In
certain parts of the world, the days have grown more frigid as January was
opening its eyes to the cold winds of winter. Christmas trees and sparkling
ornaments still stood erect and some would even stay up well into July.
For him
however, living in a tropical climate, he rarely had any choice but be
constantly exposed to the piercing rays of the summer sun. Where he came from,
it was always summer. And today had been particularly warm, proof from the
moisture forming on his brow.
The
stainless steel keys he twirled around his fingers jingled merrily. The taste
of metal still lingered dryly in his mouth from a moment before when he had to
maneuver his way out the car door and the only solution to do so successfully
was to bite the keys.
He always
hated the taste. “I guess this is what vampires taste when they suck on
iron-rich blood,” he mused. Dismissing the thought as surely as it had entered
his mind, he replayed the events of the day.
It had
been a good day for him, he thought. He’d been out with friends, had met up
with his ebony sweetheart and to top it all off, a package had arrived for him
earlier that day.
‘Probably
the leather bound journal I’d bought three bloody weeks ago,’ he thought aloud.
He
tentatively walked across his porch and headed to the side door. As he neared
the grille, he slowed to a halt. Something was amiss, he thought. The house felt
empty. He scanned the marble flooring before the wooden front door for any hint
of slippers or shoes. The slippers strewn across the mirrored marble were
missing a few pairs.
Before he
left the house this morning, he distinctly remembered that as he crouched down
to put on his shoes, the voices of his parents could be heard coming from the
kitchen. They’re usually bickering. He’d gotten fairly used to it, knowing full
that as the days went by, what was violent before now was only emotional
anguish.
He had
left the house while his parents were in mid fight. During the drive back, he
expected to come home to a quite environment as he didn’t think either of them
had the energy to prolong a shouting match well into the evening. Old age has
its advantages.
Yet,
somehow, standing in front of the wrought-iron grille, he heard silence.
He fumbled
for the bronze pass-key that would open the grille as a host of unwanted
thoughts entered his mind. The thoughts aligned themselves from the worse to
the rational. He dismissed the rational knowing all too well that Murphy's law
applied strongly in his house, "Anything that can go wrong, will go
wrong,” he repeated to himself almost like a mantra.
'What if?,'
he thought. A lot of ‘what ifs’ were swirling around in his head neither of which
consoled him.
He shook
the mental images out of his head as he continued fumbling with the keys. When
he finally found the right one, in his haste, his clumsy fingers missed the
cold metal rings and the entire bunch fell to the floor. He stared at them.
He didn't
know how long he'd been doing it, but by the time he snapped out of the staring
contest he had started with the keys, he found himself on the warm grey floor
of the car porch, arms clutching his knees. He breathed. In an instance there,
he thought he had forgotten how to. Once again he found himself staring off
into space. But this time, it wasn’t at anything tangible.
His
thoughts had wandered and had brought him back to a specific moment in time.
It was a
warm night in Kedah. The car he was driving cruised along the pitch black road
heading back to the university campus him and his mother were staying in.
The only
view that greeted him was the inky black tar road and the menacing trees on
either side.
He kept
his calm and his eyes on the road knowing all too well what wandering eyes
would invite on a road such as this. He'd heard the stories and known the
encounters people have had in the area all too well and wasn’t in any mood to
entertain neither his imagination nor the things that go bump in the night.
He
applied pressure to the gas pedals and felt the car rev forward as the meter
slowly climbed to 140, 160. His determination and daredevil driving paid off as
a patch of light finally greeted him a few meters ahead.
As he
neared the guard house, he habitually lifted his hand up in greeting to the
security guards and drove past.
Parking
his car in the spot provided, he walked along the dimly lit corridor back home.
The cool
night air wafted around him. They danced across his skin as if they were
putting on a show just for him. The ballerinas of the night. Constantly
caressing his bare skin and running their intangible hands through his hair, a
silent reminder that he was not alone.
The soft
hooting of the owls accompanied him as he crossed the court the girls during
their semesters would use as a picnic area as what few lights that existed
around the cold dark pavement strewn across the open space illuminated his
every step.
It was a
nice night and few things could erase that image from his mind. However, even
before he finished the thought, he was brought back to reality by the shrill
sound of a scream. He knew the scream well as he’s heard it a few times in his
life. Something no son should have to hear.
His heart
sank and instantly his legs felt heavy. He ignored the sudden change in gravity
and darted across the last few expanses and barged through the door of the
three-storey house. He always thought this place was cursed and this just cemented
it.
As he
entered the door, looking up, what he saw made what little blood he had left in
his face drain away completely.
At the
top of the stairs stood his father, clutching his mother by the throat as he
held her with his outstretched arm in an attempt to push her down the steep
flight.
The sudden
realization that if any wrong movements were to take place and the impact that
would take place at the bottom of the stairs would certainly kill her chilled
him to the bone.
He
summoned what little strength he had left and ran up the stairs taking two
steps at a time in order to reach her.
He pushed
her back up over the top of the steps using his body weight as a momentum and
launched his mother to the left out of his father’s reach, he pivoted to the
right out of the his father’s outstretched arm. Contented that his mother was
safe, he turned to his father and with all the weight and strength his right
shoulder, elbow, wrist and fist could conjure, punched his father across the
face. Fist and jaw connected sending his father sprawling across the living
room floor. He didn’t stop there, he pounded and pounded on his father’s face
taking a few hits back. Blow after blow were traded between the two, the man
and the child. This was the first time he was punching his father. The fear
multiplied but was buried under years of hate and disgust for the man. He felt
the bones and skin of his right knuckles crack and peel. He didn’t know whose
blood was on his hands whether it was his or his father’s. All he knew was that
the hatred he had for this man and the fear he instilled within everyone in the
family went numb and all that was left was emotional pain. One that he had
never felt before. One that he knew he would feel again.
Slowly, the
screams of his mother asking them to stop slowly drifted in silence like it
were moving further and further away from him.
He was
brought back to the present. In front of his car he sat and breathed a sigh. He
slowly unlocked his arms from around his knees and placed his right hand down
in order to push his weight off the floor.
He
inserted the keys into the hole and turned. The harsh metallic click greeted
him as he turned the knob of the giant wooden door swinging it forward.
Just
then, he felt his pocket vibrate. ‘MUMMY’,
it glowed. He swiped the bar on the glass screen and gingerly lifted it up to
his ear.
“Are you
home?” the voice of his mother asked. He grunted.
“Come to
the hospital if you can. Your father has had a relapse.”
He
disconnected the line and took a step back out the front door.
He stood
there contemplating his next set of actions. The oak door stood open inviting
him in. He placed one foot inside past the threshold and reached for the door.
With his
mother in mind, he pulled it shut once more and locked it.
Climbing
back into his car and turning the ignition on, he couldn’t help but remember
another incident that would persuade him to leave the air-conditioned comfort
of his car and re-enter the house.
The memory
manifested itself and now he could hear his father’s voice swearing at the top
of his lungs.
The house
has changed. No more steep staircases or dimly lit corridors. No more open
spaces or living room floors. He peeks into the house and sees his mother
cowering in a corner. He had never seen such a proud and strong-willed woman
capable of staring down a man be left huddling in the corner of her own house.
Tears were streaming down her face and her hands were clutching her cell phone.
He rushed
to her side. He rushed to comfort and console his mother for he knew that the
screaming and swearing was terrifying to her.
“He
suddenly went crazy, throwing things around the house and swearing and cursing
at me with the foulest tongue I’ve ever heard,” she sobbed.
He could
only hug her and assure her that as long as he was there with her, nothing
would hurt her. Apparently, his father had been dumped by his at-the-time
flame. He couldn’t take the disappointment and lashed out at the only person he
could. His wife.
The same
wife who had, through countless years, supported his many failed businesses and
provided a roof over his head after he had sold off his home for a few million
as start-up capital for his next failed endeavor. The failed endeavor became a
multi-million ringgit company and with the wealth, he cheated, drank and whored
around.
He went
into the room to confront his father. The punching and fist fight started.
Blows were traded as normal as though they were words.
The sound
of the blows were slowly muted and the house they were in was transformed once
again to the interior of his car.
He saw a
face staring back with sullen eyes and pursed lips. For a few seconds there he
didn’t recognize the face that was staring back at him. For a few seconds
there, he thought it was a stranger.
Prying
his eyes away from the rear view mirror where he sat staring at his own reflection,
he pushed the hand brake down, edged the gear into ‘R’, slowly and hesitantly
lifted his foot off the brakes and eased the vehicle out the driveway.
Cruising
along the highway towards his destination, he found himself drifting in and out
of his own mind to memories from the past.
He kept
to a smooth speed of 100 km/h, a surprising choice as on the KL-Seremban
highway, you would be hard pressed to find him driving at such speeds. He took
pride in the fact that he could make it from his house to Hartamas in under 45
minutes. An impressive feat considering it usually took others well past an
hour to reach anywhere.
The
parquet floors glistened and reflected the neon lights hovering above. The
Johor house was a warm abode. Passed down from mother to daughter, it ended up
in the hands of his mother.
The
memories in that house were second to none. It was only ten years ago that the Haji
Hussin family members from all over Malaysia would converge at the house to
spend Eid together.
It’s been
a very long time since anyone, save his immediate family, would stay in it. It
had become a vault of memories. Warm memories that would sing you lullabies as
you slept at night. Memories that would accompany you to the local fireworks
dealer, splurge on RM200 to RM300 worth of fireworks and stay up with you as
you watched the sparkles and whizzes of lights and sounds propel and explode in
a distant span of sky too far away for any 8 year old to reach out and grab. The
memories kept you safe from the world and from the monsters.
However,
tonight was different. Tonight, his father’s screaming was all he could hear.
It was always the screaming. The sound of his father’s voice carried itself
throughout the house and reverberated off the walls amplifying the horrendous
noise and swearing that he never thought would come out of anyone’s mouth.
His
father lay spread-eagle on the shining marble floor of the second living room
where the large oak table was placed.
His face
was contorted in anger with lines of fear creasing their way into his forehead.
Hands clutching his abdomen as pain seared through his entire body.
The
screaming was intolerable. His father had tripped and sprained his leg and he
was trying to get up to lash out for the mistake that he himself had made. Through
a higher power, the extent of the fall had sprained and crippled his entire
back cramping it up and paralyzing him. Although, the pain he suffered was
insignificant to the pain he would suffer through in the future brought on by
the pain in his abdomen, it still wasn’t enough to pay him back for the misery
he had caused him, had caused them.
He was
fed up. He picked up the baton his father kept in the house in case of thieves
and carried it with him to where his father lay.
He could
see his mother pushing him back but his will was resolute and the sound became
muted again. Too many years has he tormented the family, too many years has he
brought grief to his mother. Tonight he didn’t see the man who was barely with
him when he was younger, tonight he saw a monster. A demon in flesh that fed of
the fear people around him gave off. He became stronger and stronger with every
ounce of fear his own flesh and blood bled.
Yet, the
image of the baton disappeared, and the sight of his mother shoving him away
from his father slowly faded away. They blurred and became nothing.
He
watched as the cars slowed to a halt and adjusted themselves into their respective
lanes. The Sungai Besi toll booths had spared him the pain of reliving the
memory.
However,
the relief was short-lived as he began drifting back to another memory
triggered by a sight? A sound?
Another
tear stained t-shirt and painful ear drums. He thought his ears would have
adjusted to the screams and shouts. He was brought back to another memory. One
that culminated into one of the most terrible memories he would have.
He looked
at the scene this time as a spectator, watching himself push his mother back
and yelling to his father to get out of the house. The memory of him moved his
lips. Even though he knew what was coming out of his memory’s mouth, he still
mouthed the words as if reading his lips.
“Get out!
We don’t want you here,” he screamed as his father tried to thrust a brown
envelope into his mother’s hands.
She threw
it back at him telling him to burn in hell.
“You and
that little French whore can go to hell!” she screamed losing her voice in mid
sentence.
His
mother gasped for air. She collapsed. He panicked and bent down to help her.
His father took the opportunity to slip out the door to the rental car that was
waiting.
A blonde
French woman was waiting inside, pursed lips and manicured nails. They drove away
leaving a grieving woman to sign the divorce papers and a boy, not yet a man,
to shoulder the burden of consoling her.
He hugged
her tight. The woman who had brought him up single-handedly. She was all he
had. As he looked down at her gasping for air, he reached for his phone to dial
a number, he didn’t know which one, but thought that he would just dial a
number, any number. As he pressed the buttons, his mother’s hand shot up
wrapping themselves around the phone.
He
noticed the house had become quiet again. The labored breathing of his mother was
the only sound he heard. He looked down and saw his mother’s eyes. It wasn’t
anger nor was it sadness. He knew then that it was a submissive stare.
She
propped herself up. “Let it go,” she said. “We’ll manage without him.”
“We
always did Ma,” he whispered.
They stood
up and his mother turned towards him. “You pick those papers up and stash them
somewhere, and I’ll make us some coffee.”
He didn’t
drink coffee. He had never truly acquired the taste of it. But in his 21 years,
he would have a cup of coffee. In his 21 years of not drinking coffee, he would
have a cup of coffee with his mother.
He parked
his car in the visitors area of the hospital. He took his time getting out of
the car knowing full well what he would expect to find. But he did so. After
all, his mother was there waiting for him.
His
actions for the past 23 years had always been for his mother. And because of
his mother too he was going at the hospital to see his father. For 23 years his
actions had always been for his family.
Everything
for the family.
