Opah (grandmother)

When she smiles her crows' feet spread; deepen. Her face is unevenly patched with talcum sometimes, old with her age's worth of experience, mapped out like the sky. The lines are words, hinting the existence of secrets behind them. She speaks with her voice so slow, her walk so deliberate, her expressions so knowing. She touches your hand and your heart with her stories. And sometimes I don't understand her; but her conversation is like a dance; a waltz; she leads you with her eyes to smile back as she relates the story of a friend she used to know. Whose face she has forgotten.

And as she asks you if you have ever had any friend whose name you know but not her face; you guiltily nod. After a while you wonder if she wonders if you'll ever forget her. Because you wouldn't. Not her face with the uneven talcum patches. Not her voice so slow. Not her walk so deliberate. Not her expressions so knowing.

I have run out of stories to tell. & it has been going on for some time.

I don't know if I should feel worried.

And when the tears come pouring down, I can feel it - Allah in every breath.

Hari ini hari mati. Semua orang akan mati pada hari ini, tepat pukul 8 malam. Semua orang akan mati dengan cara yang sama, iaitu serangan jantung, seperti dalam filem Death Note. Tapi ini bukan filem Death Note. Ini betul-betul. Semua akan mati. Semua orang tahu bahawa mereka akan mati. Langit gelap seperti musim sejuk di kutub. Tapi syarikat-syarikat bekalan tenaga telah lama bersedia untuk kegelapan yang tiba, dan bekalan tenaga untuk lampu-lampu di seluruh dunia juga akan kehabisan pada pukul 8 malam ini. Tepat 8 malam. Tiada siapa yang membantah kerana semua tahu bahawa pada pukul 8 malam, mereka akan mati.

Ketika ini, tiada siapa sempat ke pejabat, tiada siapa sibuk membeli-belah.

Semua orang tahu bahawa lepas semua orang mati, tiada apa yang akan tinggal. Tiada siapa yang akan mengenali sesiapa lagi kerana semua orang tak akan lagi wujud. Tak akan lagi diwujudkan.

We are all each other.

Life is never complicated. It just flows, indifferent to you, your problems or whatever. You complicate it, man. It's you. Like for example, when you die, life goes on.

One day a male physicist went to check his particle accelerator and somehow got himself tangled up in the mess and he became a female cat with short limbs instead and he/she/it could not remember what happened because his/her/its past had folded into singularity due to this mishap and so he/she/it became good at becoming a cat that he/she/it came to live with us and we have been giving he/she/it catfood ever since.