No cockles, bean sprouts, prawns or sausages please

I stood in line at the noodle stall, tapping my foot impatiently on the grimy tiled floor which was stained with at least a thousand overlapping footprints. I glanced at my steel Casio watch. Eight thirty p.m., the slim silver hands indicated on a background of deep Prussian blue. I had looked around at the dinner options available at the food court – roast chicken rice, yong tau foo, pepper soup in black claypots, mixed rice, kimchi noodles, Hainanese chicken chop – and none had appealed to me. I finally settled on this stall, deciding to order some steaming hot yellow Hokkien Mee to warm my rumbling tummy. This hawker never failed to disappoint, serving up decent portions of noodles crammed with crunchy bean sprouts, squid and prawns drenched in a decadent lard-infused sauce. He would dish out the freshly-cooked food onto a fragrant brown Opei leaf and top it with a dash of spicy sambal and half a tangy green lime.

It had been a long day at the hospital, with admissions pouring in till five p.m. Then, we had stayed behind to finish off the afternoon rounds, finally leaving the premises against a background of a quickly darkening purple sky and the fading diffuse glow of the setting orange sun. Briskly walking to the train station, I had then tapped my bulging wallet containing my commuter card against the turnstile sensor, joining the throng that jam-packed the trains after the long workday.

I heard the electric swoosh of the train arriving and quickly sprinted down the escalator steps, squeezing past the motley crowd of people at the platform and heaving a sigh of relief as the train doors slammed shut just as I stepped into the air-conditioned carriage. I gripped the greasy pole with my palm and dropped my beige canvas Coach bag at my feet, trying to catch my breath. The carriage was full of salaried folk heading home from their offices and workplaces like myself. Bleary-eyed, exhausted and sweaty with an almost identical stony expression on their faces. Some flicked at screens on their smartphones, some listened to muffled music through their earphones, a few browsed serenely through magazines or newspapers, and many merely stared blankly at the dark walls of the tunnel whizzing past.

The soft ‘ping’ of an incoming Whatsapp message brought me back to the current moment. The young man ahead of me in the queue shifted uneasily as he tapped on the screen of his iPhone, replying the message that he had just received. He was in his mid-twenties, hair styled conservatively and gelled tightly against his scalp with a few scattered acne scars marking his cheeks. He wore an open-collared pale striped blue business shirt tucked into a pair of neatly-ironed black slacks. He held his leather messenger bag tucked under his elbow.

“Eh, leng zhai, yao chi shenme?” the hawker at the counter, a ruddy middle-aged Chinese ‘uncle’ in a thin white T-shirt stretched over his prosperous pot belly, gestured at the young man with his dripping ladle. The young man looked up from his phone, paused for a few seconds then raised his voice to drown out the clatter and chatter of the bustling, fluorescent-lit food court.

“Char kuay teow – mai hum, mai taugeh, bu yao xia. Oh, and no lap cheong as well,” he hollered back.

Char kuay teow? No cockles, no bean sprouts and no prawns? No Chinese sausages? What culinary sacrilege was that? Was he ordering just noodles in dark soy sauce then?

Curiosity got the better of politeness. I gently tapped on his shoulder. He turned around.

“Why ar? Like that, what’s the point of ordering char kuay teow?” I asked.

He looked at me with a sheepish grin, which somehow appeared rather mournful yet comical to me.

“My girlfriend is very fussy,” he sighed.

Kampung

She stifled an incipient yawn and padded sleepily into the living room, footsteps resounding on the loose floorboards. She threw open the windows and looked outside.

The sun was already shining brightly but the rest of the family was still asleep. Soon, it would be time to get breakfast ready for them and rouse them from slumber. But not just yet. It was the weekend and they often went back to sleep after prayers. These were always the precious few moments she had to herself each day. She could hear the splashing of the well water onto the concrete ground as the neighbor took his morning shower next door. A cock crowed lustily.

She leaned against the windowsill and soaked in the gentle breeze. She had always loved this time of the day. The air was cool and fresh, carrying the evanescent scent of dew and wet grass. Fluffy white clouds drifted lazily across the canvas of the overarching turquoise blue sky. The lush green paddy fields were criss-crossed by a network of laterite bunds, interspersed with small wooden houses on stilts and bent coconut palms. She waved at Ahmad, who was cycling on his rusty old red bicycle to town. He grinned and waved in return, soon disappearing from sight.

She looked at the paths stretching into the vast horizon and sighed. She rested her chin against her cupped palms, propping her elbows against the weathered horizontal wooden bar.

She could almost see him, running along the narrow bunds leading to her house, dressed in a floppy white shirt and black pants. His skin was tanned brown from helping his father in the fields. He wasn’t a great scholar, and had stopped schooling after Form 3 to become a farmer like all the men in his family. They had known each other since they were toddlers. Their mothers often stopping by each other’s homes to chat and exchange gossip while the children chased the chickens around the dusty compounds. He was the first one who had shown her how one could use a blade of grass to create music by blowing across the edge. How to climb a tree and look into a nest for eggs. How to catch little muddy frogs by using bare hands. How to pin a grasshopper down by the nape of its neck.

She remembered how they had sat on the bench overlooking her father’s land on that fateful last day. He looked into her eyes.

“I will be going to town to find work. Rahman and Yusof have gone there to work on the construction sites. Look how rich their families are now. Astro dishes, new motorcycles, new brick houses. Perhaps it’s time I try something new,” he said.

She looked away, not wanting him to see the emotions flooding her face. She felt as though she had something stuck in her throat.

“Don’t worry, Mimi. I will come back for you. Promise me, you’ll wait for me? When I have made my money, I will come and look for you again,” he had vowed.

She nodded, twisting her hands in her lap.

The cock crowed again, interrupting her reverie. Once again, she looked to the edge of her known world expectantly. Her village and its never-ending fields. The mountain that stood stoically against the sky. She knew that her hope was in vain. He never came back. Not even for Raya. She had tried to write to him. She had even asked his family for news of his whereabouts. No one could tell her. As far as she was concerned, he had vanished into thin air. Swallowed by the bright lights and gleaming skyscrapers of the city.

“Mak, mak. Nak makan ni, dah lapar,” a plaintive small voice called out from within the house.

“OK, nak,” she replied. And turned from the open window.

The Leap

I slipped on the thin flimsy green top and pants, tying a knot at my waist. “Looks like pyjamas,” I thought. The ‘baju’ had been washed and rewashed a hundred times at least. The green faded to a pale apple green and the light yellow lining stained grayish brown. Thanks to my small size, I often had to make do with scrubs a size larger, making me look like a sleep-deprived dwarf in dilapidated, baggy oversized pyjamas.

I snapped the elastic band of the cap round my hairline, tied the mask around the lower half of my face and slipped on a pair of purple Crocs left by the bench. Then I quickly shuffled into the cold corridor.

“Come, quick, time to scrub in,” my boss hustled past me, carrying his silver tumbler full of coffee in one hand. We swung past the automated doors and leant over the stainless steel sink. Hands covered in frothy foam, I tore out a brush from the sterile pack and started to scrub my nails.

“Hurry up,” he said. “We have a long list today.”

I wiped my hands with the hand towel, slipped on the blue cotton gown and the pair of size 6.5 yellow rubber gloves prepared for me and backed into the theatre with my hands clasped to the level of my chest. The patient was on the table, waiting. My boss was already there, cleaning the operation site with povidone iodine and clipping the blue drapes onto the area.

 “Come la. Your turn to do it today.”

I was still new. The ink on my degree had hardly dried. I looked around anxiously. The nurse glared at me from beneath her mask and cap.

“OK,” I said.

I stepped up to the table, heart thumping wildly. A scalpel was handed to me. Technically, I knew what to do. But I had never done it before in real life. Cold sweat beaded on the elastic lining of the cap covering my head. I looked at the blade, then placed it against the patient’s clammy skin.

“Eh, cut la,” my boss said.

Trying not to tremble, I tentatively nicked the skin with the sharp edge of the scalpel blade. I could see the ochre-coloured epidermis part, giving way to the whitish dermis beneath. Tiny spots of blood appeared along the track, like miniature roses blooming on a carpet of snow. I stared, mesmerized. Then recovering my wits, I took a piece of gauze from the metal tray and dabbed at the wound.

“Woi, no need to be so scared one. Just cut deeper only. Like this,” my boss grabbed my hand and guided my next cut.

“Diathermy please,” I said, just like how I watched him say a couple of times before. I racked my brain, trying to recall the next steps which I had read in that thick lavender-covered textbook heavy enough to fracture my toe should I drop it on my foot. The textbook I had often fallen asleep on, leaving smudged drool across its pages.

“Calm down, you know what to do. Just go for it,” I tried to convince myself. Inhale, exhale, inhale. Just do it.

Finally it was over. As I tied the last knot using the instrument tie, I felt my boss beaming from across the table.

“Not bad,” was all he said, “Finish up and write your op notes in the folder.” Then he left. Tumbler of stale coffee in his hand.

I stripped off the damp gloves from my shaking hands, disposed of them in the gaping yellow bin and wiped the sweat from my brow with my elbow. I grinned. Then I washed my hands, strode over confidently to the table by the side of the room and started entering my notes.

“First Surgeon: Dr. Teoh WK”