by James Ooi
I am writing this because I am asked to do this. And in thirty minutes. So I'll just write about last week's class where we were asked to go to the nearby mall to talk to someone there and write about it. Raman, my writing class instructor suggested that the class do it as a creative writing project.
Ok lah, he's the boss so here goes.
Damn! It was a hot afternoon. Just walking out of the bookshop and onto the road, I could feel the blistering heat. My hand and arms felt like it was sizzling onto the grill being barbequed to a crisp. Hurriedly, I strode along the weather beaten road and into the cool air conditioning of the mall.
So I had to find someone to talk with. Yeah, hopefully some hot girl is gonna respond to my advances. Or I might get a slap and have to turn back in to class with a red face. I could probably say it's sunburn or something.
Or I could chat up a guy and get punched in the face for propositioning him. Maybe I should send Raman the medical bill for getting us to do this zany exercise. Okay, okay. I'll look for the first gay guy I see and just chat him up. This way I won't get slapped or punched in the face but I'd probably get molested instead, I guess.
Walking along the busy and cluttered upper ground floor, I chanced upon this rustic and ambient arty-farty shop selling some earthen pots with water flowing out of them. Yeah, what a rip-off. RM800 for an urn and water flowing out of it. I could probably buy the same stuff at the local pasar malam.
But still, the shop was nicely decorated and it had a warm rustic feeling to it. You have some statues of Buddha around, a couple of beautifully painted artwork of Buddha's head. I almost bought the painting. And the shop owner, who was gay, was a very handsome guy who came over and started telling me in a very fascinating manner about his shop.
Let's call him Gary. Gary's a clean-cut guy, handsome in the guy-next-door kinda manner, nice short-cropped hair and a smile that girls would probably swoon over. But he is gay. How the heck do I know? I know, I just know he's gay.
I guess even though he wasn't exactly the feminine type but he has some unmistakable mannerisms that actually made me realize that he was one of them. My cousin's gay so I know how to recognize one. Especially after the incident one night of drunken partying at Rum Jungle when this long time friend of mine just grabbed me and gave it straight to me on the lips with some tongue action man! That was so sick that I puked and I washed my mouth with Listerine over and over again when I got back.
Gary had a very interesting manner in the way he spoke. You kinda felt that he was paying attention to you and you alone. It was very hypnotizing and I didn't feel much of a regret as I parted with about a hundred ringgit for some souvenirs.
Suddenly, he said to me conspiratorially, "Say, I just have this feeling that I want to share something with you. It's about your future."
Incredulously, I joked, "What?? I just parted with a hundred ringgit buying stuff from you. You want me to place a standing order for strange Thai artifacts from your shop every month issit?"
Gary laughed, "No, nothing like that. I have some skills in tarot reading. I just felt led to do a reading for you."
Intrigued, I said, "Ok cool. Let's do it."
Sitting at his table, he passed me a deck of cards and told me to shuffle them. I shuffled them and handed it back to him. Gary cut the deck, split the deck into three piles and put the lowest pile back on top of the other two. I was then asked to select 9-cards from the shuffled deck.
Placing a 9-card spread onto the table, Gary said in a low mysterious tone, "The first three cards represent the past, the next three - the present and the last three - the future."
"Looking at the past, I see that you have had many relationships which have started well but ultimately ended as just friends. I also see that you have had 5 serious relationships. It seems to me that you have yet to find the soul mate in your past life."
Impressed I said, "Amazing. That's absolutely true. How do you do that?"
"The present cards tells me that you are now searching for that someone new. And the future tells me that you will find that someone but it will be something that you will not expect it to be."
"Do you believe in reincarnation?"
I replied, "Yes, I do."
Gary grasped my right hand and gazed directly into my eyes, "I have this revelation that I feel I want to tell you but I don't know if I should. How would you want me to do this? It might be traumatic for you, you know."
Feeling more curious and even a bit suspenseful, I said, "Tell me lah. After all, you have gone too far to stop now."
Then Gary smiled suggestively to me, "What I am telling you now may surprise you. I am your wife from your previous life. You and I are meant to be together in this life."
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
THE PLAN.doc
by Kow Shih-Li
Tuesday
Today, I am at the bank, as always. The fluorescent lights throw a flat, white brightness on everything including the plastic potted palm standing by the grey blinds. Everything is sterile and inorganic, including me in my starched, white shirt. The continual whirring of the bubble jet printer is unrelenting, printer-head grinding its teeth on accordion-folded, four-ply paper. I am as accustomed to this background noise as I am to the sound of my own breathing but today, its dogged busyness jars my senses. The inescapable dreariness of mechanical efficiency is distressing.
I have been sleepless for three nights now. Some non-existent pump in my gut is pushing adrenalin through my body. Continually nervous, I feel as though I am standing on metal grating in a high place through which I can see the long fall down. Maybe it's the tea-lady's coffee, maybe it's Her.
Work is a distraction. My shirt collar chafes the back of my neck, the tie presses against my throat like the cliched noose. I have to plan for bigger things now. I have to plan for Her. It is impossible to concentrate. The dotted lines awaiting my signature float in and out of my field of vision randomly as I try to focus on the loan approval forms. Fuad had better be diligent checking though the paperwork.
Wednesday
I am told I have an analytical mind. A way with numbers, never misses details yet always sees the big picture. The powers that be tell me that in my annual performance appraisals every year, without fail. Of course I have a bloody analytical mind. What other kind of mind would a dean's list accounting student with a Masters in International Finance have, the morons?
Today, this exemplary mind is taxed by the thoughts of Her and lunch last Saturday. It was Japanese, always safe for a first date. No sharing of food, no clumsy cutting, no splattering gravy, no messy servings and prawn shells strewn on table cloths wet by tea. Only convenient, bite sized pieces on individual plates that you could transport into your mouth without appearing undignified.
So, we ate, sitting across each other at a small table, a young couple on the other side of the fake rice paper screen. Conversation ebbed and flowed with the tea. Her hands were beautiful, curled around the glazed teacup. She smiled a lot and laughed a little. She would be away, she said, for a few days. Would I call her when she got back?
Thursday
The framed poster in my office proclaims, "A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline. -Harvey Mackay-" I did not know who this Mackay was but plan I shall.
It has been 5 days since we first met. I could not remember her face, only the fact that it was pleasing enough. The prospect of seeing her again tomorrow excites me. I plan an agenda for the next two months. Ten dates tabled under the headers Date, Meal Type, Restaurant Options and Other Activity. I had vicarious pleasure with Other Activity. Date-plan.doc is saved in my Personal Folder on the computer.
Friday - The Second Date
Her favourite steak place was a dimly lit colonial bungalow. In the candle-illumined gloominess, we talked about work. Listening to her voice lilting around narrations of difficult clients and the tiredness of being on the road, I drank 2 beers and felt the nervous anticipation of the week drain away from the base of my spine. She had red wine with her medium rare. God, I love a woman who eats red meat. When we finished, she touched my arm with her beautiful hand as she got up from her chair. A fleeting two seconds, a slight pressure burning a hole through my sleeve. I thought she was heaven sent and hot as hell.
Monday
The bank has me in its confines again. Lee Mei, my assistant, is driving me crazy with her rational explanations of why every problem she brought to me had a right to exist and was impossible to solve. Fuad has been sensible enough to stay away and feign independence. The slowness of time makes me increasingly crabby.
I type out an imaginary conversation with Her, save it as Conv-plan.doc and mark as 'Done' Date No. 2 in my dating schedule.
Tuesday - The Third Date
I had an Other Activity planned; an artsy Chinese movie with subtitles. Her closeness in the darkness of the cinema was discomforting, the space between our shoulders hung like a tangible mass. The movie was filled with grandly coloured scenes but I barely heard the dialogue. I was too busy rehearsing, in my head, the witty conversation that I had concocted yesterday. I would use that over teh tarik and thosai after the movie.
It worked brilliantly. I brimmed with charm and she was adorable in her compliance to my scheme to win her.
Wednesday
She calls and we speak on the phone in the privacy of my office for twenty-five minutes. I spend another forty-five replaying the conversation in my head, reinterpreting for clues. Someone less pragmatic would have called the analyzing cold-blooded; I prefer to think that I am searching for a way into her beautiful mind.
Two cursory knocks on my open door. "Good morning, Andrew. Where's that monthly loan status report you were supposed to give me yesterday?" I am startled but the matronly bulk of Mrs Tan is already lowering itself into my visitor chair. Chain-smoking, audit tyrant from HQ. I didn't know she was at the branch today. Shit.
"Hey, Mrs Tan. I didn't know you were coming today. Fuad! Somebody, get Fuad please and tell him to bring the loan status report."
Mrs Tan lights a cigarette. That woman has no decorum at all, and it is against branch regulations to smoke indoors. My coffee cup turns into an ashtray. I hated her stubby fingers. They were so inelegant compared to Hers.
"Come on, Andrew. You're slipping up. You always meet your deadlines and now you've missed three in 2 weeks. This is not going to look good in your appraisal. What's wrong? You lovesick or what?" she said, emphasizing 'not' with a little pause and puff of smoke.
"No'lah, Mrs Tan. Everyone is just a little overstretched. That new loan scheme HQ launched last week is flying and we're just trying to cope with the response. I haven't had a good break since I don't know when."
"Is that so? Well, maybe you should take some time off when you sort out this mess." She steals a glance at my computer screen. Thank god I had just opened a busy looking Excel file to work on.
Fuad comes in with the loan status report, looking mousy in a beige shirt. Mrs Tan is diverted, she has fresh prey.
Saturday - The Fourth Date
It went exactly as planned. We spent the whole day together. Shopping, eating, another movie. Her closeness was no longer a thing to be conscious of. We held hands and it was perfectly natural.
Over dinner, I told her about Mrs Tan and the people at work, making Mrs Tan uglier and the rest more incompetent than they actually were. It threw my own competencies into clearer relief, I thought. She laughed, said "You're so mean" and slapped me on the arm. What would I say to my friends about her? I told her and she fell silent.
Sunday - The Fifth Date
The walk back to the car from the restaurant was secluded. I kissed her and she leaned in.
It was a triumph of planning and execution. The Kiss was 2 dates ahead of schedule.
I allowed myself to think about a future involving a diamond ring of a certain size. This was The Big Picture.
*****
I stopped planning dates because there was no longer a need. We were calling each other several times a day, and meeting as often as we could. I started planning a little holiday away. A 3-day rendezvous at the beach, probably Langkawi. I booked the AirAsia tickets from the office and filled out an Annual Leave Application form.
The people in the office say I look good. I agree. A spring in my step, a sparkle in my eye. Work was no longer a burden. In fact, I excelled - I was incisive, emphatic, even warm and connected. Fuad and Lee Mei flourished under my effectiveness. Mrs Tan would have no reason to visit again.
Food tasted better.
The Holiday
She was surprised when I told her about Langkawi. Not as happy as I expected she would be but she said was tired from the pressure of meeting quotas. The month was coming to an end and she had to sell more insurance policies to make her numbers.
"Why don't you sell me a policy? How short are you on your quota?"
"I couldn't. It's not right. This is too personal, you can't bail me out all the time."
"Why not? Anyway, I don't have one of those medical cum life cum unit trust type of fancy schemes you have. "
The monthly premiums could have paid for a small car but what the heck. She would love me for it. I was doing well at work and my transfer to HQ would come through in 6 months.
In Langkawi, I gave her a necklace with a little diamond heart. Just to let you know you're special. Oh, I love you, she said, with tears in her eyes. The sun set behind her, an orange globe swallowed by the single line of the horizon. I had a right to be smug. It was perfectly timed, perfectly planned. The sky flushed a rosy pink. All was right with my
*****
I had another preoccupation now. Planning a marriage and a new life after. I was filling in the colours of The Big Picture.
The structured demands of a HQ career worked well for me. My name cards have been reprinted twice, each time with a title bearing more letters and hyphens. A real plant with juicy, verdant leaves sits next to my office door. There are no printers within earshot. Bliss.
An October wedding would be ideal. We'd have Christmas together for a honeymoon and be comfortably acclimatized to face Chinese New Year in January as an angpow-giving couple together.
The Proposal
I made reservations at an expensive French restaurant. A resident four-piece string quartet would provide a suitably romantic ambience, I was told.
The half-carat ring is in my pocket. I had taken care to wear dark trousers so that I would not have a stain on them after I got up from bended knee. The menu would be light and delicate. Salads, pates, fish, soufflé, wine, mousse.
On the way to dinner, she disgorged the daily complaints about work and her boss. It was tiresome to listen to but it was her routine. I let it wash over me. It would be another coup; I had the perfect evening planned. She would say yes, the strings would play and I would be on my way to a perfect, married life.
After the cheese and before the dessert, the quartet moved close. It turned out to be a Filipino mariachi group, all grinning broadly. What the heck. The only strings were the six on the guitar. The bongo playe had the drums hanging
down to his shins. I pushed my chair back. I have something to ask you. Down on one knee, smoothly practised.
"Will you marry me?" Ring box clacked open decisively, the diamond was a triumphant, multi pointed sparkling star.
She had a strange smile on her face. It looked almost pained. I noticed then that she wasn't dressed her best. It must have been a rough working day. I didn't remember what she had said in the car. Her shoes had a ring of dried mud around the soles and her make-up had lost definition.
"No."
The word quivered in the air. I saw us frozen as in a still photograph. She in her chair, me in the ludicrous pose, the guitar, the bongos, the tambourine and the maracas in attendance. The 'No' written in thick strokes hanging over our heads.
The music faltered, leaving the singer unaccompanied for an awkward second, his voice unadorned. He wavered, picked up the song again and started to walk to another table. The rest followed the cue. My chair felt like it was a million miles away.
Dessert arrived, chocolate mousse with strawberries and sugar dusting in the shape of a heart. It all seemed so contrived now, like a Valentine's Day gimmick.
"Why?"
"Because…because this has all been about you and only you. You don't know me. I am not an acquisition merger joint venture whatever. What am I all about? What did I dream of today? What do I want? I am not a scheduled timetable to be followed and executed. Not a target to be met, to help you achieve a goal of marriage before you turn 40. I am not incidental. I refuse to be."
Quietly aflame, her tone was low and her face controlled but I did not see her. My excellent and reliable mind was already reacting, making a list of counteractions to deal with this. Plans for finding a substitute, for apologising, for trying again, raced through my consciousness. The logic machine was moving in full gear. Yet I could almost, almost but not quite see, like a speck of dirt on my glasses that wants to be ignored, something in there crumbling like a house of cards. That speck, in its quietness, knew that something would break and would not heal but I do not accept that. Planning and effort conquers all. There would be no failure. Grief was not permitted.
"And happy birthday, by the way. It's next week isn't it? Turning 40 isn't so bad," she said.
She got up to leave, putting both her beautiful hands on the table. When she was gone, the Langkawi heart was left on the table where her hands were. Small and encrusted in glassy stone.
I tried to drink, swallowing was painful. Breathing hurt but all I needed was another Plan. Mr Maracas' curious eye was set on me, he was singing back up. Bloody musicians
Monday, October 23, 2006
The Satanic Cult Mamak Shop
by James Ooi
I must be insane.
It's a hot afternoon in Bangsar and here I am sitting in a mamak coffee shop with my fellow classmates from the writing class. And we're seated right at the back of the restaurant, right in front of the sizzling grill, frying wok and the areawhere they cook. The fumes from the area are really killing me.
There are three youths standing right in front the kitchen area. One is frying some Indian rice-cakes called vadei and another is frying some noodles. The other chap is just standing dispensing food for the waiters to distribute.
I am drawn to the guy frying the noodles. The scraping, screeching and banging from his cooking is very distracting and I look at him. He's tall, I have to arch my head back to have a look at him. Bony thin, I can see his fingers and it looks like he's just bones covered with a thin layer of skin. He has a red cap on his head and it's turned the other way, he's got a long sleeve denim shirt on and a pair light blue jeans which looks almost white in color and a blue apron draped upon his belly or crotch if you like.
Let's call him Sam. Sam has a moustache and a beard. He kinda reminds me of Osama bin Laden. He works furiously on the wok dishing out fried noodles. He's so thin. I think his ribs would stick out like guitar strings if you ripped out his shirt and took a peek at him. He has on a silver ring? Is he married or does he belong to some secret society that's about to bomb the place down? I don't know and I don't care.
Sam is a very alert person. Every now and then, he looks up and around from just frying his noodles as if he doesn't want to miss a thing. He seems hyperactive. He looks like he is in a hurry to finish his work. Perhaps he has a hot date waiting for him somewhere. Or perhaps he's planning to detonate a bomb somewhere in KLCC.
Who the hell knows?
It is hot here. This kinda weather would just drive normal people nuts. I am going nuts with the fumes from the cooking. The fans whirring above me is not cooling at all. It is dispersing the hot air all over my ears.
I am going bonkers.
Stuck here, I look again at Sam. He has that potentially violent look on his face. His big eyes stick out like lamps out of his bony mustached face. He looks sullen, scrappy and kinda like someone who woke up from sleeping in the gutter last night. His shirt is open, a few buttons at the top and I can see his chest hair sticking out of his shirt. He reminds me of a hairy gorilla but a malnourished hairy gorilla.
He is totally absorbed with his work. Now Sam is working on some egg rolls, then he goes about again frying another plate of noodles. On and off, he turns around and looks here and there. He seems cool in this busy and chaotic place. He doesn't seem like he belongs here.
Sam is too thin. He doesn't look like one of those nerdy guys who lack experience. Sam looks like he's a street-smart guy. I think Sam is on drugs. I think there's more to him than just being one of the cooks hanging around this restaurant. His eyes. They are too alert for a cook. I'll have a plate of his noodles. The smell of it, the fumes floating around the place; it's making me hungry and I think I'll have to eat or go mad here.
Sam is handling the steel spatula, which he uses for cooking in a unusual manner. The way he twirls it around is like holding a knife and stabbing someone with it. It would not be difficult to imagine that he is a killer who just last night slashed some unfortunate person and cut up the body into eighteen parts and disposed of it in the Klang river.
No, that wouldn't be likely.
The noodles taste delicious. The curry served with it is creamy and the color is very appetizing. I can smell the meat in it. Could that be human meat? I have heard on the National Geographic channel on TV that human meat tastes very sweet, somewhat like pork.
Perhaps Sam killed someone and he cut up the pieces and cooked curry with the pieces. Slashing the body into minute parts and cooking the parts until the flesh falls apart from the long hours of boiling and cooking.
The kitchen had just been cleaned recently. The floor just isn't as dirty as it was normally. I could just imagine the victim screaming in terror and agony as Sam decapitated her arms, then her legs and finally her head. The screaming stopped when her head rolled onto the floor. Her blank eyes just staring out and her bloated tongue stuck out from her mouth. I could see the blood flowing and just gushing out on the floor, spreading in a dark red unholy carpet all over the kitchen floor.
Finally, it hit me. I suddenly realized that Sam's look and the way he behaved strangely reminded me of a satanic cult in which I had once been involved in. And the ring, the unmistakable silver with a the glistening silver tree engraved on it - it was the mark of Culthas satanic cult, a long established satanic cult that specialized in human sacrifice.
No wonder he wore that denim long sleeve shirt. From what I know of the Culthas sect, all members have a black tattoo of a snake encircling a nude woman on the inner part of their forehand. And the expression of the woman in the tattoo is one of indescribable agony as if all the tortures of the damned were being experienced by her.
In one of the satanic rituals of the Culthas, is the very act of consuming the victims' blood as she is being decapitated. The effect of such an atrocious evil is the karmic deterioration of one's health in which the body becomes ghostly thin and the bones of a person appear to stick out like a morbid corpse which has been exhumed from the grave after a year. All covered with a thin layer of skin, just like Sam.
Another unmistakable trait is that the eyes are red, red like blood. Something very common with drug addicts in which the veins are swollen and they bleed over the whites of his eyes. Like a film of red, dashed across a screen of virgin-whitecloth. A terrifying aura of madness exuded from Sam as I looked at him.
It is not the first time my psychic powers have revealed to me the dangers that surround me. I must leave this place. They have been hunting for me and they have found me again. Yet, I must not lose my calm. I will escape again and I will be free of them. I will be free of their enchantments and their madness.
I am the Mad Monk.
I must be insane.
It's a hot afternoon in Bangsar and here I am sitting in a mamak coffee shop with my fellow classmates from the writing class. And we're seated right at the back of the restaurant, right in front of the sizzling grill, frying wok and the areawhere they cook. The fumes from the area are really killing me.
There are three youths standing right in front the kitchen area. One is frying some Indian rice-cakes called vadei and another is frying some noodles. The other chap is just standing dispensing food for the waiters to distribute.
I am drawn to the guy frying the noodles. The scraping, screeching and banging from his cooking is very distracting and I look at him. He's tall, I have to arch my head back to have a look at him. Bony thin, I can see his fingers and it looks like he's just bones covered with a thin layer of skin. He has a red cap on his head and it's turned the other way, he's got a long sleeve denim shirt on and a pair light blue jeans which looks almost white in color and a blue apron draped upon his belly or crotch if you like.
Let's call him Sam. Sam has a moustache and a beard. He kinda reminds me of Osama bin Laden. He works furiously on the wok dishing out fried noodles. He's so thin. I think his ribs would stick out like guitar strings if you ripped out his shirt and took a peek at him. He has on a silver ring? Is he married or does he belong to some secret society that's about to bomb the place down? I don't know and I don't care.
Sam is a very alert person. Every now and then, he looks up and around from just frying his noodles as if he doesn't want to miss a thing. He seems hyperactive. He looks like he is in a hurry to finish his work. Perhaps he has a hot date waiting for him somewhere. Or perhaps he's planning to detonate a bomb somewhere in KLCC.
Who the hell knows?
It is hot here. This kinda weather would just drive normal people nuts. I am going nuts with the fumes from the cooking. The fans whirring above me is not cooling at all. It is dispersing the hot air all over my ears.
I am going bonkers.
Stuck here, I look again at Sam. He has that potentially violent look on his face. His big eyes stick out like lamps out of his bony mustached face. He looks sullen, scrappy and kinda like someone who woke up from sleeping in the gutter last night. His shirt is open, a few buttons at the top and I can see his chest hair sticking out of his shirt. He reminds me of a hairy gorilla but a malnourished hairy gorilla.
He is totally absorbed with his work. Now Sam is working on some egg rolls, then he goes about again frying another plate of noodles. On and off, he turns around and looks here and there. He seems cool in this busy and chaotic place. He doesn't seem like he belongs here.
Sam is too thin. He doesn't look like one of those nerdy guys who lack experience. Sam looks like he's a street-smart guy. I think Sam is on drugs. I think there's more to him than just being one of the cooks hanging around this restaurant. His eyes. They are too alert for a cook. I'll have a plate of his noodles. The smell of it, the fumes floating around the place; it's making me hungry and I think I'll have to eat or go mad here.
Sam is handling the steel spatula, which he uses for cooking in a unusual manner. The way he twirls it around is like holding a knife and stabbing someone with it. It would not be difficult to imagine that he is a killer who just last night slashed some unfortunate person and cut up the body into eighteen parts and disposed of it in the Klang river.
No, that wouldn't be likely.
The noodles taste delicious. The curry served with it is creamy and the color is very appetizing. I can smell the meat in it. Could that be human meat? I have heard on the National Geographic channel on TV that human meat tastes very sweet, somewhat like pork.
Perhaps Sam killed someone and he cut up the pieces and cooked curry with the pieces. Slashing the body into minute parts and cooking the parts until the flesh falls apart from the long hours of boiling and cooking.
The kitchen had just been cleaned recently. The floor just isn't as dirty as it was normally. I could just imagine the victim screaming in terror and agony as Sam decapitated her arms, then her legs and finally her head. The screaming stopped when her head rolled onto the floor. Her blank eyes just staring out and her bloated tongue stuck out from her mouth. I could see the blood flowing and just gushing out on the floor, spreading in a dark red unholy carpet all over the kitchen floor.
Finally, it hit me. I suddenly realized that Sam's look and the way he behaved strangely reminded me of a satanic cult in which I had once been involved in. And the ring, the unmistakable silver with a the glistening silver tree engraved on it - it was the mark of Culthas satanic cult, a long established satanic cult that specialized in human sacrifice.
No wonder he wore that denim long sleeve shirt. From what I know of the Culthas sect, all members have a black tattoo of a snake encircling a nude woman on the inner part of their forehand. And the expression of the woman in the tattoo is one of indescribable agony as if all the tortures of the damned were being experienced by her.
In one of the satanic rituals of the Culthas, is the very act of consuming the victims' blood as she is being decapitated. The effect of such an atrocious evil is the karmic deterioration of one's health in which the body becomes ghostly thin and the bones of a person appear to stick out like a morbid corpse which has been exhumed from the grave after a year. All covered with a thin layer of skin, just like Sam.
Another unmistakable trait is that the eyes are red, red like blood. Something very common with drug addicts in which the veins are swollen and they bleed over the whites of his eyes. Like a film of red, dashed across a screen of virgin-whitecloth. A terrifying aura of madness exuded from Sam as I looked at him.
It is not the first time my psychic powers have revealed to me the dangers that surround me. I must leave this place. They have been hunting for me and they have found me again. Yet, I must not lose my calm. I will escape again and I will be free of them. I will be free of their enchantments and their madness.
I am the Mad Monk.
Monday, October 16, 2006
The Powdery-scented Envelope
by Farah Mahadi
It's early and I don't want to get out of bed yet. I'd been working so hard all week and just wanted to rest more. But then my mobile phone begins to ring. The kind of shrill that irritates you. The ringtone is always constant, it doesn’t change, but this one felt different somehow. It had a sense of urgency to it. I could guess who it was, without checking the phone screen.
"Hello?" my voice croaked.
"Along, are you up yet? Come on, be a responsible girl, you're twenty-seven now for god's sake. Did you receive The Card?" probed my mother, drawing emphasis to The Card.
"Thanks, mother, I'm fine thank you. And how are you?" I responded blatantly.
"I'm fine, dear. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
Goodness, was she persistent this time of day. Typical. My mother. The doting mother. The nagging mother. Okay, I'll cut her some slack.
"What card are you talking about, mum? I didn't receive any card," I replied.
"Of course you know what I'm talking about. It's your cousin. She's getting married! Before you, I might add," she said with a tinge of disappointment.
"Does it matter? Anyway, I'm not going."
"Oh, yes you are. You'd better! What would the kampung folks say if you didn't?" she agonised.
"What would she think if I came? I don't think so."
Beep. That's right, I hung up on my own mother. Truth is, I think I did receive the Walimatul Urus card from my once-revered cousin Fatin. But after what happened between us some ten years ago, I have not spoken to her since. I couldn't bring myself to it. It's just too painful.
What was it that's so bad? Imagine, your whole life you grew up in a close-knit kampung where everyone knows everybody and they're nice to each other. So nice that I had once befriended the toast of the town, the dishy Khairul. And like everybody else, he was nice to me. Really sweet and kind, too. With all the other half-wits of a guy running around (you see, not everybody's that nice), he was naturally the best choice of almost any dreamy-eyed girl there. And guiltily enough, I was the biggest dreamer of them all.
We had been dating for about year; all along he would read aloud to me personally-penned poems, he was such a romantic. Always the gentleman, never demanding and pretentious or expecting any favours in return. Pretty much a guy beyond his years. Until I began to hear stories of him courting another girl. I was flabbergasted. How could my Khairul do this to me? So one fine day I confronted him.
"What in the world do you think you're doing sneaking around behind me? I thought you were better than that," came my acerbic inquisition.
"What are you talking about? I'm not going out with anyone else other than you," he answered back, defending his innocence.
"But ... buuuttt ..." all of a sudden I was faltering.
"Look, if you can't even name the girl, then forget it. Obviously it's just the rumour mill talking," he shot back with confidence.
At that moment I left it on status quo. Even when we dated, he was still quite popular with the girls. And one too many times I observed Fatin acting besotted silly around him. But I never suspected the chain of events leading from that giggly barrage.
Before I knew it, Fatin had landed her grubby hands on him. I couldn't believe it. The betrayal, her insolence. What's worse, she snubbed the fact that he used to be mine. Later, I learnt that those choking chortles, as I'm wont to call them, were practically the only quality that had attracted Khairul to her. Every time I attempted to confront them about what they had done to me, her secret weapon, that wicked laughter rolling out in peels, infected him too. Insofar both acted as if I never existed anymore.
To me, this should be reason enough why I'd decided not to attend Fatin the Watin's (this is what I used to call her) wedding. Except now it would be Fatin the Crackin' (insert your own expletive). I know it all seems aeons ago, but when it involves your first love, you can't truly forget. Puppy love, people called it. That's an overstatement. Your firsts aren't ever puppies. They're kittens - because it's all cute and cuddly and charming ... puppies are supposed to be loyal. And that, he clearly was not.
So what am I to do now? Just sit whining at home all day, flashing back to those wayward times ... not a chance, I'm a woman about town and it was time to paint the town red. I had so many other worthwhile friends to keep me company, folks who knew how to party. Not that this was my weekly weekend jaunt. Nowadays, it seems, I'm more apt at curling up at home reading a good book.
I didn't feel like going out today. So I slogged around sloppily, trying to do some cleaning, pruning, whatever. I was windexing the windows until my nose caught a whiff of a scent that was definitely not Windex. It smelled powdery. The odour became stronger and stronger as I inched forward. Eventually, I found the source. There on the floor laid a pink envelope. It was addressed to me.
I had received this in the mail a week ago, and it was still unopened. Suddenly my mother's revelation hit my face like a hot iron. However, I'd decided to ignore this pink thing. I just wanted to rip out her insides rather than the envelope, every time I thought about her. Sordid, I know; that's how bitter I felt. But what if it's not her?
Are any of my friends getting hitched? Not that I heard of. So it's got to be her. Though I couldn't for the life of me think why she'd send me an invitation. Oh, yes, I get it now. It was through the sheer force of family. Blood ties. Grannies, uncles, aunts, cousins, and of course our own set of parents whom would've persuaded her to send me an invite. "Because you're cousins," they'd grill at her.
The rest of the day, I just lazed around, feeling miserable, not wanting to go out and see anyone. Not miserable because my arch-nemesis of a cousin was getting married and I didn't even have a boyfriend to pore over, but because of the drab that life has become. I felt hopeless. I opened the television, and as usual, there was nothing interesting, so I switched it off. I began to read a book that I'd just purchased, titled The Devil Wears Prada.
Just as I became engrossed with the book, suddenly the wind outside grew so strong that I had to shut the windows. When I came back down to sit on the settee, there laid the pink envelope. I was stupefied to silence, lifeless as a statue. What was this, a sign? Did God really wanted me to go? To patch things up with her?
With a swipe of a hand that could cut like a razor, I brushed it away. I sat down again to read. A trickle of red fell on page 57. I shrieked. I looked at my pinkie on my right hand; no wonder a brief moment ago it felt a slight singe which I gallantly ignored. Sure enough, it was bleeding from a cut. The envelope's undoing?
It seems that the powers that be really didn't want me to turn aloof towards this piece of paper with a card inside. The one thing I wanted to shrug off, yet I couldn't. Immediately, I went to the bathroom to clean up the mess on my finger and bandaged it. Then I called my mother.
"Mother, I'm so sorry to hang up on you like that earlier. Just that, I wasn't feeling myself ..." I had to give an excuse.
"It's okay, sometimes all of us has a bluesy day. I know it's hard on you, the relationship with Fatin," she said gently.
"But ... I thought you didn't know ..." I said, surprised.
"Well, word travels fast, my dear. And what was that, ten years ago? I'm sure she will not ignore you on her own wedding day. She can't be that bad. People change over the years, you know," said Mother.
"Well, some people for the better, others for the worse. I wonder in which category she falls into," I jested.
"Over the many years, I visited her family often. She always asked me about you. In fact, she was the one to tell the story about you two. And every year during Raya she'd ask for my forgiveness about that incident. She's grown up now, Ila. Just come back," Mother's comforting way of cajoling resonated through my ear like a slow beating drum.
"Are you crying?" mother asked.
"No, no," I sobbed.
"See you in two weeks time, okay my lovely Ila. And I promise I won't pester you about your own life plans. It's a time to rejoice, be happy, merry. And I hope both of you will talk again when you're here."
And that was that.
Even though every year I'd balik kampung for Raya, strangely enough in all that time we never cross paths. Perhaps she saw me a few times but was too abashed to come and see me.
At this point, I had no idea how her life was; the fact that she asked for me through my mother endeared her to me, to say the least. I had no idea who she was getting married to. In all of ten years, could it still be Khairul who captured her heart?
I made my big move. I picked up the envelope from the floor and sniffed at it. It had a sweet, lingering scent, not the tacky kind. Even with my bandaged pinkie slowing the process, I managed to open it. My eyes remained closed while I slid the card gently upwards and out. I opened my eyes again.
Then I saw it ... inside a heart-shape trimmed with lace, my cousin's name appeared, "Nur Fatin bt. Mohd. Deraman" and…below her name..."Mohd. Khairul bin Ahmad Tajuddin ..."
With my mouth agape, I plonked down hard on the settee feeling dazed, confused, left to ponder. Is he my Ex, Khairul? After erasing him from my memory bank ten years ago, I had virtually forgotten his full name. I frantically searched a box labeled 'Memories' wherein I kept greeting cards from occasions such as birthdays, farewells, graduation, get-well, Raya. Then I remembered that I had burned all the love letters he gave me.
I kept on searching, until I came across a page of poetry which I remember explicitly was penned by him. No name, just words, not even a date. I turned the paper around. He had written it on used paper. It was an application form of some kind. Under 'name', it was stated as, 'Mohd. Khairul bin Awang'.
What are the odds! I felt a sense of relief awash over me. I had practically stopped breathing from the time I opened the envelope until the point of discovering the poetry note. Now I can exhale again, knowing that Fatin and Khairul Awang didn't make it that long.
This also brings with it a wish for, at last, a reconciliation for me and Fatin. I'm definitely packing my bags a fortnight from now to head back from bustling Kuala Lumpur to my serene kampung up in Kelantan, where the Sandiwara-style drama of my early life took shape. It may have distressed me all these years, but now I can finally bring it to closure. Fatin the Watin, here I come, clutching the one envelope that will transform our lives from this moment onward ...
END
It's early and I don't want to get out of bed yet. I'd been working so hard all week and just wanted to rest more. But then my mobile phone begins to ring. The kind of shrill that irritates you. The ringtone is always constant, it doesn’t change, but this one felt different somehow. It had a sense of urgency to it. I could guess who it was, without checking the phone screen.
"Hello?" my voice croaked.
"Along, are you up yet? Come on, be a responsible girl, you're twenty-seven now for god's sake. Did you receive The Card?" probed my mother, drawing emphasis to The Card.
"Thanks, mother, I'm fine thank you. And how are you?" I responded blatantly.
"I'm fine, dear. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
Goodness, was she persistent this time of day. Typical. My mother. The doting mother. The nagging mother. Okay, I'll cut her some slack.
"What card are you talking about, mum? I didn't receive any card," I replied.
"Of course you know what I'm talking about. It's your cousin. She's getting married! Before you, I might add," she said with a tinge of disappointment.
"Does it matter? Anyway, I'm not going."
"Oh, yes you are. You'd better! What would the kampung folks say if you didn't?" she agonised.
"What would she think if I came? I don't think so."
Beep. That's right, I hung up on my own mother. Truth is, I think I did receive the Walimatul Urus card from my once-revered cousin Fatin. But after what happened between us some ten years ago, I have not spoken to her since. I couldn't bring myself to it. It's just too painful.
What was it that's so bad? Imagine, your whole life you grew up in a close-knit kampung where everyone knows everybody and they're nice to each other. So nice that I had once befriended the toast of the town, the dishy Khairul. And like everybody else, he was nice to me. Really sweet and kind, too. With all the other half-wits of a guy running around (you see, not everybody's that nice), he was naturally the best choice of almost any dreamy-eyed girl there. And guiltily enough, I was the biggest dreamer of them all.
We had been dating for about year; all along he would read aloud to me personally-penned poems, he was such a romantic. Always the gentleman, never demanding and pretentious or expecting any favours in return. Pretty much a guy beyond his years. Until I began to hear stories of him courting another girl. I was flabbergasted. How could my Khairul do this to me? So one fine day I confronted him.
"What in the world do you think you're doing sneaking around behind me? I thought you were better than that," came my acerbic inquisition.
"What are you talking about? I'm not going out with anyone else other than you," he answered back, defending his innocence.
"But ... buuuttt ..." all of a sudden I was faltering.
"Look, if you can't even name the girl, then forget it. Obviously it's just the rumour mill talking," he shot back with confidence.
At that moment I left it on status quo. Even when we dated, he was still quite popular with the girls. And one too many times I observed Fatin acting besotted silly around him. But I never suspected the chain of events leading from that giggly barrage.
Before I knew it, Fatin had landed her grubby hands on him. I couldn't believe it. The betrayal, her insolence. What's worse, she snubbed the fact that he used to be mine. Later, I learnt that those choking chortles, as I'm wont to call them, were practically the only quality that had attracted Khairul to her. Every time I attempted to confront them about what they had done to me, her secret weapon, that wicked laughter rolling out in peels, infected him too. Insofar both acted as if I never existed anymore.
To me, this should be reason enough why I'd decided not to attend Fatin the Watin's (this is what I used to call her) wedding. Except now it would be Fatin the Crackin' (insert your own expletive). I know it all seems aeons ago, but when it involves your first love, you can't truly forget. Puppy love, people called it. That's an overstatement. Your firsts aren't ever puppies. They're kittens - because it's all cute and cuddly and charming ... puppies are supposed to be loyal. And that, he clearly was not.
So what am I to do now? Just sit whining at home all day, flashing back to those wayward times ... not a chance, I'm a woman about town and it was time to paint the town red. I had so many other worthwhile friends to keep me company, folks who knew how to party. Not that this was my weekly weekend jaunt. Nowadays, it seems, I'm more apt at curling up at home reading a good book.
I didn't feel like going out today. So I slogged around sloppily, trying to do some cleaning, pruning, whatever. I was windexing the windows until my nose caught a whiff of a scent that was definitely not Windex. It smelled powdery. The odour became stronger and stronger as I inched forward. Eventually, I found the source. There on the floor laid a pink envelope. It was addressed to me.
I had received this in the mail a week ago, and it was still unopened. Suddenly my mother's revelation hit my face like a hot iron. However, I'd decided to ignore this pink thing. I just wanted to rip out her insides rather than the envelope, every time I thought about her. Sordid, I know; that's how bitter I felt. But what if it's not her?
Are any of my friends getting hitched? Not that I heard of. So it's got to be her. Though I couldn't for the life of me think why she'd send me an invitation. Oh, yes, I get it now. It was through the sheer force of family. Blood ties. Grannies, uncles, aunts, cousins, and of course our own set of parents whom would've persuaded her to send me an invite. "Because you're cousins," they'd grill at her.
The rest of the day, I just lazed around, feeling miserable, not wanting to go out and see anyone. Not miserable because my arch-nemesis of a cousin was getting married and I didn't even have a boyfriend to pore over, but because of the drab that life has become. I felt hopeless. I opened the television, and as usual, there was nothing interesting, so I switched it off. I began to read a book that I'd just purchased, titled The Devil Wears Prada.
Just as I became engrossed with the book, suddenly the wind outside grew so strong that I had to shut the windows. When I came back down to sit on the settee, there laid the pink envelope. I was stupefied to silence, lifeless as a statue. What was this, a sign? Did God really wanted me to go? To patch things up with her?
With a swipe of a hand that could cut like a razor, I brushed it away. I sat down again to read. A trickle of red fell on page 57. I shrieked. I looked at my pinkie on my right hand; no wonder a brief moment ago it felt a slight singe which I gallantly ignored. Sure enough, it was bleeding from a cut. The envelope's undoing?
It seems that the powers that be really didn't want me to turn aloof towards this piece of paper with a card inside. The one thing I wanted to shrug off, yet I couldn't. Immediately, I went to the bathroom to clean up the mess on my finger and bandaged it. Then I called my mother.
"Mother, I'm so sorry to hang up on you like that earlier. Just that, I wasn't feeling myself ..." I had to give an excuse.
"It's okay, sometimes all of us has a bluesy day. I know it's hard on you, the relationship with Fatin," she said gently.
"But ... I thought you didn't know ..." I said, surprised.
"Well, word travels fast, my dear. And what was that, ten years ago? I'm sure she will not ignore you on her own wedding day. She can't be that bad. People change over the years, you know," said Mother.
"Well, some people for the better, others for the worse. I wonder in which category she falls into," I jested.
"Over the many years, I visited her family often. She always asked me about you. In fact, she was the one to tell the story about you two. And every year during Raya she'd ask for my forgiveness about that incident. She's grown up now, Ila. Just come back," Mother's comforting way of cajoling resonated through my ear like a slow beating drum.
"Are you crying?" mother asked.
"No, no," I sobbed.
"See you in two weeks time, okay my lovely Ila. And I promise I won't pester you about your own life plans. It's a time to rejoice, be happy, merry. And I hope both of you will talk again when you're here."
And that was that.
Even though every year I'd balik kampung for Raya, strangely enough in all that time we never cross paths. Perhaps she saw me a few times but was too abashed to come and see me.
At this point, I had no idea how her life was; the fact that she asked for me through my mother endeared her to me, to say the least. I had no idea who she was getting married to. In all of ten years, could it still be Khairul who captured her heart?
I made my big move. I picked up the envelope from the floor and sniffed at it. It had a sweet, lingering scent, not the tacky kind. Even with my bandaged pinkie slowing the process, I managed to open it. My eyes remained closed while I slid the card gently upwards and out. I opened my eyes again.
Then I saw it ... inside a heart-shape trimmed with lace, my cousin's name appeared, "Nur Fatin bt. Mohd. Deraman" and…below her name..."Mohd. Khairul bin Ahmad Tajuddin ..."
With my mouth agape, I plonked down hard on the settee feeling dazed, confused, left to ponder. Is he my Ex, Khairul? After erasing him from my memory bank ten years ago, I had virtually forgotten his full name. I frantically searched a box labeled 'Memories' wherein I kept greeting cards from occasions such as birthdays, farewells, graduation, get-well, Raya. Then I remembered that I had burned all the love letters he gave me.
I kept on searching, until I came across a page of poetry which I remember explicitly was penned by him. No name, just words, not even a date. I turned the paper around. He had written it on used paper. It was an application form of some kind. Under 'name', it was stated as, 'Mohd. Khairul bin Awang'.
What are the odds! I felt a sense of relief awash over me. I had practically stopped breathing from the time I opened the envelope until the point of discovering the poetry note. Now I can exhale again, knowing that Fatin and Khairul Awang didn't make it that long.
This also brings with it a wish for, at last, a reconciliation for me and Fatin. I'm definitely packing my bags a fortnight from now to head back from bustling Kuala Lumpur to my serene kampung up in Kelantan, where the Sandiwara-style drama of my early life took shape. It may have distressed me all these years, but now I can finally bring it to closure. Fatin the Watin, here I come, clutching the one envelope that will transform our lives from this moment onward ...
END
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