Razor Sadness

She has that razor sadness that only gets worse
With the clang and the thunder of the Southern Pacific going by
And the clock ticks out like a dripping faucet
till you're full of rag water and bitters and blue ruin
And you spill out over the side to anyone who will listen...

9th and Hennepin (Tom Waits)

So I started out with bad directions, driving everywhere at once. I put through one call and she couldn't tell me where to go. She said, you're too far away, I don't know how to direct you.

She spoke in Malay. Her voice, a gentle tragedy. But I didn't know then. I hadn't seen.

So with rising irritation, I pushed on, eyeing the petrol gauge with slight consternation...great, it had to be today I be given bad directions, when there was less than a quarter tank left. Anyway, I went round PJ which is made up of roads that go everywhere, edge back on themselves, spread out, full of drivers who swear and swing into your lane, full of people needing to get somewhere, people who know where they're going.

And there was I, tentative, hesitant, inching my way forward, peering at the signs, praying for a miracle. A second phone call and I figured it out.

I was half an hour late. By Malaysian standards this was still OK. But I had spent three years in Australia. By Aussie standards it was unacceptable. How rude, how rude, how unaccountably rude. She would think I was taking this lightly. She would think...I didn't know what she would think. You see, I didn't know what to expect.

I parked across the road and made my way to the gate where an elderly looking Indian woman with a kind face let me in. I thought she was the one I had come to meet so I apologised profusely in Malay (or rather as profusely as I could in a language that after a lifetime of learning, I still speak badly). She smiled and gently steered me towards an office.

Some of the kids came up and smiled at me. Severely handicapped. But they looked happy. They wanted to shake my hand. They wanted to touch me. And the lady steered me away.

There she was in that little office. Little more than a girl. In reality, a year older than me, but still, so young, so lost, so tragic.

Her face pale and shadowed, she tried to smile. But her eyes kept tearing over. It had only been two months, you see. Two months since her much beloved husband had been snatched away in a freak car accident. All this was his. His dream. A home for handicapped children run with love.

They had been together since she was 14. He had a video shop, she used to go over to borrow tapes. They fell in love. She got married at 17. She was now 36. And he had only been 44.

"We were never apart, never, not until now. When he first started this, I was afraid of the children, and he said, if they were ours, you would love them anyway. They are ours. Love them."

It took her all of a week to adjust.

I asked how she coped. What with her grief, and the sudden burden of running the whole show herself. Again that smile: "You do what you have to do. You find the strength somehow. These kids, they have no one else."

The centre had been running for 15 years. He had big plans; physiotherapy, massage therapy, voice therapy, a bigger premise (he insisted that the kids should have a pleasant place to live, rather than be heaped together like sardines, as in most government-funded welfare homes); he had wanted it all.

Love, he said, it's always the love that is missing. That is what they need. That is what we can give them.

When they first started out he bathed the kids himself, fed them, looked after them. Slowly word got out and volunteers appeared to help out. He was a tireless fund raiser, a good speaker and he believed so deeply in what he was doing.

She worked alongside, a helpmeet who loved him and looked up to him and would have done anything because he asked her to. She just hadn't known he would ask her to do it alone.

"My husband was educated. Right up to college. I didn't even finish Standard Six which is why I can't really speak English. It never seemed to matter before. Now, I suppose I will have to learn. I can run this place. I know how to handle the children or manage the staff...but raising funds, talking to these big people..." she trails off.

Tears again. She reaches out to touch the leg brace in the chair next to hers.

His chair.

His leg brace.

His presence.

How could someone like me possibly hope to understand?

The Drama Queen

I don't know if you've noticed, but I tend to be a bit of a drama queen. They say that recognising one's weakness is the first step.

But I never seem to get past the first step.

I fly off the handle for featherweight offences, grind my teeth over imagined slights and lose sleep over what would not amount to a hill of beans to anyone else.

So, if I take off screaming down the road, collapse in hysterical sobs, twist the corners of my sari in exasperation (I don't wear saris), fly off the handle for nothing in particular, please bear with me.

I don't mean to be like this, it's in the blood.

Things will be better tomorrow.

And despite how I've behaved, I still really really like all of you.

ALL of you.

I'm sorry.

The More You Ignore Me

The more you ignore me
The closer I get
You're wasting your time
The more you ignore me
The closer I get
You're wasting your time

I will be
In the bar
With my head
On the bar
I am now
A central part
Of your mind's landscape
Whether you care
Or do not
Yeah, I've made up your mind

The more you ignore me
The closer I get
You're wasting your time
The more you ignore me
The closer I get
You're wasting your time

Beware!
I bear more grudges
Than lonely high court judges
When you sleep
I will creep
Into your thoughts
Like a bad debt
That you can't pay
Take the easy way
And give in
Yeah, and let me in
Oh, let me in
Oh let me ...
Oh, let me in
It's war
It's war
It's war
It's war
It's war
War
War
War
War
Oh, let me in
Ah, the closer I get
Ah, you're asking for it
Ah, the closer I get
Ooh, the closer I ...

Morrissey said it better than I ever could.

Get the picture?

Good!

Reunions

Sometimes they are not a good idea.

You think, heck, it's been 10 years, it couldn't hurt. And then you meet and have nothing to say to each other, and you plough through the painful minutes, trying to not glance at your watch surreptitiously, and wonder when it would be OK to say you have to go.

And so there you are, stuck in a room with all those people you lost contact with, because there was nothing to keep you together, wishing you had just said no.

Nameless: So how long have you been back?

Me: Um, a while now. Like half a year.

Nameless: So what are you up to now?

Me: Up to?

Nameless: Yeah, you planning to return to (old newspaper)? Go into PR? Write a book?

Me: Dunno.

Nameless: Do you have a card?

Me: No.

Nameless: Why not?

Me: Um, I know, I really really should have a card. I was planning to have some made. But I have no idea what to put on it. Freelance writer is so boring. They're like a dime a dozen. I was thinking of Zen Mistress, but that sounds vaguely sexual. And when I tossed around Void Artist, a friend of mine pointed out that void could also stand for emptying your intestines. Then I thought, Specialist in Nothing, but heck, don't think that would drum up a lot of business.

Nameless: So that means you are a freelance writer now?

Me: Yeah, basically.

Nameless: Any jobs?

Me: A few.

Nameless: What?

Me: This and that.

Nameless: Wah so evasive ah?

Me: Wah so nosey ah?

Nameless: Fuck off.

Me: Gladly.

Getting a Life

My oven is fixed. To all those who don't know the import of this momentous news - it is merely this; when my oven is working I can bake muffins. And Texas Fudge cake. And chocolate raspberry streusel bars. And...oh you get the picture.

If you lot were around, you could come over for tea. Or coffee if you would prefer. (That's for you Justin, the self-declared non-tea drinker!)

Prabs and Addy were over for dinner yesterday. We had wine. All of us. I had the most. In fact, I finished the bottle. Was rip roaring tipsy after and scared nice friend who wondered if I would go through with threat of dancing naked in the streets (I didn't).

And I had Shantini over for tea today. We had muffins and texas fudge cake. And tea of course. Also some ginger beer (I had to convince her that the Bundaberg variety was the real stuff, brewed, not carbonated). She left with some muffins and some cakes. I love doing tea with people. It's my favourite meal of the day.

Also I may have a tea date for tomorrow.

Suddenly the social calendar is sort of filling up. Like I have a life rather than a pale approximation of one.

And I think I will make rendang this week because it's very very hard and I just feel like it. (Have made vindaloo three times in one week and frankly am getting a little sick of it).

The transformation is nearly complete...I have morphed into a Malayalee auntie!

Addendum: On a whim, I went out with a friend to check out the pub scene at The Curve (Oh man, this place is totally happening!) and we stumbled upon a pub (The Mystery Bar) that was gonna have live music. Alleycats, no less. They were pretty good, and Esther and I bopped along to the music and congratulated each other on our perspicacity choosing this place. I said hi to Loga (I think he's cute) and of course he didn't remember me from that brief encounter, swapping conspiracy theories outside the Hyatt with Anita. like 10 years ago, but he was nice all the same. Kept coming back to our corner to see how we were doing. Called me Stephanie (because naturally, Jennifer is a little too much for anyone to remember) We went to Laundry Bar after, to check it out, but there was not much happening. I mean, it was crowded, and there were these fucking huge screens with some music videos going on, but still, what is that compared to live music?

If any of you guys are in the mood to buaya, there is a seriously cute (and I mean CUTE) waitress at Mystery Bar.

Later.

Some Hallucinations

I don't think I made a very good journalist. I mean, journos are these hard bitten newshounds, you throw them into any situation and there they are, cool as lemonade that's been in the fridge for a month, notebooks out, pens poised, hair unturned.

Try throwing me out of my context and I flail around, gaping awkwardly, looking for someone to come save me. Huh! Like real oni. No one ever did, of course.

Case in point: I used to cover power, you know, as in electricity and the fuel that goes into creating it? Well, I had just met Dr Amory Lovins, was terribly impressed and decided to adopt energy efficiency as my cause. Yes. I was fighting the good fight. Anyway, I did a series of stories on it, for my dinky little newspaper, and then a friend from the mainstream one said she would like to do one too. I gave her some phone numbers, she made a few calls and voila, her story was out in a few days, to a much wider audience (but who cares, I was fighting the good fight).

She received a phone call from a nuclear physicist the next day, saying...geez, this is what I have been telling these bozos over here for a long time. If you want the real dirt on energy efficiency in Malaysia and the four-fuel policy, come see me. So she called me (it was my story to begin with, after all) and asked me to meet her at this guy's house at 11 in the morning (any warning bells going off yet?).

So there I traipse bright and early, to be greeted by said nuclear physicist. Except that he is wearing a sarong. And no top. And he has a white mop of uncombed hair. OK. I shall not be shallow and judge by appearances. Said friend hasn't arrived, so I am ushered to a seat in the garden where I park my fanny gingerly, feeling a little nervous.

Then, this guy starts talking. Oh boy. Does he start talking. He doesn't say much about power or energy efficiency, although he does thrust his badly spelled and yellowing PhD thesis into my hands. He talks instead about how he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. And how he was PERSECUTED and CRUCIFIED for seven days and seven nights when he wrote a letter to Mahathir (Dear Uncle Mahathir, we should import five million Chinese from China and five million Indians from India to even out the races here...) and got chucked in the loony bin as a result. He talks about how his wife is actually the Hindu Lord Shiva (they were both Malay) and how they would go to temples to gather cockroaches to let go at home. Apparently temple roaches leave behind a sort of medicine, if you let them run wild in your house having first dibs on all the food.

I was beginning to be a tad uncomfortable. I was no longer alone, because the photographer had shown up, but instead of making things better, the photo guy turned out to be as wacko, staring at mad guy intently, asking his opinion on stuff (should I divorce my wife and marry my girlfriend? I really really want to) and all but making obeisance at the cuckoo's feet.

Then my friend showed up and scary topless guy in sarong was obliging enough to repeat all he had told me for her benefit. When he came to the part about the roaches, she lifted both her feet onto the rung of her chair (she being a tad more afraid of the suckers than I was. Incidentally we were both glad that a third friend who has an out and out phobia was not among those present. She would have rushed into the street, screaming hysterically and maybe collapsed in front of a speeding car. We would have rushed out after her and thrown ourselves in front of car. Result: absolute carnage. So you see why we were glad). Friend kept throwing horrified glances my way, as she listened to creepozoid with dawning comprehension.

We managed to hustle out of there after he had repeated for maybe the tenth time what it was like to be crucified, and how all the Christian bishops and Hindu priests had met with him and his wife, and paid their respects, and how the old UMNO had collapsed because he spit on the side of the building.

Oh my.

During the drive back, friend shaking her head: "I'm sorry Jenn, I'm so sorry Jenn, he sounded so sane on the phone."

I sighed.

They always do.

My Sweet Harlot

I know things have come to a head when I call my friend Addy on a Tuesday morning and ask her what she is doing at work, cursing the company for being slave drivers.

Addy is a little surprised at my vehemence: "But it's a working day, Jenn."

"It's Saturday!" I choke indignantly.

"Oh my God, it's Tuesdaylar. This sleep thing is really getting out of hand. You better get some, even if it's during the day."

OK thing is, I did. I only woke up in the late afternoon. But I woke up with my sense of time all skewed. I didn't sleep the night, although this time I had an excuse. Julie was leaving for Bangkok...

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster
The bars are temples but the pearls ain't free
You'll find a god in every golden cloister
and if you're lucky then the god's a she
I can feel an angel sliding up to me...

and she was up all night, finishing her work, packing etc. Then at about four in the morning, we had to take off for the wild railed yonder, as in KL Sentral, where she would catch a bus to the airport.

On my way back, I felt myself zoning out, sleep creeping into the edges of my consciousness. This was not good. Not on our roads. I mean, it was now five in the morning and traffic was scarce, but there were still the heroes who thought they were trying out for the F1!

So got home in one piece, crept into bed, turned a few pages of Infinite Jest (you try reading this book quickly, go on, I dare you!) and fell fast asleep. Only to wake up at about two and perpetrate the following conversation on Addy, when I decided it will be fun to hang out like we did last Saturday.

Flashback: Last Saturday, Addy, who just got back from Italy, and was terribly jet-lagged, called at eleven, wide awake, and asked if I would like to go for a teh tarek. So we went, and ended up watching not one but two football matches, getting out of there at like five in the morning. In case, you're wondering, I'm not a sports fan. But I watched, and howled, and advanced amateur theories in the voice of a pseudo-pundit, nodded and shook my head seriously, irritated stupid men sitting around us, the serious fans, who wished we would just shut the fuck up...you get the picture.

So my nerves are as ragged as cheesecloth. I lash out at innocent bystanders. I take offence at imagined slights and feel like my life is going nowhere (actually, it is going nowhere). I relapse into my "nobody loves me" strain of thought (actually, plenty of people do). I start agreeing with Dylan (was it Dylan?) who said that life is one long process of getting tired.

Sleep. Ahhhh sleep.

Sweet harlot of the senses.

Delilah of the mind.

Good night.

Pill-less in Petaling Jaya

So I went to see a play by Beckett today. Makes me feel so highbrow just saying that. Especially since I fell asleep not once but three times during the first half alone.

Such is genius. And after the play, we discussed it, my cousin, sister and I, and I came to the conclusion that it took place in protagonist's mind. I mean in the first half, she was submerged waist down and in the second, neck down.

Doesn't it make sense? We grow older and become less flexible. At least, it made sense to me. Made sense to my two brilliant compatriots, also. They nodded seriously and we waggled our collective eyebrows and felt very English lit-majorish. Except that none of us did English lit. Well, I did some, for my writing degree, but I do remember avoiding Beckett like the plague.

I tried to read Waiting For Godot, and hated it so much I couldn't get past the first few pages. Threw down the book in a fit of pique and resolved not to have anything to do with this monster.

Then of course, Charles (on whom I had only like the world's biggest crush):

Me to my cousin: I love Charles, I love Charles, I love Charles.

My cousin to me: (with tired sigh) Oh Jenn, he's 60, he's married, can't you focus your attention on someone else?

Me to cousin: But I love Charles, I love Charles, I love Charles.

(I get as repetitive and tiresome as those characters in Beckett plays - same thing over and over and over - have you any idea how boring internal monologue actually IS?)

Anyway Charles was teaching the Beckett class. He strongly recommended it...had cerebral orgasms describing the fellow. I listened to him, forehead furrowed, torn in two directions. Still didn't take it. Offended him when I came once on a visit to the Beckett class and didn't stay.

Charles to friend I came on a visit with: Where's Jennifer? I thought she was staying for the class.

Friend to Charles: Um, she doesn't really like Beckett.

Charles to friend: She doesn't like Beckett or she doesn't like me?

(I mean to say, what?)

Anyway, towards the end of the second (and final scene) she describes this terrible incident in her childhood where a mouse runs up her thigh and she screamed and screamed and screamed. Discussing this bit, we all nodded sagely and agreed that it pointed to sexual interference. When she was only 5. I mean a mouse. And her thigh. And the enormous impact of the memory.

(OK I haven't read any of the critics on this so may be totally off base, but heck, it's absurdist, so doesn't that mean you can sort of take it to mean anything?)

Anyway, have been suffering from massive insomnia for the past few weeks.(I fall asleep at about five or six in the morning no matter how morgue fodder-like I feel) So yesterday I went in search of pills.

And you know what?

Nobody would sell me Valium over the counter!!!!

So my pharmacist sister Jackie called and when I told her this, she was a little worried.

"Why do you want Valium?"

"I need to sleep."

"Oh. OK try these antihistamines. They have a soporific effect and can be obtained over the counter. But only first two days OK? Don't get hooked."

I took down their names. And was supposed to go buy them today. But then I slept late into the afternoon and then there was the play (which sort of came up unexpectedly - one of those spontaneous things people do) and now here I am past midnight, antihistamineless in Petaling Jaya.

My kingdom for backrow seats to another Beckett play.

Afterglow

The mirror shimmers purple
And I gaze at myself
There he is lying stretched
across the ceiling.

It's so nice to hang out
We drink vodka
because lemon is tart
and I take in his gun metal eyes
his skin like industrial plastic.

Wonder why love is a fleeting moment
That intense almost
but not quite

I cannot hold on
and there is no tomorrow.

I have a tiny sliver
I make do with this tiny sliver
I comprehend me in this tiny sliver
and then I move on.

Ashes fall from his body
We are done.

With All Thy Faults

Sammy was nestled between two men – George Grenier and Law Joo Ghin – on the floor of the cell. This way, he got some sleep, while they fended off the rats. The rats in this dank basement were particularly bold. They fought you for your food and gnawed on your fingers or toes when you drifted off to sleep. Sammy knew it was just a matter of time before they would start on him. He shivered and forced his eyes shut.

His family were arrested on October 15, 1943, five days after the Double 10th Massacre in Singapore. Some Allied guerrillas had managed to penetrate the Japanese net of security and attach limpet mines on the ships in the Singapore Harbour. The Japanese went crazy for a while, arresting people on the slightest suspicion of complicity.

For unscrupulous Malayans, it was a time to settle old scores and gain brownie points. Nicol de Fonseka, a particularly noxious brand of collaborator, who prostituted his beautiful wife to the Japanese officers, informed the Kempeitai, that the Gunaratnes must have had something to do with Double 10. After all, their two eldest sons, Richard and John were in the Royal Airforce, fighting for the British.

James Gunaratne was a Sinhalese immigrant who had worked his way up from a prison guard at Pudu jail, to become one of the most prosperous businessmen in the country. By the time Dickie was born in 1930, his father lived in a huge mansion on Golf View Road with more than two acres of garden and some 15 servants. Theirs was also the first residence in Kuala Lumpur (other than the Governor General’s) to have flushing toilets. In Ceylon, he had been a poor boy of the dhoby caste, swimming to the British men-of-war, with newspapers on his head, to support his mother and sisters. His meteoric rise and subsequent importance were looked on askance by some members of the local Sinhalese community.

The day before the arrest, Sammy and his four remaining brothers – David, Eldred, Henry and Bob – had been playing a particularly raucous game of Monopoly. The room reverberated with screams of “go to jail” whenever anyone landed on that square. Later, the Japanese would want to know who had tipped off the family about the intended arrest.

They were awakened at 3.30am by a loud thudding on their backdoor. Someone was trying to axe it down. James, who thought it must be robbers, pushed 18-year-old David out of the upstairs window, telling him to slide down the drainpipe and run to the Japanese police for help. They were startled by a sharp voice that barked: “If you make one more move, I will shoot you.” David hastily scrambled inside and the whole family went downstairs.

“Open in the name of the Japanese Imperial Army,” the same voice shouted. It was Colonel Koda of the Kempeitai,. James, on hearing this, released the bolts and his son Eldred, who had a room above the garage, was pushed in first with his hands tied behind his back. Eldred was the wild child of the family and his mother, Martha, immediately leapt to the conclusion that he had managed to get himself into another mess.

“What have you done now, Eldred?” she exclaimed.

“Nothing, Mother. I was sleeping and they came in and tied me up,” he answered aggrieved.

The family were pushed into the front room and Henry, who was a year younger than 13-year old Sammy, opened a window. “Look Mom, there’s Jupiter,” he said, pointing out at the night sky.

“Why don’t you cooperate?” Colonel Koda shouted. He was referring to the fact that James who had organised the reinstatement of the power and water supply as well as the collection of sewage in Kuala Lumpur after the Japanese invasion, had retired after a month, leaving it to others to run the town.

“I am a sick man, sir, and cannot work anymore,” James answered.

“Pack some clothes. You are going to be away for a while,” Colonel Koda ordered. “Not more than three days.”

They were herded into a lorry and driven to the Pudu jail. When they got there, they saw that some 159 others, many of them, friends of the Gunaratnes, had been arrested. Many were soon released, including the two youngest Gunaratne boys, Henry and Bob. Martha and her three remaining sons were sent to the Kempeitai headquarters on High Street for interrogation. James escaped due to ill-health. He would not have survived a Kempeitai “interrogation”.

They were placed in separate cells, all of which were infested with rats and lice, at the basement of this building and each one was hauled up in turn for questioning. Sammy, being the youngest, was not tortured as brutally as his mother or elder brothers. They simply strung him upside down and beat him with a rubber hose demanding to know if his family were British spies. He was aware, even when they beat him, that they were not using their full force, meaning to frighten rather than hurt.

The fare was meagre, even by prison standards – some rice, rotten saltfish and a few strands of wilted spinach. The starving prisoners hated their fat Hainanese cook who fed them scraps and stole their food. Great was their merriment when the Kempeitai disovered he was selling the prisoners’ rice on the black market and pulled out his toenails with a pair of pliers.

Sammy was only at the Kempeitai headquarters for two weeks and every day, while he was there, he would see his mother being led out in the morning and limping back to her cell late at night. The Kempeitai reserved their cruellest torture for her. She was beaten until she passed out after they would apply cigarettes to her body to see if she was faking it.

David was soundly thrashed and the lice in his cell infested the wounds on his back so that he was in perpetual agony. Even when he was transferred back to the Pudu jail about two months later, he had to sleep on his stomach. Sixteen-year-old Eldred was not beaten as badly as David but he never got over the experience. Soon after the war, he quit school and took off for America, becoming the family’s ne’er-do-well.

Some would say the Gunaratnes got off easily. Although cruelly beaten, they did not have their fingernails pulled out and their hands dipped in saltwater. They did not have their stomachs pumped with water, after which a Japanese officer would stand on it to expel the water forcibly. And they were not subjected to electric shocks. The Kempeitai were extremely sadistic and, if physical pain did not do the trick, they never scrupled about resorting to emotional violence.

In a particularly telling incident in Ipoh, one Sergeant Ekio Yoshimura, tied a seven-year-old girl from a tree and started to lower her into a fire while her mother, who had been tied nearby, watched. These tortures were mostly reserved for the Chinese dissidents.

This is because the Communists, who lived in the hills and provided the greatest resistance to the Japanese, were mostly Chinese. Later, these same freedom fighters would terrorise the newly liberated Malayans, themselves, leading to 12 years of what became known as “The Emergency”. A particularly ruthless Indian Communist leader, Perumal, cut open his mother’s belly in front of his followers, to demonstrate what he was capable of when it came to turncoats.

By December, all the Gunaratnes were back in Pudu jail. Although it seemed like a company house in comparison to the basement cells, conditions were still deplorable. Prisoners were starving and there were 16 deaths a month, on average. The bodies would be stacked up in fours in a box and taken by handcart to be deposited at the nearest cemetery. The rest of the prisoners knew that the Japanese were still debating on whether or not to hang them. That month, 72 people were hanged in Pudu for suspected involvement in the Double 10th Massacre.

Some 16 months later, on the morning of March 11, 1945, the prisoners were summoned to line up outside the prison - a ragged, diseased, emaciated lot. They wondered if they were finally going to be executed.

“On the occasion of the birthday of his imperial majesty, Tenno-Heika,(they bowed) it is the pleasure of the Japanese Imperial government to release you from prison (they bowed again). But we have to warn you that, if you make a false step, you will be back here. You are not allowed to stir from your homes between six at night and six in the morning.”

These words were spoken by the officer in charge and translated by a Japanese civilian with a marked American accent. Two months later, the family watched in glee as the Allied forces bombed the Japanese.

After the country had been liberated in mid-August, 1945, Mrs Gunaratne gave an interview to the Ceylon Times, describing her ordeal in jail. This was the first time the rest of her family heard about what she had endured as she had remained silent about it before.

Her favourite son Richard was dead. His plane had gone down in France where he had been bombing German tankers. Her husband had lost all his money. She would limp for the rest of her life. Nothing would ever be the same again for her family. But this is how she chose to sum up the experience:

“England, with all thy faults, I love thee still.”

Once were warriors

David B. stands over me sternly: "I don't want to feel like I'm in the toilet with you Jennifer."

I cower obligingly. But I have decided to chronicle my madness. How do I do that without being personal? He likes Anne Sexton, so maybe. But I'm not her. I just have these feelings, this madness, which I can feel taking over again.

Sort of like someone just stripped off a skin and everything hurts. Again. I long for the escape of red wine. But this is Malaysia. And the wine is overpriced or awful. And if I opened a bottle, it couldn't rest on my desk while I went through it. No, the moment I opened it I would have to finish it. Or watch it turn sour. Like my stomach.

And then there is the churning. I feel my body curl up, foetal. And I throw a blanket over myself and tell the world, stay out, at least for today, I need to disappear.

But there is that gentle tug. Wake up, Jennifer, wake up. You cannot escape. Not this time. You are here. Plant your feet. Home.

Home? I choke indignantly. This is supposed to be home?

I lost the key, now they're all strangers, I tell the voice. And I strain to listen, to catch the tones. Male? Female? Kind? Austere? Who is it talking to me through these folds?

It sounds like, it sounds like, but it can't be. Not...

"Stop it Jennifer, get a grip. I told you, I don't want to feel like I'm in the toilet with you." David again, interrupting.

Shut the fuck up! I rant. You can bloody leave if you don't want to be here. You're no longer my tutor. You can't tell me what to do. Disappear!

He does.

And there are birds. With strident voices. A tormented cacophony. Phony. Yes.

Once there was sweetness. Once, we were warriors.

Once were warriors...

Somewhere in the night

It is weird and wonderful. Your brown eyes are now blue. I comment on it ...you tell me with a laugh that it's a factor of ageing. We look at each other and even though we knew it would be awkward after six years, there is a single startled moment. We cover it with words. Yong sits in the middle silent. He knows.

The tankachis have ended their cold war. Alleluia!

But have they?

And we trade memories because there is nothing current we will meet on. No point of commonality. Whatever happened to so and so?

Did you know his daughter died in a car accident? He's a broken man.

Yes, he would be.

Did you know Mals told me once that someone saw suicide in her hands?

Strange.

Yes, strange. And then she died the way she did.

Once so much to each other. Now polite strangers. Strained smiles. Pretending, just pretending. I loved you once. And then, we shattered. You stepped over the broken glass to better things.

And I chose my own way. Not your way, but I didn't have your priorities. Be true to yourself, I whispered. Don't be fake, don't be phony, you're better than this.

But was I?

Everything I have, I destroy. I build it up painstakingly and then I cast it from me. I don't seem to have the talent for continuity. Forever frightens me.

And now at three in the morning the pain hits and I am bent over double, choking. I can't believe these feelings, this intensity.

Love is strange.

Sexual Harrassment and the implications thereof

So I am called into Strang's office because a charge has been made, or rather, my name has been brought up in a charge of sexual harrassment. As the harrassee not the harrasser. (I thought I should clarify that).

Strang: "Um Jenny, take a seat"

Me (wide-eyed with wonder): What is it Strang?

Strang: Your name has been brought up in something and I want you to tell me...were you sexually harrassed by Prometheus? Is that why you stopped talking to him?

(Prometheus, a senior reporter, is now facing sexual harrassment charges from one of the young newly married female reporters. He was once a friend. We fell out, but it had nothing to do with sex)

Me (choking): What a dumb question! Of course not! He never did. In fact, I remember there was once when I was totally drunk and he totally could have and instead, he took me to this abandoned park and forced me to walk up and down till I got sober enough for him to send me home. I remember him threatening to kiss me on the lips (giggle) if I didn't keep my head up. I can tell you, drunk as I was, my head snapped up straight. He told me later he didn't know whether to be glad or slightly offended. So, no.

Strang (with a sigh): Yes, I thought not. You know how to take care of yourself, don't you?

Flashback: A few months before he got married, Strang, tall, good-looking and an all-round buaya (Malay for crocodile and it means predatory Romeo) starting hitting on a few girls in the office. He used to stare at us in turn from his computer, casually stroll up and run his hands down our backs while purportedly reading our stories over our shoulders. I took care not to react, show any awareness of what he was doing and then I chopped off all my hair, thus rendering me unattractive (impossible to believe, I know, but true). Problem solved.

Strang: In fact, if one of our youngsters like Sam wanted to go out with you, I'd tell them to think twice. Say they couldn't handle you.

Me (rolling my eyes): Yeah, thanks a lot. (Am not too offended because am not remotely interested in Sam or any of the guys in my office. The girls are babes and the men are just, well, like nothing on earth. Makes it easier to avoid occupational hazard of inter-office romances)

I bring this up because of present situation. Is it possible to be sexually harrassed when you are aware of what is happening and don't want to play ball? Shouldn't there be some measure of consent before it goes any further?

In other news...oh nothing...

What Happened After

An exchange of SMS-es and the consequences thereof:

Him: Hope you've recovered from your first visit to ... :-D If you ever feel the urge for a juicy chat we could arrange a more conducive venue, free of possessive spouses.

Hmmm. Sounds fishy. Frankly I don't like the signifier "juicy". How do I reply this?

A day and a half later...

Me: Careful. Groupies are not fair game.

Him: Our chat was interrupted by a jealous wife. The next day I was attacked by a jealous feline. Now a suspicious mind misreads my friendly signal! Many pardons, ho hum...with chips on the side.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... did I "misread a friendly signal"? Was I being overly presumptuous? Time for damage control...

Me: Priceless. Sorry. Came out of said chat with lacerations. Still unnerved.

Him: A's (his wife) defence system may be primitive but it works. So much shit springs from fear. I noticed your distress and my offer of a bonus tea'n'talk session was made in good faith with no creepy agenda.

Why don't I believe him? Maybe cos his reputation precedes...but then, I never like going by reputation...I mean if people judged me based on my reputation I'd have few if any friends...so, let's practice what we preach, eh?

Me: Forgive my presumption then. Are you coming to KL?

Cos I sure as hell am not going to drive halfway across the world again to be attacked!

Him: Will be doing city run during the week, don't know when. What's your schedule and whereabouts do you live? Anyway, no expiry dates on this!

Sigh. What does this sound like to you?

Me: So far only Tuesday is booked.

Him: Busy woman :-D Will SMS when possible window opens, and leave the logistics to serendipity (my old pal) x

Me: OK. Cool.

So there you have it folks, live bits from my so-called life.

I'll keep you updated (especially if it turns unprintable because I need to explore my exhibitionistic tendencies and pander to your voyeuristic ones)

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing

So the guy tells me I have attractive syntax and interesting eyebrows. A novel approach...and I laugh, amused. I am there to interview him for a coffee table book and he is charming.

His wife, however, is less than amused at my presence. She throws a tantrum when I arrive, deciding that I am a threat (what with my interesting eyebrows and all) flounces into the house (we are sitting on the veranda overlooking the beautiful mountains outside) and turns on the TV. Loud. Strains of Bollywood drown out all attempts at conversation. So there I am, with my notebook out, straining to hear his interesting answers to my questions about his family and living situation.

The guy is an august member of the Malaysian artistic community. Quite brilliant. He has opted to marry a simple Orang Asli (aboriginal) girl but sometimes there are problems. Like now, when she decides to be insecure.

Their little 10-year old son, on the other hand, naked, quaint and birdlike, takes a shine to me and indicates (he does not talk yet, nobody knows why) that he wants me to spoon his rice out for him. I fumble clumsily, trying to get the mixture into his tiny mouth and most of the rice ends up on his lap or the floor. His father sighs and suggests that I hold the bowl under his mouth to catch what falls out. Brilliant idea. Why didn't I think of that?

Maybe because I am there to interview the Dad rather than feed the son or deal with the wife's tantrums. She, sweet thing that she is, perches herself on the sofa, where she can keep an eye on me. Her face goes through a series of revolutions indicating pain, disgust, jealousy, anger and she turns up the volume.

"I want ATTENTION!"

Finally, the artist asks if I want to go by the river to continue this conversation. He has asked his wife to turn down the tv and she responds by screaming imprecations in some other language (she does not speak English and that was certainly not Malay).

"This is counter-survival! If she feels threatened by you shouldn't she make herself even more charming? Doesn't she realise that if I really wanted to carry on with you, I wouldn't have invited you to come down here, in front of her. That I could just meet you in KL some place? The woman can't reason things out!"

Well, naturally. She isn't sophisticated enough to figure out the mind games that women play when they feel their relationships are under threat. Most women, conceal their rage, under a smooth smile, a charming manner. You only get the fact that they are furious by one or two remarks, tossed off in a casual manner, barbed and vicious. But her very unsophistication, I suspect, is part of her attraction. What you see is what you get.

But we soon see that the river is out of the question as skies are as stormy as said wife, so we repair to the bamboo palace (a bungalow constructed of bamboo) at the back, with his little son. There, I ask him everything I want to (including how he deals with this sort of thing) and he answers willingly enough.

Constructing joy out of simplicity. All his life, he has lived in his head. All his girlfriends have been intellectuals. None of those relationships ever worked out. So who's to say what is ideal and what isn't? With these two (his wife and son), he can only deal with them emotionally. No pretensions, no intellectualising, no capacity for reasoning.

I know I couldn't live this way. As it is, I feel seriously uncomfortable and although the interview is going well and he is interesting and articulate, I feel the waves of anger emanating from the house in front.

His wife comes to the back and screams that he has a phone call. He replies that it is raining and he will call back later. She storms in, and proceeds to wreck the joint. Literally. Screaming with the impotent rage of a child, she attacks him, scratching and biting, throws things about, pulls the bamboo mat out from under me and throws herself into his lap and insists on being held as she bursts into stormy tears.

Her little son, who has fallen asleep curled up next to me, has awakened and is watching his mother's spectacular manifestations wide-eyed. I am wondering what to do. I feel physically threatened and not a little disgusted. Of course, I come from another more counterfeit world, and we don't show our feelings like this.

But what is happening is interesting, in a way. I mean, she is doing what I have, I think, on many occassions wanted to do. Being restrained by culture, I take refuge in biting words. But I would have liked to throw things about and tell whichever boyfriend I was with - say you love me, say I am the only one, show her that you only want me.

Show her!

She is dressed only in sarong pulled over her chest and it slips down in her struggles, exposing her attractive, still child-like body. I look away, of course. Other people's nudity always tends to embarrass me more than it does them.

Finally, she is in his lap, crying noisily, while he soothes her. Paralysed all this while, I think it is time to leave. I smile uncertainly, look at my watch, exclaim at the time and tell him I should be going.

He looks disappointed. But come on. I mean...you can't possibly expect to stay after this, can you? He says, don't leave yet, at least stay for a cup of tea. I sigh. I don't want to sweep out of here in high dudgeon. I am exhausted from driving for two hours along unknown roads to find this place, and even more so, at being subjected to this emotional outburst. I was not prepared for it, and don't deal very well with confrontation. (Typical Malaysian - I go out of my way to avoid them)

But I feel bad about leaving abruptly. We repair to the house again and he puts on the kettle. His wife, calmer now, follows. She even smiles a little (the first time she has smiled since I got here). She leans over to kiss him and he looks at me with a wry smile: "She is now trying to show me that I am lucky to be married to her."

Then he turns to her: "Didn't you promise to behave yourself when I said I have a friend coming?" He sighs and shakes his head. "Donnolar. Sometimes ah...anyway, you should be flattered. I've never seen her this bad before. She obviously perceives a threat...there must be some connection between us that she's picked up on that I was not aware of. She's really very sensitive."

I finish the tea, give him a hug, and leave.

At night, alone, I marry my bed

I would have a glass of Cabernet Merlot (Cape Mentelle for preference) and a volume of Anne Sexton. Soft music would weep through the speakers. Marianne Faithful. Era. Enigma. Steam rising in a shadowy bathroom. Warm water soothes tired limbs, a weary heart. I close a fist over the shards of shattered glass and feel a thrill, a shock of pain. Blood flows lazily into the bath. I take one and run it casually across my wrist. You have to do it vertically so you nick more veins. Those thick blue snakes rising under transparent skin. The incisions do not have to be deep. After all, death is an art and I do not want to shuffle off this mortal coil clumsy and graceless, the way I shuffled onto it.

A sip of wine, and I would pick up my Sexton. She would tell me that death is an old belonging. That's nice. I would like to belong somewhere. Finally. Here, in the august company of the people who fell off the edge of the world, having no place else to go, I belong.

But surely you know that everyone has a death,
his own death,
waiting for him.
So I will go now,
without old age or disease.

Sexton understood. She saw that it was not a matter for trumpets or tinsel. But rather, a sadness, a knowing, a sense of resignation. One is tired. One wants to choose one's own end. There is neither fear nor apprehension. Apprehension signals doubt and doubt leads to last-minute goodbyes that cause eleventh hour interventions.

I said goodbye a long time ago. You just weren't listening.

Waiting to Die is almost a meditative musing of someone who sees her suicide as an inevitability. She understands the arguments...but you see, they make no sense. Not anymore.

Even then I have nothing against life
I know well the grass blades you mention
the furniture under the sun.

She calls it, the death we both said we outgrew in Sylvia's Death. It was secretly obvious to both that despite the lip service they paid to normality or their laughter about suicide attempts, it lay at the bottom of their bellies with the inevitability of a sleepy drummer.

and I see now we store him up
year after year
old suicides.

It grows in our blood. We fight it because the world tells us we have to. Then truth overwhelms and we surrender. We lie down to be covered in shells and bones and silence.

I look out with scorching eyes to see you living - it's not real, you see? I am not real. I became a ghost because you looked and saw I was not there.

As for me, I am a watercolour.
I wash off.

Another sip of Cape Mentelle, the blood of grapes flowing down my throat as my wrist empties into the bath... my life into forgiving water.

They are eating each other
They are overfed.
At night alone I marry my bed.

Aloneness

...no cool postmodern denial can displace the sense of being engaged in something real. (Kim Mahood, Dancing the Country)

Sometimes she hears footsteps on the stairs and goes out to see who it is. No one. Just her imagination. Or this old house creaking again. Shrinking in winter, expanding in summer, tearing out of its paint and plaster so Vincent has to fix it up once every six months. Being a landlord is no joke, I can tell you.

The voices at night are the hardest. Do they come from outside her window? Across the street? She stares out desperately, trying to make out the shadows under the lamp post.

Living alone has done so much for her. She is free. No hassle of another body in her living space. And yet... it would be OK if the phantoms had not moved in and decided to take abode. She hears them listening to her breathe. She catches them whisking by in the periphery. They are gone by the time she turns her head.

Aloneness has a peculiar music to it. It is like a night of sighs, a body just about to orgasm, but not quite getting there. It leaves her with a sense of magic, a sense of possibility wrapped up in her limbs. Her languorous limbs. Sometimes she wishes she could find a lover for a night. Not a one-night-stand. Nothing so sordid.

Instead, a mysterious stranger on the Champs Elysee who asks her out for coffee and takes her to St Germain du Pres to that special cafe of Sartre and de Beauvoir. There he will tell her stories about his life as a plastic surgeon and how he fell in love with an opera singer he met in Geneva who unbuttoned her blouse to reveal a deformed breast. He will tell her about losing his virginity to an older woman who came up to him and his beautiful blonde twin brother and said: "You are pretty, I like you both. I will take one of you on holiday. Decide between yourselves." They toss a coin and he wins. Three days of waiting for her to come to him, wondering...and she snaps at him: "Taking your time is all very well, but this is ridiculous. How long do you expect me to wait for you?" Trembling, he makes his way into her adjoining bedroom and they...

Heady with the stories and wine, they kiss. And for that brief moment, she wants him. But he vanishes. Another phantom in this old house.

A vague longing. A hazy memory. A body about to orgasm but not quite getting there.

Aloneness, they say, has a peculiar music to it.

But you have to give up your desperation for something real to hear it.

My Life Is Now Perfect

"My life is a mess," I wailed at Jeanette, my calm, zen-like friend who usually hears me out when I'm on a rant.

"Yes?" she raised one eyebrow in that inimitable way. (believe me, I've tried to imitate and I can't)

"Yes, everything is all over the place. My finances are so screwed, I don't bloody even know where my tax file is, my documents, my certs are as scattered as the spawn of Satan and I don't even know where the Golden Key cert is which probably means I will have to write to Australia to get another one and just take a look at my desk!"

Jeanette did and allowed herself the slightest of ladylike shudders.

"Well?" I looked at her inquiringly. We all need someone to sort out our lives for us. In that way, we never ever have to take responsibility. Jeanette was that for me.

"Well?" she answered.

"Aren't you gonna tell me what to do?"

"What do you think I am, dial-a-solution?"

OK, so this was not going to be as easy as I thought. I poured out some more Wolfblass. Cabernet Sauvignon. I don't usually like Cab Sav but the Wolfblass version is pretty damn good. Also I couldn't find the Cab Merlot. One of the trials of not being in Australia with a handy bottle shop around the corner stocking my favourite wines for a fraction of the price.

We both sipped meditatively.

"You need to file," Jeanette said, finally after like a hundred seconds of silence.

"File?"

"Are you a fucking parrot or something? Stop repeating what I say."

"Oh file. Right." I nodded.

Sigh.

"Yes. What you need, what would really sort out your life, is a filing cabinet!" Jeanette made the pronouncement with the air of a magician pulling furniture out of a stocking and my mouth fell open.

A filing cabinet. How abso-fucking-lutely brilliant! Why hadn't I thought of that? It would solve everything! Everything! Then I could file away all the untidy bits of my life and everything would be neat. Or else, at least neatly filed away to be taken out and wept over at appropriate times.

The thing is, where does a private citizen without an office, go about looking for a filing cabinet? I looked at the furniture shops near my house. They didn't stock it but if I wanted to order, they could have it for me in a month for about a hundred thousand dollars. Or some such ridiculous sum. My little sister, Julie, whom I tortured daily with repetitions of "I need a filing cabinet!" found a brochure for them at an office supplies place in Brickfields, for about half the price, and when we went there all enthusiastic, the bloody place was closed. Public holiday!

We came home disappointed to find a cousin who knew where to find this, that and the other in this haphazard place we call home.

"Hey Thomas, do you know where to get second hand office furniture?" By this time I had decided that second hand was good enough. It just had to file my stuff. It didn't have to look pretty.

"Yes, row of shophouses in Taman Tun. Opposite the IBM building."

Julie and I took off on a quest for the needful the next day. What can I say? The secondhand furniture dealers were CLOSED. It was a Sunday, but still! It seemed that the universe was conspiring to keep my filing cabinet from me.

So, it was a Wednesday and I was feeling pretty damn low. Here I was, with my life still unsorted. An SMS from a Mary, saying she was taking off for the wide open spaces the day after (actually she was baliking kampung or going home to Sungei Petani to sort out her taxes there) and whether I would be free for a cuppa.

Yay! I would not be alone with my Promethean struggle. So we had rose tea at this place, (she didn't think it was rose tea and asked our waitress to show her the tea bags) and some sandwiches and pie a la mode and were good to go. Then I asked, rather diffidently (as Mary is a busy woman with a hectic social schedule) whether she would be free to follow me to Taman Tun, to trawl the secondhand furniture shops there. She was. Yippee! We were off.

I didnt' realise before that Taman Tun was an impossible place to park. After circling the parking lot a few times, negotiating tiny spaces (everyone was doubled parked everywhere) I finally parked illegally. I mean, I needed to get there and it would only be for a short time and ...OK whatever. We jumped out of the car and ran to our first furniture shop.

Old stuff was laid out in the most unattractive way possible ("We're not fancy, but we're cheap!) and we made our way into the shop and looked round. Nobody to tell us where the filing cabinets were. Finally we noticed some guy hovering outside and Mary gave him her million dollar smile. "Could you help us?"

Mr Congeniality made his way into the shop and regarded us with sullen suspicion. It was pretty obvious that this would not be a big sale and he would not be wasting any good cheer on us.

"Filing cabinet?"

He was a man of few words. He led us to the cabinets and pointed. All were of the four-drawer variety. Too tall. I wanted a three-drawer model. I shook my head. He shrugged. Told me how much these cost. (Not that much cheaper than getting one new from the office supplies) I told him this and he seemed uninterested.

We left the shop, somewhat dissatisfied. Is this how the second hand junk dealers behaved? The second shop along the row, though, we struck gold. The guy gave us this wide, wide smile, showed us what we wanted, quoted a pretty good price and said he would have it delivered for free.

"Hold on a minute, OK. We're pretty sure we like yours, but let's just see what's available along the rest of here."

"Sure," he put away the bill he was just about to open.

We strolled rather half-heartedly to the rest of the shops. One of them had a grotty Christmas tree (white with a fine coating of grime) which he was trying to palm off for RM250.

Mary: "If cleaned up, it would look pretty damn good."

Me: "It looks so grimy. Maybe they should clean it up before trying to sell it. I mean Christmas in June, all very charming and all that, but yuck at the tree."

The guy trying to sell us the tree: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the waaaaay..."

Never a dull moment.

So I hurried back to nice shop with nice guy, ordered my filing cabinet and it arrived yesterday. I regarded it with pride and a sense of achievement. Then, I made my way out to go buy a bottle of wine and box of chocolates. My cousin Eve and I were taking our friend Addy out for her birthday and I had no time to sort my stuff out.

Who cared? My filing cabinet would still be waiting for me when I got home. Everything would be taken care of.

My life is now perfect.

I don't know what to say lar!

Our motorcyclists don't care whether they live or die. They weave in and out of traffic with not a thought to life and limb and if you don't spot them and make adjustments accordingly, they die. I don't care about that. Most motorcyclists killed on our roads, ask for it. I would just prefer it be some monstrous truck that does it, not me. I don't want to be traumatised for the rest of my life having wiped out one of those bloody buggers!

I have humanitarian friends from abroad who cannot understand my feral attitude towards these pests, feeling that I'm a tad, well, harsh. Then they spend one heart-in-their-mouth day on our roads and swiftly change their minds.

Radio announcer: "A motorcyclist was killed yesterday in an accident on the LDP..."

Ex-humanitarian friend: "Probably asked for it..."

Yesterday, while negotiating the bloody maze that is SS2, this motorcyclist in front of me, casuallly took off his helmet, rubbed his head, put it back on, with like, a finger on the bike to steer. In mid-journey. My friend and I glanced at each other and shook our heads. Even after half an hour of having them swing wildly into my path and being on the wrong side of the road as I tried to turn (ignoring my indicator because Malaysians don't bother with such stupid niceties as signalling) this still took the cake. TAKING OFF HIS BLOODY HELMET IN MID-RIDE!

I mean to say, what?

Look I have no objections to suicide. Leave a note if you decide to, because I find these interesting and collect them. Just don't do it on the road. You may take others who were not planning on going anytime soon with you. And more importantly, you may dent my car.

I just don't know what to say lar!

Forgetting is a matter of survival

To Charles, regardless...

Forgetting is a matter of pills,
haze, work, traffic jams,
credit card bills,
life going nowhere.

Forgetting is a matter of opiates,
Wine, whisky, angeldust,
Anonymous lovers aplenty,
life going nowhere.

Forgetting is a matter of books,
Wurtzel, Beck, maybe Shakespeare,
no, not Shakespeare,
life going nowhere.

Forgetting is a matter of
teh tarek at midnight with friends,
talking about work, dreams, love...
no, not love,
life going nowhere.

I will forget,
But I wont.
I wont.

I thought I stumbled on my shadow, but it was just the ceiling fan

How does one create in this place of dust and death? Where creativity itself is artificial, the neon light, rather than the glowing rapture of the oil lamp?

I push through the the cholestrol-infested streets on my nightly sojourn. My mind, a plastic bag, floating through endless corridors.

The anxiety forces itself on my chest. A place, a name, an idea, a certainty, a lack of... no more please, I can't breathe. It's difficult to look with cool eyes on the shattered horizon, the blare of the luxury cars, gleaming, arrogant, self satisfied.

To be drunk is to be innocent of all this artifice. To be honest, or at least more honest than this. To make pleasure and give it. No more repeating lines in my head to rehearse a thought, so it may be well-crafted and extruded faux extemporaneously.

Acquiescence.

Slowly this air, this skin, does not seem strange anymore.

I run to forget. I gaze out to take in the big picture, all those faces merely trees in the forest. I see neither the forest nor the trees.

I run away from my body but it keeps finding me.

The Daughter (Molly Auntie, the Sequel)

The sequel to this:

The thing is, I love my mother. I really do. I know you're not supposed to when she has been nightmarish and controlling but I can't help it. I guess no one ever can. As Meg Ryan said in a movie, even people who hate their mothers, love them.

I call her every week and speak for an hour, at least. I use a phone card, you know the ones you can get cheap? You pay $10 and get to talk for three hours. I'm not kidding! Lately, she asked me not to waste my money talking so long on the phone. I think our conversations cut into her day. She's very busy, my mother. She may be what is euphemistically known as a "homemaker" but she is always buzzing about on different committees and stuff. Directing, organising...yeah, that part didn't transmit. I'm scatty. All over the place. God only knows how I managed to get through med school.

I never wanted to be a doctor. Not me. From the time I was young all I wanted to do was read. And write. I loved poetry, stories, the taste of words on my tongue, the rhythms, the cadences. But I don't suppose I would have been good enough. It's a hobby, not a way to earn a living. Only, I don't have hobbies anymore.

Why I became a doctor? Mom. But it's not what you think.

I was looking for something in her closet one day and came across her folder of certificates. She was really smart, you know, top of her class, always. Also good at games - netball captain, hockey captain, school captain. Head prefect. When I got to school, my teachers, all her old friends looked to see if I was like her. A chip of the old block. But no. Hardly even a chip. I was this mousy little thing, hiding in a corner, face buried in a book. I didn't even look like her. So they were nice to me, but otherwise...

Anyway, as I said, I was going through her folder and then I found it. Her acceptance letter to do medicine in the University of Malaya. I mean, that was HUGE. Simply awesome. Do you know how difficult it is to get into the medical faculty there? I wondered why she didn't follow through but then I realised, her father, my grandfather, would have never gone for it. I mean, he was very fond of her, proud of her, and all that, but he would never have paid to get a daughter educated. Sons went to university. Daughters got married. And that's just the way things were.

Yet, Mom adored him and wouldn't dream of blaming him for anything. If I said anything that sounded even vaguely critical, she bit my head off. So I stopped referring to him. I didn't like him much anyway. So strict and disapproving, he thought me and Chacko (my brother, you know) were spoilt. Spoilt? Us? You should have met our other cousins. They got away with a lot more than we ever did. We couldn't you see, we had Mom. She had this sixth sense and we couldn't hide anything from her. Not anything.

I remember when I was in Standard One and I poured my rose-flavoured milk down the drain because it tasted so awful. When she came to pick me up, she asked me, of course, if I had finished my milk. I lied and said I had and she turned, looked at me with those gimlet eyes and calmly told me she knew I had poured it down the drain. My mouth fell open. You couldn't hide anything from this woman!

So anyway, I wanted to ask her about the letter, but I needed to approach in a roundabout way so she wouldn't suspect I had gone through her private papers. So I asked her if she had had any secret ambitions when she was young and she looked at me strangely. Then she said, softly, in a voice quite unlike herself, yes, I wanted to be a doctor. She looked so sad that it went straight to my heart. And that was when I decided, yes, I would do it for her. I would become a doctor. So you see, it wasn't that she pressured me into this. I chose it on my own.

I think she was happy when I graduated. Proud of me. If only for an instant. It was tough, I can tell you. I hated all the dissection we had to do, on live animals sometimes. Once I cut into a live frog, saw its beating heart pumping away. Everytime I picked it up with the forceps, the supposedly chloroformed creature swallowed and pulled its heart away. It died of course. I cried for days. But I stuck it out. For her. I love her, you see. And I always wanted to be good enough.

Why I live here? I had to get away from home or Mom would have swallowed me whole. I do love her and I understand how much she sacrificed for me and Chacko, but because she was so much, I was nothing. She was the elemental female, the fury of a tropical storm, while I was, no am, weak, soft-centre, pliable. Easy to manipulate. Very easy to control. All my lovers caught on real fast and learned to manipulate me in a couple of months. It would be Mom all over again, and I wouldn't be able to breathe. Once the asthma attacks began, I would know. Time for goodbyes.

No, she never found out about any of them. She wouldn't have been happy if she had. None of them would have been quite acceptable. Not really. And while I don't agree with arranged marriages, I would rather remain single than fall out with my family, you know what I mean? You don't? Oh well. Hard to explain.

Would she like you? Maybe. But if she thought you had any other ideas, that would swiftly change to hate. She didn't pick you. So there must be something wrong with you. I was smart enough to graduate med school but not smart enough to pick a partner. So I stay single, at least, I don't get married. It's easier that way.

Lonely? Well, work takes up most of my time. And when I get home I pop something into the microwave and watch TV. Get out DVDs from Blockbuster. Weekends, I go shopping. Get all the chores out of the way. Sometimes I catch a play or a movie. Yeah, mostly alone. But that's OK. Some of us are born to be loners.

You think that's strange? Why? I don't fit in with crowds. Never have. People don't like me. They think I'm strange. And trying to fit in, I talk too much. I babble. Yeah, like I'm doing now. I tell you, when I get home, I'm gonna think, shit, why did I say all that? And I'm probably gonna spend the next week feeling horrible about it.

Kidding! Well, no, not really. Why do I do it anyway? Can't help it. It's like this fatal kink, I need to tell people why. I'm the way I am. Nobody cares. Not really. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be boring you with this. It's just, we got to talking about my mother, and sometimes, like now, I miss her and feel like talking about her. I wish...oh never mind.

Chacko? He's in England. An engineer. Lives there with his girlfriend. No, Mom doesn't know, but he's happy. At least, I think he is. He's nothing like me. Very handsome, confident and he makes friends easily. We were close a long time ago, and then, well, Mom loved him more than me and I couldn't accept it. Still can't. But at least, all the way over here, it's not in front of me. Of course I was jealous, wouldn't you be? I think it really hurt her when he moved to England, but they talk over the phone every week. Yeah, the way we do.

No, don't feel sorry for me. I chose to be here. I chose to be alone. I dunno, everyone is so social these days, it's almost like an obsession, like if you're alone, you're a reject or something. I don't believe that. I hate crowds, anyway. They sap my energy. My idea of hell on earth is a cocktail party, like those we have at the hospital, where you engage in superficial conversation for two or three minutes, before you titter off to talk to someone else. I mean, what's the point? Yeah, the alcohol helps but I don't like drinking too much. The last time I got slightly tipsy I ended up yelling obscenities at a stranger in a pub. That kind of thing can get you killed. Yeah, I know, strange. And I'm usually so low key when sober. Anyway, you see why I have to be careful. I can't be running around telling perfect strangers to get the fuck out of my face, can I?

Dad? Yeah, he's a nice guy. We're very close. I feel sorry for him but I could not stay there and watch her hate him. Yes. Hate. He adores her and if anything were to happen to her, I don't know what he would do. But she rejects all affection. I remember once when I was small, he bought her an expensive emerald necklace for her birthday. Her birthstone, you know. Anyway, she chewed him out for wasting money. No, he didn't yell back. He never yelled back. He gave up trying to win her over a long time ago, but I think he's very sad inside. And I am sad for him. I look like him, see, dark and scrawny, while Chacko looks like Mom. So her rejection of Dad felt like, yeah, it felt like she was doing it to me.

Ugly? Check.
Useless? Check.
Hopeless? Check.

But you know, I never found Dad ugly. I love him madly. We're co-conspirators, the two of us. The outsiders. We don't really count. Yes, I know it's a weird concept, but you can have outsiders in a family. The rejects (there I said it) who don't quite fit in.

She was proud of me when I became a doctor, but that's about it. I tried so hard my whole life but nothing I did was ever good enough. I remember running home to tell her I was the only one in my form to score an A1 in my triple one nine English exam. And this, when I was ill with conjunctivitis and could hardly see the question paper. Everyone in school had made such a fuss of me and I thought maybe, this time, she would be proud of me...but she glanced at the paper, gave me a half smile and said, not bad. Just that. And suddenly, it didn't seem so huge anymore.

So I guess, that's why I live all the way over here, with no family and few friends. Australia is a lovely country. It has a whole different energy to Malaysia. More loving and accepting, I think. But sometimes I miss home. Sure I do. So I go back, at least once a year to remind myself why I cannot live there. If I stayed away too long I know I would be tempted to chuck everything and go back. And that would be disastrous. It would kill me. They don't understand me over there. Come to think of it, they don't understand me over here either. But that's OK. It hurts less when strangers don't understand you. When it's family, it's like fresh knives.

Does my Dad miss me? I guess he does. But the way things are between them, I can't bear to watch. So I ran away from home. Like some silly kid. And I will stay away, until... I don't know until what. The other day, I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and didn't recognise this 35-year old body. It seemed strange and unfamiliar. What happened to my life? One day I was 19. And suddenly, here I am creaking my way towards senility in this form I no longer recognise. Everything on suspend. Chest tight. Breath held. Waiting. Don't ask me for what.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. All meaningless.

No, I don't need therapy. I know that I seem mixed up, but that's what we all are. Mixed up. Walking wounds. It's just that I acknowledge it while people like you pretend you have it all together.

At the end of the day, we're all desperately alone. All of us. Marriage doesn't guarantee communion. Neither do children. We scream into pillows and hope that the pain will abate so we can drop off into a few minutes of hushed oblivion.

No, I don't long for happiness, anymore. Happiness is a lie. There is only a slow cancelling out, an extinction. I never really lived so I cannot die. I will cease to breathe, and will you even remember today?

Or that I once existed?

What's my name?

Like Rain On a Rainy Day

I have front row seats to a divorce. I'm witnessing the dissolution of a marriage that never seemed real in the first place. She sends me the emails they exchange, now he is in New Zealand. Guarded at first, then increasingly acrimonious.

I guess divorce can never be civilized. But does it have to be this ugly? Words spoken in the heat of the moment, resisted at first, but which later return to haunt; another piece of shrapnel.

Angry words. Hard words. Bitter words.

Tearing away at the flimsy foundations of their lives together. A marriage in which one or both partners constantly needed to escape. A marriage in which there was physical proximity but little intimacy.

Tension. Always high.

What a life! Shades of the prison-house closing around the growing girl. Marriage prescribed as a necessity, not a choice. Everybody MUST be with somebody - respectably partnered. Only losers live alone. Old maids. Disgrace. Shame on the family.

Really?

So, was he cunning, evil, conniving, just along for the free meal ticket?

And was she foolish, extravagant, emotionally needy, domineering, physically repulsive, gluttonous?

Why does she send me these conversations? What point of view could I possibly provide that would change anything?

Tell her she's in the right? Be supportive?

I can't. I'm not sure anymore. This drains me. Stop it! Stop sending me these stupid letters. I will delete them. And then, delete you. You have no right. None.

Burn the letters! Destroy the diaries! Delete the emails!

Leave no trace.

Leaving Home (continued)

An alarm clock goes off and one of the daughters of the house knocks on my door. At five in the morning. I wake up feeling hollow and dried out (the way you do when you've cried yourself to sleep the night before). I go into their cavernous bathroom for a cold bath and dress up for my first day of training.

The daughter (I don't remember what her name was) is very nice. She helps me get on the number 17 bus I am supposed to take (she takes it too) and shows me where to get off for my newspaper. She gives me instructions on how to get home and I listen intently. I could tell her it's a lost cause. At home, I am used to being ferried about by my Mom and Dad so I never learned the bus routes. Besides, JB is so small that you can't possibly get lost. But Mom said it's time I learned about real life. So here I am.

Anyway, I stumble off the bus and find myself walking past a row of stalls to the little building tucked away at the back. This is the training centre. Our haven from the real world and the newsfloor for the next six months.

I feel rather hungry, having had no breakfast, so I stop at one of the stalls to order a sandwich and coffee. The young Indian boy who takes my order answers me in English and I am pleasantly surprised. In JB, it would be rare to find someone working at a stall speaking English. I look around at all these people (the stalls are crowded as everyone is having their breakfast) and wonder how many of them I will get to know. Right now I feel lost and alone and a little overwhelmed.

I am very early so I linger a while before making my way to the training centre. Or "balai latihan" as it is called. There is only one young boy there waiting. He arrived early from Kelantan by bus that day. He is only 17 and rather cute (I am 19 and therefore too old for him). Later, I will discover that his dad sent him to KL to get him away from the drug dealers in Kota Bharu. This young boy with the angelic face was a teenage drug dealer and would talk knowledgeably about coke and marijuana distribution networks in this, our one Islamic state. He will also tell us how the cafes get around the "No Alcohol" ruling. They serve beer in covered coffee mugs. For now, however, he is just a cute stranger. I think he is Malay, but he tells me no, Chindian. Indian father, Chinese mother. Ahhh. You know how the mixtures are always the best looking people over here. A very good argument for mixed marriages.

Anyway the others start trickling in. Soon we are herded off to the two classes (one for the English language newspapers and the other for the Malay language newspapers). The instructors are really nice. Having come straight from a government school, I find it refreshing. Over here, you're expected to give your opinion, argue, be a pest. They brief us on this, that and the other, and I think, wow, this is really up my alley. My last encounter with anything school-like was falling asleep in the numerous science classes (chemistry, biology, physics) I was subjected to in Form 6 because my mother had fond dreams of me becoming a doctor. Me? A doctor? I cried for days after dissecting a live frog. Instead of doing my Physics homework, I would write long involved poems about how much I hated it. And as for Chemistry, I always nodded off in Mrs Ooi's class. She was interesting but I was painfully uninterested.

So here, as I sit listening to what is expected of us, I think, no problem. I can do this. This will be easy. Right up my alley. Writing? I have always written. Reporting? OK, I'll have to learn that but don't think that should be a problem. Curiosity? There I lose out to my little sister Julie, but I'm curious enough. Memory? I have a pretty good memory. I glance around the class, listening to our trainer with varying degrees of attention. I am struck by the number of strikingly beautiful women here. I mean, do they hire on looks? (Stupid question. Of course, it's a factor, For the women at least).

We get through the day and I make a friend. The little gay guy seated next to me (OK he's married, separated, but still, gay). I tell him a little of what happened with the landlord and he listens sympathetically. Tells me not to worry. Things will sort themselves out.

We are asked to go up and introduce ourselves. Some people are given a hard time. Some people are let off easily. Joyce, who is to become one of my best friends later, goes up, glares around at the class and says: "I like asking questions, I don't like answering them. So there!" Anita, who is simply stunning, gets a lot of flak for her American accent and the fact that she smiles a lot. A common question is "so, do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?".

When I go up to introduce myself, I tell them I ended up here because I was supposed to be a doctor and failed. One of the trainers twinkles at me. "Malayalee?" she asks. "Yup." I reply. "I thought so. I can relate," she grins. Something in common? We are going to be good friends.

Anyway, the day passes very pleasantly and I feel this curious joy well up. For the first time, I am among my own kind. People who are essentially creative, who take what I take seriously. Maybe it wont be so bad living in that horrible house if I have this to come to everyday.

I catch the right bus back (which is a miracle if you consider how scatty I am) and get off several stops too early. Now I am lost. I wander through Section 17, wondering how I am going to find this house when I didn't even bother to take down the address (I told you I was scatty). I wonder if I can find a public phone somewhere and call my mother. But I keep walking, praying and chuckling at stuff that happened in class today. By some great miracle, I find my way to the house in question.

There is a visitor. An aunt I have met, maybe twice in my life. When I walk in, the matriarch of the house says: "Varene." As in, "she's come". I'm frightfully late, of course, but I wonder why they care. I mean, it's not yet 10 o'clock, the curfew time. But my aunt who smiles at me: "Oh look at her, she looks so sweet..." and tells me to pack.

"Your mother is very unhappy. I'm taking you away. Uncle has gone off in the car to look for you but he will be back soon I think." She comes upstairs to help me pack. I can't quite believe what is happening. "So they bullied you? You poor thing. Your mother called me yesterday, very upset. We were shocked. After all, these people asked if we knew anyone, they wanted to rent out their room. We didn't approach them. But no, we will not stand for this kind of behaviour."

I feel curiously light. My things are packed. The uncle (whom I've never met before) has arrived. We load up the car, the matriarch gives me back my rent and deposit (deducting nothing for the one-day stay which is nice of her) The family are upset by my abrupt removal and the stupid patriarch is uncharacteristically silent. I think this aunt is the fiercer of the two.

We take off to Lucky Gardens where they live and we go off to some restaurant for dinner. I am not hungry and they keep urging me to try this, try that. "You eat like a bird. No wonder you're so skinny."

They have found another place for me to stay. With Carol, a nice young lawyer who studied in the UK. She is hardly home, gives me the run of the house and a key. I go to bed that night feeling so much better than I did the night before. I am actually happy. My course is going to be great. I like where I'm staying. I have family within walking distance.

Things couldn't be better.

Leaving Home

Mum decides not to come. I hug her goodbye. She doesn't get up and I feel the tears sting.

I blink them back.

Tomorrow I will be in KL - a new life, new place to stay, new people. Ripped from my old life. I still can't quite get my head around it. Who are these people I am supposed to be living with? It all happened so quickly. Yesterday I was sitting in this tiny little Chinaman office pretending to be a clerk and today, I am off to the capital to train as a journalist.

An essay, a test, an interview, a phone call:

"We are offering you a place in our cub reporter programme. Yes? No?"

Another phone call, an accommodation secured.

Who are these people I am supposed to be living with anyway? I don't know. Except that they're from our church. They're Malayalee. They're supposed to be "nice". Nice as they are, they will still be strangers. Surrounded by strangers. No familiar faces.

What if the newspaper discovers it made a mistake and I'm actually not good enough? Will think about that later. Will worry about everything later.

I get into the long white Toyota Crown. It will get us to KL. Barely. It shoots red sparks from the exhaust. Frequently, Dad will pull over. Then he will start the car, coax it gently along. It takes 11 hours to make the four-hour journey. Ivan takes over the wheel for the last stretch. He nods off and the car swings across the road.

We nearly die but not quite.

Tomorrow, we find the house I am supposed to stay in. It's massive and the old python of a patriarch regards me with malevolent pleasure.

"You have to be home by 10."

"We won't be giving you a key."

"You can't use our telephone."

"And no boyfriends."

He leaves and I turn to say goodbye to my family. Julie throws herself at me and bursts into tears: "I thought they would be nice Jenn-fer..."

I thought so too.

An Alternative Ad

A while ago a friend sent me a few hilarious marriage ads from newspapers in India. I wish I still had them so you could see. Being extremely busy at the time (I had at least three assignments due) of course, I took the time off to dash off an ad of my own. (I usually write poems and read Jane Austen as part of my study avoidance strategies). This is what I came up with:

I am a simple girl with blue hair and purple eyelashes. Sometimes I like to fly in the face of the full moon. It is nice and silver. I like colours and the lack of it. If you have similar interests (or colouring) please write.

If not, look out of your window on full moon nights.

I usually fly naked.

You are WHOSE daughter?

I just watched The Da Vinci Code. Never having read the book (although it has been on my bookshelf for the past year) I had a vague idea of what it was about, and of course, the punchline. My brother, a devout Catholic, was frankly bored. He couldn't see what all the fuss was about. It was harder to gauge my sister's reaction. But she was the one who insisted we should all go see it and make up our own minds.

I, on the other hand, was intrigued. Not because it was a new concept or even particularly well done. But because it dealt (inaccurately, I might add) with ideas I had already been exposed to, oh many times in the last decade.

There was this party in 1996 and I went because it was given by a good friend, although I was very very sick. I ended up talking to this South African psychic who had also been invited and she told me that she was part of the bloodline. Of the Holy Grail. Oh that, and the Jesus hadn't really died (they took him down from the Cross and healed him, the Essenes being a sect of healers and suchlike) and that he had gone off to France and had three children with Mary Magdalene. Pretty heavy stuff for me at the time, what with my aching head and all. She challenged everything I believed in and of course I wanted to attack her. She was not interested in defending herself, or for that fact, even talking to me. I'm afraid was a bit of a persistent infliction and she removed herself from my vicinity as soon as she could. And my head ached some more. And there was no one to fight with.

Later that year, someone I met in France (why does it always come back to France?) gave me a book, The Hidden Face of Jesus which was about all this stuff that the South African woman talked about and then some. My book was stolen (a colleague with light fingers), recovered, lent out for more than a year (the guy didn't want to return it), returned and finally lent out to a dying man (the father of a friend and I couldn't say no although I wanted to) and now it's gone forever I think.

Although I have chattered on about this quite a bit, that's not what I wanted to talk about. Because I don't think it makes much difference if Jesus was fertile and in fact sired a bloodline. (Actually I think it would be rather cool if he had)

What I wanted to talk about was a little incident that happened in Australia, which came to mind when I was watching the movie. I give it to you as I wrote it then:

For Colin Smith (not his real name), it is important you believe he is who he says he is. And although he introduces himself as Colin, that is not who he says he is.

"Whose picture is that," I ask, pausing awhile at his tarot card stall at the Psychic Fair in Fremantle.

"You don't know St Francis of Assisi?" Smith picks up the portrait and places it alongside his face. "I used to be him. Don't you see the resemblance?"

There are some points of similarity - the beard, the thin, rather emaciated face. His blue eyes rake me in desperation, willing me to believe him as his words tumble over each other in eagerness.

"Lots of psychics have recognised me. People kept coming up to me and asking if I knew who I was. Then a few years ago, they told me. The greatest of all saints! Some say even greater than Jesus! Not that it matters...it's not an ego thing," he hastens to add.

"I met my soulmate, Clare, at a bus stop. You know Clare, the beloved of St Francis? We never spoke but I love her and she loves me. We couldn't be together then, and we can't be together now. My life, you see, is a sacrifice, a decision I made before I was born," he says shaking his head sadly.

"Maybe you shouldn't be so caught up with who you were and just concentrate on being who you are," I venture.

His eyes harden and he shrinks instinctively away from me. "I never listen to advice. Many people attack me, try to make me doubt who I am."

The clock tower strikes upon the hour and St Francis-that-was starts packing up. "I have to go. I work at a Chinese take-away and I don't want to be late. It's embarrassing."

Addendum: I described this incident to a friend and she told me that every year at this conference which apparently regresses people to see who they were in previous incarnations, the number of St Francis of Assisis are exceeded only by the number of Jesus Christs. Oh well.

Ode to a Porcelain Princess

Josephine:

Every year your image becomes a little mistier. You gaze at the camera, quivering, afraid to disturb the hushed air. Around you, the worshipful glances. Your beauty is heart-wrenching. You know it.

Yeah, I went to uni with that girl. I used to tremble everytime I passed her and she barely knew I was alive.

You went from normal to translucent to transparent. The snow queen, the champagne flute brimming with bubbles, the ghost. I can't believe I used to sit next to you in school. That you were there cleaving the air, occupying space. Even then you moved like Dresden china.

You knew my friend Jo.

Jo?

Yes, at college. You were interested in her, weren't you?

Well, you know, she was some chick. She was the girl to be seen having lunch with. She was the girl to be seen dancing with. It conferred a status. But no, I never really knew her.

You fed on romance novels. You tried to imbue the sublime into everyday ordinary things, into everyday ordinary people. For a while we would see through your eyes. But then you would leave and the glorious reds and purples would fade to prison-block grey.

Where is Jo?

I don't know. Nobody knows. She just disappeared.

I sometimes wonder how your life turned out. Maybe you are the wife of some rich businessman. He covers you in silken draperies and diamonds until he realises that diamonds are too hard, bright and real for your beauty. So he gives you congealed moonshine, Mikimoto, naturally. And all adorned he stands back to worship you, softly gleaming in the purple air.

He works off his passion on his teenage mistress, all lipstick and body fluids and thick eyebrows. But he doesn't love her, see? She's just there for convenience.

Because you are too ethereal for clumsy hands. Because you need to be laid up in lavender, framed behind non-reflective glass.

You're not real Josephine. You never were.

Some People

Have you ever met anyone who attracts and repels you simultaneously? Meeting them, you want to remain silent (so he can suspect you're a fool, but you don't open your mouth to remove all doubt) and you want to babble incoherently and you just want to get the fuck out of there. Or maybe that's just me.

He called me to come in for a meeting, the one senior vice president of this company I'm doing work for, that I had never met, but heard of. In fact heard so much of that I really, really didn't want to meet him at all.

But he got his HR manager to call. And say come in. We want to talk business. So I went. Apprehensive as hell. The others, who are sweeties and very good buddies of mine, had let me know he was a little, um, how do you say, difficult? Hard-headed, masterful, strong.

They forgot to mention that he was also incredibly handsome.

So I sat in the meeting room, reading an essay by Jeanette Winterson because I always have a book to tide me over these interminable waiting periods. But the words were jumping all around, tying themselves into slipknots, a noose, a noose, what's with the capital punishment imagery?

Anyway, there were the footsteps, and in he came. We looked at each other. And I wished I was somewhere else.

He sat down, fixed me with a penetrating look and asked whether I used to cover this company in my days as a reporter. Yes, I said. Were you kind to us? So, he didn't even know who I was. Cos that was a stupid question. Very stupid.

Probably the kindest any reporter has been, before or since, I replied.

Right, he nodded. He talked about the industry. Gave his opinions so decidedly. Would brook no opposition. If you opposed, it's only because you were stupid. Too dumb to understand. To know what's what.

Eyes narrowed, he judged everything I said.

I returned the favour. Everything. All words falling carelessly from lips caught in that vice-like net, to be gone over, evaluated, rated.

I stumbled and fell. Put my foot in my mouth, trying to express an idea.

Eyes narrowed, he judged. Lips curled in a sneer. I wanted to sink through the floor. Oh God, why did I have to say that? Why does he make me so nervous. I said once that I found it easy to like people. I was wrong.

He introduced me to someone to facilitate the work I would have to do, and drifted off without bothering to say goodbye.

I went home after and felt horrible for the rest of the day. And if you asked me why, I wouldn't have been able to tell you.

I am extremely attracted to him. And I never want to see him again.

Manglish

Here follows a sample of Manglish (Malaysian or mangled English) from Adoi!

Aitelyu-ah, nemmain wat debladigarmen say, mose Malaysians tok Manglish. Bekoswai? Bekos we all shai oni to spik proper English - afturds people ting we trying to action oni. But talk Manglish is best-la when you want to simply tokkok like fren-fren, la. Donkair you Malay or Chinese or Indian or everything miksup: at the mamak stall, on the awfis, sitting around in the kopi-shop, we Malaysians orways tok like dis wan-kain oni - got kick wat! you want to tokkok osoken, no problem we gifchan you flers, la. Simply by-heart the following list of popular Manglish words and phrases, and very soon oridi you can go round blarfing like tera oni.

A Condensed Glossary of Common Manglish Words and Phrases

atoyu (wat) - gentle expression of triumph: "What did I tell you?"

aidontch-main - corruption of 'I don't mind' - the extraneous "ch" indicates that the speaker is well aware of the subtleties of the English language and is making an effort to sound teh "t" in "don't".

aiseman - contraction of "I say, man!" A totally meaningless utterance, most commonly used by those with absolutely nothing to say.

aisked (la) - confession of nervousness, as in "I'm scared, I don't have the guts to do it."

barsket - uncouth interjection; a term of derision, often preceded by teh prefix bladi. Probably a mangling of "blasted", "bastard" and "bugger". An all-purpose expression of acute annoyance, as in "Damn!" or "Blast it!".

betayudon - mild warning, as in "You'd better not do that!"

bladihel - exclamation conveying intense irritation: corruption of "bloody hell!"

bollsdar - rude retort favoured by Malaysian Indians: essentially a scrotal reference devolved from "balderdash" or "bollocks". The deliberate slurring of the commonly heard vernacular suffix "la" imparts a more fervent measure of vulgarity.

chipsket - contraction of "cheapskate", somebody not known to be generous. Also used to describe anything low-cost.

dai-la - term of commiseration, usually mock, used in situations where an element of anxiety is present, e.g., "Oh dear, that means you've had it! or "Oh well, that's the end of that!" or "Shit, I'm in real trouble!"

debladigarmen - contraction of "the bloody government"; widely used as a scapegoat for all of life's disappointments, delays, denials, and prohibitions.

defler - contraction of "that fellow".

(don) tokkok - playful insult (Don't talk rubbish); the etymology of tokkok is uncertain but it probably derives from "talk cock" - as in "cock-and-bull stories."

fler - personal and/or impersonal reference, originally a contraction of "fellow" but frequently applied in neuter gender, e.g., You flers better wochaut! (Don't any of you try to be funny!)

fraskes - noun applied to any individual caught in an unenviable impasse; someone whose cases is frustating. Could also imply sexual deprivation.

gifchan (la) - half serious plea, as in "Please give me a chance, will you!" Could also mean "Do me a favour."

hauken - another flexible expression applicable in almost any situation, e.g., "That's not right!" or "Impossible" or "Don't tell me!"

ho-laif - adverb, meaning perpetually: contraction of "whole life".

huseso - as above: "Who said so?" Alternatively, hused.

hutoyu - mild challenge, as in "Who told you?"

izit - expression of mild unbelief, as in "Is that so?"

izzenit - from "isn't it?" but applied very loosely at the end of any particular statement to elicit an immediate response, e.g. Yused you will spen me a beer, izzenit? (You said you will buy me a beer, didn't you?)

kennonot - request or enquiry, contraction of "can or not?": "May I?" or "Will you?" or "Is it possible?"

kenoso - affirmative, "can also": in other words, "It's quite all right with me."

las-taim - expression denoting the past (last time) though not necessarily in any specific sense, e.g., las-taim we orways see picture but nowadays we like to see ooidio oni.

mebeken - contraction of "maybe can": in other words, "It may be possible..."

nemmain - casual dismissal: "Never mind."

notshai (wan) - from "not shy one" - meaning shameless, or not standing upon ceremony.

nola - a dilute negative, used as a device to interrupt, deny, or cancel someone else's statement.

oridi - contraction of "already".

osoken - affirmative, as above, with very subtle shift of emphasis: e.g. osoken kenoso means you may use these terms interchangeably.

shiok (oni) - expression of intense pleasure, etymology obscure.

sofanochet - meaning, "it hasn't happened yet"; can also be shortened to nochet, a slurring of "not yet".

sohau - polite interrogative, usually used as greeting, e.g., "Well how are things with you?" or "How goes it?"

so-poorting - expression of sympathy or condolence: "You poor thing!"

tera - noun describing someone who inspires awe; corruption of "terror". Often has a positive connotation, as in defler tera ladykiller la!

tingwat - highly adaptable expression stemming from "What do you think?". May be used as a challenge ("Who cares what you think!"; a rhetorical question ("Well how about that!?"); or as a friendly insult ("Please don't inflict your abysmal ignorance on us!") - depending on context and intonation.

wan-kain (wan) - adjective denoting uniqueness, oddness, weirdness, extraordinariness: contraction of one of a kind (with one repeated for a rhythmic symmetry). Sometimes rendered as wan-kain oni (only).

watudu - rhetorical question: "But what can we do?"

yala - non-commital agreement, liberally used when confronted with a bore. A tring of yalas issuing forth from your hapless listener is a sure sign that he or she wishes to terminate the conversation as soon as possible.

yesa - general expression of interest, usually inserted as a question during conversations, as in "Oh really?"

yu-a-yu - term of friendly accusation, meaning, "You are really too much!"

yusobadwan - expression of mild reproach: "That's not very nice!"