[The Three Sisters and that Reason 'Why?']
by YBLalat

Today, I received an email from somebody who I pretended to know her identity. She emailed me occasionally from time to time, this being her third or fourth email, I hardly remember which, but she seemed to know me very well. When I said ‘know me well’, I meant she knows how I look like and could match my name to it, I guess. I have this hunch that she was one of my schoolmates, because she kept referring me by my ‘housefly’ nickname. Nobody outside of the family calls me by that, not even the dozens of relatives from both side of my parents or familiar neighbors that had befriended my mom all this years, except a handful of my ex-schoolmates. Being weird as it is, she’s a girl, or so I hunched she is.

Actually, I know who she is, but I had doubts. Before today’s email, I was pretty sure who she is and even tried to burst the bubble to her. She flirted a bit in her first email, saying that she will not tell me her identity and wanted it to be a secret and will not confirm her identity even if I were to have guessed it correctly. From her email address, the sound of her email nick is pretty familiar. Maybe during my short stint as a prefect, I had the chance of overhearing her nickname being called over a noisy classroom by one of her friends. I never knew anybody from the opposite sex during high school that close before; close enough to distinguish them from one another. Sounds degrading, right? It is as if I see the female of the species like a herd of cattle, “Oh here they come, a group of girls passing by me”.

The problem is, I have trouble remembering other people’s names, especially the ones who wear tudung. I do not know why, but I have had this problem ever since I could remember having it. Most probably, whenever somebody introduces herself to me, stating her name for the first time, I tend to get distracted by other things. It might be her protruding hair nose, her fluttering eyes, or sometimes even the “Why would you want to get to know me?” notion. As soon as it was my turn to tell her my name, I would have forgotten hers. Sorry. It is just not normal or frequent for me, to get to know somebody new, other than the small circle of acquaintances I keep. That is why I always try my best to evade meeting those who I do not remember knowing them before. It is humiliating really, but I could not bear saying “I am so sorry, but I forgot your name”.

Once, there was a group of people who visited my house in Kuala Selangor, later did I found out that they were a family altogether, and all of them were young ladies and small girls but one man (obviously the man of the family) and his wife. My mom had a lot of friends, I did not bother to get to know them all, and most of them she got to know while escorting my dad to formal State and UMNO functions. “We are just passing by”, he told my mom, “on a journey to one of our friends’ wedding, when my wife remembered that your house is just on our path. So, why not, right?” Oh great, impulsive visitors. I was upstairs in my room, minding my own business (I am utterly shy with strangers), when they came and there was just me and mom in the house. Everybody else had, weird enough, gone somewhere else that Sunday afternoon. Somebody needed to serve them drinks and only my mom knew them well enough to entertain them, to carry on the conversation. Thus, I voluntarily went down and served them drinks. Then, I hesitated when my mom told me to sit next to her, joining her company. I did nothing but listened to their chattering, which by the way, was more on matters that did not concern me at all. Matters like house mortgage or a politician’s sex scandal or ‘how the devil did Mr. Old get such a beautiful and young wife’.

In that group of visitors, there were these three young ladies (They were siblings), sitting close to each other and all looking down at the carpet as my mom and their parents talked to each other for hours. I looked at them (a reaction out of boredom) and instantly they looked at the magnolia patterns on the red carpet. Every time. I do not believe I initiated eye contact then; the conversation must have been way too advanced for me (or the three of them) to understand. Seeing that their daughters were being stared at several times by a dude in a ‘Punk Is Dead’ t-shirt, they introduced each of their daughters’ names to me. They told me who is the eldest and by how many years older than me and who was in what school and did what as a hobby and all that stuff. I could see the daughters’ faces blushing every time their father told me about them. One of them, the youngest, even grimaced at her father’s remark about her boy-band fanaticism. She was like “Dad, what are you doing? Stop it!”. Hah, gotcha.

I did not pay that much attention to what the old man was saying; I was busy looking at their faces whenever they were being described by their parents, and all wearing white tudungs did not help them cover their faces’ redness. That is a nightmare, my friend. Moreover to somebody you have never met before and to a guy. Not that I was as good-looking as a movie star at that moment, but still the effect is very horrifying, don’t you think?. Fortunately, my mom just informed them of my name and “This is my son who studies in Malacca that I have told you about”. I guess they have heard a lot of things about me even before their visit. Gosh, I was one of the topics discussed in a formal State function, how flattering. Of course I have already forgotten the girls’ names by now; it took place several years ago, you idiot. But not their glowing red faces, oh no.

One of the many things that I remembered from this incident is, when they finally left, my mom immediately pinched my right ribcage. “Ouch! Mom, what is it?” “Next time I ask you to sit and entertain visitors, you sit, remember?” Then, she followed with another pinch. “Ouch, ok, ok” “It is for your own good; girls remember boys’ names better. At least you could show your precious face to them; boys hardly remember girls’ faces because of the tudungs they wear, you know?” And followed by a pinch on the shoulder. Can you believe that? My mom was right; boys are forgetful jerks after all and they always will be. Kind of makes you think where she got that idea from.