FRAGMENTED MEMORIES

[Chapter 1.1] The News

"When you feel all alone in this world, and there's nobody to catch your tears..."

It was Zain Bikha's Allah Knows playing on my playlist. I continued walking before I reached a zebra crossing. I pressed the round metallic button and waited for the traffic light for pedestrians to turn green.

"When you lose someone close to your heart, see your whole world falls apart--"

The song suddenly stopped.

Bzzzttt!

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I quickly picked it up.

"Hello?"

It was my elder brother on the other end of the line. It was weird for him to call me as we had all agreed that I would be the one to call them twice a week since the IDD rate would be cheaper to call from New Zealand to Malaysia. But for him to call me, there had to be something important, perhaps an emergency he had to tell me.

"I have something to tell you, but I need you to stay calm. Can you promise me that?"

His voice sounded melancholic. I know something was amiss. InshaaAllah I'll try, I answered.

"Mom... Our mom... She's gone. She passed away last night..."

Gone?

Passed away?

It took me one whole minute to let the hard cold fact to sink in.

"Hello? You okay there, lil' bro?"

I quietly said yes.

"Don't come back, you hear me? Dad said you shouldn't come back. You won't make it to the funeral since they are burying mom today."

I shouldn't...go back?

But dad was right. It would take more than 10 hours, excluding transits, to travel from Wellington to Penang after all.

"You sure you're okay? I'm going to hang up now. Remember, you can send your prayers to mom from wherever you are."

The connection ended. The crowd began to cross the road as the light turned green but there I stood, my feet rooted to the ground.

The green light beeped and beeped, warning the pedestrians to quicken their pace before the light turned red again yet there I stood, lost in thoughts.

BEEP!

The final beep and the light turned red. The engines were roaring, ready to move yet my feet began to move on their own, trying to cross the road.

"Hey, watch it, mate!"

A hand quickly grabbed my hand, saving me from being a traffic casualty. I thanked the stranger who was telling me to be more careful, yet it all fell on deaf ears.

And everything after that was so blurry to me. I did not even remember how I reached Wellington City Council but I arrived there safely. Silipi, my supervisor, was waiting.

"Hafiz, you okay? Your face is as white as a sheet. Did you see a ghost on the way here?"

She sounded concerned, but still managed to crack a joke. But I did not laugh. I could not laugh. I looked at her and told her about my predicament.

"Oh, poor you!"

Silipi hugged me tight. The warmth, it felt like my mom's hug. Tears began to well up in my eyes.

"Hafiz, you stay here. Don't work today."

But I could not sit still doing nothing. Sadness gets worse in the company of loneliness. How could I stay alone, feeling sad and depressed like this?

"Silipi, can I do your job in City Library? Please?"

She looked me straight in the eyes, still could not believe I asked to do work when she just told me to stay put.

"You'd be all right by yourself, boy?"

"Yes. I need some time alone tonight."

"Holler me if anything, you hear?"

I nodded.

In the store room, I grabbed a vacuum backpack and a cleaning toolkit, then immediately went to City Library. The area was vast, but not too dirty. Setting my iPhone playlist on shuffle on loud volume, I grabbed a black plastic bag then walked around looking for dustbins. I was moving, but I wasn't thinking -- it was as if I was on autopilot, letting the body does what it remembers.

I didn't want to think about the news I just received; I tried not to, but my brain loves to remind me things I do not want to remember at the most inappropriate time...

***

I usually called home once or twice a week since my family had no computer and no internet connection at home. Not every family owned a PC with internet connection to allow them video conference back in 2009, after all.

"Din, is that you?"

It was alway my mom who would answer the phone, as if she was almost always waiting for my call. My mom, who was diabetic and had to go through regular dialysis treatment, had been sick before I went to further my studies in the Land of Long Clouds. I hesitated about going abroad, but my mom calmly reassured me that she would be fine in Malaysia, that she would get better -- a lie she had to tell, of which I had always known. But that night, she sounded so energetic as if she had really been cured of her illness.

"How are you there? Are you eating well? What did you eat there? How is your study? Did you get a girlfriend already?"

I had memorised the questions on her list, and I routinely answered each one of them. After she finished her routine questions, my mom passed the phone to my dad. Since I was going home for good in less than a month, that night I asked everyone what souvenir they wanted from New Zealand -- my dad wanted a leather jacket, my eldest sister wanted stamps, my younger brother wanted a T-shirt. I asked my mom and she quietly said,

"I want you here with me. I want you home."

***

My brain replayed the conversation once, twice, thrice...

My feet abruptly stopped as my body began to shake uncontrollably. The tears that had been welling up in my eyes began to slowly roll down my cheeks. Right when I was about to burst into tears, a phone call came in. I quickly wiped my tears and cleared my throat, trying to hide any sadness in my tone,

"Hello?"

"Hafiz, this is Auntie Rose. I'm sorry to hear about loss. Do you want to go back to Malaysia? I can help you get a ticket."

It was Auntie Rose, a warm and loving lady, our education attaché. She kept track of all Malaysian students in Wellington. I politely declined the offer, explaining to her that my dad said to stay in Wellington and to finish whatever administrative works left undone.

After giving me some comforting words, Auntie Rose hung up. And I was left alone again.

Alone with my own thoughts.

I picked up the vacuum backpack and began to clean the area. The playlist began to play a song by Il Divo and Celine Dion,

"Mama thank you for who I am, thank you for all the things I'm not..."

I gasped.

"Forgive me for the words unsaid, for the time...I forgot."

My cheeks were wet with tears and my body was shaking uncontrollably, when yet another call reached my phone,

"Hello?"

It was another person from the Education Attaché office. I sat on the floor with my back leaning against the wall. My vision was blurry, my voice croaky; but yet again, I cleared my throat to hide the sadness in my tone as I talked to the person on the other end of the line.

That night, whenever I felt alone and nearly broke down in despair, some one would call. 'I guess it's a way God was trying to console me,' I thought to myself. It was a reminder that when you have Allah, you would never be alone.

TO BE CONTINUED.