The man walked out of the mamak restaurant towards his car and decided to head back home. He glanced at his watch and the time read half-past 2 in the morning and called his wife to tell her he'll be arriving shortly. He had been with a few friends discussing their dissatisfaction in matters of the nation where each of them voiced their opinion on ways that might help. With rising living cost which many can no longer afford, more than a few have no other recourse but to borrow from Money-Lenders, licensed and not, having pawned (and lost) many of their possessions in the early days of the regime. Soon, there will be nothing left but their very soul.
During the course of the discussion, the man had stood and raised his voice, roaring above the din of the TV sound system to emphasise his point: "This next election, we must vote the regime out!", expecting a euphoria of agreement but was instead, greeted by a deadly silence not only from his friends, but the entire shop. Suddenly, everyone stopped talking and pretended to look the other way. Even his friends. Except Guy.
Guy pulled Man's right hand and asked him to sit down them whispered in his ear "You should not have said that! It's dangerous and they could have heard you".
Shaken by Guy's words, Man looked around at the crowd in the restaurant, paying special attention to anyone who did not look familiar but could not make anything about them: the elderly couple looked too thin and frail; the young man, more of the hip-hop kind and with the hat on his head, he did looked like the Gestapo, one from the many World War II movies he had seen; and the young lady, pretty and innocent looking, was coyishly talking on her cell phone and in all probability with her boyfriend. No, Man deduced. There's no one here that may be a member of the regime's intelligence.
"We are supposed to be a democratic nation..." Man said in a voice far different than when he was standing.
"Democratic nation, my foot!" whispered Guy. "They've been rigging the elections from Day One and this moment we are in now, is the penultimate to it all. Just one more is all it takes and we'll be their slaves".
"No! I'll not let my children be slaves to anyone! And not to them certainly, not them!". Man stood up and walked towards his car.
As he reached his car, four figures suddenly appeared from a van parked next to car. What happened next, no one really know. But Man must have felt electric shocks from a single shot of a Taser Gun and was already in spasms when he fell to the ground. As his conscious begin to fade, he must have caught the sight of the pretty and innocent looking young lady he saw earlier and heard the words "We are from the Love Squad! Nobody! Nobody dare challenge our beloved leaders!", even as he felt the front of a boot cracking one of his rib bones. Such was the standard procedure told by the lucky few that managed to crawl away. Man's wife, will spend a very long morning waiting.
/-
One good thing about being a Sit-Down Comedian is that I can write just about anything so long as I keep within socio-boundary of respect for my fellow human. Leeches and Jackasses, along with bootlickers, are way another story.
Anyway, one take the fiction above anyway one wants to. But to several Malaysians, the ending part is already a reality. Maybe not to the letter, but it has happened in form. Ops Lalang, BERSIH 1 - 3, Memali, ISA detainees, are the ones we know of. What about the ones we do not now of? Could Ahmad Sharbani, Ong Beng Hock and perhaps many more make up the list of Serial Victims? A few of them are ladies, I should remind you. Dare you with utmost certainty be certain that you or your kins will not be in the list? Even if you can, dare you watch your friends or neighbour being carted away for a wrong they do not even know of? If you want to stand up for the country you love, then please, sign the petition below:
NO TO NEW SECURITY BILL!
or go: https://www.change.org/p/yb-senator-tan-sri-abu-zahar-ujang-ahli-dewan-negara-summarily-reject-the-d-r-38-2015-majlis-keselamatan-negara-2015-bill
We may win, we may not. But if you do not do anything at all, the we will surely fail. Then, only the Sound of Silence will accompany you.
2 comments:
Very true. And I hope that's not a real story.
Shafarina,
The story I wrote may not be true but some part of it was based on true accounts as written by Abu Urwah, or Pak Abu as he is more affectionately known.
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