Alien Landscape

the Brown Cat's cruel tutelage.

even growing up watching the Bosnian war on television, basic things like people killing other people did not register in the slightest when i was a kid.

a kid. staring at a television screen as people die in the light of her eyes while she just stared on, uncomprehending, uncaring. crying for it all only when the death was of one of her kin.

i was eleven and bored. it was a cool afternoon, at my aunt's terrace in Malaysia when i found a striped brown pregnant tabby wandering around in patches of grass at the frontyard beside a stained white wall. for the day, the cat was a playmate and a friend.

there were conversations, kisses, strokes, imagination. my small world of petty cruelty made up of bullies named Daniel and Zhi Wei faded away. i felt happiness bursting seams when i laid my head on her brown bloated belly as she basked under a gentle sun. the world could not have been more perfect. til the sun decided to go out and my mother called me back in. i waved goodbye to the wise brown figure that was my cat friend. she watched intently, golden eyes glinting, whiskers twitching as i walked solemnly home, pondering on the hissing dying sun.

the next sun came up the next day on a still brown heap of fur. solemnly still in the fresh air of morning, i tiptoed over and found my friend, dead. there was a white stillness to everything and my mind blanked out as i mutedly squatted by her body. i could not understand her frightening stiffness as i touched her with my fingertips. kitty. kitty catty. ni Yaya. ingat tak?

after about half an hour sitting on the grass, staring at a dead cat, touching it occasionally and recoiling at the chill, feeling uncomfortable and confused at the suddenness of everything, i finally started crying with my dirty hand on her bloated, flea ridden belly. discreetly. in case people heard. hard sniffs, hiccups and hot tears. my perfect world was gone.
bowing my leaking head under a warming blue sky, i cupped my hands and recited the Al-Fatihah for the brown cat, my concentration intense. that was when i heard suppressed laughter.

i turned, my face wet and embarrassed and saw my aunts and mother at the door of the terrace laughing at me and shaking their heads. humiliated by the laughter, i wiped my face and walked slowly away from my dead friend towards a nearby playground to join my cousins on their dusty bicycles.

the suddenness of Brown Cat's death taught me that humanity did not run the world as i had always thought they did, with weapons and science. death is not something of choice or reason. death comes to the young, to the happy, to new mothers and to the old. and it comes without warning. never can matter to death if you were happy or had a friend who will miss you when you go. and at a late age of eleven, my imagination broadened to the darker realms as i realised bombs did not just leave blackened faces and disheveled hair. lastly, the laughter taught me that that the world won't weep with you and that ultimately, you are always, always alone.

so there was much fear when i when through my teen age. always unconsciously recalling the cat's lesson.

i accepted that as a child. i accepted it by zooming downhill on a bicycle with the wind blowing hard through my hair, trying to forget everything, with the laughter of my younger cousins all around me, racing side by side. a group of innocent children with no idea of death and nature. that was the day i grew up without losing my innocence.

and the big surprise was televised on a crowded couch
our eyes grew wide and wet
oh was it really such a sad event?
Posted by NHJ 12/30/2005 12:03:00 pm

Friday, December 30, 2005