The Pain
His face was calm, almost serene but carved with deep lines. He just sat there ignoring the world. It was almost a full three minutes since he last inhaled from that funny looking, foul smelling cigarette held between his fingers. The rain that began at midafternoon had been reduced to a fine drizzle. Somewhere along the horizon there should be a rainbow, still drawing amazement from children even with Sony PS3 consoles glued to their hands.
There were something about his eyes. Haunting, with some melancholic sorrow thrown in for some perverted measures. Those who had inadvertently glanced into them would quickly turned their face away as if embarrassed. Life is full of unwarranted tuggings of the heart. To the brim. That was nothing to Aiman. He never once tried to solicit sympathy. And he was not about to begin.
He inhaled that foul smelling smoke from the cigarette and three minutes' worth of ash fell into the Tesco shopping bag he had between his legs. He did not even notice. The drizzle had stopped. The wind had died down and amplified the discomforting emptiness. Those children gawking at the rainbow would have returned to their PS3 by now.
Aiman stood up and shifted the cigarette butt between his thumb and middle fingure and flicked it into a bin some metres away. It landed perfectly. It was an old habit since those Seremban days. Practice really worked, he mused.
The elderly Chinese lady at the counter gave him his key after he paid for the room. His climb up the stairs was slow and laboured. He had been living this life for the past few years and had formulated a few basic rules to ensure his continuous freedom. Never stay long. Cash will always be king. Act your surroundings.
Aiman was half the man he used to be and a smoker's noisy respiration to boot. He lingered in front of his room a moment longer, letting his ears shifted into overdrive. Everything's cool, he thought. Only sounds one would hear in cheap rented rooms above obsecure coffeeshops.
He knew the layout; it was the room in his dreams. The walls were once white. A poster of the Marlboro Man on one wall. He suspected it was there to conceal something unbecoming. Even for cheap rented rooms above obsecure coffeeshops. A single bed and a plastic chair the only furnishings here. At least the sheets looked clean, he spoked his thoughts.
Aiman took of his shirts and jeans. He never wear briefs when wearing jeans since he was introduced to his buddies at the school in Seremban and even during those years as a chief executive officer at a successful engineering firm. That seemed like a lifetime away. He badly needed a shower. His last one was three days ago at a Plus rest area near Tanjung Malim. He never took public transport now. He had studied people long enough to know that casual conversations and offerings of his strange cigarettes would go a long way. That was always his mode of travel between cities now. Hitching rides with lorry drivers who ploughed the highways of the country from Johor Bahru to Bukit Kayu Hitam, from Kelang to Kota Baru. He was a genial person and people rarely feared him though the sometime haggard look and the secrets it tried to conceal might be disconcerting at times.
There was a familiar smell in the common bathroom, the mingling of some harsh cleaning detergent and the chlorine stains on the wall. Aiman knew them all. He showered and was thankful for the mini Lux soap bar provided by the proprietor. He used his own towel, bought at Tesco earlier. He would just dump it somewhere later, when he had wiped everything he had touched clean. Never leave anything behind. He knew Malaysian forensics would never be anywhere near those CSI gigs on television but it would be prudent to be safe. Rather than sorry.
The new shirt and shorts from Tesco smelled fresh. He opened his sling bag, thumbed through his meagre belongings and finally found the gun. It was a Smith and Wesson revolver, .38 caliber. He put it under the pillow at the head of the bed and lit a cigarette. That was when he remembered his notebook. He had not read nor write anything in it for a few weeks now. He reached into the side pocket of his sling bag and pulled it out. It was given to him by his daughter as a Father's Day gift a long time ago. The cover was creased and completely innocent of any printing it once borne. Some of the pages had pulled partially free from the binding; but all the pages were still there.
He read through a couple of familiar pages from the notebook. As if in a sacred ritual, salt water began to create puddles behind his eyelids. Then the floodgates burst opened and a steady stream flow down his cheeks and dripped onto his shirt. Never a sob nor crazy wailing. Just silent tears. He slept clutching the notebook close to his chest.
Aiman just sat there, staring intently at the guy sitting in front of him. His body tensed. The guy had just checked his Queen and he had nowhere to run. The guy's expressionless face stared back at him. Got you, the guy might have said but he did not noticed. He sighed and extended his hand while his body relaxed to a slump. The guy, who he later learned was a national champion, shooked his hand but his face still betray no emotion.
He stood up and walked towards the dormitory. He still got an hour or so to spend at the game room but his mind was restless today and he had learned quickly that a restless mind was a trait best not shown to the orderlies. Lest he loved being strapped to his bed and later injected with a cocktail of God knows what.
That was when he noticed that the treatment room's door was slightly ajar. He had previously heard screams from this room, not of pain but of sorrow and hopelessness that invoked nasty nightmares in his restless nights. And he could not ascertain whether the realm of nightmares or this was the worst. He stopped in front of the door and slowly peeked through the gap.
It was the Chinese guy from the bed next to his. He was struggling and kicking violently while two burly orderlies tried to snap on the restraints. They finally succeeded and that was when he saw the doctor took a pair of what seemed like a pair of oversized headphones and put them at the guy's forehead. Suddenly the guy seemed to explode and his body was lifted almost a foot from the bed. Restraints and all. When he crashed back onto the bed, he crumpled into a heap and laid motionless.
Aiman's heart began pounding violently at his chest and his muscles went limp. He slumped to the floor and hit his head on the door, felt excruciating pain, still aware of his surroundings but unable to move a limb. The door was thrown wide open by the impact and the orderlies and the doctor turned their attention towards him. They rushed towards him and one carried him to his bed. Then he passed out.
It was six weeks before he managed to escape from the asylum and had been on the move since. He had checked out of the rented room earlier. The day was slightly overcast. Nice day for a walk, he thought to himself and walked towards Bayu beach.
The beach was deserted this time of the week. He reckoned the cars parked at the resort were either the employees' or some government officials', on a mission to empty the nation coffers on their never ending seminars and workshops to promote mediocrity. A shame but he was not about to give a monkey's ass just the same. He got problems of his own.
It would be dusk soon. Like those dusks many years ago when he and his Seremban buddies had their boys' nights out on the very same beach. Their faces appeared one by one in his thoughts. No laughing, gigling faces now. All seemed to be full of sadness and sorrow, almost apologetic. As if they were saying their final goodbyes. How he missed all of them. Maybe it would be better for them to remember me the way I was, he comforted himself.
The sun had finally set and darkness was a welcome relief. The beach was still deserted. A few infatuated lovers would soon be having their after dinner romantic stroll later, with the hopes of having each others' company until breakfast. Aiman stood up and took off his shirt and jeans, folded them neatly before setting them alight. Never leave anything behind. He still had the shorts from yesterday on. He had earlier burned his notebook in the bathroom and flushed the ashes in the toilet. The sling bag and it's contents were disposed off in one of the municipal bins.
Aiman slowly walked towards the surf and was relieved that the water was quite warm. He waded further until the water reached his chest. Then he closed his eyes and began to swim.
