Fighting the unknown

This post has been in my draft folder for more than a year now. I started with a few sentences and stopped. 6 months later, I added a few more sentences and stopped and that happened a few more times. Today, I finally finished it, what an achievement! 

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 I am a scientist. Or rather, I have been practising scientific principles for years where logic and evidence-based practice would more often than not, win hands down. I guess it comes to no surprise therefore that I am a bit of a sceptic when it comes to ghost. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that there are other forms of beings living in this world of ours. Studying in a boarding school before, I have of course encountered some forms of those beings. I was a late-night person at school and particularly loved washing clothes at 3 or 4 in the morning where I didn't have to queue to use the washing machine and got to choose the best spot of the ampaian, so the chances of bumping into those other-than-human beings were pretty high. Those that I can still remember were: a scary-faced old lady at Block C water cooler, a (probably) flying lady by the window of 1st floor study room and a smiley 'senior' sleeping on the bed next to mine although the real person was actually out of the school that weekend - that was when I first learned about hantu raya. Although those encounters made good stories during balik kampung get-together sessions, I never really give them much thoughts. To me, like humans, they too are the servants of God so why should we fear them? Afterall, the only ghost-killing-human stories that we've seen or heard are only in the movies (Gosh, I can still remember how terrified I was watching The Poltergeist when I was a kid!). Takde lagi cerita orang mati kena bunuh dek hantu kan? Manusia bunuh manusia, on the other hand, ramai gila! Looking back, I am glad that I have never been bothered that much by ghost stories or my working life would be much more challenging. As a resident pharmacist in a busy teaching hospital in Sheffield years ago, I frequently received late-night/ early morning calls resulting in me having to walk from the residency house back to the hospital alone, mostly in cold, using an eerily quiet stretch of road at 2-4am in the morning. Back in KL, my previous office was situated just a few meters from the hospital mortuary and working alone in the office till late was quite a norm especially in the last 5 years of working there. Surprisingly, apart from the usual encounters with hospital workers carrying coffins passing me by, I don't remember experiencing anything extraordinary even though I walked by the mortuary on daily basis for years and years. Hantu kat HUKM tu baik2 belaka la gamaknya.. Anyway, enough about the past and straight to the original purpose of this post. Both Big Boss and I had series of unfortunate events in the few months leading to our big day in June last year. At first, we thought they were just that, unfortunate events. But one day while he was behind the wheel heading home after work, something unexplainable happened. He was fine and normal in one minute then turned into a possessed man in another. He suddenly started to sweat profusely with bloodshot eyes, breathed soundly like a bear and spoke incoherently. Thank god I managed to get him to stop by the road side and I always have a cassette of Surah Yasin in the dashboard compartment. I took over the steering wheel once he was more stable, it was the longest ever drive home. Since then, more and more weird and unexplained things happened, affecting us physically and emotionally. To be honest, I was so overwhelmed at times that postponing the wedding did cross my mind a few times. Alhamdulillah, we managed to get help from a couple of ustaz and the 'disturbance' was removed just a few days before the wedding. We knew where it came from and we're pretty sure, a year on, it is still trying to make a comeback every now and then. As for now, our only defense is prayers including ayat-ayat Ruqyah (you can download them online). By the end of the day, only in Him we believe and to fear other beings is simply... wrong.

Buku

For a person who used to enjoy buying and reading fictional books,the fact that I only bought my first book for the year just 2 weeks ago is somewhat unimpressive. And it was a hurried purchase over lunchtime from Cyberjaya Streetmall weekly market too, not from those bookshops that I used to frequent. But it was a good bargain. The small stall minded by a middle age english lady has many titles from authors that I like such as Tony Parsons, Paul Coelho, Khaled Hosseini and many more. And when I saw this book selling at only RM20, I grabbed and paid for it in less than 2 minutes. Where else can I get a wrapped, first-hand Tony Parsons' books at RM20 right?



This morning, after settling the laundry and a bit of cleaning, I started reading. It was just me and the book on the sofa with some old songs playing at the background from my MP3 collections. Not everyday I get to indulge myself like this, such a bliss.

Tony Parsons' books always bring back some of the old memories due to the familiar places used at the background settings of the story. Reading George (the lead character in Starting Over) pushing his bike through Regent's Park for example brought a smile to my face when a memory of a picnic with some friends in that exact park came flashing in. It was spring and the daffodils were blooming and we went on with the picnic although it was damn cold. Well, it was already spring and the daffodils were already blooming, who cares about the temperature? We even brought our own homemade tuna and sardine sandwiches and drinks (we were skinned students living on crazily tiny scholarships) yet, we had a blast that day. Life was much simpler back then. It was full of optimism, hope and joy.

Anyway, I finished reading Starting Over by 4pm. It is a good book I must say. A chance to start over doesn't mean that you have to pursue what you previously failed to achieve, it just mean that you should cherish and appreciate what you already have. And I am doing just that.

Layu

There are days when I'm all motivated and hyped up to play my roles in helping to make this world a better place, especially for the future. On these days, I would give my all.. demi bangsa, agama dan negara la kononnya.

But on days like today, I just feel like creeping into my invisible cave, dump everything aside and just shut my eyes close. Mengantuk tak hengat ok!