And we thought we had hope.

It was a great speech, to which my friend once proclaimed “Alhamdulillah”. Oh how we took to heart his resounding call:

“We cannot morally turn our backs on the fundamental responsibility of ensuring that all stakeholders in our society, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, have a place under the sun.”

“Only those who are capable, responsible and scrupulously honest should be allowed to serve in positions of leadership. Those who are inefficient, incompetent and, most importantly, corrupt should be held in absolute contempt. There must also be concrete anti-corruption measures and management practices based on efficiency, transparency and accountability. It is also very important that we have leaders who are earnest in maintaining unity, never resorting to religious or ethnic posturing to further their political careers at the expense of peace and security. Should they fail in this respect, they must be held accountable and answerable before the law.”

“It is only when citizens are also stakeholders will there be the widest sense of ownership of problems and challenges”

“You must take personal ownership over the wellbeing of the country. Do not succumb to indifference and apathy. Hold on to your ideals. Do not give way to cynicism and opportunism. Believe that you can make a difference. Channel your energies in a constructive manner to bring about positive changes around you.”

What has all that come to today???!!! AN APATHETIC I DON’T WANT TO GET INVOLVED IN THIS!!!!!

Sobriety checkpoint

Walking along the pavement, I zig-zagged across a couple of quiet lanes, leading away from the otherwise buzzing market place to the cozy little wine bar along a block of boring bank outlets. Bankers were clocking off and locking up for the day. Each were setting off towards different directions. They looked up, only for a moment, gestured a quick goodbye and hurried off in their vehicles. Not unlike most evenings, the bar was already feeling jazzy as I made my entry. And like most evenings, I was greeted by familiar faces, mostly of regulars who stopped by to chill out before heading home.

It’s seven and I was winding down. With the stirrings of complex tannin of oak and berries, the sting of inebriety, I was detached from the laughters and intense conversations beleaguering me. It was an alluring moment, the swinging between soberness and drunkenness, which is enough to keep me from regretting my existence.

I twirled the glass and inhaled. Then I pictured Joe. I have never known anyone by that name. Joe, after an intense session of love making, is lying on his partner’s bed. He is visualizing each of his partner’s movement in the shower as he listened in to the sound of changing rhythm of water rushing down onto the bathroom floor after coming in contact with the body. He could feel the erectile strength returning to his penis. He savored his thoughts. From the outset, it was the secrecy of the relationship that was appealing to him, as if it was the only truth he could live by. Joe had met his partner months ago when he was having martini at the hotel lounge. It was then, when the prostitute approached him that he suddenly felt the strength to be weak.

Back in the room, Joe suddenly thinks of his wife, who is like him, also lying on a bed alone. He throws on his clothes, left some money on the bed and headed for the door. It’s almost 4 in the morning. But he knew very well that he will come back again.

Another bottle of boujalaise would be just fine. Then it’s time for me to go, though it’s still way before midnight. Looking over to a mirror across the table, I examined my face and I began to wonder how long more before I should start with some facial work to keep the lines from being visible to others. I looked beyond the reddened epidermis which wraps over the essence of me, a superficial representation of me, beneath which a soul rests. That surface which I have come to be recognized, that which is constantly rejuvenated and maintained at its best, for all to see. And I thought about how much my face reveals the real me? It’s a thought that is intoxicating in itself. It was this thought that has aroused a sense of suspicion in me, and this suspicion was what gave birth to the character of Joe.

They’re maggots, you idiot!

The room at the rear of our old house never failed to ignite a spark of excitement in me whenever a conversation on ‘your most memorable experience’ pops up. It was a room I shared with my older brother. We would play soccer in the room, toppling down the table fan and shattering a couple of window panes, oblivious to our mother’s screams from the adjoining kitchen. She’d hurl threats, yelling in our family dialect, “I’ll break your limbs and shove them up your asses if you both don’t stop your nonsense now!”

Once, in a frenzy attempt to replicate Norman Whiteside’s curling-shot freekick, my brother sent the ball towards the pendarfluor tube by the side wall. As pieces of the tube came crashing down, we were certain that we had unleashed a curse upon ourselves. The ball finally succumbed to our mother’s chopping knife. The lights were never replaced for the subsequent months as a reminder not to test mother’s patience again. We foretasted what it’ll feel like to be thrown into the dark where there’s gnawing of teeth. 

Stepping into a pitch black room at sundown was no real big deal. At least not until we were greeted by the smell of rotting corpse one night. We ransacked our room, with X-files like flashlights in search of a dead rat but reported negative from our search. The cat was let out of the bag the following day, when we had maggots falling off the ceiling. Feline – as it turned out, there were a couple of dead, decomposing kittens lying up on the ceiling, hidden above the ceiling board – and probably been dead for days. Even as the carcasses were removed, the maggots had already navigated through the entire ceiling floor and waited to fall off like autumn leaves.

We never slept in the room until we moved out years later.

I was reminded of this encounter today when I overheard my colleagues commenting on the political coup in my homestate. The usurpers were likened to carcasses that were rotting to its core.

Yet, I was just thinking, unlike usual, where the eternal recurrence of retelling this story was one laughable matter, I was thinking of the whole enactment of the two siblings stood watching maggots falling off the ceiling. That someone deliberately left the carcasses up on the ceiling. And the thought of being locked up in that room, with maggots falling off the ceiling; that’s so fucked up.

The song of angry men.

But what is so unconstitutional about listening to what the people of Perak really wants? Listen to the roar of the people tonight. Listen to their cries!

God have mercy on us.