Simplicity

If only life was simple.

Simple as sitting by the beach.
In silence, just the sound of the calm waves.
Maybe the sound of children playing, in the distance.
With the view of the sun setting.
That calm and carefree feeling.
Doesn't it give you the chill,
just thinking about it?

Can't this moment and feeling just be constant
throughout life?
Just mellow.
Just a good music.

It can't, though.

Because life is not simple.
It's beautiful, beauty.

That comes in the form
Of the time when your heart broke.
Of the time when you made your parents smiled.
Of the time when you lost and found yourself.

I wish, life was simple.

Simple as this cigarette, I'm smoking.
Listening to Afternoon Acoustic
Writing down my thoughts.
With a hot coffee to be sip, by my side.

or sitting by the beach...  

Harry Caffey Cage

There I was. Sitting in the dark room, filled with my colleagues. The chief was showing pictures of victims of a serial killer. Some people were sleeping or yawning. It’s been a long presentation of different serial killers. But I wasn’t sleeping or yawning. My eyes were wide open and focus as an arrow. This was the moment I was waiting for since the first day I entered the force. The serial killer on the slide was Harry Caffey Cage, my father’s murderer. Infamously known as HCC.

HCC is a member of an organization, called Kanker. Kanker is a contracted serial killer group when the mafia or gangster doesn’t want to get their hands dirty. HCC was nicknamed the silent killer, due to his preference of executing his victim through the attack of the liver. His victims are usually vulnerable to him due to their lifestyle and diet. He would infiltrate his victim, slowly and silently. However, as the old Malay saying goes: “Air tenang jangan disangka tiada buaya”. In English, it means:  “Don’t assume still waters hold no crocodile”.   

This presentation was showing the different ways HCC would torture his victims. One slide was showing his favorite method called Achit. First, he would torture his victim till his victim has no appetite. Due to this, his victim would be too weak to fight him of; therefore his job will be easier. As this continues, the victim would lose a tremendous amount of weight. Then, the main part of Achit: he would fill fluid in the abdomen until the victim is bloated.

 Another slide came up.  Another favorite of HCC: The John. In The John, HCC would give a huge strong blow on his victim’s right upper quadrant abdomen and it would block the flow of bile out of the liver. This result to excess of bile and bilirubin (one of its by-product), a pigment derived from dead red blood cells. Since bilirubin is yellow, the victim shows the appearance of yellow on the skin and eyes.

Can you imagine a skinny, bloated, yellow person? I don’t need to. I remembered. I remembered my father being like that and being weak and being in pain, oh my god, the pain. He would usually feel it on the right upper quadrant abdomen. I remembered I would wake up in the middle of the night, my mom would call for me and I would go straight to the kitchen, filled a bowl with hot-warm water, and soaked a small towel in it. Then I went straight to my dad, who was lying on the bed and moaning in pain. I placed the cloth on the area of the pain and gave two pills of strong painkiller. And I would quietly pray. Pray. Pray while he went through the pain. Pray so the pain went away quickly. Pray that this phase would end. Pray that he would live.

Before another slide came up, I walked out of the room, while holding my breath, in order to not show any emotion on my face, as if I just needed to go to the toilet. As I closed the door behind me, I let out a huge gasp, letting the air rush into my lungs while tears ran down my face. It’s been a while since my dad passed away, but I remembered him every day. I remembered the pain, the suffering, and tears he went through. I remembered an attempt we tried to fight HCC called The Himo. It’s currently one of method that shows success when fighting with any member of Kanker. The idea of The Himo is that: you have to be killed to live. It’s basically taking in poison. There’s many type of The Himo, for HCC, its call TACE. The night after the TACE, I sat the entire night next to my dad’s hospital bed. He was in so much pain. The worst I've seen. I don’t know if he slept that night because he was moaning in pain the entire night or throwing up blood. This might sound fucked up, but I’m glad I was there to hold a tray when he threw up. I wasn't there most of the part when this happened to him, but I’m glad I was there during that time, I was there to go through a bit with him. Something I’ll never forget.  

 I vowed to be the one who will kill, no, to erase HCC from the world. Currently, the force can’t take him down. He is too strong. He is still out there, torturing someone’s father or mother. One day will come when I will directly stare at his face, and when that moment comes, I would be holding the perfect gun, fingers on the trigger that will end his life. I will have my revenge. I swear on that.       

In loving memory of Nasaruddin Bin Md Razali.

An amazing father, husband, friend, and human.

1961-2013

The Cries of Life

Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A cry of curiosity,
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A cry of misunderstanding,
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A cry of euphoria,
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A cry of sadness,
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A cry of joy,
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A cry of frustration,
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A cry of blessed,
Tick, tock, tick, tock...
A cry of curiousity,
Tick....

About Time (8/10)

If you’re not into slow movies, then you’ll probably not like About Time. I have to give it to you, it’s quite a slow movie. But it builds up really well. Richard Curtis, the writer and director, was a genius on how he made this movie well and round with humor, wit and drama at the same time. But you can’t be surprise with a man who wrote Notting Hill and Mr. Bean. I’m quite a fan of slow movie. It gives me the opportunity to see the development of characters and story, and it usually gives me the ‘oh what a good movie’ feeling at the end of the movie. Because you know, it's not just another baseless romcom movie, but it's a movie with an important life lesson. Hey, it doesn't hurt when a nice, fastbeat cover of How Long Will I Love You (Ellie Goulding) is played in the movie, right?

About Time is a story about Tim, a typical, awkward, 21 year old ginger, looking for love. Tim has a pretty normal British family: the typical strong mom, the laidback cool dad, the quirky uncle, and the carefree but lovely sister. It seems like a normal and boring story, but it has a little twist in it: Tim and his dad are time travelers. But this not a sci-fi time travelling story, more on, having the ability to do things differently. So, Tim uses it on finding and getting the love of his life, Mary. Eventually, he got her but the way he got her was pretty complicated and confusing, at time. But I liked it, it was a fresh attempt of chasing love than the normal predictable romcom movies. The wedding was a fun scene too. But it wasn’t the romance of the movie that gave me ‘oh what a good movie’ feeling, it was more of the family part.

However, first, I want to talk about the 3 main characters (Tim, Mary, and Dad) of this movie. I think the casting of these 3 main characters were really excellent picked. Domhnall Gleeson was spot on with the protagonist, Tim. He made Tim so relatable to the audience, sometimes you sympathized him, sometimes you loved him, and sometimes you’re just annoyed by him. Domhnall Gleeson made you feel, everyone has a Tim in them.  Rachael McAdams portrayed the dream girl part very well. She was insecure, but perfect and loveable at the same time. But the best character was played by Bill Nighy, the dad. He played it cool, composed, and witty but when the sadness part of the movie came, he made sure it was profound. Round of applause for Bill Nighy, he made the story moved. He made the movie more than just another boring and pointless romcom, but made sure an important lesson is delivered in this movie. He was also the reason that made the movie touched me.

 The last scene when Tim and his dad spend their last time with each other was a really devastating scene. For those who knows me, dad is a pretty sensitive and touching issue for me. In a way, this movie is one of those ‘art mocks reality’ for me: close father and son relationship, cancer, inevitable death. About Time is not really about time traveling, but literally about time. The most expensive thing we can give someone in this world is time, because we won’t get it back. That’s the important lesson that I got from this movie. This movie unveiled that lesson gracefully and beautiful, at the same time. The hard truth is the time we are given in this world is short compared to the time we want to spend with our loved ones, so we just have to make the best out of it without the need to “travel back at all, not even for the day, I just try to live every day as if I’ve deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life.”

Well put, Tim.

Is peace a myth?

 “the civilization endure a long golden era with peace and prosperity” there were million lines like this in the books that I read when I was younger. I loved it. It gave me a goal, a purpose, a dream. But now, I’m older, I know there’s no such thing as peace. As far as I know, I’ve never known peace.

Peace- “a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended.” Wars have ended, but there’s never a period in which there is no war. Because when one war ends, another begins.

People of past fought for peace. People of the present fight without a reason. Maybe they do have a reason like greed, hate, and power. But not peace. I haven’t heard the word ‘peace’ for a while already. Has peace become something of a myth? 

Emptiness

A bottomeless pit.
A never-ending fall.
An inevitable doom awaits.

A hole in a chest.
Love and happiness
Can not fill this void.

The heart beats.
Beats without purpose.
Purpose to live.

Feel the beating,
Not from the chest,
Just in the mind.

Lost in the wood.
Searching for home.
A home that is lost.

Forever.

Moments

Life is not measured by numbers,

Not by specific time or date.

Just moments.

Positive moments.

There are setbacks. 

Positive moments in disguise.

Just get through it,

Survive it,

Own it.

The result of this practice,

Experience.

Accumulation of experiences,

Greatness.