I stared at the bare wall. My fingers were sweating from gripping the black Sharpie for too long. There was no one around, I thought. There shouldn’t be a need to worry. It was just an ugly red brick wall with smears of paint and scratches, hidden behind these two dark alleyways that no one would ever cross unless they wanted to get into trouble. I uncapped the marker, and brought my hand up parallel to my shoulder, ready. The white lines of each brick would be the frame of my words, containing them perfectly within its rectangular space. Perhaps all I needed was this small little area to unburden what felt like 500 tons of rocks just bearing on my shoulders. It was just an ugly brick wall, I thought again. and if you can hear me through these thick brick walls that suffocate me endlessly I wail and call scratching till nails crack and bleed as air thins up no space to breathe finally I freeze fossilized to become an artifact of archaeology and no one would have a clue how long I stood here because of you when they dig me up and find my bones the mystery will remain unknown except to you my love the one who left me here the one I trusted yet ended up being My Murderer Epilogue: I came back two weeks later to find the brick wall broken down.
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"Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful young girl, with skin that was yellow like the color of langsat fruit-" ‘No! No, aunty adik,’ Aira stomped her two small little feet on the living room carpet ‘It’s skin as white as snow, her skin is white not yellow,’ the five year old was very serious when it came to her fairy tales. She knew them all by heart and was not going to be fooled. ‘But your skin is yellow, and my skin is yellow, even mummy and daddy’s skin is yellow. We’re all yellow! Why can’t princesses be yellow too?’ ‘Yes, but the name of the story is Snow White aunty adik,’ Alyssa sat herself down next to her cousin, who nodded in full agreement. ‘If her skin is yellow, then she can’t be called Snow White,’ ‘We’ll call her, Yellow Langsat!’ Gael the eldest, chimed in. ‘Yellow Langsat?’ Azeem repeated after his brother with hands in the air. ‘Aunty adik, what is yellow langsat?’ Ariff pulled at my sleeve, confused with the commotion. ‘Okay, calm down everyone, I’m the one telling the story,’ I took the eight month old baby I had in my arms and placed him in his walker. Adam, on the other hand, was still fast asleep. ‘Can we have langsat aunty adik?’ Ariff asked, after finding out from his brother what it was. ‘Yeah, we want langsat!’ ‘I asked first!’ ‘Azeem has cavity, he cannot eat langsat,’ ‘Mummy said, mummy said I can have some,’ ‘Can I have orange?’ ‘Hey, I want orange too,’ My hands were on my hips. ‘WAIT, wait. You guys wanna hear the story or not?’ ‘YES!’ they chorused. ‘But we also want langsat,’ Gael bit his fingers ‘Or orange!’ Azeem smiled cheekily, knowing that I would get annoyed by his endless requests. ‘Alright, so here’s the plan. I’ll go and get some langsat and cut some oranges. You guys stay here, and keep an eye or Arshad and Adam okay? When I come back we’ll continue the story. Deal?’ ‘DEAL!’ 20 minutes later... ‘Everyone got their langsat?’ ‘YES!’ ‘Everyone got their orange?’ ‘YES!’ ‘Want to hear the story?’ ‘YES!’ ‘No interrupting this time okay?’ the children nodded, mouths full of fruit. I cleared my throat. "Once upon a time, there lived a young girl who had skin as yellow as langsat fruit. She lived in a small cottage, just on the outskirts of the busy kingdom of Kuala Lumpur. This is the adventures of her, and the seven kenits."
Learning to read the Quran never seemed to be too hard for me as a child. This was mainly because I did not realize how many rules of the tajweed that I was actually breaking. For a long time I was very confident of my reading. It wasn’t until my mother sent me to learn from Aunty Asiah, an old woman who lived just across the street that I realized how terrible I really was.
I remembered having to wake up as early as 7.00 am, and with my sleepy eyes I would slip on my jubbah and walk to her house with my Quran in hand. The gates of her house were always open, signaling that she was home, and her silver colored Sephia car would be parked under the porch. Her garden was full of different kinds of flowers, and there was even a small pond with fishes inside. I remember how surprised I was the first time I stepped into her house. The floor was red and fully carpeted, something I have never seen before. She kindly invited me in and I sat at her big wooden dining table. She would always sit opposite of me, and her Quran, just like her floor had a red velvet-like cover. She was a short lady, with round eyes hidden behind thick rectangular glasses. She would lick the tip of her thumb before flipping the pages, and then she would ask me to read the first line. Unfortunately my reading was very terrible. I recalled how she would knock the table a few times every time my harakah was too short, or if I wasn’t pronouncing the qalqalah right. She was very strict, and this made reading one page take forever. She would usually let me stop after two pages, and asked me if I wanted to continue. As a child who just wanted to go home and sleep, I would always opt to stop and continue the following week. I was ready to go home to whine to my mother after that first session, but before I left, Aunty Asiah asked me to wait a while and went to fetch something from the kitchen. She came back out with a packet of nasi lemak and warm smile. “From the mosque this morning, for your hard work” I happily smiled and thanked her, completely forgetting about how tiring the morning had been for me. From that day on, I’d look forward to receiving my nasi lemak every Sunday morning. Aunty Asiah lived alone in that house. She spent most of her hours at the mosque. I continued learning with her, and my reading improved greatly as well. Eventually I managed to khatam the Quran after a year. Even after I had stopped going to her house, she never forgot to make for me nasi kunyit. I stopped seeing her altogether when I had to go to boarding school. She dropped by that morning and even gave me a 50 ringgit note. From that day on, I only saw her occasionally, usually at terawih prayers during Ramadan at the mosque every year. Her voice would echo across the women's prayer hall, asking the ladies to fill up the saf. She had her own corner with her chair as her legs were no longer as strong as they used to be. I remembered meeting her when I was form four at that same spot. She touched my face, and told me what a beautiful woman I had grown into. Those were her last words to me. Aunty Asiah passed away the following year in 2009. I was in school at the time, and didn’t get the chance to properly say goodbye. Babah broke the news to me when he came to visit. He also told me how the mosque was full to the brim before her burial. When I opened my Quran that night, and dedicated Yassin to her, I realized just how much I had to thank her for. To think that all those times I visited her, the only niat an 11 year old girl had was to get her hands on a packet of nasi lemak, that she completely looked over what an astounding teacher she had. Without Aunty Asiah, I would not be able to read the Quran as fluently as I can today. It's been 8 years since then. I regret the days when I was lazy, and would dread going to her house to learn. I would always peek through the window and hope that her gates would be closed. Today her house is still there, but there are no more beautiful flowers in her garden or any fish in the pond. Her silver colored Sephia car is gone, and her gates are never open anymore. I really wish they would be again. At least one more time. Maybe then we can have another Sunday morning together. In Loving Memory of Aunty Asiah. Al-Fatihah It’s been three days in a row now. Her eyes were half open, and lips dry. It took a few minutes for her to realize what was happening around her. The sun peeked through the blinds, giving light to the small dimmed lit room. Outside she could hear the faint sound of a garbage truck, noisily crunching away yesterday’s trash, along with the sound of the trains that passed by every day in 10 minute intervals. Other than that, her room was quiet.
She blinked a few times, scanning around. The stacks of pizza boxes looked like they were about to topple over her small round coffee table. The unwashed coffee mugs and glasses sit stagnantly on her writing desk. Empty plastic bottles covered her red carpet. Then, hesitantly she took a deep breath and started wiggling her toes. A sigh of relief left her lips, she was still alive. The cold winter days had taken its toll on Elli lately. She despised the cold weather, and she was undoubtedly certain that the cold hated her too. There were substantial proof to support her thoughts as well. As a talented cook, Elli was always trying out a new recipe, or baking cakes for parties. She loved spending time in her kitchen, enjoying the company of her pots and pans, surrounded by the aroma of sautéed garlic and onions while roasting a chicken in the oven. Unfortunately the cold had turned her beloved kitchen into an icy fortress of doom, devouring all sources of heat that even her stove could not over power. She was left with no choice but to buy her dinner most days, and eating it snuggly in the comfort of her warm bed. This was of course killing her purse at the same time. The weekends where she used to cycle to the seaside or have a run are now spent sitting in front of the telly, watching movies she didn’t have time to catch up on. That, combined with a bowl of hot chicken soup, and Elli could stay there for hours, not knowing how much time had passed by. What was worse of all was not being able to wake up in the morning. Though she declared the cold an enemy, it seemed to put her to sleep even better than most days. Such comforting good sleep that it was as if she would never leave her bed. The feeling of the soft warm covers, sheltering her from the evil cold, which was looking for any sort of entry into the fortress of her sheets. Although the sleep was a good thing, the headache due to oversleeping that came along with it, was unbearable. She rose from her bed and made her way to the bathroom. As she opened her bedroom door, she let out a regretful groan. Plastic bags of trash were taking up the space in her once beloved kitchen. She overslept again, so she didn’t wake up in time to throw her trash again for the third time that week. Her apartment had lost most of its womanly touches, and instead has turned into a messy bachelor pad. She could hear the cold silently laughing sinisterly at her. It was only the beginning of winter, and there was another 2 months to go before the war would be over. The cold knew it was winning, and it taunted her. She had nowhere to go but to stay in her bed, and it won't be long before the cold would get her in her sleep too, and she would be gone in the wonderful deep sleep forever. |
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