langkau fiction

I’m done and I’m leaving Kuching tomorrow, driving up early from here towards Miri, my hometown. Two nights there and then head for Bario for a week or so. It’s going to be great…I think…I hope. Happy holidays! (gosh, I need a break!)

I’m hungry. I’m tired. As usual, I didn’t manage to finish today’s work. I feel like going home, check out on the pups to see if they’ve developed super powers. It’d be a bummer if they have not.

Random snippet #1: Money, money, debt…tiu situation

Do you want to donate some money to my foundation? “Do you have one?” you might ask. Well, I can make one if you’re serious about giving me some big cash. I’m not asking as much as the Malay Male is asking in his blog because he has a huge vision of running this country and getting rid of some pornographically dirty politicians. I only have a short vision of drinking beers. So, I’m just asking for…hhm…say, about few thousand ringgit? Okay, I’ll give you the exact number: RM369,450.04. Now, is that too much to ask? Yes? Okay, I’ll settle for RM369,435.00 then. But you’ll say “But that’s RM15.04?!” RM15.04 is a lot of money, y’know. According to my demented kanid, he said that’s probably just the right amout of cash I need to shoo off my worries.

For the first time in a long while, I wrote down my list of debts that I’ve to pay for this month. The total figure is astounding. Almost unbelievable. The ones that require immediate payment are equally mind boggling. The total salary minus the debt equals negative balance. Very tiu, I know. This calls for strategic adjustment in lifestyle…I think. Okay, I’ll keep this in my ass mind.

Oh, oh…one strange thing happened last week. I got a cheque from the Inland Revenue saying that I’ve ‘overpaid’ my taxes and they’re reimbursing the ‘balance’. It was RM1,014. My colleagues were convinced that I’ve made a mistake when I filled up the tax declaration form, and when the Inland Revenue discovers their mistake they’d demand me to return their RM1,014. I think they’re just jealous lah. Whatever it is it’ll take five days for it to ‘liquidify’. So, I’m still practically broke.

Random snippet #2: Looking back not long ago

For no specific reasons, I thought about the Penan that I lived with many years ago in Belaga. I stayed with them for a year, learning how to plant our own tobacco, make crappy tuak, drink Cap Apek, walk in the jungle for days without food, not to get stung by a scorpion…twice! and fun things like that.

One time, we went into the jungle for two weeks to hunt for wild game somewhere near upriver Pesu, about five hours’ walk away from their settlement. We built our sulap (temporary hut) at the foot of a hill slope by the river bank. What attracted my attention was the sulap’s floor, which was made of small saplings. These saplings were not tied tightly together, so every time you roll over while sleeping the saplings would slightly roll apart under your back. There were times, while sleeping, one of my legs just fall between the floor as the saplings split apart. Not that comfortable if you’re not used to it. But really, it became okay after a couple of days with some tiny patches of bruises on my back.

So, one evening it rained heavily. We were a bit worried because the river was flowing furiously not more than 20 meters from our sulap. One of the Penan guys, Avang, said as he stared at the river: “I think the river is going to rise. Then, we may need to move up the hill. The sulap is going to be swept away if we don’t move. Soon.” Then he absently nodded, as if agreeing to himself.  Another guy just looked at the river, glanced at his cousin who was in deep thought and just said “Nah, I think we’re alright. I’m just worried about the fishing nets that we set in the river this afternoon.” He sighed.

In the middle of the night, the heavy rain woke me up. I found my feet went through the sapling floor again, touching the wet ground. My companions were already awake staring at the river. When I asked them “Is the river rising?”, they looked at me and nodded. I got out of ‘bed’ and joined them to stare at the river. One guy, Uwit, had his torchlight pointing at the river. It was rising up very fast as the river bank quickly disappeared. With irritating calmness, the eldest among us, Avang told me: “Tei ala laga ko’!” (literally translated as “pick up your sapling floor!”). Everyone started to pack their stuffs, the canvas roof and our floor saplings! I did the same and we all started running up the hill in almost total darkness under the torrential rain. Save for that dim light from Uwit’s torchlight, I couldn’t see a thing below or ahead of me. A few thorny rattan vines managed to attach itself to the skins on my arm, chest and legs. We ran up that steep slope for about 20 meters before Avang suggested ‘here’ was safe enough. I took out my torchlight from my bag like everyone else and pointed at the river. We saw the structure of our sulap drifted away with the river.

We were soaked wet. Tingang, the youngest among us, and Uwit went to look for thicker saplings to re-build our sulap. Once the canvas roof was set, we dug our floor saplings into the slope under the canvas. I didn’t see any point in the canvas ‘protecting’ us from the rain since we were already wet but I was too tired to do or say anything by then. We sat quietly under the canvas, sipping away our Cap Apek, and just listened to the rain and roaring river below us. We were safe.

I woke up the next morning and the river was calm. There were only three of us in the sulap. Some of them had gone hunting, some went to check out their pukat (fishing nets) and the rest of us stayed behind to reconstruct our sulap. I just smiled at them wearily because there’s no “good morning” in Penan. They grinned at me, didn’t say a word and I thought they must be up to something. I went down to the river to wash up. I scooped two palm-full of water and splashed my face with it. Then, I looked into the water. There was blood. I looked at my reflection in the river to see if there were cuts on my face. None. I didn’t feel any pain or anything like that. My fingers instinctively went behind my ears and when I looked at it, I saw blood in my hands. My hands frantically went behind my ears again to search for the source of blood. When I found the culprits and pulled it off from behind my ears, I counted eight fat leeches in the palm of my hands. Then, I heard my noble companions laughed from above behind me. Nice.

Yesterday was Monday and I thought it was Friday. Today is Tuesday but I feel like Friday. Damn. I can’t wait until next Thursday comes. I can’t wait to get behind the wheel and do that 12-hour trip up to Miri. I can’t wait to see my cousins in Miri and them paying for my booze. *hint hint* I’ll be in Miri for two nights before flying off balik kampung. I can’t wait to get into that 19-seater memerang kembar (Twin Otter bah) airplane and fly out of Miri. I don’t like the air turbulence though. I can’t wait to see my relatives there. I can’t wait to go into the ever misty rainforest with leeches sticking on my calf trying to suck the blood out of me. I can’t wait to spend a few nights in my mom’s old now-unhabited kampung, having a sip of Label 5 (or anything equivalent to that) while my relatives go out hunting. I can’t wait to babiQ the babi hutan or its direct translation, ‘pig forest’. I can’t wait to return to the kampung with the pig forest meat and eat with my relatives. Kwik, kwik holiday come laa…..

But I can definitely wait to return to Kuching. And work. And all the cibainess that comes with it.

Juventus thumped Milan 4-2 last night in Turin. So cibai. I didn’t watch the whole game because by the time Juve were up 3-1, my electricity went off. Poof! It was depressing especially when I made the effort to wake up at 3am to watch the game with a running nose and joints aching. Milan played like that thing that comes out of my dog’s asshole. Thank goodness the electricity went off otherwise I would have to add new words to my existing lexicon of swear jargons.

Anyways, my family’s third and fourth installments arrived in the weekend. My sister arrived from Wellington on Saturday and her husband flew from San Francisco yesterday evening. My house is now filled with family members, which is strange for me because for a very long time, I’ve never had all my siblings (and a sibling in-law) gathered together at one place.

The last family installments consisting of a set of parents, my brother’s 5-year old daughter and a new sister in-law will be coming to town this week. Even  before she arrives, our Home Minister i.e. the Mother commanded the whole family members to keep Sunday evening free so we all can meet for Christmas dinner. Well, it’s not exactly 25 December but since most of us will disperse all over Sarawak after Christmas Day itself until a few days after the new year, this is the only time that we can actually be together.

I spent most of yesterday evening trying to finish my slide presentation for this morning’s appointment at the rubbish disposal company. It’s a last-minute thing because the project leader was in Penang and my other boss had to do…er…other things. Or so he told me.

This morning’s appointment was disastrous. First, I was 20 minutes late for the meeting and I hate being late. I’m known to be a relatively punctual guy but this morning, all my geographical bearings and time estimates went haywire. According to my proposed ETA, the time to take me from my workplace to the rubbish disposal office is 23 mins 18 secs. The meeting was at 9am and I left my office at 8.22am. I thought if I arrive earlier, I could mingle with those rubbish CEOs before the meeting. It’s my first time meeting them. So, I left my office and when I arrived at my ‘destination’, the office wasn’t there! Huh? Eh? What…?! “But, but…it used to be here?”, I told myself. After a few phone calls and further losing my direction, I found the rubbish disposal office. It was another 4km away from where I thought it was. I arrived at 9.20am and the meeting had already started. Everyone — all wearing ties and suits (jackets?) — was staring at me as I entered the door. It’s like a half dead goat entering a room full of hyenas. I nodded my head imaginatively to everyone, symbolising the gesture of apologies. One of them with a terrible French accent (whom I discovered later was the chairman) asked: “An’ huuu meight yuu be, hhm?” I introduced myself and apologized once again for my delay. They didn’t look happy.

During the whole meeting, I didn’t hear anyone utter that word ‘rubbish’ unless, of course, they were referring to a ‘bullshit statement’ or something unbelievable. It was only much later did I realize that they used a some kind of politically-correct code to describe ‘rubbish disposal’. They called it a waste management system. Ooooooh… damn.

Second, the big boo-boo came when it was my turn to present my proposal. The chairman told me that I only have 10 minutes to state my case, nothing more. “So, kwik, kwik..” he seemed to quack at me. I asked “Sorry? Kwik?” He sighed and “Start now, faster…” Oh, I see.

So, I babbled away about our brilliant approach in dealing with rubbish disposal waste management and how mother nature would personally adorn me with praises once the project prove successful. I also casually told them the reason why they don’t receive much complaints about their services is because they don’t have competition, and that the services provided by the town council before this have been naturally bad that people were immuned to shit services. It is just not right to base their seemingly good services with the kind of service served by the town council in the past. This company was doing good because it was just doing better without competition. A lady, one of the CEOs, sitting in the corner directly facing me let out a quiet gasp. Or was it a sigh? Anyways, I thought she was impressed with my statement.

After I was done with wasting my saliva for 10 minutes, a truckload of shit were thrown my way. They bombarded me with all kinds of questions: How do you know your focus group discussion will reflect the company’s performance? What makes you think we have not done that?(they have not, FYI) How did you come up with the idea that we’re not doing good enough? Why is there an extra RM5,000 in your budget proposal, more than we initially agreed in the first meeting? Why did you use Times New Roman font instead of Arial 10pts? Why are you being an asshole? bla bla bla I maintained my composure and did that “yeah-okay-that’s-a-brilliant-idea-I’ll-take-note-of-it-thanks” pose. Some people just can’t handle slight criticism.

That 10 minutes of presentation was shredded into pieces with questions. Now, I was told to do the amendments before they can approve it and give me the moolah. I was so tempted to give that guy with a French accent a roundhouse kick ala Chuck Norris for mumbling out his questions that I could barely make out what he’s saying. Can you not speak properly?

After the whole circus was over, I offered to excuse myself from these clowns because I had to attend another meeting at my workplace (which was a lie). They put on that fake nice smile and offered me some refreshment and shit but no thank you. As I was about to leave, one of them gave me a souvenir of a miniature rubbish bin.

How nice. I jokingly — and with a nice smile, mind you — asked the lady who gave me the souvenir “Should I dispose my proposal into this thing?” She stared at me for a few seconds, and then turned away.

The souvenir looks kind of cute but I don’t know what to do with it. I thought of taking it home to give my dog something to chew on but my next door colleague wanted it as an ashtray. Well, at least he knows to appreciate such gifts. I wouldn’t know what to do with it. An impractical gift, if you ask me.

I don’t think I’m cut for this kind of work. Either that or I just need a bloody holiday. Yeah, yeah, I know holiday’s coming soon. But I’m also broke and it’s about a week before the next paycheck comes in. Would doing yoga help? *sigh*