Laju

Wilchaku kau tolak laju
Menerbangi pelusuk rumah sakit ini
Sakit? Apalah ia
Bila senyumanmu mengubat lukaku

Kita terokai kantin pagi
Kita minum teh lemon dan air kedelai
Kau bisikkan tutur indah itu
Aku mengekek, suka dan malu

Pincangku hanya mimpi bodoh
Realitinya kita sempurna
Wilchaku kau tolak laju
Arah kita? Bahagia
Kerana bahagia itu
Kita yang cipta.

Farewell My Little Pouch

To you I hold on.
You have been there, always.
Within, part of, with me,
our existence, intertwined.
We rock this life, we live large, 
we know no end to it.
We are happy-

Or so I thought.
Life wasn't kind,
and you gave in.
I tried to help us, didn't I?
Was I unhelpful-
or were you beyond help?
You just stopped trying, fighting, living.
You succumbed to IT.

Love is knowing
-you taught me-
when to hold on, and
when to let go.
So to you, I held on,
until you made me let go.
I wept for you, oh I still do.
But fight or flight, they told me.
I have fought and failed.
So I let you go.
Our lives ceased to intertwine.

I think of you,
and I wonder what could have been
an alternate path.
But fate is a work of art
beyond our comprehension,
yours or mine.
So farewell my little pouch.
We shall meet again
on the other side.

The last words

Although I actually have poor memory, there are quite a number of unforgettable painful moments in my life. The first and only time my mother beats me as a child, the first I scra p ed my knee falling down, and the first time I was hurt in love. This time, I ĺwill be physically hurt yet again. No one but my Maker can help me right now. But all of you reading this can help me with your sincere prayer, for the sake of God and sisterhood. I wish to see you all again after the surgery. But if I won't, I accept that this is the best my Lord has planned for me. Please forgive my shortcomings, which are merely a demonstration of my own weaknesses and not my contempt for you in any way. I am honoured to have known you and be touched by you.

Zombiefied

Finally. All three essays submitted. An exam is coming up in less than two days, but at least the trinity of madness is a thing in the past now, thank God. Whew.

So this is what I look like now. Haha.

So ok, yeah. I kinda have a weird, semi-twisted obsession with Walking Dead and zombies in general. Although I have absolute faith that a race of zombie will never literally appear, I get excited dreaming of my attempt to seek sanctuary from the walking dead. That adrenaline rush you get on a rollercoaster, minus the windbroken face.

On a more serious note, I am petrified each time I think about the clock counting down to the surgery day. It's like an itch that never goes away no matter how hard you scratch it.

Death is only scary when you know you haven't done enough good in this world.

Writing in process

'Tis a season to write essays, fa la la la la...la la...la la...

I'd have to say, undergoing studies again after living in for almost ten years is not easy at all. I used to be able to keep up effortlessly. Now, not only I'm struggling to keep the pace, I'm also struggling to compete with my young and vernal classmates. Compared to the time I was an undergraduate, now I am the one in class who keeps missing the bull's-eye, and it's such a disgrace. A significant number of times I find myself second guessing my ability to stay on the programme. I eventually decided to carry on, considering I have obtained some academic financial assistance.

I rummaged through the rubble of the second bedroom and found books I don't even remember owning, and novels I don't even remember analysing! I can't be that old?? Anyways, chancing upon this monstrous heck of a book is such a blessing, for it contains copious stories and references that would come in handy, now that I am back into the (boring) literature scene. My only motivation to finish this is to finally being able to start my PhD thesis somewhere in the UK or New Zealand or Canada (simply for the climate haha), and then become a literary analyst or a fiction writer, whichever earns more moolah and anonymity.

I gotta get back to this. Next, exam next Wednesday. Next, surgery day. Shrivelling in fear.

There, there, little heart. Todo está bastante bien. God willing.

Bystander Effect

We were at Ikea today on the busiest day in the history of my visit there. Ikeans were practically walking shoulder to shoulder, almost zombielike. It was so crowded, I found myself several times separated from Mr Khan by the mob of Ikeans walking along the store route. I honestly never thought that was even possible. There were even repeated announcements made by Ikea requesting for a medical doctor available in the crowd. Mr Khan said that the photo I took above reminded him of the Safa and Marwa walk. Now that I've illustrated to you how crowded New Year at Ikea was, let me get back to my point.

After we exited Ikea empty-handed (7 our of 10 times we do haha), we walked towards Ikano to escape the crowd. We went to use the praying room there which was sparse when I entered it. By the time I finished ablution, there was suddenly a flash of people herding the room, some with young kids. I found a cramped spot for myself between prostrating women and by the time I was done, a little girl and her younger brother were sitting behind me with the boy playing some iPad game with the music on.

It wasn't annoying loud, but it was obviously loud enough to distract the congregation from focusing on their prayer. The women looked on but said nothing. I looked around and couldn't see an older guardian with them, assuming that she could be praying on taking ablution. So I gently told them to keep the volume down, and his sister quickly lowered the volume for him. Suddenly he went ballistic at the sister for doing so and eventually made a scene by the time I was walking out of the room.

I related the whole incident to Mr Khan, who chided me for "sticking my nose where it shouldn't be". I told him the women were distracted by the noise from the game and he asked me, "Did anyone else say anything?" I told him no, because I already did. They were looking at the kids, so obviously they were distracted. He kept saying, no one said anything, and it wasn't my place to say anything.

I was disturbed by his stance. I related to him the story of Kitty Genovese, whose murder was an early example of a social psychological phenomenon called the bystander effect. Of course, in my situation, there was no murder. There was no crime or any life being at risk at all. But it is all the same situation, where a group of people know that something has to be said or done about what's going on, but refuse to take the responsibility of being the one to initiate any reaction or to point it out.

Mr Khan eventually agreed that someone had to say something, and decided that their mother, instead of me, should be the one to speak to them. From there, we moved from discussing diffusion of responsibility to the lack of responsibility at all among today's parents. Oh well, the conversation was rather interesting, I must admit. But it only makes me realise that it takes more than just a competitive sperm and a fertile egg to be parents. And perhaps, by not allowing us to produce kids together, we are being saved from the impending risk of becoming incompetent parents.

I can dwell on and on about this parenting option thingy, but I shall save that in yet another mundane post.

Teehee.