I was quite surprised to see him recently at my usual KK (Kedai Kaling) coffee shop but I pretended only to casually ask him as to how long already he has retired from Government Service. I was prompted to ask him so because I thought, yet I didn’t indicate it, that he had aged so fast in the last few years.
He said, “Not up to 5 years yet but I feel so dead and rotten already. I use to feel so tired, regretful, helpless, hopeless, frustrated and useless. Sometimes when a disturbing thought, memory or an idea flashes through my mind I could not control it but shout out or grunt out a release of frustation, pressure or personal reaction. I feel that I am but only doing my best to perform my last ritual of the ultimate rtm (rehat, tunggu mati – rest, wait to die) now, it seems. I feel I am indeed a spent force, a used cartridge, a squizzed juice of a lime slice, a thrown away banana skin. It may sound a little bit better if I were to term myself as only doing the lighter and slightly dignified rtm (rehat, tidur, makan – rest, sleep and eat) at my age, but it seems I am almost at the end of my rope. When I was doing my first year of retirement I already went in and out of hospital once. A young man, a family member, kindly suggested that it might do me good if I were to stay at my up and coming outback farm so that I was forced to stretch out my limbs whenever I had to go from point A to point B, so to speak. He said that physical exercise was what I was lacking.”
The man spoke continuously in one breath, almost without stopping, only to stop to inhale, then to continue again. I remembered that I must help him by lending him my ears and giving him my attention. He needed someone to pour himself out. I, some sort, also lent him my shoulder. Occasionally I would interpierce non-provoking but direct questions to keep him going and to show or, at times, pretend to show my interest in what he was saying.
“Did you take his suggestion? Did you go reluctantly?” I asked.
“Yes, and happily, infact. I took it positively for I thought it was a very good suggestion. At my wife’s house I did not have much to do. Sometimes before midday I had already slept and woken up once. Most of the time that routine was again repeated for the afternoon. I believed I needed physical exercise. I also believed in converting energy into money, doing physical exercise for gainful purposes. I do not believe in going to the gym or to literally jog or run after nothing. At that time my wife was still working. Years later, when she too had retired from Government Service, I did not really know how she passed away her hours since, by then, I was already staying at my small and secluded outback kebun (farm) house. She was staying on her own in her own house.”
He continued, “A doctor, acclaimed by many as very knowledgeable in human illnesses, once told me, maybe he was trying to scare me, that I could die anytime. He told me humourously that I had in me a silent killer. If he was partly trying to scare me, then he had successfully frightened me so. It was also during that time that the news of the death of a certain Datuk in Ranau was splashed across the front pages of the local newspapers. According to the newspaper news the Datuk died alone in his farmhouse. I myself, at that time, had recently moved into my small farmhouse, staying there all alone and lonely...lonely, not only to mean in need of companionship, but also to mean fearful of the Rs! My farm, at that time, was only taking shape. It was still virtually a jungle. One corner of my whole area was said to be a haunt of a white monkey. What else could it be? That white monkey could actually be a daring R!”
“What did you understand when you heard him say that, … ‘silent killer’? Did it cross your mind that he was referring to witchcrafts and black magic, the generally feared forces of darkness”? I asked him, trying to introduce a red herring to his seriousness of purpose.
“Yes and no. But, my wife heard it, heard the doctor’s thought-of so-called joke. Maybe she got scared and chose not to stay with me in the same house. When she did come to visit me sometimes during the weekend, she made sure she slept further away from my bed at night. She didn’t mind taking the floor. I was then thinking whether she had analysed the doctor’s joke to mean that there was a demon in me capable of transforming me into a silent killer at night. This thought was childish and rubbish but in such circumstances I was forced to explore even the impossible. I was also of the opinion that she really knew the meaning of the term ‘silent killer’ and that I could die anytime, even in my sleep, due to my hypertension, diabetes and weak heart. She could be scared even with the thought of such a possibility of her waking up in the morning next to a corpse should I die silently in bed during the night,” he said.
I knew that a ‘silent killer’ referred to by doctors were illnesses like hypertension, and the like. I knew this because I had the same ailment as my friend, even having been advised so in so many words by my own doctor that ailments like these are labelled silent killers, up and about this minute but dropping dead the next, ...without pre-painful warnings. I did not yet share this with my friend. I was thinking of another time with him when I would share with him my own health condition and how I am couping with it.
I vaguely knew what he meant by ‘the Rs’ which he had earlier mentioned so naturally as if in passing. Yet I pretended ignorance so as to try to turn his mind to lighter mood. I asked, “Who…are…those daring Rs? Who … what Rs are you referring to?” I managed to bring a smile to his face and he told me apologitically that he had brought in a very local name-reference. In whispers, as if fearful of being overheard, he said, “ ‘R’ for Rogon ”. I reacted, “Oh, ya. Ofcourse, I know”, as I faked a natural audible smile. I managed to enlarge his. But, he almost immediately reverted back to his previous mood.
He continued, “She always looked for a socially valid excuse to be away from me most of the time. In her retirement she took up some sort of an employment in looking after todlers, including her own grand-daughter, so as to establish her own self-justifification. Before her grand-daughter came, she was then working for she hadn’t retired yet. Her work was her socially accepted good excuse to be conveniently away from me. When she had retired from Government Service, and before she was employed as a minder of todlers, her reason of choosing not to stay with me was that she said she went to Church every morning. I used to remotely wonder that people who went to Church every morning had or ought to have improved disposition and outlook in life. But, no, not her! she had her own complex perculiarities. She was always critical of other people, it did not matter who. She seemed not to see anything good or worth mentioning positively about others. Once she bared me, so to speak, when we were in the company of friends and family circles. We were at that time at a home-function in a relative’s house. I really felt self-conscious of her critical out-pouring, critising me as her husband. She was at that time engaged in small social talks among wives. I discretely told her, much later in the same evening, that if she could not respect me in public, then at least, she should respect herself. I did take pity on her as I was aware that her counterparts could well be thinking as to what type of a wife, or for that matter, of a woman, she could really be, talking about her husband in such a manner and in public. At a glance, she could be view as an individual with such unrefined personality.”
“She used to visit me every weekend, or almost every weekend at my small farmhouse. Her main purpose was, as obviously, to while away her time, sort of to rest and generally to relax, and, maybe to fulfil her social ego. She would help me sweep the floor and cook food for the couple of weekend evenings. She would have to prepare food anyhow for she, too, had to eat. Sometimes she would also choose to come for her weekend visit at night, to either surprise me or to catch me as to what I was doing. She maintained these weekend visits so as to sustain social status - especially to be seen by others that we were still together, not on trial separation, and wishing especially to be seen together going to church on Sundays. My small dwelling place was not looked after like how a proper dwelling place, small or big, would be looked after if there was only a woman around. I might have to employ a part-time house-keeper, somehow, so as to remain humanely sane. I would have to see what I could do about these thoughts at the end of the year. Life’s terrible!” he quiped.
While listening to him, I had to periodically remind myself that my friend was very sick in all aspects of body, mind and spirit and needed help. I therefore refused to pass judgement as to the type of a man he was, talking about his wife to me. But analysing his story, it did not have many traces of hate and vengence, rather it was engrained with much husbandly love and devotion as demonstrated by his body language. I was also constantly aware that what he was doing, pouring out his bottled-up feelings to me, was an uncounscious process of spiritual healing taking place. To keep him releasing his tensions, I wondered aloud, “Could your life be as bad as you had discribed it?”
“Yes, … Ooh yes,” he answered. “I hope yours is all right and would remain all right always. Never catch similar life’s curse like this one which I am trying so hard to shake off now. I thought that when I am doing my last few days or weeks, maybe months, a year or two, maybe three or four, or even maybe my last decade, who knows, before I surely would indeed die, I expect life to be generally a bit comfortable and easy-going. But, no. If you happen to visit me in the evening, at dinner time, you would be in danger of being invited to share with me yesterday’s boiled rice. Alone, I could not care less, I do not believe in spending half an hour preparing food which is consumed in a couple of minutes. The more alone you are, the faster you do things, like eating. How more alone can one be if one was really staying alone and yet fully knowing that he has indeed a bona fide wife somewhere less than 46 kilometers away! Sometimes I used to have some stocks of maggie mee and canned food with me in the house. Never before have I allow myself to go to bed at night on an empty stomach! Only nowadays!” he concluded, his left eye welling in tears.
We had spent quite a bit of our time in that KK coffee shop and on looking around, the whole place was almost empty except for one or two whilers. It was already mid-morning, tenish. We hadn’t wasted our time, rather, we had spent it gainfully. He had poured himself out and I had lent him my ears. How I wished I had studied some counselling techniques and possessed some counselling expertise! Dr. Frederick Toke’s management people from the Lee Community College, Singapore, had once offered me a place to pursue Studies leading to Masters in Psychology (Majoring in Counselling) at the Lee Community College, Singapore. I chose to turn it down as I was in some sort of a financial stringency, to speak the least, at that time.
I was not only a bit alarmed by an old man’s seemingly regretful display of emotions but I was in fact frightened and hurridly interrupted my friend, “Now, now, not just quite. Relax, wait a sec. Take a few deep breath. Let me share with you what I’ve once read from one of the very distant past issues of the Washington Post, a long, long time ago, about feeling young, youthful and energetic. If I’m not mistaken, but I could well be, it was the September 17, 1960 or 70 issue. This excerp which I am going to share with you now may or may not be relevant to your immediate and present feelings, but hopefully, at least, I can postpone, if not, erase altogether, your suicidal tendencies!”, I said forcefully.
He grunted as he positioned himself to listen intently.
I read, …..
Youth
Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love for ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long you are young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, there you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.
We parted without saying much after that, except my assuring him that God’s divine nature is Love. I thought he did not hear me when I said that I wanted to have coffee with him again soon. He was engulfed in his own thoughts.
I had always been in his confidence ever since the years when we were workmates together. In those days he used to share his domestic life’s hardship with me, and each time asking me for my honest opinion and advice.
But, I take it as a positive development when, recently, I received a card-note from this friend of mine. He is inviting me and Francesca, my wife, for coffee at the Penampang Coffee Bean, this coming Saturday at 3.00 o’clock in the afternoon. He wrote that both he and his wife would be waiting for us.
We are looking forward to meeting them. Francesca is trying to decide on a suitable small gift to bring for the wife.
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