Granted and gratitude

I don’t know if there is a sound psychological reasoning to it, but I become extra anti-social around celebrations. Don’t talk to me about birthdays. Don’t wish me uselessly on days like International Women’s Day or Teachers’ Day. What? What is the point of that? You wished me perfunctorily, and then we never talk again until next year? I mean, it’s even generous to term that “talking”, don’t you think? If all we did was forward each other those greeting card things on WhatsApp, then we never actually talked at all, did we?

So I became even more anti-social during Hari Raya. The basically identical posts on Instagram bored me; perfunctory greetings on WhatApp annoyed me right out. Instead, I tucked in for endless bouts of drama bingeing during the 4.5 days of holiday.

When the government announced that Raya was basically cancelled due to Covid-19, I was unperturbed. Raya has never been a favourite time – the parents will bicker about going back to the maternal kampung, they will disagree about stopping along the way to see Dad’s eldest daughter whose deadbeat husband will always try his hardest to be cross with everybody, we will be stuck in traffic for around 15 hours on average, everybody’s mood would just be very unstable because everyone is stressing out – Tok for having to share her chamber with us (yes, the entire family rooms with Tok when we are back, even Dad, because there is no one to prepare the spare rooms but Tok will take it to heart if we stayed at a hotel), Dad because of the understandably uncomfortable arrangement of sharing a room with his mother-in-law, on top of his reluctance to be there in the first place, the other relatives for whether they should or should not make a fuss about our rare visits, mother being in a dilemma about how to react to her relatives, on top of trying to balance Dad’s unstable mood. Me I’m generally neutral about things, but I just feel that I’d rather enjoy my holiday rolling around with a drama or two instead of dealing with all the drama, you know.

In short, I’m one of the few people that are completely okay with Raya being cancelled. But the dramas I watched this time around did make me wonder if I’m taking things for granted too much. For instance, in Start Up, Grandma, a fiercely independent woman who brings up a son and then a granddaughter and an errant orphan as a single woman, loses her eyesight and has to learn to rely on others. In You Are My Hero, Special Forces Police Captain Xing Kelei has to deal with a brain tumour that impinges on his optic nerve – which might cause him his vision and thus might strip him of everything that makes him a deadly sniper and a high-flying assault unit commander. And then there’s me, who, instead of living my life, flops around all day long watching drama after drama. It… gave me a pause – if I woke up tomorrow to find that I have lost my vision, what would I do? How will I take that fate – stoically, like Grandma, or with deep vulnerability, like Xing Kelei? I mean – on top of everything else like how would I function professionally and would I be able to continue living alone – and I know this might be the shallowest thing to worry about, but not being able to watch a drama would be utterly devastating, I think. I imagined it, and I thought it’s okay because I actually enjoy reading I’ll just take up braille and… Well, I think taking up braille is good and all, but by God, how beautiful is the world, even my drab little corner of it? And how beautiful is being able to see it?

And it’s not just vision, specifically. There are so many things in life that we, that I, take for granted. The way my body works, the privileges that I enjoy, hell, even the peace of my motherland. It is a sobering thought that all these could be gone in an instant. Throughout Raya, Israel had been bombarding Palestine, and in a truly privileged way, I have been following the development of events halfheartedly. The colonialising Zionists are unfair and cruel, and pity the Palestinians, but the events have been going on since a lifetime ago and it’s halfway across the world and I am safe and snug and because of the movement control order I’m not obligated to go see people during Raya and I’m happy to stay indoors to contribute to breaking the Covid-19 chain. It wasn’t enough that the Zionists were visiting atrocities upon civilians; no, what gave me a pause was the thought that what if my yet-to-be-finished newly renovated apartment was shelled? After I’d spent all that money? Again, another shallow thought, to be sure, but this was what came to my mind first. If my house was destroyed, and basically all my money along with it, what would I do then? I mean logically speaking that seems improbable, but nothing is improbable. No one in history ever saw anything coming.

Like, when the government announced the first movement control order on 18 March 2020 (for some reason, this date is stuck in my head more prominently than some friends’ birthday), did anyone see that coming? We’d heard about this new virus that was making the rounds, but did anyone see that the world would go into quarantine, that international borders would be practically closed indefinitely? Even I initially thought that this was just a stronger strain of influenza, that everyone was just blowing things out of proportions. Obviously I’m not complaining, but the point is – was our expectation any different than when they announced the Great War? It’ll be over by Christmas – who would have expected that we would be still be constrained indoors two Hari Raya Aidilfitris later?

And in the same way that optimism about a brief war quickly faded, I am no longer optimistic about being free to go out in public soon. First of all, I’m an antivaxxer. Usually, I’m an antivaxxer because it works too well and I think we might need a few of us to drop dead, but this time I’m an antivaxxer because I’m not sure of its efficacy. I’m not saying I won’t take it because I don’t think it works – I suppose it does work – but I’m unsure of the long-term side effects because there has not been enough time to study it. How can you know what effects this particular vaccine will have on you 10, 20 years down the line, on your future children, if it’s only be around for like what? 1.5 years? I mean I completely understand why they had to expedite the approval – all I’m saying is I’m wary of it and I’m happy to observe first. After all, I’m a homebody who is perfectly content to be homebound.

But that is another thing that I take for granted: that there will be an expiry date for our isolation. I’m only happy to be indoors because I assumed that one day, and soon, we will be free. But I am no longer confident about that expectation. The Great War stretched out for four years – what if the situation persists for that long? Or even longer? Because I can no longer be confident that it won’t. There is so much world out there – if I died without seeing any of it, except from my little screen, will I be able to forgive myself?

And what’s worse, I have not been treating my body with the love and respect that it deserves. Because why would I? All I need it to do for me right now is to be able to flop around. I have a treadmill and sometimes I try walking or running on it and I just find it pointless. I don’t need to be able to do any of this at the moment, and I’d rather lie down comfortably and watch my stupid dramas. But then, sometimes when I go out for groceries, I find that I tired just from carrying a shopping bag with like three sticks of cucumbers and a head of broccoli. I mean I know I’m not a strong athlete by any margin at all, but I used to be able to hike. And go camping. And drive for hours and hours on end. The last time I went hiking, that weekend before the current semester started, I went to a baby hill basically behind my house and I didn’t even make it to the peak because I feared that I might faint. The one-hour-ish drive to campus, which I sometimes still have to do, would tire my arm out from just steering. Like, how pathetic is that? So I mean, at this rate, even if we are allowed to leave the house, what can I do now? I have allowed my body to waste to this point, but I see no incentive in rebuilding it.

Delilah

Our meeting was a fluke. Our getting together was a convenience. Our time was but brief.

I didn’t know it would hurt this bad to walk away.

World War 3

Although I’ve long suspected that I would see the World War 3 happen during my lifetime, I wouldn’t have thought it would be so soon. And in such a form.

It’s true that this current war we’re fighting isn’t a military and political conflict, but to me it’s a global war nonetheless. It just amazes me how everyone else seems intent on going about their lives with as minimal disruptions as possible. As if you’d do that if an advancing army was knocking at your door.

Cause that’s exactly what novel coronavirus is – it’s an invading entity that goes about undetected by the naked eye, and then every so often one or two or ten people drop dead.

And yet, the world seems adamant to go about as usual. Like, if you asked me – just close…

I started this post with every intention of writing a detailed comparison between this pandemic we’re facing and global warfare but I don’t think I have the mental and emotional capacity for it. Like, I really wish the whole world would be put on pause, and we starve the stupid virus dead (I’m not a scientist, don’t @ me), then a year later we emerge from our cages and resume. But that’s a very immature response, isn’t it – pause? Pause? Starve the virus out? We’re gonna starve ourselves out and the virus would still be in its merry airborne ways.

And I’m pro-Thanos. The irony.

Nah, actually. I mean, I did kinda wish for a new plague and lo and behold – be careful what you wish for. I think I don’t quite mind it if I’m a casualty; I just wish that before I leave my snug little life isn’t affected – enough delicious food, electricity and water, petrol for the car, internet connection to stream whatever I want to my heart’s content.

Selfish? You bet.

A woman and a soldier

I don’t know if something prompted it or if my brain dreamed it all up on its own, but there are two parallel dirt lanes, separated by a rather thick foliage down the middle. The weather is perfectly fine, bright and balmy, and we see a veiled woman walking down one lane. She clearly is a civilian.

Out of nowhere we hear a tank firing a shot, and within seconds the other lane was ablaze, and we hear an explosion as the shot finds its target. The woman, long accustomed to such hazards, scoots to the far side of the lane and squats down, trying to protect herself as much as she could. And then it is over and the woman stands up, brushes the dust off her, and starts walking again.

In the aftermath of the attack everything is calm and silent, eeriely peaceful. There is no hysteria, no wailing siren, not even a cry for help, but perhaps we are rendered deaf by our closeness to the explosion.

And perhaps that is why we do not hear him, the soldier, until we see the folliage shake and dance, and then suddenly he springs out of it, not two feet away from the woman, all bloodied and crying, and yet his rifle is trained squarely at her.

For the longest second the two look at each other, and the entire world vibrates with the intensity of their stare. For the moment, the entire war resides within these two, as if its outcome depends wholly on the woman and the soldier.

And then he fires.

For a moment we feel ourselves lunging forward, trying to shield the woman from the bullet, as if anything we do would mean anything at all, until we see that she still stands, obviously shaken but completely unharmed. And she walks away even as the soldier’s pitiful wail starts to penetrate our consciousness.

For in the next lane, in a puddle of blood lie his charred hand and one end of his rifle. As we watch the severed hand tightened around a nonexistent trigger and fires, and the sound of the shot reverberates throughout history and shakes our humanity to its core.

I’ve recently started watching Doctor Who

You have this enemy. His sin: he killed your entire family, entire race, entire species. But it’s inaccurate to say it’s his fault, for he has been designed to hate, programmed to kill. In any case, when it comes down to it, it’s self defence: either you or him must survive. It’s a war after all, or what it ended up as. It might have been small, personal, in the beginning – but all that gets blown out of proportion in the grand scheme of things. When it is survival that’s at stake, it leaves no room for morality, for philosophical debates. What does it matter if you are wrong or right if you are dead?

It’s years now, aeons, and the two of you, the last of your kinds, are adrift in the universe. And the universe, all of time and space, conspire so that the two of you come face to face. Both of you are convinced of the others’ guilt: both of you are the reason the other is absolutely and utterly alone.

What do you do? Reconcile? Accept the futility and the stupidity of what’s been done? Forgive and forget? Revenge? Retribution? Justice? Preventive action? For each of these choices come with different sets of consequences, and since he’s killed everyone you ever cared about, he might now kill everyone someone else loves.

Choice. It’s the one thing that defines us, defines our humanity. And if you chose to forgive and forget, does that mean you’re a failure? That you have betrayed those who trusted you, loved you? Or are you finally becoming what the rest of you failed?

And let’s say you and your arch enemy are now facing off, and he begs you to spare him, tells you he’s changed. What then? Believe him? But so far as you know, he’s designed to hate, programmed to kill – can you take the risk of endangering others for the sake of one man’s redemption, or do you stick to what you know, convinced that you know better? And if you did, how are you different from your enemy, who has been designed to hate and programmed to kill?

Stuart Diomedes

I wondered if this was war. If it was, then I must say it’s pretty quiet with nothing exploding around me. If it was, then all those images of war I’ve seen have seriously been blown out of proportion. Sure it’s scary, but in a funny way it’s calm. All I could do was wait.

I had forgotten that the sea will be at its calmest before a huge storm. Sure enough, suddenly things started to explode around me. I didn’t know what era it was, but we had this huge cannonballs that would explode a few seconds upon contact. One lodged in the floor and exploded not one metre away from me. Seeing that, I scrambled away and made like a turtle beside my bed. I remember praying to god. Actually, I think I kept saying the salawat to the prophet during the attack. And then one cannonball fell onto my neck, but in the unreality of a dream, it bounced away and exploded near me. And in the unreality of the dream, I wasn’t hurt. I was disheveled, scared, incoherent and crying, but I wasn’t hurt.

And then it stopped. I scrambled to a corner near a door and sat there hugging my knees. I couldn’t think of anything to do, and I couldn’t stop my crying, so I sat there and I cried. And then the men came. Not our men – theirs. By this time I was numb and so I just looked at them passively. They passed near me through the door, and one of them grabbed my veil and jerked it behind my head so that my hair was exposed. I did not even protest. I hugged my knees tighter and continued crying, and he laughed and left me. Then came a few younger soldiers and they leered at me. At that moment I could feel my fear coming back, but they left me well enough alone.

And then an older man came back through the door. I couldn’t remember if he was the one who yanked my veil, but he had already passed through before. He wasn’t handsome, but neither was he ugly, and even to my civilian eyes it was clear he was quite highly ranked. And then this officer said, not ungently, “You – come with me.” And just like that I did. No protestations, not a murmur of anything. Where I found the strength to stand and walk I do not know, but I followed this officer as docilely as a heifer being led to a sacrificial altar. I think somewhere in my benumbed mind it registered that if it came to it, this officer seemed the lesser of the two evils, if you compared him to the leering soldiers.

I couldn’t remember where he was leading me at first, but pretty soon he was leading me back to my quarters where he found me and I realised that he was also talking to me. He was chattering away very quickly, and I had trouble following what he was saying. I think he must have introduced himself already, but I missed it, so I asked him what his name was. The reply was a swift string of syllables, and all I could catch was “Stuart”. For some reason I felt safe around this man, so to avoid having to think of all those missed syllables, I asked him if I could call him “Stu”. He was pretty aghast at the notion, so he repeated his name again. It was clear he wanted me to address him formally with his title, but they ran by my head, and because I was too embarrassed to ask again and because I know I wouldn’t catch it anyway, I stayed quiet and resolved to call him sir, just sir, if it came to that.

By this time we were back at my old quarters, and he told me to get my stuff. I was thinking during the walk how comforting it would be if I had with me a few of my favourite novels and trying to decide which novels were my favourite. I had failed to come to a decision, but I asked him anyway, “Could I bring a few of my books?” As soon as I said this I was seized with fear that he might think me a spy. At first he saw no harm in it and was happy to oblige me, but as I was bending down to my upturned book shelf, the same thought probably hit his mind and he said, “Actually, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” Because I knew the logic, I did not press it. In fact, I was happy he said that because it saved me from whatever possible complication that might arise later. I’d hate to be branded a spy in the enemy’s camp. Besides, if he was going to be my protector, he seemed a reasonable enough guy and I could always persuade him to procure me some books later.

With this line of thought, a dilemma came to me. Here I was, thinking of ways to ensure my safety, to capture whatever snippets of security and comfort I could get, by cozying myself up to an enemy officer – I was ashamed of myself when I realised I did not make any effort to resist or struggle at all. Where was my spirit, where was my loyalty? Perhaps even Stuart is disgusted with me for being such a spineless whore. But as I was lost in this reverie, his voice penetrated my thoughts, “Come, I might as well introduce you now.”

Where he brought me I don’t remember, but there was an elegant lady sitting on an ottoman, and two young soldiers were sitting near her on the grass. I realised these two were the ones who leered at me in that first moments after the attack, and that they’re most probably this lady’s sons. They both had long, sandy brown hair that they left free, and even now they were staring at me like wolves a lamb. Stuart introduced me to the lady and I managed a curtsy, “Milady,” and then he left. I was immediately alarmed and kept looking at his retreating back. There were no instructions for me, and now I was left with this foreign lady and her two wolfish sons. Funny how quickly he became the familiar to me.

None of this escaped the lady’s notice. “Yes, he is something, Sir Diomedes, isn’t he?”

Diomedes. So that’s what his name was. “Yes. In a day I’ve lost everything, madam. I’ve lost my mother, my father, I’ve lost my country. He is all I have now. He is my anchor.” The lady smiled knowingly at this. Even then I couldn’t escape the irony of the situation. My very own Diomedes, and I his forsaken Cressida.

“We were the original machine gun.”

Yes, humans are savages. Not only have we endlessly and tirelessly strove towards perfecting the art of killing each other, we even consider it good fun.

And this is not even talking about other people. A medieval warlord, bloodied from battle, brandishing a sword and still chasing down a few rebels, traitors, whatever – he’d be included in my lelaki idaman list.

I suppose humans are perverse beings. Du Maurier says something to this effect in The King’s General – despite all their protestations, men are simply bred for war and they flourish by it, from it, during it. And in Please, Mr Einstein, Carriere notes that instead of ending civilisations, war drives them. At the heart of things, war is the sole cause for human advancement and technology. Without it, there’s no incentives to be creative and innovative.

But that’s all very solemn and sobering. All I wanted to say was I went to a jousting tournament today.