Raindrops and firefly

i’ve just finish reading a very cool story of ‘growing up’ stuff and it made me wondering about my own. ahh, i kinda miss my bestfriends during school time. where are u guys??

i still remember when we were those kids during the 90’s, we were like brothers and sisters. we fought, laughed, getting wasted, teasing girlfriends, hangouts, etc.. those were such happy memories. It was just like yesterday when we met yet we’ve been apart like a million years wide, nowadays. i wonder, what are you all doing right now? i guess you all are doing just fine ya. well, i hope so

i met some of them a few years back. not even half of ‘us’ but it’s enough to bring memories back.  it supprised me that they haven’t changed much. to think about it now, yup i guess we’re still those kids yet with more mature features. I’m not hoping for the worse but come on….it’s has been like how long since spm? 10 years or something? i can’t remember well but as for my so called ‘brothers’ or the ‘gang’… oiii, it’s time to get married la oii haha.

now that i’ve mention about it, last week i met with si ruther punya mom and she was like ‘when are you BACHELORS going to get married?’ hahaha. yeah, it’s not like the world is going suddenly ends but i guess it’s still early to think of it. age is just a number, they say. we aren’t ready yet to settle down. lot’s of things to do… but i guess, it all comes to 1 thing, excuses. the truth is, sorry to let you down aunty but i don’t even have a girlfriend at the moment. hehehe. nda laku ni haha. it was kinda funny, though, to be scolded out of nothing.

i don’t know about if you guys still remember it but is there by chance that the ‘janji’ we’ve made is still on? coz i don’t see any of us, the so called ‘the gang lelaki’, by chance or hook is going to get married in the nearest future. the moms are already getting impatient, i should say. kawin la kamu deluan ahahaha deep down in my heart, im actually is looking forward to see the final result. who will be the first and the last to get a wife. i’ve made a promise to my elders last year but i still have another 1 year to get someone to live and die for. goshhh might just be the first to get knocked out of the list.

i am sorry to my girlfriends, i didn’t come on your wedding day, respectedly. i’ve been busy with my on stuff here. life is now a ‘rollercoster’ kinda bit. it’s hard to take shape and is still a blurry future but worry not, im still your ‘classmate’ with a brain. pandai berfikir suda la konon ni ahaha. but it’s true ahaha.

i miss you guys. hope to see you again, somehow. i wish you all good luck in life. may the best of us roam freely and prosperous.

my aunt’s savo (orang gaji/maid) pronounces black ants or semut hitam as simut LMAO.
when my cousin sis and i heard she pronounced simut the other day, it was the turning point of black ants in my dictionary. she officially killed the word and patterned simut for eternity, but only to be used in this house, of course. it sounds cute, though.

e,g, ’suda minum nanti itu gelas bawa turun nanti banyak simut”..fully powered by the ‘om’ dialect.

there are so many misusage words in this house, as for the name Suria was changed to Sinar by the autority of my aunt for her savo, and if you are wondering why, the answer will be ‘differences in alphabetic order but they carry the same meaning for sunshine’ hahaha. Suria will no longer be Suria but Sinar.

Have you ever took a time during the night and spent hours looking at the night sky counting stars? I did that and it’s been awhile since my last star gazing session.

I have always felt in love with the stars. I still remember when i was a teenager, i was so obsessed with the night sky. I used to go out during the night and grouped with my teenage friends at the small football field. It was a very stupid idea to sleep on top of the grass for hours but we really felt good inside, without saying much.

There was a time during 96′ after the notorious flood in keningau, barely could you see a house with any ray of light. The devastated land was darken for almost half a year because of the electricity cut-off. A lost world during the night. But because of the darkness of night, you could see a sea of stars and there is no other place can compare with it. The sky was like been painted with a greenish and blueish colours, all over. It was a super magical moment in my life. Sometimes you can see stars that move from one place to another. okey, that was something weird actually but who cares, not many can see that.

One of my memorable star gazing event was in a middle of the jungle and i was standing in the middle of a river. Trees as old as time and they were huge!!! Scary as hell but geez, im still alive. I have experienced eclipes, tahi bintang, moving stars, and yeah, comet!! Back in 97 or 98, there was a comet named Hale-Bob (if im not mistaken) completed its circle around the sun and it was so near to the earth that you could see it with a naked eyes. it was like a bird shit flattened on your car front glass, or something like that, so-so. i dont know if i can make it to another 86 years from that day to see another glimpse of that comet. Once in my lifetime, for sure.

One thing i never experienced until now is the meteor shower. The sky will be brighten if it occurs. I can’t wait to see that.

i went back to my hometown to accompany my mom since friday. she was admitted in the district hospital for a small surgery yesterday morning. To get a meat sample off her breast. Damn, that’s not so sweet. So i’ve been in and out of the ward from friday night until yesterday evening. I must say, i dislike to stay long in there.

to see so much suffering from illnesses and diseases made me very, very scared. my GOD, it’s pretty damn scary, plus, the smell of medicine…thank God i survived and i didnt faint, even once. I pray to God, please, don’t let anyone from my family to ever need his/her present there, no more. my heart broke down when i think of this, it saddens me a lot. it’s like a torn in my heart.

i guess when things start to fall and hopes start crumble down, the one best thing was the present of one’s family members. not that my mom was into a critical state or anything but the thoughts that kept hovering inside were more like an enemy than your best friends. but when smiles start to rain down from the pale gray, no other words can describe the happy feeling. i guess it’s true, laughter is the best medicine.

the person next to my mom, she was an elderly great grandmother of generations. at the age of 91, she was still strong enough to live for so many years ahead. it gave another hope to live for another day. she was my best friend’s grand mother yet, being in the other side of the world, i think he’s doing good.

i shared the same sadness with my mom, even though we never talked much. yes i know, i should start to take things easy and calmly. but that doesnt mean we are not happy with each others. life ain’t seem to portrait the direct colours whatsoever, but to see the other meaning of it, it means good.

it saddens me much more than anything to see the person i love so much got into that kind of situation. accidentally or not, it is still a very, very sad thing. things should get better, i hope. so many things lying around dead inside my head, and definitely, it’s time to awaken them. sounds like an awakening dead, might sounds awkward but it’s a good thing. they are the ones (thoughts) to contribute to a better future ahead.

sickness is one scary thing and death is just another part of it. Damn, devouring that kind of words it’s like suicide.

i love my mom, an unspoken written words.

I was still young back then when I used to follow my nenek to kill time went in and out the not so huge Liawan jungle but you know, it was still a jungle back then, where you can see eagles, will buffaloes, huge trees and all, the things you should expect from the wild. That’s pretty cool for a 20 yrs old memory. My nenek would use the jungle track nearby my house and I would sneaked out the house not to be noticed by my mom and lied to him that I was actually allowed to follow him Lol. It was fun back then to roam around with the early morning breeze covered with the whitey chilling mist. I really missed it so much.

He used to go and check his old ugly bull before we went into the inner part of the jungle. I have always hated that bull because it only acknowledged him and no one else, so I have to go on guard and to stay away near the bamboo pile before he screamed for the call. It was kinda scary, though, to stand alone there Lol. Rumors have it that children will be kidnapped by the bamboo ’spirits’ and it was no joke for a kid like me. Imagining back, wow this is one precious memory.

The reason why I like to follow him was because of the scenery with the beautiful hills, the paddy fields, animals, birds, etc. I used to eat the fruits and berries from the wild trees. I seldom see them nowadays. It a pretty harsh word if I use the word NEVER for that statement aha. He always pluck me leaves of the jarak so that I can make balloons out of it. We would crossed over rivers and muddy banks. I liked that. Sometimes I went back with wet clothes or muddy and my mom would scolded me ahaha.

He used to call the buffaloes and they will come to him. It was like a miracle because they will come and he would give salt to them sometimes from the palm of my hands. He would tell me which ones of his and which ones of my family’s. I don’t think that my family still has them. Thieves are every where, nowadays.

Yes, the eagles. We always went to see the eagles. There was an eagle nest way up there on one of the trees. Only the brave ones would go and climb it. Oh yes, there are people who would climb that tree for the bee’s nest but I wouldn’t. Just can’t stand with the height. There were no branches at all only at the top but there were stairs. Cool, eh?

We stopped to go around the jungle after a while. He got sick and I’m kinda grown a little and to busy with my youngster years. So I’ve forgotten the fun. I was more interested with the boys stuff. Ohh, damn. I wished I had more time to spend with him in the jungle because things changed so much these days. There’s no more jungle, no more paddy fields, no more wild animals, no more river sides, no nothing. It all gone and the tragic flood on 96′ sealed it fate. Nothing seems like it used to be.

It’s a very sad thing. Things changed huh? Nothing last forever.

As I got a little bit bored last night and I went out the house experiencing the cold wind at the depth of night then suddenly I saw a firefly. Yes.. a firefly. It has been for so long did I wait for one. I enjoying the show with a number of fireflies but you know, the chill made me felt .. like always, scared.

Not much of little bugs but a lot of mosquitoes now and I say, they are big!!! Perhaps of the rainy seasons made them more fertile resulting in increasing of number and size of the mosquitoes.

After every flood has subsided, the bunch of kids would go down the river bringing tire tubes of all sizes and dusssss, into the water. That was one of the ways of celebrating the early morning breeze during my childhood. Cold it have been but for a kid like me who was immortally mortal by the heat of naughtiness, it was a big no problem haha. We would stay there until one of the moms came and started scolding everyone, ohh yes, it’s time to get ready for school. From 7 to 11 o’clock and that was our prime play time…down the river, of course.

We use to stay there and molding santul, a small ball shaped molded sand . Each of everyone was having their own site to polish his santul and later we would fight each other’s, bangging them to the death haha. Racheal’s was the only one santul every one could not win. His santul was as big as a soccer ball. Imagine that. He would carried it inside a plastic bag every time we went to the river side and it was always funny to look at. After the mandi sungai season was over, he crushed it on his own and we would look at it and felt guilty. How sad.

Everyone would sneaked in my uncle’s orchard and stole as much as limau manis and buah koko, then ran away to the up steam. My uncle knew it after some time and we would get caught red handed, sometimes. That’s the reason we became green little ninjas back then, putting up branches on the back and wore green t-shirt while crawling through the grass just to steal fruits. Funny.

There was a time when I lost total control during life-boating on the still-heavy-current of the subsided flood. Everyone was shocked and mission to rescue me, was started. They all jumped in their own ‘lifeboy‘ (nickname for the tire tubes) and
started to catch me up on a heavy current and deep Liawan river. I was stranded on a bamboo pile, we called it liagu. Someone actually died there, and I though it was my turn to be swallowed alive. Thank God Im still alive. Thanks to them I can still write this one adventure I had haha. Now the place isn’t there anymore. Everything changed.

Here is another story of the past. My cousin and I were the only anak-anak kecil around the late 80’s in my family. We used to play around and sneaking out the house every time we got the change in the afternoon and we would go down to the river and wasted time playing tanah liat making features we liked. Not forgetting to bring some of my mom’s sarong making balloons out of it. Haha, time went to fast. Today, she has become a beautiful lady and a good teacher. Me? I’m still hanging around time waiting to blast that visions of mine beyond reality.

We used to help my mom to cook pisang goreng after being scolded because of the mandi sungai thing. Haha. It was a very special moment in my life. How I wish to get back in time to just do lots of things with both of them and laugh. There is not much we can do and tell of being a grown up. We can’t afford the time to just sit around and enjoy the good times we used to have during childhood. Everyone is having their own struggle,  and ups and downs. Being a grown up isn’t easy.

She wanted to call me abang but I never wanted it. I felt ashamed when she acknowledged me to that extend. In the end, none of them address me to that, but always with the name. So I guess I’ve made my mistake because I felt like nobody respected me as an elder to this day.

Ahh.. We were good friends back then. Always do things together. Tales of the two children ended when I knew what was the meaning of kampung boys. I started to join the kids at my age and did stupid things. The only time I stayed home in my free time was on Saturday and Sunday morning, cartoon fever that is. After that, it was melastik burung time.

Walking through the stairs of time turned me into a man. Now the kids I used to play with are having their own family and children. Damn, they went ahead too fast or am I the only one who is still searching the meaning of life? The story was an adventure of mine, late in the 80’s but we are now here in the new millennium. I don’t know how to accept this but it’s was almost 20 yrs ago.

… and now I feel sad.

I remember back when I was about 12 years old, I took a Karate lesson during night time after school. After each of every lesson, my Sensei would send me home but not at the stairs of my house, it was more like a couple of hundred meters from my house at the edge of a jambatan gantung, a Kampung bridge across the small Liawan river. So I would walk down there and looked around, sometimes stumble, but most of the time scared. My heart would be pumping hard while walking through the depth of nights, but I’m greatful that I’ve experience it and it made them a wonderful memory.

There was a tree, though. A very special tree for me. I don’t know if you believe this but, every time I was walking across the bridge, the tree would suddenly turned in to a Christmas tree. One can see all the fireflies would fly and gather there making it shines similar to a Christmas tree, filled with color lights and blinking all night long. There was a special feeling about that but I would never stop and took the time to enjoy that scene. The moment you get that special feeling makes the night even scarier. The sense will tell you, there is something wrong about it and you will start to have goosebumps.

I want to actually enjoy watching the tree and the fireflies but I failed in every attempt, too hardcore for a 12 years old. There was a time when my friends and I went to check out the tree but nothing happened. No fireflies, no Christmas tree and no nothing. I wonder why? Btw, that place actually has its own tales. Scary ones to be exact.

It happened every night until I was 14 when the tree got washed out by the raging stormy flood in the 96. I never saw fireflies since then. I guess not many people experienced that and I for one, pity some of the young ones who I believe don’t even know what is a firefly. Not just fireflies, lots of other beauty of nature I used to see back then, are now disappeared. NOT even a bettlebug. You know that small red little bug with black dots on its back. And there was this square shaped bug, sometimes yellowish, sometimes whitish.. gosh, I miss the old times.

I used to go play in the bushes searching for insects and plants. Remembering back, there was a lot of names I hardly hear people saying them now such as rumput sundal, kucingan, jarak, etc. I can’t recall the name for that plant which has a purplish bud-kinda-flower and its leaves can shy shy one…oh shit, it’s that rumput semalu!!! hahaha. I always ended up getting stings by bees. Funny but enjoyable because back then there was no computers, no counter strike, no DOTA, no nothing of such.

Such a wonderful memory.

I’ve been living here in the land of my ancestors since the day I was born, not so long before I can see this magnificent world full with mystical wonders. My ancestors have been fighting much of the struggle to raise up generations of Sabahan, which, somehow divided into ethnics. I am a mix-blood of a Dusun and a Murut, so now what have I become? A whatever? Should I or should I not to use the surname inherited by my father who inherited it from his great grand fore fathers? Why can’t I use my mother’s surname, instead?

So much mysteries yet so little we know about ourself, not to mention this homeland. So much to seek and to understand, but so little left to discover. Things have passed and gone none to be seen again, so let us dig deep what’s left to understand the past. There was a time in our generation’s life line disrupted from the track and resulting a devastating outcome, so let us rebuild that track of time to a better future for this land of our ancestor.