In Justice

I walk into the room and she is on the phone with her partner. She just wanted to hear his voice, to know that he was okay, and the kids were okay. Because right now, she wasn't okay.

I catch traces of her voice '...turn off ventilator...' '... out in the sun...' '...it was expected, but still...'

I take my seat next to her and try to be unobtrusive.

'Everything okay?' I finally ask when she puts down the phone.

'No, everything's not okay,' she says. 'My friend's sister died today.'

I offer my surprised condolences. How old was she?

'39. She had porphyria, but like a really severe attack, you know? They did everything they could at the A for her - they kept her in ICU, she had continuous immunoglobulin infusions, they even rang experts in Europe for advise but no one could offer any answers.'

'They turned off her ventilator today at 1 pm. I knew it was coming, but still...'

Her voice drifts off.

'My friend asked me if I could be somewhere nice at 1 pm, just for her sake. So at 1 pm, I just walked out of here for awhile, you know? And just as I stepped out, the sun came out.'

Did she have any children?

'She had two kids, 4 and 6.'

The mention of kids unlocked the floodgates.

She pulls off her glasses and pinches the bridge of her nose and allows herself a small cry.

'It's just not fair, y'know? She was a doctor, she was such a bright, lively character... Some dickheads live to be a fucking hundred, and...' she breaks down. 'It just isn't fair,' she protests.

I put my hand on her, and learning from an auntie who did the same for me during my father's death, said absolutely nothing.

She sniffs her tears dry and years of Emergency Medicine training takes over as she suddenly snaps out of it. 'You know, I'll be alright. That's just life, isn't it?'

She straightens out the pile of paperwork before her and forces her pen to start writing the patient's notes again. There was very little room for proper grieving at work in an Emergency Department.

******************************************

There is great injustice in this world, naturally. All of us intuitively react against it - as kids we will go 'That's not fair!' or 'That's cheating!' without ever needing to be taught.

I think about this fallen world, filled with injustice, and about how if there wasn't the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, all this would be meaningless.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4

Get A Haircut

BSS | Straight Razor from Bruton Stroube Studios on Vimeo.

Karen showed me this video from the same guys that brought you Breakfast Interrupted.

It also got me thinking about that wonderful scene from Gran Torino.

Indeed, it is a shame that we are losing our old ways. There are some shops in Malaysia where you get a number by vending machine, and then a silent hairdresser efficiently snips away your hair in under ten minutes. No idle chatter, no friendship. Just business.

Whenever I am home in Malaysia, I will always visit good ol' Johnny for my haircut. It may be cheap and tellingly so, but at least the trip is interesting.

Random Memories: Haircut through the Years Part 2

I remember when Dad lost his ability to walk, the church were swift and eager to help us through our first few difficult years. A member who owned a music store donated a box full of music cassettes to us, while the church donated a RM400 exercise bicycle to my father for his initial physiotherapy needs.

One of the many helpful aunties in the church decided that she would ease our financial burdens by giving the family a haircut. Her intentions were noble, God bless her soul, but the outcomes were often... interesting.

She would bring her hairdressing gear to our house - a pair of sharp stainless-steel scissors and a somewhat interesting manual razor. This razor was made out of plastic and shaped like a clam. You could separate the two halves of the clam and then insert a razor at either end, depending on whether you wanted a rougher shave or a finer shave.

Instead of a cloth thrown around our necks to keep away stray hairs from our collar, we improvised instead by cutting a hole in the middle of a newspaper foldout, and fitting it around our heads.

Inevitably all our haircuts would end up looking like this:

 

Minus the funky earrings, of course

One more reason why I have no illusions of having expensive haircuts.

****************************

There were always murmurs among married women that you should never let women hairdressers touch your husband's head. Too many stories about how Mrs X's husband ran away with the hairdresser after she 'put a spell' over his head. I suspect that the head was not all they were touching, to be honest.

Fuelled by both raging adolescent hormones and curiosity, I made my way up the stairs to one of the dodgy looking hairdressers in my Taman (suburb) one day, my heart pounding with each step that I took up the stairs.

I got an enticing lady, all right. All fifty-five years of her. Curly grey haired and gruff, her sleeveless underarm dingle-dangles (that's a term I learnt from Karen) wobbling as she snipped away at my hair.

It was an ultimately anti-climatic moment in my teenage life, but hey, it wasn't a half bad haircut.

*******************************

I think most of my later years before I ended up with Johnny were spent mostly at Indian barbers.

If you wanted old school, this was old school, man. Swivelling barber chairs, chequered floors, candy stripe out the front. The works.

The Indian barbers themselves were pretty adept with the electric razor and scissors. Most of the time, however, everyone who walked in for a haircut (inevitably men) would always walk out with the same hairstyle - a buzz cut to the sides and back, and short at the top.

Haircuts at the Indian barber would set you back by RM10. Added to that value for your money was the wonderful 'head cracking' service at the end of it. The barber suddenly turns amateur chiropractor - steadying your head at the top and at your chin with both his hands, he twists it one way and then the other to give a satisying 'crack' as if you were cracking your knuckles.

Except that, you know, it was the spine of your neck.

That's us Malaysians, living on the edge of danger - walk in for a haircut, and a 5% chance of paraplegia.

Edward Barberhands

"Please," she says. "Try it! You won't know unless you try it!"

"Heh," I smile a Maybe but my heart actually says Nah.

My fiancee is trying to convince me to get my hair cut at a proper hairdressers.

There is a ten dollar barber shop near the city which I have always frequented since I was a student. Which I still visit, much to Karen's dismay. Prices have crept up as high as $13.95 at one stage, but fierce competition has kept the haircuts at a very reasonable ten dollars for the past two years.

Walking in to the barber shop is always a roulette. In my case, I may either walk out looking like a frumpy twelve year old schoolboy about to be beaten up, or some semblance of a dashing thirty one year old adult. Usually it's the former.


There is no luxury of choosing your favourite barber in a ten dollar shop.

It is a roll of the dice - do I get the Cypriate barber today who knows only one hairstyle for all his male clients (who also somehow eerily has the same hairstyle - which makes you wonder, who the heck cut his hair?) or do I get that Vietnamese lady who somehow understands my oddly-shaped head? Maybe it will be the Iranian woman who oozes of teenage angst, chewing her gum apathetically while chopping away with disinterest at my hair?

I remember my final year of medical school, and how I needed to look decent for two reasons - I was hosting a wedding for a couple who were good friends of mine and I had my final graduation. Important times. The girl who the shop deemed equal to this monumental task looked like she was sixteen; the way she used her scissors had undercurrents of criminal intent.

Needless to say, her untrained fingers took too much off one side, which she then had to correct on the other side and by the end of it, I looked like I was signing up to join the army. "Well," she says, rubbing as much gel as she humanly could to disguise her error, "at least you look interesting," she said, her face betraying the slightest of cringes.

It was only after two blocks and a whole lot of curious stares when I noticed the clump of hair she had neglected to brush off my left cheek, making me look like I was growing something cancerous (or groovy).

Today's result? Somewhere in the middle.

Maybe I should take Karen's advice and go to a proper hairdressers to get myself a 35 dollar Korean-teenage-heartthrob-look-alike haircut.

Nah.

Random Memories: Haircuts Through The Years Part 1

"This Heng Khuen ah, hairstyle everyday different one," my friend once commented.

My earliest recollection of a barber is at the age of five, when my brother and I would be brought to the same father-and-son Chinese barbershop near where we lived. This place was old school, man, complete with the fluorescent lit candy-stripe sign outside the shop.

While awaiting my turn, I would always watch in awe at the uncles before me, who willingly surrendered their lathered necks to the reusable razorblades of the barber (sharpened on a leather strap hanging by the mirrors); or how they grimaced in pain as their stray nostril hairs were ripped out at the roots with gleaming tweezers.

Almost a true depiction of barbers

I would always pray that I would not get the father - a bald (never trust a bald barber?), toothless man with his mischievous slitty eyes hidden behind thick black frames. I hated him because his haircuts always came with the unwelcome added service of a tweak of your nose before and after your haircut.

I swear, if I had mastered the Jason Bourne-ian art of killing someone with whatever was ready at hand, this man would have been bleeding from a thousand razorblade cuts before his wandering hand even reached my nose.

Instead, my five year old self sat there helplessly, having my nose tweaked purple.

Today, I Want To Be A Baker

He knew he should have stayed in bed that morning.

He gets up and he stumbles into the shower and then dresses up for work. An orange vitamin pill is all his breakfast, and he drives to work, still half dazed. It is a Saturday morning on a long Easter weekend and the roads are clear. As he approaches the hospital, he notices that his tank is almost empty and he pulls into the nearby Shell station.

He pays for his petrol with his credit card but in his half awake state he pulls out the card too quickly. TRANSACTION CANCELLED. He tries the card again. CARD DECLINED. He smiles apologetically to the counter girl and pays by eftpos. 'Looks like you could do with more sleep,' she laughs.

And So It Begins

No sooner had he hit the department, waiting for handover when an overhead announcement is made. 'Level 2 trauma, Resus 2, Emergency Department.' He pokes his nose into the cubicle and sees that his boss is already there with another morning registrar and some lingering night staff.

The patient is a young gentleman who had been T-boned by a car on the highway when he was pulling out. He was in a neck collar and the consultant was moving an ultrasound over his tummy to see if there was any internal bleeding.

The boss quickly confirms no bleeding, and tells the doctor to take over from there while he runs handover. The doctor quickly checks the patient over, and confirms that he is stable before getting bloods from him. The nurse hands him a syringeful of blood which he proceeds to fill the tubes with. He is still waking up, and pulls the plunger a little too eagerly, which disconnects from the syringe. The blood goes everywhere onto the trolley.

He lets out a curse and somehow manages to salvage some enough for all the tubes. The nurse with him is a friend, and kindly cleans up the mess without telling him off. The blood is all over the trolley, and had made its way into the trolley, staining the packages holding the cannulas with blood. She disposes of the contaminated packages and cleans up the trolley.

After The Blood Bath

The ambulance warning system beeps through. A young guy was coming in, who was found by bystanders to be running down the streets half naked, screaming his head off before collapsing into a heap. The department prepares itself for the arrival of the patient, and he is soon wheeled through. He is in a drug daze, and barely rousable. His pinpoint pupils suggest that opioids may have been involved.

They give him some reversal for the opioids but he does not wake. His level of respiratory depression means that they need to put a tube down his throat to protect his airway while waiting for whatever drugs he had taken to naturally work its way out of his body.

You comfortable to do the tube? his boss asks.

His mind says no.

Yup, he says.

They get everything ready for the intubation. The patient was going to be a difficult one. Short neck, retracted jawline, overriding teeth. The patient is put into an induced coma. The intensive care team arrives, and there is suddenly an audience of about ten people.

Have a look now, his boss says.

The doctor brings the laryngoscope into the mouth of the patient. He attempts to find the patient's vocal cords, but is having a little trouble finding it. Pull back, says the intensive care consultant. Take your time, says his boss. 

He sees the tip of the vocal cords but couldn't get it to lift. Nope, not seeing it, he says, his hands shaking with the weight of the laryngoscope blade.

The boss steps in and takes over. A few experienced maneuvers with the laryngoscope and suddenly the tube is down the throat, and the chest rises and falls as he bags the patient.

You just needed your blade to be more secure, the boss tells him gently in front of his audience. The doctor knows he is still learning and will keep getting better at this, but couldn't help feeling deflated for not getting this tube.

******************************************

The day passes on with a few more dramas, a sixty year old man who had collapsed out the front triage after having a huge vomit of blood and a few more overdoses and road accidents customary to the long weekend. Among them all were the minor irritations of the arguments with the radiology registrar about getting scans, trying to convince sick patients wanting to self-discharge that they needed to stay, and trying to juggle all the patients under his care and remember what he needed to do for who next.

He is due to leave at six that evening. A new patient was coming in after an overdose. He was drowsy and combative, and he was huge.

Two policemen and  another two ambulance crew were in attendance, as the patient was struggling in his half drugged state, potentially a threat to his own safety and that of others.  He had written a clear suicide note that evening and had taken eighty of his antipsychotic medications wanting to end his life.

They put him into a resuscitation cubicle and strap his arms and feet down so that he doesn't hurt himself. His evening boss walks in and decides, We need to tube him.

The doctor tries to find a vein to put a cannula into but has little luck. Everything he touched that day was turning to whatever the opposite of gold was.

His colleague finds a vein on the other arm, and they place the patient into an induced coma. Another colleague, a registrar slightly junior to him manages to intubate the patient successfully, and the doctor watches with a mixed sense of pride and a tinge of envy.

The Opposite Of Gold

The patient is prepared for intensive care. A catheter is put in to measure his urine output and his evening boss puts him in charge of putting in the nasogastric tube - a tube that goes into the patient's stomach in order to drain out any secretions and prevent it from going into his lungs.

The doctor struggles with the nasogastric tube. It goes down a distance but not as smoothly as he would like. You sure you in the stomach? his evening consultant says with a querying smile.

Well, it's gone in a distance... the doctor says, but he knew that the resistance he had felt with the nasogastric tube going down was not a reassuring sign.

They try and check if they are in the stomach. They take a huge syringe and try to aspirate out some stomach content. Nothing. They try and blow in some air while a nurse listened for sounds in the stomach. Nothing.

Well, an experienced nurse offered, we can check if it's bubbling. It was old school but it sounded like a plan. They brought a kidney dish of water and place the other end of the nasogastric tube into it to see if it would bubble, suggesting that it is in the lung.

It does not bubble.

Still not convinced, the evening consultant calls for an X-ray which would show them for sure the position of the nasogastric tube.

The X-ray returns. The nasogastric tube... is sitting in the right lung. Somehow it had made its way past the ventilation tube straight into the right lung. See? said the consultant, smiling. Told you it wasn't in the stomach!

They pull out the misplaced nasogastric tube and the consultant has a go at putting it in. He struggles as well, and gives up after a few attempts.

Let's get an art line in, he says. They try to get a needle into the patient's radial arteries to see what his blood pressure is doing. The doctor can feel a good pulse on the left wrist and has a go at it, but misses despite several attempts.

His consultant tries on the other wrist and misses as well. All this time the emergency department is still running and getting busier behind the curtains.

This is not a good day for lines, his consultant says, looking a little deflated himself. I'm going to have to come back and try a little later. I've got a department to manage. 

He walks away and leaves the doctor to himself, whose bleary eyes looked up at the fuzzy numbers reading 7:45 pm, one hour and forty five minutes after he was supposed to have finished, and sighs while he stubbornly tried to find an artery on the patient's right wrist to put a needle into.

Another senior registrar walks in after he has had a few more attempts. H has told me to come in here and see if I can help you with this art line, she says. She puts on a pair of sterile gloves, feels for a pulse, inserts the needle and suddenly there is a satisfying gush of blood into the needle. She effortlessly threads the needle, secures the line and attaches the monitoring.

Guess he likes girls more, she smiles.

The doctor stands there and smiles in return, shaking his head a little. He cannot believe how easy she made that look, but was more relieved that the line was finally in.

She waltzes out of the room and leaves the doctor and the two nurses who are bustling around the resuscitation cubicle getting all paperwork sorted out, preparing the equipment to move the patient into intensive care.

The Road Not Taken

The doctor leans against the table in the cubicle, and stares blankly into space for awhile. His stomach rumbles as he finally remembers he hadn't eaten all day.

He smiles to himself and to a day that has defeated him, and he says aloud, to no one in particular, Today, I want to be a baker.

The nurses, who have worked with him so long that they were more like friends, let out a laugh in agreement as they knew exactly how he felt about the day he was having.

He leaves the department with a sigh. He will take the long drive home and he will tell his loving partner about the unbelievably long and crap day he's had, and then he will sleep, because tomorrow he must return.

*******************************************

He thinks about his previous Emergency Department director, who was like a mother to him in his workplace, and who was  instrumental in him choosing Emergency Medicine as a specialty.

He remembers her hand on his shoulder after another particularly difficult day like today, and her voice still rings clearly in his ears - Just remember, you're gonna good days and bad days, young Dr. Heng, so don't take it too personally, all right? Press on, because you are a good doctor and don't let it get to you. 

Tomorrow he will be better.

 

I've Got A Proposal To Make.

I have had the ring for eight months now.

She organised my surprise 30th birthday party and I was kicking myself that I didn't have the ring to counter-surprise her. It was there where I asked a friend if she would accompany me to buy the ring.

I have had the ring for eight months now.

I was thinking about how to propose to her. I toyed with the idea of skywriting, but luckily a friend talked me out of it. What about putting it up on a billboard just like the Malaysian guy did? But I felt that was just a little toopublic.

On and on the thoughts streamed about how I was going to ask Karen to marry me, and finally the words 'Say Yes' popped into my head.

How about a video proposal, and getting our friends and family on board? My heart raced with the thought of the one idea that could finally work, and so the wheels started churning.

This is the beginning of what I call the 'scheming for good.' This was the two months spent in secret e-mails to family and friends asking them if they would take part in this project. Two months of private browsing in the Firefox windows, pretending to be hard at work with Karen sitting unwittingly opposite me, suppressing the smiles inside with every new picture that came along.

And then the last few days of telling untruths about being at study groups with friends or with my brother when I was actually shooting my photos for the video, and going over to a friend's house to put the video together, which she kindly and patiently did.

This is what two and a half months of planning culminated in:

That's all it is. Me making a stupid face!


Thank you to all who have helped out in this video with your photos, encouragement and love. The road ahead is exciting and scary all at once, and we need your continued love and prayers as we walk down the aisle towards the rest of our lives together.

P.S. She posted a response as well! She never ceases to amaze me, this woman!




Random Memories: Thirteen Years Old

It was a huge centerpage in our local newspaper, The Star. It was the story of this loving couple who were in the dance ministry at their church and talked about how he proposed to her in a really special manner.

They were walking in the KLCC park one evening, when he led her to a bridge. Six friends, all dressed as mimes were standing along the bridge, and soft music started playing in the background. All of them were holding plates, with napkins sitting over them.

A card read on the first plate reads 'I love you because...' she uncovers the napkin '... of your smile that could light a small city.' The mime starts to smile widely and invisible light bulbs were going off everywhere.

She turns to her boyfriend and smiles, his plan becoming apparent.

'I love you because...' the second plate read as she pulled away the napkin. '... you laugh at my jokes even when they are not funny.' The mime doubles over in silent laughter at a bad joke that you couldn't hear.

'...your fried rice makes the hawkers jealous.'
'... you love my family, and my dog.'
'... of your beauty and grace when you dance.'

The mimes cooked, petted invisible dogs and twirled continuously as she came to the final dish.

This napkin was covering an object.

The last card read - 'But most of all, I love you because...'

The mime is motionless. She pulls away at the napkin and gasps.

It is a mirror.

'...of who you are.' She is surprised by her tears as she feels him tap her on the shoulder. She turns around to find him on bended knee with the open box containing the ring that would join her to him for the rest of their lives.

Through her tears, she says yes.

Something in my thirteen year old heart wanted so badly to one day have a special wedding proposal of my own.

I Want To Run Through The Halls of My Primary School

Coming out from an evening shift yesterday, I walked in the cold dark night towards my car. I was trying to think warm thoughts (hot cocoa, a blazing campfire, a thick padded jacket, a refrigerator, a polar bear, ice cream, air-conditioning, the North pole, ... thinkwarmthoughtsthinkwarmthoughts) and bravely walk to my car, when my shrunken manhood decided to run. like. hell. for the car.

And so I ran - the wind against my face, my heart pumping in my ears, my stethoscope swinging threateningly close to my jaw and my keys jangling in my work trousers. I couldn't help but smile as I finally reached my car, feeling as exhilarated as a five year old who had won first prize in the egg-and-spoon race in his kindergarten.

It was times like these which reminded me to love my knees while I still have them. I think about how one day at sixty, when my back will betray me and my knees will be nothing but a distant beautiful memory, I will surely miss them dearly.

Random Memories: Eight Years Old

I was never very athletic. I couldn't sprint, I couldn't jump, my shot putt was more like a short putt. I couldn't kick a ball straight to save my life, and always return the shuttlecock straight into the net. My favourite swimming style was kicking your feet randomly while holding the edges of the pool, or drowning. Basketball was more like under-the-basketball.

And so every little victory counts. I had won a silver medal once when I was eight during my school's Sports Day. I remember wearing the medal proudly around my neck as my little feet staggered up the bus, the medal gleaming as it swung across my tummy.

Hey Everyone! Look at me! Mr. Second Place in the Egg-In-The-Spoon Race.

I walked past two boys, one from St John's, and the other one from a Chinese school.

Oi! Give us a look! the bespectacled Chinese boy reached for my medal as I stood before him, beaming proudly.

Wow! Second place in the egg-and-spoon race! Not bad ah! he seemed genuinely happy for me.

The 13-year-old St. John boy came up and then looked at the inscription on the back. Cheh! his mouth sneered in disdain. It's not even a proper race. It's for primary school kids one lah!

I continued smiling but inside I was crestfallen.

Eh, okay what, their field is quite big one, you know, the Chinese boy said in my defence.

The secondary school boy turned his head away, his condescending sneer taking the shine off my highest ever achievement in sports.

The Lessons of Lorong Haji Taib: Part 3

"We're going to the police."

"What?!" said Siew Tat. "We've just been to try and tiu kai (visit prostitutes), and you want us to tell the polis that ah? Won't we be arrested or something?"

"No, they won't lah!" I started the car, gripping the steering wheel.

I sounded way more confident than I felt.

At the Balai (Station)

"Lu orang buat apa?!" ("What did you guys do?!")

The police officer stared at us with incredulity in his eyes, and started shaking his head slowly.

It was a busy Friday night. Someone was sitting in the corner with blood on his head, and someone there wanting to report an accident, and there had been a couple of stabbings that night to boot.

They had just conducted a raid as well, and the station was teeming with about fifteen illegal prostitutes, some from China, some Cambodian and some ang moh looking chicks, don't know from where. They were all squatting with their hands over their heads. I could see Jeremy and Khong Nam checking them out while Vincent and Siew Tat were with me explaining our plight to the police officer.

We felt a little stupid with our problem but the more the story went on, the louder our voices became as more and more we felt wronged.

Another police officer came out.

Apa bising bising ini? (What's all this commotion here?) he demanded.

Oh, sarjan budak semua ni (Oh Sergeant, these kids)... and he explained our plight.

The sergeant turned to us, his face indecipherable.

Hish! Bodoh betullah kamu ni! Kalau mau main pergilah hotel, hah! Cari gadis gadis macam ini lah best! Kenapa pergi Lorong Haji Taib?  (Hish! You're a bunch of idiots, you know that? If you're looking for a little fun, go to a hotel, and look for hookers like these lah! Why the hell did you go to Lorong Haji Taib for?) his eyes widened, as he pointed to the prostitutes behind us.


We were initially shocked at his outburst and then looked a little sheepish, and his glare soon softened after his little diatribe.

Okey, apa kamu hilang? (Now, what did you lose?)

Half an Hour Later 

We are sitting at the sargeant's office. He had disappeared somewhere 'to make a few phone calls.'

All five of us turn as he walks into the room.

"Handfon yang kamu hilang tu, apa model dia? Warna apa?" (What was the colour and the make of your missing handphones?)

One black Samsung, flip phone. One Silver Nokia.

Like a magician he pulls both the phones out of his pockets. Our jaws dropped as we quickly reached for our phones, thankful beyond words.

Duit kamu hilang berapa? And how much money?

Dua ratus tuan. Two hundred ringgit, sir.

Nah, kita hanya recover seratus. Like a dubious trickster he only hands us a hundred ringgit, but we were just happy to be seeing any of it back, to be honest.

We left his room, our heads bobbing in profuse thanks, as he left us with these parting words.

Ingat, okey, lain kali, pergi hotel cari pelacur. Remember to only use the hotels for prostitutes next time, you hear me?

We smiled weakly as Vincent lead the team to get the hell out of there. We walked past the cowering prostitutes again.

"Jeremy, you hamsup (dirty) bastard! Stop looking at them already lah! You've already got us into trouble once tonight!"

"Okay, who wants to go to mamak?"

"Where ah?"

"How about Lorong Haji Taib?!"

"Shut up lah, you idiot!" we laughed.

The Lessons Of Lorong Haji Taib: Part 2

Pap! Pap! Pap! 

The aunties obviously had no idea what a massage was. What we got instead was a modified slapping of our backs. 

There was a few times she came dangerously close to my ass, but I manged to bump her hands away just in time.

After ten minutes, I just wanted to get the hell out of there - 'Eh, cukuplah, cukuplah. Kita mau pergi dah.' (Enough, enough, we want to go already.)


Tak bulih. Tak bulih. Bayar tiga puluh minit musti mau habis semua. (Cannot, cannot. You paid for thirty minutes).

It's hard negotiating when you're lying in bed, almost naked, with your backs to two Indian aunties.

We heard a sound in the room behind us, but couldn't turn to see. A few minutes later, we could hear a motorcycle being started in the distance... Pap! Pap! Pap! The Indian aunties kept up with their backslapping.

This massage was far from relaxing. It felt more like being caned. For being hamsup.

Now Where Did I Put It?

Thirty agonising minutes which felt like forever later, I pulled my face from the stained mattress, and Jeremy and I hurried to the cupboard. As I put on my pants, there was a silence where the jingle of car keys should have been. Jeremy also noticed that his handphone was no longer in his jeans' pockets.

'Eh, where the hell's my car key?' I asked Jeremy.

'I don't know. Where's my handphone?' He rummaged a little more in the empty cupboard which had nothing more than a few pieces of torn newspapers inside.

'Eh, maybe we left it with the three downstairs before we came up, issit?'

'I don't know lah... We go and ask them lah.'

We left without thanking our service provider aunties, and went down to our waiting friends.

'So how was the ma-?'

'Eh, did I give my car keys to you guys ah?'

'No!'

'No!'

'No what - you didn't give us anything - you went straight up, remember?!'

'Eh, shit lah. I'm damn angry already. These fuckers have gone too far.'

I turned around, with a newfound anger. They have screwed us enough tonight. They're not getting the car.

'OI! Come out here uncle!'

The Indian uncle suddenly melted out of the darkness into the scant light.

'What?' he growled.

I was too pissed off to be scared. 'Give me back my car key! You guys have taken our money tonight - enough already lah! Give me back my fucking car key! I call the police then you know!'

'What? You think you shout I scared ah? You want - you go and call the polis lah! But before you start accusing accusing all... make sure you check the cupboard properly first!'

'I didn't leave it in the cupboard! I checked already before coming down!'

'Are you sure? You go and double check again first!'

I stormed up the stairs, into the room. The two aunties had magically disappeared, and I slammed open the cupboard door, fuming to see -

- my car key.

I took the key and went down.

'Where's my friend's handphone?' I yelled.

'Eh, how the hell am I supposed to know? How I know your friend even bring his handphone inside?!'

Jeremy was looking at me, his eyes pleading for me to forget about it and to just get the hell out of here. 'Eh, don't worry. It's a handphone only lah...'

The gate was unlocked, and the five of us made our way out past the three Indian men. The night was cool with a light breeze; still and uninterested as if nothing terrifying had happened to us at all for the past hour. It took us another ten minutes to walk back to my Dad's

Car

I walked around the car and inspected it from the outside, making sure that everything was okay. Scratch marks - none. Wheels - all there. Hubcaps - also all there.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I pressed the central locking button and the knobs came up, and the lights flashed.

We all got into the car and opened up the glove compartment.

Phewf! All our wallets were still there.

We each took our own wallets, and then noticed that the other handphone was missing. Shit! We opened our wallets - all our cash had been taken. Fuck!

We sat in the car, angry and yet too scared to confront the three men dividing up our money and handphones somewhere in the shophouse at the end of the alleyway somewhere in Lorong Haji Taib.

"ARRRGH!" I banged my steering wheel, impotent. When I looked up, I saw my friends in the streetlights streaming through the car windows. There was an air of defeat, regret and anger mixed in all their faces.

"So, how now?"