[The Midwest Adventure]
by YBLalat

It has been a while since my last post. The server was down for the past few days; fortunately at the same period, I was somewhere else far, far away from home. There was this Midwest Games or so that was held in a U called Western Michigan University, where all Malaysian students in the Midwestern part of USA are cordially invited, respective to their Us, to compete in conventional but friendly sports like tennis, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and some other of games. Met a lot of people, seen a lot of things, experienced a lot of hassles and came home we did Monday night. Oh! Upon returning home, there are so many things to say, so many issues to resolve, chores to do, responsibilities to burden. They seem to never cease coming at you, as hectic and tired as you are. Foremost, where the freaking hell has my journal archives gone to? Did they also get deleted with the replacement of the server?

All along the Games, it was pouring cats and dogs and blowing cucumber-cold icicles. Other people seemed to enjoy that: playing soccer in the rain, in the cold. Since I was just a by-standing spectator to the whole pandemonium, it took me a lot of cursing and self-loathing to get past the bad weather before really enjoying what I saw in front of me. Overall, we did not win anything, not even at the Ambassador’s Night lucky draw. Pathetic, eh? The U of M was hardly mentioned in any of the categories competed in this year’s edition of the event; which is logical, since we hardly mentioned the intent of competing at any time of the trip or the preparation weeks prior. Everybody was actually more looking forward to the trip itself, and upon reaching the Michigan destination. We thought that we could escape Minnesota’s reigning grip of worst weather this time of the year by moving further east, closer towards the sea, hoping that the Great Lakes would provide us with its well-known blanket of mild comfort. Tough luck, I guess.

We stopped by for a short conjugal visit (or so would I mock it) at the Madison area, meeting with the local Malays and joining other Muslims for a Friday prayer. There, the weather was great: not too cold had the wind blown, not too gloomy had the cloud floated. It was idealistically perfect, just what I had in mind. Therefore, I was correct about the Great Lakes’ blanket of comfort matter. It was just tough luck that Michigan was not bestowed with that wonderful gift of nature. I have so many reasons in mind as to why the weather was so bad over there, at that event, if ever did Allah let me speculate on His climate interventions, for I did a profound reflective thinking session on the 9-hours home trip to Minneapolis, among other things.

I met Far Han in Madison. That bastard was still alive! He was the healthy same-old cuckoo I left at PPP years back, complete with the all familiar facial hair and oldies hairstyle. “I just got fired from my job” was the first thing that he said to me after months of not seeing each other’s faces. Talk about icebreaking monologue. He actually got a new job at the instance of getting fired from the former (can you believe that?), working as a custodian in a U facility and before that as a librarian. I asked him how in the world did he get himself fired from such an honorable position and eventually landed on a lower-ranked job like that as a toilet-cleaning immigrant. Telling him not to use the economic slump downsizes excuse; “I am not that stupid anymore Far Han”, he just smiled back at me. How romantic. Ever since I have known Far Han, I could always rely on him for entertainment and company. He is my number one source of humor and ridicule. [Sigh] I miss him already.

“Anyway, what was your essay all about then? ‘ Suicide is the final savior’?”

I was stunned. Among all the people I sent the essay to, it was Far Han who first (and boldly) shared his views about the Mortality essay, ignoring what the backlash of a writer’s reaction could do. Hot dang! “This dude is one ass-kicking hardcore critic”, I shouted in my head. From then onwards, I valued every word that he mumbled, listened to every sarcasm that he implied, no matter how inaudible it was coming from his luscious black lips, no matter how ridiculous his spontaneous analogies were. It is so hard to get creatively noticed nowadays, since I do not have a pair of heaving boobs or skyward-pointing ass accompanying my creativity. When you are criticized, sincerely listen with an open mind, and when you are berated, turn your back and walk away.

What he needed to do was to read the essay twice or more. He did not grasp the whole idea of the essay but managed to catch the glimpse of its crux after the first peruse, and that was almost good enough already. However, it was essential to repeat the reading (if you are not easily discouraged that is) because during the writing of that essay, I intentionally layered the storyline with multiple analogies and to great extents, associated each subplot after the asterisks with another. Every action that Rufus the main character did was repeated the second time, in his ordeal with the unknown-sourced agitation, but in different forms and sometimes with different intents. There are reasons to that, but I will not reveal them here. I leave the reasoning to the vast and wild imagination of the readers. Let me let you think.

I am proud to say that all along the journey to Michigan, I was the one with the least amount of sleep. I forgot how I managed to resist the temptation of dozing off to the passing cars and trucks and to the blaring techno music from the radio, but I watched the whole scenery of the trip from inside the rented van and how glorious it was. Wisconsin farms and Indiana ranches were beautiful, much more beautiful than the pictures depicted on one-dollar souvenir postcards. I saw the feeding of the horses and the milking of the cattle and tall, phallic-like grain and wheat silos. I thought I would never see the red-colored, box-shaped farm building where farmers kept all the hay and tools and the sight of frightened chickens running around the truck, being chased by the curious sheep dog. On both sides of the interstate highway’s shoulder, vast farmland filled with crops cleared the sky from two-layered clouds. You could not see a single piece of elevated earth for miles away, no lumpy hills, no skyscraping forests; the plain and leveled plateau of the Midwest was of highest grandeur in reality.

In the Games, I took a lot of photos on the happenings of the event. The first thing that I did was bought myself two rolls of film for it, considering that since I was not there to play in any sport, I might as well be there as a photographer for those who had. Most of the photos were taken during the event of games; let it be Fathi serving the tennis ball straight to the net or Awin kicking the hell out of an opponent’s ankle (instead of the soccer ball). It was a chore to keep the lenses dry; rain was heavy and frequent and almost impossible to focus on a Pulitzer-worthy snapshot; my fingers were furiously shaking from the freezing breeze of the wind. At the end, I managed to round up one and a half roll of the total two rolls of film bought for the event. As an instant result of standing too long in the cold outdoor and clothed too thin for the windy condition, I came back home to an ice-burnt lips: red and swollen and hideous and tormenting.

To my dismay, I met few new acquaintances and said ‘Hi’ to less familiar faces than when I was at the PETRONAS annual briefing previously. Getting to know too many new friends at a time is a very dangerous habit; you could never possibly remember all of their names and/or physical features to commit them to memory. I just hope they would just remember my face the next time we meet again, because I certainly could only recall faces, much faster than names. I do not mind introducing my name the second time around; I kind of like the sound of my name being pronounced, “I am Lalat”. Maybe it is actually the joy of seeing other people’s faces became distorted with bewilderment after hearing my name for the first time, that triggered me to always feel confident to introduce myself, I guess.

(to be continued)