An Interesting Topic

I remembered the times when I was young and being very much afraid of the dark. It was, I suppose an innate feeling that the young was brought up with. It was more or less an incomprehensible feeling which, back then I didn’t thought of questioning. It was perhaps the blackness which without any source of light that blinded visions and the familiar place and feeling becomes strange and unknown.

I used to snuggle up my mother when I was scared or even not. It was reassuring, and it worked all the time. The darkness emitted through the night accompanied by the strange scary noises that only came with the night. The same familiar noises, only sometimes something strange happen to happen.

I clearly remember this particularly peculiar night where a strange looking woman, clad in all white with whiteness enveloping and protruding around her. She looked translucent but nonetheless real. I wasn’t sure what the time it was then and at that time or that age I wasn’t scared not even surprised. The only feeling that I remembered feeling was curious. I woke my sleeping mother, whom back then I figured I couldn’t live without. As a matter of fact I still feel that way, only difference is I used to stick around her following her every movement and steps, sticking to her like glue. Nowadays, I guess the growing up process and the constant lessons of life which some what makes people bitterer and selfish made me more distant with everyone.

Suddenly it seems as though, you’re losing direction and the only way to not get lost is to go about doing what everyone’s doing, been doing and will be doing. That too, I am concluding, to avoid the negative stares and the bad mouth of people. People living their lives without knowing their purpose and direction seem to be the trend or the preferred option.

Jumping back to when I saw the strange woman when I was a small kid. I wake my mother up. She woke up and I was sure she saw the woman standing directly in front of me giving out an almost sweet smile in the darkness almost lighting up the small room. Come to think about it, I am not sure whether the figure was a man or a woman. Her features were of a woman I dare say. ‘What does the woman wants?’ I asked my mother. I am sure my mother saw what I saw, I saw a glimpse of surprise on her face, but she told me to go back to sleep and drifted back to sleep herself.

I still eyed the still figure, still smiling, still white and still looking at me not telling me her reason of being there, in front of me. I got bored of her and dozed off.

Jumping back to when I was afraid of the dark and the blackness of the night. I was saying that I was scared of the dark, scared of the dark spirits that roams the night suddenly appearing just for the sake of scaring me and perhaps scarring me into being afraid of them for the rest of my life. But the growing up process accompanied with the bitter revelations of life makes one grow up and to not believe in such nonsensical beliefs. More frankly, excuse the exaggeration; just the growing up process does that.

Leaping to when I am older and considerably wiser compared to when I am younger. I no longer find the darkness frightening despite the fact that I still can’t see through it. I am pretty much sure that it is the same as when it is bright.

I find the blackness to be comforting and peaceful. Trying to escape the light and falling into oblivion. But most of the times, the life from the other side seems to steal its way in and emit a random story, most of the times its purpose is to scare. And most of the nightmares happen during the day, giving night a bad name.

There was this one time, it was an afternoon. I was at my work place and I was just finished with my prayers. I was making my way to the exit which is also the entrance. And there was this man in a wheel chair blocking the way. The man had a normal face, but his legs were like a Childs: Tiny and in this case not cute. Seeing that he was blocking the way I almost knowingly took hold of the wheel chair by its handle and helpfully pushed it outside. Once outside, I asked the man in the wheel chair, ‘where do you want to go?’ not thinking at that moment how he got there in the first place. He then looked at me dubiously and said, ‘I need help. I need to go to the toilet’. A selfish thought flew by, what have I dragged myself into.

I was now pushing the wheel chair towards the nearest men’s toilet. I wasn’t thinking much at the moment. All I knew was I was doing a good deed. As we reached the toilet and as I was ready to leave the poor man at the toilet, suddenly he said, ‘I need to pee.’ I remained calm and held the handles to the wheel chair and pushed him into one of the toilet cubicles. I chose the one at the farthest, for no particular reason. I then tried to push the wheel chair but after several attempts of trying to push it in and failing miserably for the simplest reason. The wheel chair was too big for the cubicle. The man hurriedly emptied his wheel chair filled with books and other stuff I could barely remember. He then unbuckled his pouch and handed it over to me. I placed it near the sink and what he uttered next made me extremely rigid and needless to say uncomfortable.

‘Would you mind?’ I stared at him blankly afraid of the obvious but at the same time feeling a dreadful sympathy towards the poor man. ‘Take of my pants’. I was now fiddling with his zip and trying really badly to remove the pants with minimal contact. It smelled spunky and urinated on. Ignoring the gaze of the other guys who were using the toilets I succeeded in taking his pants off after several embarrassing attempts and there he was in front of the toilet cubicle, naked and apparently desperate to pee. For some reason the next words that came out from him was somewhat relieving. ‘jangan pandang, malu.’ So I moved away and gladly looked away.

So here was this guy on a wheel chair situated in front of a toilets cubicle and pissing his brains off. It’s not as funny as it sounds, really. It lasted for quite sometime though. So after he was done urinating no where near any bowl. I almost on queue got hold of the wheel chair pulled him back and led him to the sink for him to wash his hands off. I then spent nearly 5 minutes trying to get his pants on back (I prefer not to go into details here). By the time I was done, I was sweating and feeling a little bit dirty and used. I then replaced his goods and pushed him out of the toilet feeling accomplished.

He said his thank yous and I with my it’s okays. ‘Where do you want to go now?’ I asked. He said, ‘this is good enough, I can manage on my own.’ I walked out feeling lucky as ever and somewhat more thankful at least for the moment. The evening ended as normally as my boring evenings do. I didn’t think about what happened later. But I knew I was scarred and that I'll never forget that incident. I didn’t go to work the next day, had a fever.

p/s Erk, takde masa…to be continued..kot.