Lost in Limbo

     Kasha woke me up at 8:15 this morning to send her to work. It’s become so much a daily routine that I wake up just as early on weekends. On my own. While Kasha sleeps till noon. Ahahahaha. Babbling again.

     Anyway, I finally went to Zoo Negara! As I was saying, I was sending Kasha to the Wangsa Maju LRT station when I noticed the morning was finally clear and blue! I’d been wanting to go to the zoo ever since I got the Olympus E-300, but KL weather’s not been too peachy lately. Having spent almost 2 months without rain in Kelantan, daily shower here in KL is a blessing! But I can’t get a Kodak moment with grey sky, can I? Babbling again.

     It’s been like ten years or more since I last went there. And the Zoo’s just walking distance from my home (ahahaha…now you know why I monkey around so well). RM10 per entry. Not complaining. There’s a new ticketing system, sorta like the one they use for LRT, but the well-remembered rotating metal bars-cum-doors are still used for the exit. So I snapped a few pics of the entrance (and my ticket). I think I was the first customer this morning. It was EMPTY!

     I made my way toward the elephant pen and here was this peacock prancing around freely. Snapped more pictures. He didn’t show off his tail feathers though. Bummer. Scared some storks at the lake, snapped more pictures. Basically it’s the same story. See some animals, snap pictures. See interesting flowers, snap pictures.

     I’m surprised I haven’t forgotten the smell of the animal pens. Animal crap. Sticks in your mind, I guess. Walk downwind near the camels and whoof - it stank! Funnily enough, only the boar pen wasn’t smelly. I’m happy most of the animals werent sleeping about or just plain invisible! Some of them were even accomodating as to come so near for me to shoot pictures!

     I have a 1G-capacity CompactFlash card, (which translates to 160 SHQ images or 228 HQ images) but toward the end of the trip I was lowering the quality of my images to create more space! But once I got home and filtered through the pictures, I’m left with 220+ images. Not bad. I’m still learning how to use the camera, so a lot of the pictures turned out so-so, but I took excellent pictures of flowers. Faiz and Mama told me to go to the botanical garden since I love taking pictures of plants so much!

     Yeah, yeah. All talk but no actual images…maybe I’ll upload them photos into my Kodak Ofoto (or whatever it changed its name into). Maybe. Macam tak ingat username & password. Eheheh.

     I’m seriously happy with my camera. My only regret about this trip is that I don’t have the higher zooming lens (it’s sold separately at around RM1100). With the auto-focusing capability, anyone who don’t know how to use the SLR can shoot good pictures (which is a big plus, since using the analog SLR my own face seldom appeared coz not many people can focus it right). It feels right in my hands and it looks good too. Most importantly, it’s mine. Ahahahaha. Maybe I’ll even name my camera.

Next:

Tugu Negara. Maybe, if I can find the time and effort, I’ll even go to the petting zoo at Sunway, the botanical garden and even the butterfly farm.

Haven’t posted anything for, like, days!

     Fine. I bot. For the uninitiated, a robot program runs my Ragnarok Online for me, ie: I macromanage. Ahahahaha. Sounds savvy. Dahla I wasted 1 whole day coz the bot refused to go back to Aldebaran and keeps dying. At level 94, every time 1% is deducted on dying, it’s about 45 minutes of gameplay. When I left the bot to sleep at Reza’s house, it was already more than 80% to level 95. When I came back…43%. Imagine my anguish!

     Now that my Wizard’s at level 95, he levels up seriously slow. It’ll take many a day to level up. My computer needs to sleep real bad!

…

     I sound like a computer geek, don’t I? That is so uncool. Unless, of course, if one would consider me technosexual. In that case, I’m all yours!

…

On more earthly matters…

    I finally decided to unpack my stuff. 3 weeks home and now he’s doing it? Ahahaha. Room’s a mess. Initially I wanted to go to Zoo Negara. To play around with my brand new Olympus E-300 (which, btw, is superb!). But the day was overcast. Didn’t rain the whole day, but I wouldn’t get a Kodak moment with a grey sky. Shot a cool picture of Keeno, though. Guess what…my medical books takes up a single row on the rack, and my story books occupy 3X3 rows, and then some. My comics take up a whole cabinet. Ahahahaha. That’s where my money went all these years.

     So I was clearing my stuff. Then I found it. The compilation of my short stories that I thought I’d lost. I only have some of my stories on hardcopy left - the hazards of not having backup files. The compilation’s quite thick, you know. Back in the days when I used to write a lot….

     There’s a medical (or should I say psychiatric) term for jumping from one topic to another, you know. And to my colleagues who happen to read this, no, I’m not having flight of ideas. Nor is my speech pressured. I’m just writing whatever comes to mind.

     Ok. I’m supposed to fetch Mama from her office tomorrow. Good chance for me to go visit Tugu Negara to snap some pics!

    Oh yeah….I’m supposed to update ‘About Me’.

I’m updating ‘About me’.

So I’m gonna save the current one here…

He opens his eyes to the touch of the gentle breeze on his lashes. The world around him was bright, almost blinding. It was painful, and his eyes could not stop watering, yet he bore the pain, steadfast.

Eventually the brightness became bearable. And he was rewarded with a vista of unsurpassed beauty. He was on a lush, green hill overlooking a valley of a multitude of hues of green, gold and red. He traced a silver snake of a river, barely visible from his vantage point. He breathed in the scents of grass and saplings. It was overwhelming. It felt like home.

He took a step forward, then two. Before he knew it, he was unfurling his wings and soaring high above the land. It was only then that he realized he was an eagle, mighty king of the skies.

Hours flew by yet he was not tired. He rode the air currents with an innate grace. He drank in the beauty of freedom like a potent drug. He was the king of the world!

Days went by and suddenly he felt it. A feeling he could not describe, but he was determined he was uncomfortable with it. He was at the top, the world was his, but there was no one else in sight. It was then he realized he was alone.

     I woke up a bit earlier this morning (I wake up quite early for someone on holiday - 8:15am every day IS early!) and got myself ready for a trip to town. I wanted to go to TGV KLCC early so I don’t have to queue to buy movie tickets. And, when I reached there at 11, there was no line! Thus, I managed to secure movie passes for my whole family for Kingdom of Heaven, 11:30pm tomorrow night. Don’t know why, but I like watching late night shows. And my mom loves watching these epic movies. Doing family outings like this is fun. Seriously. Do give it a try one day. But I’d advise you to scan through at least the synopsis, or you’d end up watching something like Alexander with your parents and go "Shit! My parents are watching this freaky movie with me!" Ahahahaha…talk about uncomfortable. Luckily my parents are so very much open-minded!

     Okay. Nuff psychobabble for the moment.

On to serious matters…

     You do notice there’s a time gap between 8-something and 11? Too bad. Hmm…Well, I sent Kasha off to work at Phileo Avenue, where we arrived at about 9. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper, which was to be expected at around 8:30 am. Then I went straight to school. Yes, school. Everything looked so familiar as I made my way up the hill, first with Kedai Telekom at the right side of the junction going up Bukit Nanas, to the imposing St John’s Cathedral, to the well-remembered brown-painted St. John’s primary, and then finally my Alma Mater, St. John’s Institution. I haven’t been there for years, and I was touched by the familiarity of it all. Nothing changed much, except for a new coat of red-and-white paint.

     I parked my car by the side entrance and the scent of wet grass welcomed me as I made my way into my old school. She is old, my school, 101 years young this year. It had just rained that morning, but even with the ominous gloom overhead, the old girl was glowing. She still is beautiful. For someone who is an anti-patriotic, I felt warmed to the core seeing such a familiar sight. Schoolboys were everywhere: on the field playing soccer, at the court playing basketball, in the canteen eating, even hollering down at me from their vantage point at the Form 5 Block. Funny. more than 6 years have passed since I left school, but it felt as if I was wearing the white-and-olive school uniform again. Boys will always be boys I guess.

     The concourse was different, with new light green tiles, and I noticed even the kain pelekat was different. Still that primary school green, except with a darker green border with SJI written all over it. Which doesn’t make sense. Put it there and it means you sit on your school name. The border’s placed at one’s butt after all. And the doors to the teachers room were closed.

     I spied through the glass panels on the doors for familiar faces. And I spotted Pn Noorsham, who hadn’t aged a bit. 5 years since I last saw her and I recognized her immediately. She was one of my Garudamas advisors, and she taught me BM in forms 4 and 5.

     I went straight to her and she grinned when she saw me. She recognized me still. She forgot my name, but she remembered me and my brother. We talked about a lot of things then, about other teachers I rembered, about shoolchildren nowadays (yes, I’m getting old!), about the new headmaster, and about the school magazine. She told me she resigned from Garudamas advisory post two years back, which was a loss for Garudamas, for this particular teacher, just like another teacher I am very fond of, is quite radical and loves change. Together we revamped the school magazine. I asked Pn Noorsham for Mrs B’s number, and she asked around, but unfortunately no one has Mrs B’s number. I’ve been wanting to contact her for a long time. If not for her I wouldn’t have pursued writing and publications.

     I’m rambling. That’s for another time. Back to our conversation this morning. In the middle of our conversation, Pn Noorsham asked me about medical stuff. And our roles were switched. Suddenly I was the teacher, imparting knowledge about the human body. Time and again she apologized for asking a lot of questions, and when she admitted she was not as smart as I was, I told her outright that if she and other teachers had not spent the time and effort to educate me, I wouldn’t be where I am in the first place. I am thankful and eternally grateful for the love they poured in educating me.

     We talked for a while more, and time flew by. I had to leave at 10:45, else my effort in waking up so early would be pointless. As I was leaving, I bathed in the sight and scent of my old school. As Pn Noorsham pointed out, we are lucky in a sense that we are not ashamed of our school. In fact, deny as we might, we are proud of St John’s.

     For the first time I drove into the basement carpark of KLCC. Faiz had pointed out that parking is actually cheap there, not exceeding RM5. Don’t know about that, but might as well try. I went straight to TGV, which was, as I wrote down earlier, quite empty.

     I stopped by Kinokuniya (my customary haunt). I love the sight and smell of books. I feel at home being surrounded by them. But I couldn’t buy any book as my cash had been depleted buying movie tickets. Eheheh.

     Fast forwarding as I’m sick of writing right now. Before I left I bought lasagna for Mama and Cinnabon for the whole family. They only had chocolate, nuts and cheeze. Not much of a choice, eh?

     Most important part. Although I don’t do this everyday, waking up on my own bed, using the bathroom I grew up using, driving through familiar roads - traffic and all, going back to my old school that still looks the same, and walking around in KLCC feel so familiar, natural and comfortable. I am a city boy after all. It felt like home.

     I sat on a bench at the edge of the small playground. It was a little after 6 and the afternoon heat lingered still. The day was bright and breezy, even with stormclouds gathering at the eastern horizon. I looked at the children playing and laughing without a care for anything other than living for the moment. If only I were that young again. Just for a moment, so I could have a second chance. Softly I laughed, barely audible even to myself. If only.

     I rubbed my hands together, feeling the coarse texture of my calloused palms. I’m not even 25 and my hands felt like my father’s when he was 50. Funny I thought of him, that good for nothing bastard. Where was he when I needed him the most? Where were my parents when I needed someone to guide me through these dark days? Busy making sure no one knew about what I’ve become, no doubt. Again I laughed, a little louder this time. Putting the blame on others was my mother’s forte. If there’s only one thing I learned from being ostracized was that there’s no point in blaming others. I put myself in this predicament, now it’s up to me to pull myself together.

     Looking back at my life, I have more things to regret about than I could count with my fingers and toes. If home had been a military camp, school was where the rebel in me reigned. I was the king of the world back then; even the teachers feared me. Useless old farts. What they wanted to teach me at school couldn’t help me in real life. How would Geography help in arranging bricks on a building, and how would Mathematics help in sweeping the streets at 4 o’clock in the morning? If they wanted to teach something useful, they should have taught sex education. Then none of this mess would have happened.

     Suddenly a shrill cry broke me from my reverie. The voice was so familiar it was ingrained in my head. My head snapped to where all the children was playing. A frail little girl in an oversized faded T-shirt that used to be white was lying on the ground. All other children were standing around her in a semi-circle. Without a thought I jumped off the bench and ran towards her.

     "Sera!"

     Within seconds I was already sitting on the ground with the little girl cradled in my arms. She was so small and skinny for a 4-year-old, she was all skin and bones. Her curls hung damply on her scalp and forehead, just like mine. Eyes that were too big for that small, delicate face stared at me with tears defiantly held in check.

     "Sera, what happened?" Even I could hear how shaky my voice was.

     "Arin said Papa is good for nothing. I pushed him and he pushed me back." She still refused to cry, this strong little girl.

     At that moment I froze. My life flashed before me. All the girls I had fun with meant nothing to me. It was simply innocent fun, living for the moment. Until one day a girl whom I couldn’t even remember what her name was came to me with a bundle in her arms. I would’ve laughed it all off if we hadn’t done the genetic confirmation. She didn’t want the child, nor did I. But my father firmly said it was my responsibility, then he shut the doors. I was family no longer. I had to do everything on my own then. Not only I had to provide for myself, I had a child to raise. Sera’s friend was right. Her papa was good for nothing.

     "Papa?"

     It was only then I realized tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was about to rub them off when I felt little arms wrapped firmly around my neck and damp curls on my cheek.

     "I love you, Papa."

     I did the only thing I could do. I hugged her back.

     "I love you too, Sera."

     I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, leaving countless regrets. But not this one. Not even for a single moment. Sera was my world, my life. And I am hers.