Filed under: Kelentong
The sound of metal grinding against metal screeched against my eardrums.
I walked out of my room to see what’s going on. There were six workers on the staircase fixing some metal beams on top of each other.
One of the workers was asleep on the landing, three were sitting on the stairs and railing chatting away, another was holding the power cable, and only one was doing the grinding and welding.
When they saw me, they stopped what they were doing. Only for a moment. Then they went on with their job. A man sleeping, three talking, one holding a power cable and the other did the noise.
It was humid outside. The air was still. Only then I discovered they reminded me of nothing.
So, I went back into my room.
Filed under: Kelentong
Damn.
Obviously, I’m spiraling into deep shit in almost all arena of life. I don’t know if it’s something that I should be proud of or it’s a confirmation that I just love to indulge in stupidity. But yeah, that’s how it goes…
I went up the mountains yesterday after I couldn’t sort out my mind at home. It was Sunday and I’m supposed to be relaxed and all. Like bloody easy Sunday morning, oh, oh, oh…right?
I pulled out a can of Tiger from the fridge. The shorter hand on the clock pointed to just past noon. One cold beer can to knock me off, I thought. Less than 10 minutes later I took out another cold can of that feline drink. It went down like water. I told myself I must get out of here, so I drove off. Got a couple of cans for the road.
An hour later, I was on the dirt road climbing up that familiar steep mountain slopes.
Just the night before, I dreamt I was driving up a very narrow abandoned logging road. The path was so steep and I tried to go without engaging my four wheels. Then, as I almost reached the top, I tried to avoid a bush in the middle of the slope but the path was too narrow. It was very steep and I could see the tree canopy below me. As I avoided the bush, I turned too far to the right. When I wanted to put my car on track, the back wheels couldn’t push the weight of the car up! It stalled. Slowly, it went backwards and down the slope into the ravine….
…but in the real world yesterday, I made it up the mountain. Stopped at the short longhouse where people knew me. “Apa mimpi datang?” one of them asked. No dreams, I told them. I just felt like coming over and see how you guys are doing. They laughed and invited me to join them. “You missed us kah?” they teased me. Fuckers. I have not visited them for almost a year. Just pass me the damn langkau and tell me how you’re doing. We merrily drank till I forgot my stupid world below.
I got home at around 9pm last night and by that time, I’m sure the cool evening mist must have covered my friends and the whole mountain. And they’d still be drinking langkau till the wee morning hours, happy to see Monday.
As for me, I had a very peaceful sleep last night after so many nights unable to sleep, struggling with the heat and dealing with fucking trolls working in this stupid world that we consider ‘the real world’.
I tell you, this real world thing is stupid.
I’ve been busy counting white hairs sprouting out of my nostrils…and they also grow in the southern part of my autonomy. I wonder if our thief minister faces the same predicament since he has lots of white hair.
It felt like only yesterday that I last put an entry into this dog-forsaken blog. Then, when I checked it was almost a month ago. So, what happened between then and now? Nothing much. Work took much of the ‘what happened’ part lately. Also, I’ve to work harder from now on because based on my anal annual performance evaluation by the council of bosses, I’ve apparently been doing a lot of goyang kaki at my workplace. It’s a shame that I did not realize my colleagues have been very diligent grade-A workers all this while.
One of the main streets in Long Bawan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia
I walked over to Kalimantan a couple of weeks ago to get some stories on a pemburu sumpit, and how he killed a salty squirrel that had a baby bottle of milk hanging on its back. And this was like nine generations ago! Yes, ada botol susu one the squirrel! Then, I was told that the pemburu sumpit and his followers were originally from a country called ‘belakang India’ before deciding to settle down in the Kerayan highlands bordering Sarawak and Kalimantan (or if you prefer, Malaysia and Indonesia…pffftt) to plant rice and cultivate salt. Today, their descendants make a living by exchanging salt with life and sing praises to the pemburu sumpit who brought his people the salty squirrel. Or was it a tikus besar?
Filed under: Kelentong
Do you get people experts asking you questions about something that is beyond your field of knowledge? I get that all the time. It’s not even asking for an opinion on a certain topic or certain something. It’s like they’re the expert in that field and for some unknown cosmic reason, they don’t know the answers to their own questions.
Once my mechanic asked me if I know where to get spare parts for his Land Rover Defender. The ‘back part’ (see, I don’t even know the name!) of his Landy was knocked and he didn’t know where to get the parts. He’s an established mechanic and asked me, an idiot on cars, where to get spare parts?
I have a friend who’s a plant scientist, an expert on leaves and maybe roots. Not branches. One day he called me to his office, which made me drive all the way to the other end of Kuching, only to ask me: “Do you know where I can get good quality jatropha seeds?” What the fuck lah. ‘Jatropha’? Is that a verb or noun? Ask me about sunflower seeds, I can tell you laa…
Of course, the classic ones are my encounters with doctors. There are many of them. I have the feeling that doctors today are trained more as sociologists, not medical practitioners. The last incident was about my swollen knee and I went to see an orthopedic.
“Doctor, I got a swollen knee since three days ago. There’s no pain and I don’t know why it’s swollen,” I tell the doctor.
Doctor then responded: “hhm…I wonder why it’s like that. Do you know what causes the swelling?” If I knew how to diagnose my own damn knee I wouldn’t have come to the doctor, would I? I’d diagnose it, do a self surgery, and prescribe my own medicine.
Filed under: Kelentong
I have not really slept. Snored and farted a bit but that’s it. For some people it’s normal to be awake the whole night laa because you are so bloody rajin and all that shit.
For me, the only normal excuse to stay awake is when I have beers (or whatever alcohol you put in front of me) surrounding me like a pirated aura.
Okay now I’ve got to prepare food for the five beasts. They’re not Nat Geo materials but hey, once your cute wolves, coyotes, hyenas and platypus go extinct, it’s the dogs that will rule.
One evening my dogs told me about their ancestors beyond the time as we know it, that they made a smart evolutionary step some by going domestic. The obese one said to me, “Look at our wild canine relatives. They now depend on the protection of the very homo sapiens that are killing them. Aren’t our ancestors smart? Now, feed me.” Cheh…
