need. I will miss you.... so much"

Shalt she withdraw her contemplation. Because this was not really a good time to whisper him good night.

Little Less Worries

So he did leave me. There was no good I spent my whole days thinking over to win his confidence back again, like salvaging an old book, the page were blackened and ashed, and yet a few words remained, telling story which was incomplete and left us bewildered what was the whole book was all about. A couple of years worth of sweet and jolly, 24 months stuffed with contentment and relieving therapy, 96 weeks with little less worries, 730 days agony free and an hour of harsh words and calamity.

Sometime when I sit alone under the huge shadowy tree in front of the lake I used to fish together with him on a late Sunday evening, the memories rush onto my head, unstoppable and keeps on projecting like a set of monochromatic images playing over a designated sequence and on a time line, perfectly follows the chronology. It is like counting from 1 to 10. Not from 10 to 1 where there is always 11 to start with. Those reminiscences from my grey matter are nothing much helpful in surviving my days hereafter.

Albeit no one confessed, either me or him, neither of us entrapped in this entangling web of uncertainties. It is a game of hide-and-seek. You hide, I find you, you caught, I hide myself.

No matter how hard we try to run away, this feeling of guilty will keep on entailing us to a certain point when you'll find you are running out of breath, pulling by and inhale, running again, slowing by and inhale, running again, halting by and inhale. We try to step again but to no avail because we've been running too much, we didn't realize that we tire ourselves up, leaving every single thing behind. And it needs a whole lot more effort to gain everybody's confidence back again because when we are too involved in someone, we tend to forget that we have somebody else to care for.

A lot of them.

Trembled

Seriously, when we think that we have someone to be with, or something to control over, we usually forget how hard it was to get those precious gems. Such an occasion was so wasteful, undeniably thrown back ourselves to the couch we used to sit with our loved ones.

It was my fault. Seriously I shouldn’t do like that where love from someone I care is hard to touch let alone to be grasped. Gaining confidence is tiring and eventually we forget that it is the confidence that set us straight, it is the confidence that diminished the color of uncertainty, it is the confidence from someone we care that drives us back to the spot we used to hang on to.

.

.

I think I need to gain your confidence back again, like the day you used to kiss me goodnight…

He crumbled and faded away - REPUBLISHED

I really wanted to be a writer, really badly, where I could write my own words without restrictions, imperforated (mind this new word) ideas – something that I thought I’d love to express. Be it a novel or a short 9-words poem, anything will do as long as it conveys the exact set of ideas what I have in mind. But it was the common ambition of the inadequate experiences of a 10-year old boy had; who resided in one remote area where folks hardly read the country’s famous tabloid let alone a classic novel from a prominent writer. I was too flaccid at that time, being exuberant and inquisitive of what outside world had to offer, I had been molded to the shape where I couldn’t fit into. There were loads of variations of thoughts I had to follow, left me blurred and somehow blinded. It was such the dish you couldn’t tell what was the ingredients – but you did know that either it was mere a plain cooking, an undoubtedly scrumptious dish or just a plate of craps. You knew it was over sweetened or being too salty but wryly you could do nothing to fix it.

Unfortunately, once I passed the age of braces and training glass, the jolt of excitements I used to have, still intact in the petite space of my mind. It didn’t go away instead it kept on freshened gradually day by day. My appetite for a rich, eclectic stew of great essays is now blossoming and though the pursuit for the name seems hollow, it doesn’t doom to irrelevance. Introspection and the search for individual identity proved to be limited, not public appeal. Never in my life had I produced a proper novel or maybe an essay to be laud neither by the public nor to myself, but I always have the proximity relationship with myself that told me so – that I will thrive either in tough or soft way, it just will happen. Somehow, intuitions were the holocausts and the deity of what I’d gone through up until now. The problem with it was you never knew whether it will be wrong or mere a good start. Whatever it is, my responsibility is to be completely rely and believe in what my spirit tells me – if it wrong, there must be a blessing somewhere inside and if it turns to be flattering, there must be something more to explore.

Time lies on an infinite invisible horizontal line. No one knows where it begins and no one knows where it going to finish. It could not be ended but it could be halted one day, if God wishes to. In my view of life, it is my total conscientiousness to utilize every minute of it (if not every second) for good deeds, for sheer self tyranny I have to counter, for delving into good parts in myself. Nevertheless, being a human with a punch-size flawed-functional brain, those qualities I’ve been seeking all these days were a plain waste of time. Those were only the words from the lips of indecent bastards who talked nothing but a scroll of clichéd philosophy. It is stupid to lean on to those cheap words as they were only the way of gaining quick popularity among the dumb. From the point of realization that I have been bluffed by myself about what the world and time had to offer, I lived the way I like from that time on – provided am still be guided by the blessed path by the Holy Allah as a Muslim.

Reminiscing the days when I was a big whiner about the insufficient foods my family had to bear, was so shameful. It was me the only one who stomped my feet on the floor – giving signs to my mother that I was so irate for the foods she had cooked, how the dishes didn’t satisfy my cravings for luscious appetite.

My mother had taught me to be grateful for everything that I had, either how small it is or as big as I cannot imagine. Be gratified. She told me not to be engulfed in self-voracious and satisfaction but rather think of what the family had to go through at that time – how did father couldn’t afford to pay for the car’s monthly installment, how did my sister fasting everyday as she couldn’t pay for the foods to save for her college fees and everything was jumbling to be settled. I was being too ignorant but on the night I went to my bed, when my mother told me all these, the sudden comprehension of the burdens my mother and my father had to swallow were so appalling and I started to be more appreciative thereafter. God knows how hard I was trying to be more understanding but I was a spoilt brat. I was so used to be accommodated with the convenience my parents had been giving, made it hard to be in the new situation in the first place where everything has to be rationed equally. I learnt a lot in my past years of life but rarely did I apply in my current living.

I had lost my motivations and I think I have regained it bit by bit. And in no time, I’ll be more prepared to paddle this frivolous crooked walk of life. It is about the time I need to be freed from the bars that incarcerates me all this while. It is the time I need to start writing an essay so that I would be more geared up prior to moving to a bigger stage of life – so that I wouldn’t be regretting on my passing days as what I am doing right now.

Regards,
Zubaidah Arshad

.

The sun is glaring through the window Ed had saved whenever he wants to see the turbulent and spinning air from the comfort of his room. The bed all messed up with an evidence of a very hasty commotion - the night when he contemplated whether it was a right decision to let that thing happened or was it something he had longed to have - just to fill the empty space of his own undeniable lust. He couldn't figure it out. When he slips his torso down to the floor, he sees no one in the room like the day he saw it before, everything changes and he thinks that this would be unnecessary for everyone to let him down again after what he had gone through for the last couple of weeks where everything shambled and mournful.

This ‘magical physical interlocking exercise’ he couldn’t recall whether it is something mutual or improvising the lamented life he possessed or was it happened because he has been stopping himself all these years with this indulgence he couldn’t endure.

He thinks he fall in love with him. He stops. He rethinks. He bawls.

He doesn’t.

He pissed off. He would’ve reminded himself that this would be happened.

Somehow when he thinks about this, he sees a circle of hope, rounded and flawless, the way he wants it so badly. But as round as it can be, it is just a circle of hope. Doesn’t bring any significant reason and meaning why it supposed to be there, giving him something that might not happen, some false expectations and some immature hide-and-seek games.

He thinks and he yawns. This problem is so punching his back he couldn’t breathe somehow.

But whatever it is, he doesn’t care because he knows that his life is not being destined to be with a man. He is a lad that supposed to be married to a lass.

.
.
.

.

.

Even he knows that he’ll end up suffering for the rest of his life.

November Rain

November Rain

Two

Water drips enchantingly like beads dropping to the floor from an untie 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 will be seeping through on hot sunny day, resembling a strand of light saber 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 septuagenarian 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, conducted meticulously by no one. Mumtaz – motionless on the floor, religiously listens to this song of God. She has been listening for more than a month now and yet she couldn’t remember how the lyric sounds like. Because the tunes keep changing everyday, she can’t cope to attend to it anymore.

She is helpless in her grubby robe, no shampoo smell but stinky and her stench is so sickening. Mumtaz 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.

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

The Contrast

The Contrast Sometimes it is so funny to think that our life is separated by just one thin line. Between living - breathing the air of a fresh cut grass on the lawn, or lying on bed, eyes closed shut with nothing in the head except an eerie flashes of images how does an afterlife will look like. Sometimes, it is not funny at all to being knocked on our head about all these things. All the life and death talks and jargons which aren't understandable at all. Sometimes we make ourselves to believe on this thing so we could be prepared for the worst and sometimes our faith is shaken badly we almost crumbled mortifying that this will not be happened, at all. Sometimes how hard we try to ditch and to deny this feeling out of our head, it is something that is destined to be happened, something that has been written on our book of life - before we could smell the fresh air of the green grass on the back of our lawn. It will be tormenting, it will be frightening, but how hard it would be, it is written and there will be nothing can be done except being accepting. Sometimes, when I sit on a bench on a late Saturday afternoon, I could be flown away like how do sky and solid ground could be separated by just one thin line. The green and the blank space of white dust. Just like how do life and death are.. Two distinguish worlds by one clear visible line. It is eerie. But that's how it is meant to be. Because sometimes, life is so lovely we don't want to know what will be happening next.

November Rain

November Rain - The Beginning

“Recite, in the name of the Lord thy Creator, who created Man from clots of blood”

One

“Praying again he is. I am being so indifferent while he keeps on standing on that jetty never wanting to let go his hopes. I wish I am that strong, bolted with courage to fight the terror”, a frantic note creeping into Kassim’s gravelly-yet-soothing voice.

“Our motivation has crumbled, my brother Kassim. It was long time ago, remember? Farid’s grieves had subsided, Kamal had rested his shoulder benevolently not to recall passing sorrows upon resurrected from the silent pain. Ameena gained her confidence in the swamp of uncertainties. Almost everyone had woke up not to mingle in the tormenting atmosphere we’d been living all these years”, Aziz sounds deep, restraining the throat from choking the air.

“May Allah shines His mercy on him and puff his exasperation away”, Kassim pats on Aziz’s broad shoulder and walk the path home his legs carry. Aziz catches Kassim’s stroll hastily with small steps not to fall down in the ill-lit uneven ground surface. Near dark it is that birds chirping piercingly – signaling to the others that they are resting, loaded with foods in their nest, enjoying the scene of the dusk with their offspring dancing to be fed. Every single soul on Earth is celebrating the feast to welcoming the night, the moment when all tendencies come to a point of union and contentment.

Hussin’s buttock glued to the soil-brown, tarnished wooden jetty. His bare feet nailed. The jetty is an old wrecked structure which pillars were erected 2-armspread from the shallow river base and the physical shape tatters it does not round anymore. The constant immersion in the water and the hardworking termites had ruined it gradually over time. They had abandoned the dock but Hussin never tried to. He barely moves from the spot he’s resting except for the time when he hears the appeasing voice of Munni calling for beseech to Allah – then he will slowly lift his weary torso down bit by bit to the steep cleavage of already-made stairs to the spot where he will banish the dust that covers him, where he will gargle, seep his whole furrowed face thoroughly, his bone-like hands, foreheads, part of his ears, and finish with a soak from ankle down to his toe – a few inches away from the tip of the Ganges River.

With the leftover energy he has, he will then clamber back up the steep, slippery cliff to his resting spot, straighten his noticeable septuagenarian body and devotedly encumbers in the God’s calling. Five times a day Hussin exuberantly do his undeniable obligation and he never failed once to perform since the very first day he was there until now, which makes the complete circle of a fortnight.

“O’ God, the most merciful and compassionate which from Thou I cometh and to Thou I shall rest, there’s no other God I shall beseech for it’s Thou that let me breathe. I pray upon you Thy Creator for I shall hope that my son is placed among the pure, for him to wash away the sins he’d commit. I pray for Thou Allah to free me from this burden that entangles, I pray for Thou Allah to send my Rafeeq home, I beseech upon….” and Hussin’s lethargic, melancholic prayer chanting endlessly until he wakes up to see himself being bathed by the hot India’s sunrays.

The Evening of 7 Wonders

It was 7 in the evening. Everything started to be darkened when the faded evening sun transformed to dimmed orange gigantic ball which it resembled the eyes filled with wraths and anxieties - for other somehow found it serened and breathtaking.

It was 7 in the evening. It was his feet he found sauntering over the turf people use to stomp on their feet running without one specific reason nor rationale. He wondered why and kept on lazily walked the pathway.

It was still 7 in the evening when he thought that world has stopped moving and clock has stopped ticking he couldn't hear any voice, any bike ramming, any bird chirping. Anything. He couldn't smell the roasted chicken he used to buy when he thought he needed something new to be eaten. He couldn't see his fingers danced on the sequence of scattered alphabets and numbers on the keyboard he loved to hit when he had his own sweet time.

It was 7 in the evening when he saw his life flashed in front of his very eyes like a rusted old film rolling over an old wrecked projector. It was silent. No words. No sounds. It was just his life that he saw how did he feel ashamed of what he had done. How painful he had gone through over the years of his own monochromatic static life. How bold he was to be able to survive in this horrifying walk of life. How he saw he had never walked this life alone when there was always a God to help him ponder about his own miniature flawed life.

He cried.

He bawled his head.

He terrified.

It was 7 in the morning when he saw the sun suddenly crawled up from the back of the hill he could see miles away from his loft. He found colors he couldn't feel through the previous years of his living. He heard voices he longed to listen. He saw cars moving heftily. He could smell the curry from the stall a stone throw from his abode.

He's alive.

He's breathing.

He cried.

He bawled.

He terrified that this was only a dream.

He didn't care.

He smelled the curry.

He saw colors.

He saw a life.


"Oh God Thy most Beneficent, Thy most Merciful. Shalt I wish these dreams were the fraction of the puzzle Thy scrambled for I to put it back together, for I to be awaken with Thy power, as Thy art Thy most Forgiveness"




May the day that will come by be filled with your own reason and rationale.




Zubaidah Arshad on March 7th, 2007

The Continuation

Ed started to cry on the bench he used to squat on his messed-up unwanted day when he was a little dork that wore over sized jumper paired with crocodile look-alike sandals. He felt his body started to shiver when everything was exactly all right. He put his hands into the pockets of his yellow raincoat and his fingers wildly looking for a piece of a torn paper he used to scribble when he thought that he needed something to be jotted down for it would be lost in his memory.

He couldn’t bear the fact that he had a very despairing short term memory he couldn’t even remember his birth date.

Sometimes when he thought about this thing, he would bawl on his own because he loved to remember back the days when he hit the sack on that lovely summer morning at the back on Samuel’s lawn where the Jared twins will cheekily threw him with a massive amount of solidified clays and an enormous velocity of water jet.

He enjoyed those times. Ed wanted more. Ed wanted Paul to hug him right now so that the nightmare that haunted him all this while will vanish and he wanted Paul to see him stood up on his own, being an independent and still cling on him for a little sprinkle of love.

It is still the continuation

So it wasn’t about Ben or Canberra at all or the kids that threw their own poo at him after a day of unwanted commotions. It wasn’t the scent of morning mist that kept him fumbled into past memories or the maple leaves that fell down on the lane of wisteria in some unknown provinces in Sussex. And it was absolutely not about the hideous hair he had in the unglamorous salon where did all people sink into the hardened pillowed chair waited for their hair to be uncurled.

It weren’t those occasions that smacked his rib cage out.

He knew it because everything seemed to be as normal as any day he had experienced for the last couple of months, where he saw butterflies and moths teeming over a bouquet of flowers with variations of magnificent colors and he couldn’t differentiate what was the difference between butterfly and moth because everything seemed to be as colorful as he had went through just like on this very precise moment, where his feet nailed vertically on the ground and he couldn’t feel any movement to free himself. And he knew that the cursed has been released.

He knew that the guy who was passing him over, the guy that left his palm with slight and thin scent of multiple hundreds of quid of perfume – was his remedy to his own mysterious illness. He was in love. An arbitrarily love from a man to a man. It wasn’t a brotherly love but rather a passion (and of course love) to the same communal genitalia group and he knew it wasn’t something ordinary for this kind of inter-gender affection to be happened to him and he wasn’t really sure whether his sick unadulterated mind had been polluted by the homosexual provocation of the en masse media he saw on the tv or was it just his biological and physical need for a companion.

He couldn’t explain. Maybe for now.

But it was that guy’s face that haunted his dreams for the last couple of weeks and it wasn’t scary at all but rather amusing and exhilarating and sexually compelling.

He thought that he needs to figure this squashy depressing feeling out, sooner!

It is the continuation

It was in the morning, cold misty morning where solid clog of haze blurring my sight. The temperature was so damn low that it shivered my every muscle to the bone – the coldness owed me a wonderful stretch of blanket to cover my complete torso. I woke up climbing down the stairs with hand fully gripped to the banisters just to feel every puff of breath I inhaled, hardened and coarse – just like the frost poking up your nostrils on the hard winter morning.

Still months to come after just a few days I was here to soil this fertile land with my preserved knowledge and for me, my unknowing deserved to be garnished with another part of the world I haven't seen before. It was woods and jungles and more leaves and more woods and branches of the species I haven't known peacefully grow in the vicinity of my own brand new polished home. It was like reminiscing the day you first arrived in Sussex not to know every single thing in front of your eyes. You tried to focus and tried to recall everything you've seen in the book you bought in Kinokuniya but in a way you were excited to scream that you knew this and you've seen that but alas it wouldn't scream out of your mouth. It was well preserved.

But the days in Sussex were completely different from the days everything did shamble here in this God-knows-what-creature-would-come-out-from-my-backyard place. It feels like the interference of two different worlds and forcefully asked to mix up together by some sort of weird chemical and physical and biological reactions so that a brand new culture could be cultivated and people could adapt to their own preferences.

I haven't tried any of that mixture because I wouldn't dare to change the way I already lived, the way I've been brought up, the way the Sussex boys saw the life from their own perspective.

I saw Canberra and I saw Ben on a single wheel of his bicycle. Ben did that twisting with his handle on the formation I never knew while I saw myself holding my muffler trying to get it rounded back on my neck. And suddenly I couldn't see myself and Ben and other people lying on that park on that lovely fall evening. I couldn't see the view I was profound to saunter the next evening. They disappeared. The world kept on shaking I couldn't hold my feet to the ground.

Everything flashed back to where it did belong to. I rode the bus this morning just to be gaped in awe about the amazement I saw within a few reach of my hands. The mountains, the hills, the small rivers, the dew that scattered all over the window. It was awesome to be knocked on the head that you were alive and still breathing to see this dew dripping from the tip of the weird species leaf of a tree and you love it and you became someone you didn't know because from the first day you were born to the hour your age had befallen on 20, you never knew that this kind of place ever exist. You just didn't know.

And you started to become someone even weirder that you can't recognize that it were you. Suddenly the sudden comprehension struck your head like an atomic bomb you knew will explode then you tried to run and to evade every single possibility that you had known will result in your own casualty. It was freaking mad. All of a sudden you started to cry and began patting your own head just to be regretting your own past sorrows.

And in the end, you think you will have the benefit of the doubt, and you started to screw everything up and you couldn't bear the fact that everything did shamble everything again when your hopes started to bloom.

And it was just the time that you hit the voracious fire and relentlessly hoping that you were back in Canberra watching Ben and his bicycle and you wished you were transported back to Sussex just to see yourself in your schooling uniform.

My life could be trembling. But I am pretty sure that you will feel what did I feel just now.

My Crooked Stupid Little Life

It is always happen to me when I have many things to be written, it will just vanish without any clear interventions. It halts. It is augmenting the superficial thoughts I’d withdrawn a few fortnights beforehand. It is like an undressed girl trembling herself arguing about her existence and the self-despoilment and the whereabouts the occurrence of her nudity. Like I had experienced just now, the mind boggled with a pool of unfiltered ideas, it tried defiantly to channel the thoughts to people around, but it was rather persistent and reluctant to be perceived. It feels like a big gigantic balloon bloating inside your tummy and waiting to be burst out. It is horrifying to think about the possibility but the real thing could be happened and for some reasons it couldn’t be avoided.

Life floats like a bubble in open air. When the wind blows, it pushes you to the top, when the heat goes, your life will sink until you drop.

Luminiscent

"She cries"

"I didn't do anything"

"She thought that you will leave her alone. She couldn't bear the fact that she will be raising your son without even know the path that she should follow"

"I love my son. The only world I know"

It was in the morning. Cold misty morning where dew started to clog the window in my little cubicle room. The window had been the one who always gave me the clear picture where I should go every morning. Whether to head to the north or to the west. Usually it was the north that I followed. The path was clearer and the ground was more even rather than the west. The west was shorter but has been perforated and even lit badly.

It has always been when I didn't sure whether to head north or to make a tow and head to the west. It always been a confusing choice. It just like when you have a lot of things you want to say but eventually it jams inside your brain and your nerve gone mad and you don't even know what to do.

I'm getting used to it, over time.


I am so alone right now. It has been a couple of days that I sat outside, far in the middle of the lawn and began deliberating and pondering myself about everything. I've lost a lot of things lately and I didn't even sure whether they were recoverable or just going to be perished in the nick of time. It was great to lay back and watch over the sky, how the stars blinked defiantly, how the moon portrayed the blue canvas with it's dimmed color and how great the God is, making everything goes perfectly without any interventions.

I think the sky would be bluer for months to come.



It's El Nino you know!