sorry miss

I can't come today.

I just got into an accident.
I can't find your office just now.
I didn't recieve any emails.
I've other plans today.

I'll come tomorrow,
I promise you.
I'm already here.

Will I be seeing you there?

Sorry means nothing.
Too guilty for goodbyes.
Too afraid of failing.
Too ashamed to admit that
you're such a shitbag,
just like those fuckers
you cursed to death.

So sorry miss kelly,
I can't come today.
Thank you for the call but,
someone just passed away.

communication

her stare

was a sharp, piercing

"how could you leave me?"

he's trying his best
to say

"so that we'll meet each other again"

with the look on his face
while wondering if she
knows them long enough
not to take it as

"so what?"

chasing dreams

The safest place for a ship is at harbor
but that's not where ships should be, 

I've always wanted to begin it
with these lines, even though it's not mine-
but the one I had in mind was something different.
It's about how we should always
fight, live, and die for our dreams
even when we're already at peace with ourselves,

but this is not that poem. Not that one.

This one is to remind myself that I'm not dead yet, 

and the one before this is not the last one-
in case I'm dead before I could write another.
Make sense?
What time is it?

I don't mind

if this will be the last thing here.
Not because this will be fucking good,
which until now I know that it will only be
some shitty paragraphs that will be forgotten
seconds after you've stop reading,
and disappoint secret chasers
if you're one,
because there is none.

I'm just scared
of knowing that our dreams
will always be laughing with us
and living life is just a lie we tell ourselves
before the real thing comes
and swallows everything into black.
Makes me grind my teeth till it bleeds
when I can't sleep. Wondering if this time
my eyes will stay shut forever.
Don't worry. That's not real.
I did not grind my teeth.
I just can't sleep.

And sometimes I hear myself counting days.
Maybe I'll keep doing that till I'm 40
and when I realized that it's always
an impossible task,
I will tell myself
that it is alright to dream
even to the end.
Hope dies on daily basis.
Every tap tap on their keyboards sounds
like they are typing their last will
but what came out are reports and excel files.

Funny, now that I'm one of them.
And they sleep early so maybe this act
of lying awake
is the best thing I could do tonight

before they lock me deep.
Again my dear.
The safest place for a ship is at harbor
but that's not where a ship should be,

now lets get back to sleep baby 

shall we?

carver

by Neil Hilborn




 

Accordin to our maps
we were more than halfway there. 
My hands were frozen into claws 
around the climbing rope. The cold 
was crawlin into my legs, bitin me 
through my clothes, and I just knew
that if I let go I’d slide all the way down the mountain 
back to New York. Shiverin in the cold I opened my eyes 
and all there was was that rope 
disappearin into the blizzard. 
   
Let me take you back three years. 
I was workin for Sam Carver, 
puttin up posters for his speeches: 
Sam Carver! Adventurer Extraordinare! 
Has seen all known continents of the world! Now, 
Mr. Carver said that Americans had a right to everything 
to the West of us–he called it Manifest Destiny 
and I just couldn’t get it out of my head 
like it was a hymn to the lord and Sam was the mouth of God, sayin 
“Go west, my son. Go west.”

So when Mr. Carver said he was going to California, 
I told him I was the kind of woodsman 
that could chop down a tree with a stick and a sharp rock. Hell, 
I could start a fire with a piece of wood and some wet moss. 
Y'see, I grew up in the mountains of Kentucky 
where just breathin is like pullin a tornado into your lungs 
and spittin out the debris, where sunset is like all the gunpowder in the world 
goin off in reverse on the horizon. 
Mr. Carver said the sunsets in California 
were like the Pacific closin its eyes, and when he talked 
the distances collapsed until China coulda been as close as Baltimore 
and he talked all the way from the eastern seaboard, 
shrinkin the Great Plains into a patch of dirt under our feet.

Accordin to our maps we were more than halfway there 
when Sam said that God spoke to him, 
told him to turn south, turn south. 
Some of us thought we was goin the wrong way, 
especially when we started climbin that mountain, 
but he just kept repeatin: “South. We’ve got to go south.” 
And I’d'a trusted that man as long as I still had teeth in my head, 

but then there was that rope, disappearin into the blizzard. 
Manuel yelled back through the snow: 
“Richard! There’s blood coming out of my shoes!” 
I ripped off his boots and his feet were rottin 
from the bottom up, burnt black like firewood 
with coals glowin in the center. He asked us to shoot him right there, 
but a Christian man can’t kill no one, so we built him a fire and just left him there.

I was leanin back on the rope, 
pullin Johnson up an ice shelf, 
but when he came up over the lip his leg snapped. 
I ran up to Carver and said “Charles’s leg damn near broke off!” 
but all he said was “Well, 
he’ll just have to get it put back on when we get to California.”

Then the meat ran out. 
I caught myself starin at McNabb as he laid down in the snow. 
I’d never been so hungry. 
When Sam smiled I saw the gates of heaven clangin shut 
and he said providence wanted us to eat, 
wanted us to have this 
and we bit into his raw and frozen thighs 
and his blood tasted like every single word of Manifest Destiny 
spit out in a howl from the devil. 

The last thing I saw before I passed out was Carver, 
headin west, with two human legs slung over his shoulder. 
He was just whistlin, walkin to California.

alone with everybody

by Charles Bukowski




the flesh covers the bone 
and they put a mind 
in there and 
sometimes a soul, 
and the women break 
vases against the walls 
and the men drink too 
much 
and nobody finds the 
one 
but keep 
looking 
crawling in and out 
of beds. 
flesh covers 
the bone and the 
flesh searches 
for more than 
flesh. 

there's no chance 
at all: 
we are all trapped 
by a singular 
fate. 

nobody ever finds 
the one. 

the city dumps fill 
the junkyards fill 
the madhouses fill 
the hospitals fill 
the graveyards fill 

nothing else 
fills. 

swims and talks

Come inside me and swim
through all the veins in my body.
From lips to lungs
to the tips of my fingers.

Take a deep breath my dear.
Then go deeper
till you reach the place
where I keep my silent secrets
scattered from here
all the way to the sea.

Never say that you'll kill me, I know-
I'll tell you my story with every small talks
we shared now and then.
Bitter or bland, I dont mind.
The road to self destruction is sweet
and paved with stubborn denial.

Swim, swim my dear before you sink
swallowed by promises and lies.
And when we reach the end
we can always look at each other's face
and say goodbye,
and light another one.

2am

45 minutes become two hours.
Faster means freeze.
Skies made up their mind
to shower the dark,
and the moon whispers to the stars
that its not their time tonight.

And I am the lonely one.
Drenched in regrets.
Shivering in ice
from one streetlight to the next.
Cursing cold. Praising lord
for a warp in space to dive in,
for my fingers to stop its rattle.
Wondering if its time to slide under
the galloping trucks. Roaring from hell.

But I'm too scared
of what's said in the holy verses
and being forgotten in the rain.
I just can dream
for the wind they leave behind
to sweep me off the slick road
and fly me to purgatory.

starry night

On the loud rooftop,
raindrops dance to double choruses
of a sinking bed
and why he can never leave.

On the weeping walls,
dripping made-up memories
of painters giving up
and drowning in every colour.

On the shouting speakers,
flow foreign syllables
of the wild and sedated
passion. The ''real'' life. 

On the nature of the this,
I dont really give a fuck
and I never speak of hope
and they never speak of me. 

On the sinking bed.
Sink deeper sink
to the depth of loving years.
until you find pieces of yourself
until you find nothing of me

timeless

Fuck touchscreens.
Can never do this shit
so I pretend like this is a gameboy,
and yeah, there you have it.

White screen burns my eyes
as contact lense solutions
are too fucking pricey.
And this shit ain't going nowhere.

Dead poets move mountains-
my words can't wait to die.
Greatness find itself a reason
and I wish you can tell me why.

Call yourself Slothface or whatever

all you want, we all know that it's you
behind all these convenient curses
and try-hard pretentious poetry.

Lets hold hands and witness
this historical moment
of an obviously predicted crash,
moments after the "crowd" has left.

Not with a grand bang, raining men,
towering flame reaching seven skies.
Replacing ministers and scams,
making headlines for months.

Lets say goodbye while its dying
like fishes drowning in acid,
and you're the only one caring
while nobody gives a fuck about it.

deadman's denial

If today's my last
and tight shut my eyes,

don't you dare cry my dear
but dance for I'm once here.

Waltz on me, press it-
stomp on the clay rigid,

or I will claw my way out
and rip out your babyy's gut.

fire on bleak street

Right hand's a torch.
Left hand flicker.
Wait, wait, scream.
Tell me who started this fire?

Throwing tantrum, misbehaved.
Burning, bringing down our walls
ignoring Arya's unborn cries
and Musa's nonexistent calls.

Not a thousand miles from here,
or a lifetime standing there
would fix, fix, break,
what is forever beyond repair.

I am always who I am,
and you'll forever be divine.
Sleepless nights aren't meant for you,
these streets on fire are always mine.

swimming pool full of liquor then you diveee

Kendrick freakin Lamar- Swimming Pools

from the straits to the 33rd

The name on the lone incubator screen was “Fatimah”. Robert says the name out loud, wondering if it was African or Asian, and the lightness of it leaving his tongue makes his heart beats a different pace. The sound made by tiny kicks from the inside of the transparent case wakes Robert up from his trance. He presses the grey button and the machine releases the glass cocoon into the air of the hall of the ship’s left wing. Robert takes it closely into his chest.

He carries the armored baby while navigating through numerous half decomposed bodies, floating aimlessly in the main corridors. Something bad has happened here, he thought, and Robert dared not to imagine the smell of dead flesh if he ever to remove his helmet out of curiosity. Maybe the smell of the rotting bodies would kill him first before decompression hits.

The sight of his wreck of a spaceship cured his claustrophobia fast. It is normal for a ship scavenger to spend days or even weeks in a space carrier at this size, roaming the empty corridors for anything to sell before any towing ship come and drag the dead leviathan to the moon. Robert has not called himself a ship scavenger for such a long time. His last trip had found him a huge stacks of magazines and books in some language he cannot read- real magazine made of papers. He traded it with an antique collector from the 29th colony for a huge sum of money, which leads to his early retirement last year, at 37 years old.

He removes his helmet with one hand while holding the baby-case in his left, after exiting his ships airlock. My ship is not a good place to raise a baby. Cigarette butts floating in the main deck facing the front panel and a sour smell lingers in the stale air. Robert picks up every last one of the tiny soft cylinder using his hands, and swears to himself to replace the air conditioning system when he got to the 33rd.

“Out out, little baby” and there she goes with a spray of light fumes. Like a bad swimmer that never sinks, she flaps and flaps all over the main panel. Robert cannot help himself but to observe this tiny creature exploring the inside of his home. He had a pet dog once in his previous ship, and wonders if he could do much out of that experience. The orphanage in the 33rd is not the worse, but certainly not the best place to grow up. He knows of course. Not that he hates Miss Tally.

As the baby is pressing random buttons on the panel, he shifts his eyes to the large window on his left. The dead men ship is a beast, a giant metal city floating side by side with Robert’s tiny decommissioned piece of junk in the vast blackness of space, thousand miles away from the nearest colony. He wonders which one of the dead bodies sets the distress call before his demise. Is it one of the baby’s parents, hoping for a savior for their precious child? What kind of death that took them all?

He kicks the floor beneath him lightly and launches himself towards the baby before she was able to put a cigarette butt she just found into her mouth. He holds the baby, and it is the first time for him to experience such warm feeling. It brought him to a place where he found another part of himself he never thought existed. He fell in love with the baby right away, as her tiny fingers clasping on his blond hair. He is not a lonely spaceman anymore.

“O Fateema. Cigarette butts are no food for babies,”

Robert is no longer a retired ship scavenger. He is now a father.

_________________________________________________________________________________

“Why is it called the blue planet? It is not blue at all,”

“Well, it was once blue I guess?” Robert remembered the tale as Fatimah is pressing her face on the glass window. The red planet, mankind previous home, was once a giant mass of blue, but the massive algae bloom had turned all the water on its surface into a crimson boundless sea. He remembered Miss Tally from the orphanage once told him that they used to carry loads of saltwater to be purified in the colonies, using massing tank-ships, long before she was born. It was the Muslim terrorists from the rogue colony that ends it by releasing the genetically modified algae in the waters, before being blown to debris by the United Colonies. Slowly the planet turns red since that day, few hundreds years ago. 

Fatimah is also a Muslim name, Robert learned from the Arab mechanic that repaired his ship in the 33rd around 5 years ago. She grew up into a little girl with features so foreign to him. Her skin is just a tone darker than his khakis, and her dark, deep brown eyes resemble none of the people that he knew. This December Robert is going to bring her for a vacation across the space to the early colonies, starting from the first one. A grand tour across the galaxy for him and his daughter to find the people she belong to, and hopefully unlocks the door to her unknown origins.

Fatimah succeeded in proving to him that she’s a brilliant child by mastering English, French and Mandarin taught by Robert when she was only three. She learns how to navigate when she was four, and now she claims the invisible seat besides Robert as his vice captain, sometimes replacing him when he was asleep. She had started to refuse to call Robert “daddy” and denies his control altogether after she knew that she is not really his daughter.

“To grow up in that cramped space ship is never good for a child. She needs to be in the colonies with other children at her age, and experience a normal childhood. The 33rd colony is not a bad place to raise a kid. Good school too I heard,” that is what the Doctor had told him. Robert shakes his head. Am I not a good dad? I've stopped smoking for god sake.

“I can’t see any island at all. Are they any left on Earth?” no response.

“Is there anything wrong daddy- oh hell- Robert?” Fatimah had been staring at Robert's face for longer than he could remember. Her dark brown eyes look so foreign, but it reminds him of a past so far that he could only remember in distant dreams. Maybe Fatimah was my daughter in my previous life- thought Robert as he realizes that he is better off an atheist rather than a Buddhist. Karma sounds like bad luck to him.

“Nothing Tim. I just felt so lucky that I’m not alone” and Fatimah smiled back at him.

_________________________________________________________________________________

“Are you smoking again Robert?” asks Fatimah as she exits the airlock. It’s been awhile since the last time she had visited him. She was greeted by a floating black kitten and a rush stale air with a faint hint of sour.

“I never smoked Tim, ask Mr. Armstrong here. All I could smell is his piss” Robert was reading a copy of the Holy Bible. Fatimah wonders about how much that Earth antique had costs him, but she did not ask.

“Happy birthday Robert, my dad,” said Fatimah as she brought out dry cakes in small plastic wrapping from her bag.

Robert let the Bible floats in the air and takes the kitten into his arm. He had totally forgotten his own birthday, and starts calculating using his fingers. He can never guess Fatimah’s birthday correctly ever since he found her, so when Fatimah was three he decided to celebrate her third birthday together with him. Starting from that they shared a birthday on 29th November. Fatimah never really cares about dates. For her the day Robert saved him from the dead ship was the day she was born.

She is now an adult as she proudly claimed. She left Robert’s ship at the age of 7 to attend a French school in the 33rd colony and spent most of her childhood growing up with Miss Tally. Robert was never happy to let her go, but as stubborn as he is, he loves Fatimah so much that he never want to let her talent go to waste. At the age of 19, she’s the youngest in the United Colonies to join the Research Facility in the 40th colony. There she found out that she’s genetically a Malay, a race long lost in the digital history, after the 3rd Earth war melted the ice caps on Earth for good.

“Robert, I’m going to Earth with the gramps in three weeks to make the sea blue again. You know, clean it from all that red shit. You must never tell anyone else about this or else,” she made a gun with her hand and points it to her head. Robert almost squeezed Mr. Armstrong to death in a split second. Is she really going to Earth?

"Maybe we all can return to Earth one day. If we are able to bring back the ice of course. That's the second phase. But to be honest I have my own plan when we get there. I'm gonna be the first pirate on the red sea," and her laugh scares Mr. Armstrong away.

“I’ve been dreaming Fatimah”, Robert stares at the infinite darkness from the front window.

“Quite a few times I’ve been dreaming. The first time is before you moved to live with Miss Tally. I was floating- not in space, but in pools of saltwater, securely held on my back by gravity. The sky is the real night sky. I’m on Earthly sea, floating endlessly in infinite blue water sparkling with stars. It happens again and again, and I realize that I’m moving closer to an island with each dream,”

Fatimah stares into his blue eyes to find any sign of him lying, but she could not find any. Robert looks so old in his pajamas, a sight she had never saw before. But something about it looks so familiar in her head that it disturbs her instantly.

“Last night, I’m already on the sands, and waiting for me was a woman with long hair. I can’t see her face, but I followed her as she walks into masses of trees, thousand times thicker than what we saw in 19th colony’s reservations. I walk through the leaves behind her, until we get to a giant hole on a massive wall of stone, and I followed her inside. All the time I never know what I was doing, but I was not scared. It feels eerily familiar,”

Fatimah brings out a pack of cigarette and a lighter from her astronaut jumpsuit. After lighting hers, she tosses the pack and Robert caught it while she was puffing the smoke with tense eyebrows.

“What’s wrong kid?” asks Robert as he lights his. Mr. Armstrong the cat is nowhere to be found, already escaped from the cloud of carcinogenic fumes, slowly filling the deck.

“What you just told me, can I finish that for you?"

"Then she brought you to a sparkling fountain and told you to drink from it right? Did you get to drink it?”

Robert tries his best to comprehend what she just said. It was confusing, more than the dream itself. He never told Fatimah about his dreams. Maybe she had once heard him talking in his sleep, but she’s not here to listen about the fountain he went to last night.

“I’ve always been dreaming about the same island too, but since I was a kid. It drives me nuts. The only thing about my dream that is different from yours, is that the one leading me to the fountain is a blond guy. And he looks just like you Robert,” 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Dreams don’t make you go crazy. It’s the days you spent thinking about it that suck the life out of you. Robert never wanted to go to sleep. Last night he fall asleep while reading the Quran, and he dreamt of Fatimah.

She was on a lonely craft, floating on an endless blue sea. She never bothers to sit or stand up, instead she just lie on her back, while the wooden boat moves closer and closer to the now familiar island. Or is it the island that moves closer to her? He can’t decide as there is no other landmass for him to observe from his bird-eye view, but he could see- he could feel that the island is always alive. It is circling her craft slowly in a regular speed, like a chunk of a giant moon orbiting a tiny fragile Earth. He woke up immediately when the whirlpool created by the island’s movement sucked Fatimah and the wooden boat in.

After 20 years of denying, he finally accepts that the woman who was always waiting for him in his dreams is indeed Fatimah, and he is the one in hers. He had never heard from her ever since she left for Earth, and he keeps on telling himself that she is still alive. Day by day. He had stopped himself few times from going to the red planet by himself to find her only daughter.  If his ugly ship looks like some kind of terrorist by any chance and blown to debris by the United Colonies, it will only be troubling Fatimah. He waited with lots of patience, as she had told her how the 40th colony wanted to keep the project a secret from the others. He waited and waited as his dreams become wilder day by day.

One night he dreamt that he was a baby, and Fatimah is an old woman carrying him around in the forest, with LED bugs buzzing wildly in the between the trees. She picked a slow one from the air, a huge pulsing red, and squeezed it into his tiny mouth. She then brought him into the cave and throws him into the pool of water beneath the sparkling fountain. He woke up breathless as the tiny boy he is was drowning in the shallow.

Death is a lie. Live forever. Old Fatimah’s last words before killing him keeps on replaying in his head.

The Doctor told him that he is getting old, and spending years alone in a spaceship would definitely drives anyone crazy. He also shows him some researches on how gravity-less environment is not good to a person more than 60 years old. Robert told him to fuck off. He is 77 this year.

He’s not going crazy. He just wanted to have look at Fatimah's face, to know that she's alive. He missed his daughter and everyday he stares at the airlock door expecting for her to come back with a pack of cigarette. Mr. Armstrong the black cat had been dead just 4 years after she’s gone. Robert cried his eyes out that day, and decided not to keep any pets ever before Fatimah returns. What she had told her on the last birthday they celebrated together; about the dreams that they had been cluelessly sharing is steadily making him go insane. He’s desperate for answers, and no holy books or articles could give him one.

Maybe Fatimah had already found the answer on Earth, he thought.

_________________________________________________________________________________

“Do you still remember the time when we were fleeing from the wrath of the crazy Sultan? It was 1408, a time where swords are clashing with cannons. We were lucky the spears won’t hit us. That night we held each other so tight in the storm, and death was rocking us back and forth. We were no doubt already dead back then, but the island, this fucking huge island came out of the sea like its nothing, and saved us,” the woman’s laughter fills the room with echoes of memories and nostalgia. She is in her late 50’s, and Robert was staring at her from his final bed, trying his best to remember where he once saw that dark brown eyes.

“Old folks from 40th thought I was crazy. Even the peaks of Himalayas were miles beneath the ocean. They told me that there's no islands anymore on the red sea, but I found it. Like how we found it for the first time in the straits of Malacca,” Fatimah's voice was mystical, dreamlike.

“Can you believe that I found it again? I thought I was going crazy too. I find it in a place where the sea is still blue, and the fountain is still sparkling like it was yesterday, and oh, how can we forget the mountains? It is right behind the fountain Robert. Mountains made of our journals, from handwritten in ancient ink to inkjet printed."

"All of our lives, from the times of muskets and machetes, pirates and cannons, mountains of them left to be read by no one, until the few years before we left earth for good. Oh God. What year is that?” streams of tears running down her face as Robert's ancient eyes are tracing her features with all the consciousness that he might still have.

"I've spent years reading all of them Robert- every fading pages. We never stop writing as God-knows how many times we replace each other when the other one gets old. What a life we had, taking turns raising each other. You're the best writer I've ever read Robert, and you wrote about our life, about us. It makes me wanna go out there to find our second archive of journals we might hide somewhere in this vast space. Around a thousand years of our "new" life in space my dear. We were writing history perpetually, and I fell in love with you every single day. That was before I made my mind to leave you at the door of this orphanage 90 years ago. I'm sorry Robert," 

"How grateful I am to God now that I could see you again," Fatimah wipes her tears with her sleeve.

She kisses Robert on his forehead and moves towards the suitcase placed on the lone table in the middle of the room. She took out a syringe and a small glass vial containing a clear sparkling liquid. Alzheimer can never be cured, and she’s not trying to cure him. She just want to restart the cycle and forgive herself.

“I’m sorry that I abandoned you Robert. I’m sorry that I left you motherless, alone and oblivious of the eternal life you might miss. I am so sorry my dear, for I am not strong enough to deal with how fast our world is changing every time I open my newborn eyes. I was losing my purpose each time I stare into space, and life feels so empty in this endless void. I needed an escape but I admit that I’m such a fuck up that I left you in front of this fucking orphanage, right after I let you drink it." she put her hands on her face and starts to roam around. 

"How can I repay your kindness? What are the chances, for you to be led by blind fate to find a naked baby in a ship of floating bodies? I should’ve chosen death for I've destroyed our only chance for immortality, but I’m too scared to disappear from this world. And I miss you, but I can’t find you no matter how hard I have tried.”

“But God doesn’t want us back into to his hands yet. That's why he leads you to the dead ship. To me. He brought us together again, to continue what I've might has ended,”

Robert stares and the unknown woman's monodrama as she moves around the small room. The blue room on the second floor of the orphanage once belonged to Miss Tally. Robert had been replacing her after her death around 10 years ago, and now he’s spending his last days in the place where he was brought up, in a company of an unknown woman he swears he once knew from his previous life. A life so far from the present Robert which brain is deteriorating with each minute he spent breathing.

Fatimah slides the needle carefully into the arm of the man he once loved. She still loves him, but their condition was beyond any common circumstances that the feeling she had towards him becomes something incomprehensible to her, heavy and addictive as life itself.

“Death is a lie. Live forever Robert,” whispers Fatimah into his ear before she pushes the liquid deep into his vein. From the sparkling fountain in the cave of the immortal island, the transparent elixir are now finding their way into Robert's bloodstream as he shut his hazy eyes for the last time.

She tosses the used syringe out of the window and moves towards the balcony. She takes a deep breath as artificial sunlight flashing from the dome of the 33rd Colony, bringing life to all of its inhabitants. She wonders how much things will change in a few thousand years. From small wooden boat for two, to a giant mass of living metal wandering in the vast space between Jupiter and Saturn, mankind will never fail to surprise her every time. And for the first time in her current life, she feels alive to her bone.

She returns to the bed but old Robert is nowhere to be found. On his bed another animal is crawling out of an empty hospital gown on its four tiny limbs. Fatimah stares in awe at the blond boy. His eyes are as blue as the water surrounding the island. She takes him and holds him close to her chest, and flashing in her head are all the different times she had done the same thing, in vivid visions like a different kind of deja vu.

"O Robert. I'll take care of you my blue eyed boy, this time, and the next time, and the next time, until eternity ends us,"

Fatimah is no longer a retired Earth explorer. She is now a mother.

the adventure of inspector wahab

"What the heck"

"Only 3 kilos and the whole world needs to know? Fuck you la Hana. Who needs to know about how much weight you lose when it doesn’t change anything? You motherfucker." 

"Lan, kau dok mencarut-carut apa tu. Kau ingat mak ni tak tahu?" what are you cursing at Lan? And you think I don’t know? It was something along that line and it echoes across the small apartment from the kitchen to Azlan’s room.

He ignored his mum and continued scrolling the timeline up and down, up and down until nothing is left for him to devour, but his mind keeps on bringing him back to that girl's post. There is something about overweight girls and their self denial that really irritate him to the bones, and he can’t let this one go for all that is holy.

Ugliness is incurable, but weight loss is only a healthy life away. These Facebook posts on this product and that product are scabs from this whole cosmetic business. Everyone knows but those ignorant stuffs keeps on appearing on his Facebook timeline, and God knows how Azlan wish they’re smarter than this.

"Only 3 kilos, and you still look like a wreck you fat slob. I can't see any difference. How can you be proud of that? Have you ever heard of the word exercise?  Go for a jog for fuck sake."

Azlan takes a deep breath and his fingers begin to dance on the keyboards with all the profanity he is capable of.

_________________________________________________________________________________

It is not a great morning for Inspector Wahab. It is only 5am, and he just drove all the way from the warmth of his wife to meet a dead kid in an unknown neighborhood. A girl just hung herself in the living room. She had been put down to the ground by somebody long before the police came, and the rope has been removed from her neck leaving a intricate pattern pressed on the cold dead skin. A new guy accidentally kicked a part of the broken chair on the scene, but everyone just ignored it. Inspector Wahab takes the identification card handed to him by his assistant.

"Nurhana binti Hassan,"

"Ah fuck this. Fuck all of this shit, I'm out,"

Now this case is going to be big for a week in the news and there, another sleepless nights for whoever that is going to be replacing him after he submitted his immediate resignation notice. He's been stupid enough working day and night when he could sit back and enjoy endless vacation if he had just sold his lands in Kedah earlier. No more police stuff and underage suicides for him.

"Say goodbye to Inspector Wahab shitheads,"

He's glad that the dead kid's dad called the police immediately. Inspector Wahab is tired of half decomposed bodies that smell nothing better than how they look. The only few things that is bothering him is the dad's whereabouts, and the closed tab of Azlan Rooney's Facebook page on the laptop full of Hello Kitty stickers in the girl's bedroom. More works for him in these early hours.

“Bali or Bandung? Or maybe I should perform the umrah first?”  Thought Inspector Wahab as the new guy repeat the same question he just asked a few moments before.

_________________________________________________________________________________

"This is the best thing of the week, and its only Friday!" Exclaims Amir.

"Hana hasn't been replying your Facebook comment yet since last night you retard. I can't wait to see her face in the class," he keeps on swiping his iPhone screen up and down, up and down. Then he takes a look at Azlan who has not stopped yawning since the moment they exited Amir's dad's BMW. 

"Do we really have to talk about that fat slut? Amir, my Manchester United jersey, please make sure it’s an S size."

"I won’t wear any M okay?"

"What? Hahahaha fuck you la Lan. I'm gonna buy you an XXL."

"How big is an XXL actually?" 

That is the last thought in Amir's mind, before his instinct takes over at the sight of the speeding Proton Waja and he pushes Azlan out of the way with all his strength. The impact was so immense it sends Amir flying few meters away from the crash site. The sound alerted few passerbies who are usually numb in this cold morning air as it could be heard from the nasi lemak stall on the other side of the road.

The Proton Waja immediately leaves the scene, screeching and leaving trails on the asphalt. The road in front of SMK Taman Indah becomes congested that morning. Azlan totally forget about the Manchester United jersey and the differences that the sizes could make on his out-of-school appearance. Amir is now folded limbs to limbs in the pool of his own blood, a good excuse for the sight of a person vomiting from a distance in Azlan’s peripheral vision.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Hassan is smoking for the first time in years, and he is on his fifth cigarette.  He takes out his wallet and manages to gather around RM14 worth of banknotes and coins. He regrets not going to the ATM first before he begins his fatal hunt. His work clothes since last night are drenched in sweat, and he is stuck in the middle of nowhere with his now fuel-less Waja. His shivering hands are gripping tight on the steering wheel.

"Dear God. Why is this happening to me?"

"Maybe you should just kill yourself. Then you can be with your daughter in hell,"

Streams of tears is racing down Hassan's face as he wonders if his sins are too much that God just have to take everything away from him. He exits his Waja and decides to leave it on the petrol stations car park, and he begins to walk on the side of the road. As he passes a thick spot of bushes, he takes out his phone and car keys and throws them away for good.

Hassan's plan was to cross the border and find a place to hide, but now he doesn’t even know if that is possible. He still regrets not turning back and finishes the job. He will come back, he promised himself. Even if he has to be a beggar in Thailand for years, he promised that he would come back for that boy.

He would get his revenge for his only daughter and skin that bastard Azlan alive. If only he had hit the right kid.

“Wrong boy Hassan. Wrong boy,”

_________________________________________________________________________________

IPOH: The suspect for the hit and run case in that killed a student in front of a school in Subang two days ago was found dead last night on Jalan Maling with a large amount of drugs in his possession. He was found by the locals in a location more than 200 kilometres from where he lives, and declared to be dead due to overdosing on drugs by Assistant Commissioner Chu Kai Sok.

"This is an example of a good connection within the police," according to him.

He was first missing from his house after he called the police, informing that his daughter had just committed suicide. He was then involved in an accident in front of SMK Taman Indah that killed Amir Hafiz bin Khalid Romzi, 15 and escaped from the scene in a Proton Waja.

He is suspected to be under the influence of drugs during the accident. According to the neighbors, he worked night shift most of the time and used the drugs to help him stay up. His daughter's suicide is said to be caused by the depression due to his recent divorce.

_________________________________________________________________________________

"These reporters are so fucking good. Right? And believe me they know how to get paid right too,"

"I was thinking about killing you along with him boy, but you really remind me of Amir every time I look at you,"

"Whiskey? You?" Datuk Khalid's voice then echoes on and on in the spacious office. The two other people in it never said anything yet.

Inspector Wahab nods. Maybe some whisky can help him to forget what happened last night. He needs a clear mind to plan his dream retirement.

Azlan keeps on running his dead eyes on the article again and again while ignoring Datuk Khalid. He is now aware of the fact that it doesn’t matter if he tells everyone the truth, everyone would still believe what is written in the newspaper. Hell, they would cite it. He should have said thank you to Datuk Khalid as his mother told him to, but he doubts that he would remember it when he got sober.

"Everyone is a killer. Mine is just an unfortunate accident,"

"I did not just kill three people. I did not kill Amir. I’m innocent for God sake,”

He put down the newspaper, and shifts his gaze towards the book racks. He then tries to make meaning out of the scattered vertical titles on his left.

"What's his name Wahab? Hassan right?" Inspector Wahab nods again as he put down his now empty glass.

"I asked him kid, why did you kill my son? Before he even answered I stepped on his face again and again until I realized I was jumping on him! Like on a trampoline you know? His ribs caved in when they picked him up! Feels good you know. Feels good,"

"No guns kid. No guns, just plain old hiking boots"
"Can you believe that he's walking to Thailand? Crazy right?"

"We were supposed to be in England now my son,"

And Datuk Khalid goes on and on.

Azlan finished his search for meaning in the book racks, and turn his head towards Datuk Khalid, and he sees what Amir would one day turns out to be, if he were destined to live long enough but he’s now dead before all that could happen. Datuk Khalid has drunkenly mistaken Azlan for Amir, as he slips deeper into the alcohol.

Inspector Wahab asks for another drink, as he tries not to think of how he could postpone his plan to sell his lands in Kedah. In another years maybe, for he now have more than what he planned for. Hell, with the money Datuk Khalid just paid him he could book a ticket to Mecca and never come back. Maybe the sight of the Kaabah would somehow help him to forget Hassan's face.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Hana can't stop looking at herself in the mirror. The diet plan she promoted on Facebook really works. The 3 kilos she just lost really shows.

"This is so much better than exercise," she turns around and around looking at her own reflection. Her young curves are now exactly in between perfections, as other girls had told her. She can't help not to notice how Amir was looking at her all the time, and she feels loved. But it is not Amir that she wants. She’s not into rich boys and their whole pompous charade.

After around half an hour worth of gossiping with her mum on the phone, she decided to take a bath before she gets to bed. As she feels the water dripping all over her, she tries her best not to think of Azlan and his majestic moves on the field.

It's like he had a third eye high in the sky, reading way before each of his opponents acts, mercilessly scoring goals after goals. One after another he takes everything from his inferior enemies and comrades. Goals after goals, like an angry god punishing weak mortals. When the whistle blows she would come running down the field towards him and celebrate his glory in his arms. Around them are their kids, miniature Azlans ranging from 3 to 9 years old.

The sound of the beeping rice cooker wakes Hana up from her midnight daydream. She then scrutinize the food in the refrigerator to make sure that it would still be good when his dad got back from his night shift. After double checking the locks on her front door, she sprints with all her might towards her bedroom and dives into her bed. As she lifts her laptop onto her tummy, she notices a notification icon on her Facebook, and her heart stops beating for a fracture of a second.

"Azlan Rooney,"