Kitar Hidup 2

Aku sedang berdiri di hadapan pintu sebuah restoran udang menunggu yang lain apabila aku terlihat Pedas dan Miau berbisik-bisik dalam jarak 8 kaki daripada aku. Dari jauh kedengaran samar-samar perkataan nantilah dan kira. Dan dari situ aku mengesyaki mereka ingin membeli hadiah untuk Jetaim yang baru masuk umur 3 tahun. Ya, keberadaan kami di restoran udang ini pun kerana menyambut harijadi Jetaim lah.

Oleh kerana mereka berdua ini juga merupakan the real-life embodiment of Gossip Girls, rancangan telivisyen tu, aku terus menerjah. Apa dia ni? aku tanya kepada mereka berdua dengan gaya mengejutkan. Slide, jawab Pedas.

Slide? aku berfikir. As in presentation slides? Apa jadahnya nak beri hadiah presentation slides kepada budak umur 3 tahun. Sudahlah slides ni benda yang aku paling benci. Baik dari sudut aku yang membuatnya atau melihat orang membentangkan apa sahaja dalam bentuk slides. Slides, pendek kata adalah anasir syaitan yang telah menyusup perlahan-lahan ke dalam hidup kita dan kita terima macam tu sahaja.

Oh, slide, fikir aku bila teringatkan gelongsor mini yang dibeli oleh kawan Ina sempena harijadi Luth. Of course. That makes sense. Ok lah, aku kata. Nanti kiralah.

Tapi itu tidak menghalang aku dari berfikir tentang kelucuan hidup ini. Jetaim, umur 3 tahun berdepan dengan slide yang menyeronokkan. Besar kemungkinan sewaktu dewasa nanti, dia akan berhadapan semula dengan slide(s), tetapi versi yang hazab. Yang pasti semasa di zaman belajar, dan hampir pasti di alam pekerjaan. Itu kalau dia berkesudahan bekerja di pejabat macam orang kebanyakan. Lainlah kalau dia ditakdirkan menjadi artis/penyanyi/AF yang mana tiada keperluan untuk dia berkecimpung dalam arena slides.

Tapi itupun bila zaman artis dia sudah habis, besar kemungkinan dia akan guna slides untuk pitch bisnes busana, restoran atau apa saja yang artis habis zaman biasa buat sekarang ni. Its a cycle.

Showerthoughts : Jisim Bumi

Kau tahu showerthoughts? Benda-benda yang kita fikirkan ketika mandi. Atau sebenarnya benda-benda yang kita fikirkan bila dalam keadaan idle. Kenapa namanya shower? Basically kerana mandi ini suatu kerja yang bosan. Duduk di bawah air menunggu dia merayap ke seluruh badan, memang bosan. Tiap-tiap hari benda yang sama.

Salah satu showerthought aku baru-baru ini ialah berkenaan jisim bumi. Aku tak ingat bila sebenarnya aku mula berfikir hal ini, mungkin juga waktu memandu. Itu pun satu benda yang membosankan (dengan aku memandu sekurang-kurangnya 2 jam sehari), tapi itu cerita lain.

Apapun, debat dengan diri sendiri aku tentang hal ini ialah: Sepanjang-panjang kewujudan bumi, adakah jisimnya semakin bertambah atau berkurang? Gelombang fikiran pertama mengatakan obviously, bumi bertambah jisimnya kerana manusia bertambah. Daripada 0, sehingga sekarang ini dah 7 billion. Sudah tentu, kerana bumi semakin padat dan semak bukan?

Dua saat kemudian aku terus menepis teori ini. Macam tak munasabah. Terlalu mudah. Jadi aku memikirkan teori conservation of mass. Ambil bumi sebagai satu sistem, terdiri daripada teras, kerak dan atmosfera. Apa saja yang berada dalam sistem ini akan hanya bertukar bentuk. Kau membesar kerana kau ambil jisim benda yang kau makan, pokok contohnya. Pokok membesar daripada nutrien dan air yang dia serap dari tanah. Tiada mungkin berlaku tumbesaran yang ada-ada tanpa mengambil dari benda lain.

In fact, aku rasa jisim bumi semakin berkurang kerana kita, manusia, menghantar roket-roket dan segala satelit ke angkasa yang mana bahan-bahannya datang dari bumi. Dan mungkin ditimbal balik dengan segala taik bintang atau space dust yang kita terima selama ini. Rumusannya, jisim bumi hampir tidak berubah.

Satu petang aku menyampaikan persoalan ini kepada seorang kawan ketika sedang minum kopi, sebelum dia mula bersembang hal kereta. Dia berkeras mengatakan jisim bumi bertambah, berdasarkan teori sama yang aku mula-mula fikir. Sungguhpun aku bawakan teori conservation of mass, dia tetap dengan pendiriannya dan seakan-akan tidak comprehend dengan penjelasan aku. Aku nyaris ajak bertumbuk.

Tapi aku tak buat pasal dia yang belanja kopi.

The Way Back Home

Without a car, and with my phone's screen gone blank, I never really gave it a thought about how I was going to get home that evening. I have been in a similar situation before, lacking the privilege of a personal vehicle, but that time my colleague would give me a ride back. That day, he himself had been without a car for 3 months. An easy way would be hailing a cab using the MyTeksi app, but I couldn't see a thing on my phone. My colleague would have a cabby friend pick him up at the office. I could have hitched his ride but I didn't really want to trouble anyone. He did not offer me his ride anyway. I could have called some friends for help through Siri, but I didn't. I would think a hundred times before asking for help, do not want to make it seem like returning a favour.

After a briefing of the workings of the local public transport from a friend, I decided to take the bus. My journey began after Maghrib.It started off with a 200 metres walk up an elevated pavement just across the parking space in front of the building, which lead to a bus stop. It was raining mildly but I was determined to go back. I just walked slowly shielded only by the canopy of some tall trees along the way to the bus stop.

There were two people at the bus stop, both sitting on the same dual-pipe seat. The other seat was wet from the rain through a one-foot hole on the roof. I sat on the dry seat looking at the oncoming traffic occasionally while reading a copy of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. I have just picked up this habit recently, that waiting means a time to read a book. The U80 bus came around 20 minutes later and all three of us boarded. I paid the bus driver RM2 with an understanding that I will not get the 10 sen change.

The front part of the bus consisted of a wide standing area, no seats. There were some empty seats at the back, and right in front the second door in the middle were three distinctive orange-coloured seats. An old lady was sitting in one, while others who boarded with me kept on standing. I guessed those were some special seats, so I went along standing, leaning on a vertical cushion just by the window. The bus was fast, and stops were jerky and abrupt. Again I pulled out my book and read.

I got down at the Asiajaya bus stop, it was still raining. As I walked to the LRT station, my iPod was aptly playing Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller. Suddenly I felt like I was in a movie, with a soundtrack playing in the background. It had the feel of a metropolitan life. You know, to walk and commute on public transportation like they do in the metropolis.

There was nothing shielding me from the rain on my walk to the station except for a narrow space under the tracks. Met two dogs taking shelter under the tracks along the way. Greeted them and asked friendly questions. Both of them were a little shy, turning away from me as I was asking the questions. Probably a little annoyed at not being able to answer.

Famished, upon reaching the station I straight away bought a deli bread and a can of coffee. I stood leaning on a beam in front of the ticket vending machine, eating my bread while watching people going left and right. Upon finishing the last drop of my coffee, I bought a ticket and went upstairs to the platform. At this hour there were not many people at the station. I read again while waiting for the train.

At this moment, I was beginning to love the idea of commuting on public transport. The comfort of freedom from control, the ability to read a book and the vast colours of sights. The city's public transport was not that really bad after all.

The Asiajaya station was only one stop away from my destination, Taman Paramount. There was no time for me to read my book on the train. Just people-watching. The waiting started again at the Paramount station. It was 8.30 PM and the frequency of the feeder bus had deteriorated substantially. I sat on one section of the long, scarcely occupied waiting booth just outside the station. While I was reading, two girls came and sit on the dual-pipe next to mine, chatting themselves away. They seemed to be coming back from work from the same place, and it amazed me how they would later continue chatting on the bus like they had years of stories to catch up.

The bus came minutes later only for us to wait another twenty minutes before the bus made another round. My stop was about on the four-fifths of the whole round, so it took around 15 minutes to reach from the departure time. There were about 5 of us in the bus. Except for the chatting girls, everyone else was looking at their phones. Always seemed to be something urgent on those little screens.

I did think about what if my phone's screen was functioning, would I be joining the phone staring competition? Reading No Country for Old Men was more fun though, I reckoned.

From my drop off, I had to walk another 400 metres to my house, and the mild rain did not seem to subside. Without any kind of sheltering along the way, I walked slowly in the rain. Then I heard a thunder, only to realise that it was the intro of the song Tunggu Sekejap by Saloma, seeping seamlessly through my headphones, blending with actual rain. It was kind of surreal, like having an actual soundtrack to the scene*. And the perfect ending.

As I reached the gate of my house, an hour and a half had just passed since I walked out of the office. Half-soaked and tired, I then took a shower and made dinner.

*find this song on youtube by searching 'Saloma Tunggu Sekejap'. It's the first video. The uploader has disabled the embedding of the video.

Film Quotes [7]

Llewelyn Moss: I'm fixing to do something dumber than hell, but I'm going anyways. If I don't come back, tell mother I love her.
Carla Jean: Your mother's dead, Llewelyn.
Llewelyn Moss: Well, then I'll tell her myself

No Country for Old Men, 2007

Senyuman

Semalam, sewaktu aku termenung di meja pejabat selepas menaip itu ini di kotak query, seorang gadis yang tidak pernah aku lihat melalui hadapan bilik aku. Menerusi bukaan pintu dia melemparkan senyuman ke arah aku dan aku, bak kata orang, caught off guard, membalas senyumannya (memandangkan aku ini jenis yang jarang senyum, bagi mengekalkan imej gengster). Kemudian dia hilang dari pandangan, di sebalik tabir yang menutupi tingkap bilik.

Lalu aku terfikir, ikhlaskah senyuman dia itu? Siapa dia tu? Datang ofis untuk meeting ke? Dia betul-betul senyum ke macam terpaksa? Apakah harga sebuah senyuman sebenarnya?

Belum sempat aku menjawab persoalan-persoalan aku sendiri, gadis itu muncul kembali, menjengah aku di dalam bilik, masih tersenyum. Sambil tersenyum dia menegur aku dan di tangannya sekotak portable slimming massager.

Langsung aku tinggal dua persoalan:

1) Lagi sekali, berapa harga sebuah senyuman sebenarnya?
2) Siapa pergi bukak pintu untuk direct-seller ni?