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.