Conveying again the appreciation of her cousin yesterday, Hul was suitably chuffed, only thing being his abandonment of Islam. The old felon had really let fly. Pray? To who was I gonna pray? The creator who had programmed this world? The robot that dictated life? ( Not meaning the robotics that the government was promoting at every opportunity.) Make money. Buy condo. Holiday. Rocketing salvos like that had never before been launched from the Wadi tables. Hul’s innocent appreciation of her cousin’s muscles had caused her to enquire whether his observances had been likewise kept up. Some of the pair’s relos, siblings included in Kamal’s case, were living the scenes shown on TV, tripping from limousines to yachts & jets, all real lives. The man’s eyes stared out whenever he was onto something. Eyes like missiles on the launch pad, those pointy ones we boys drew back in primary and saw now in the media garlanded by ambitious politicians. Who’s gone? Kamal asked a number of times. Who’s dead? The man was serious; wanting to know. After returning to the question once or twice in the face of his cousin’s limited responses, he explained his embarrassment happening upon relatives. Oh, how’s so-and-so? Somebody’s mother, sister. Ah! She died two years ago. On her side Hul had trouble dealing with the bluntness; it was true too she was a bit outta the loop after her own terms of absence from the community. After 24 or 27 months Kamal had just gotten out, from the most recent of his stretches. The last time Hul had seen him he must have looked quite different. Well, so much time on his hands. A hundred, hundred & fifty push-ups, squats, &etc. Under his tee there was a six-pack. For a moment Kamal considered a display, before returning to his laksa. (A horrible dish, more than half left over. Try it, he challenged what seemed to him a doubting cousin.) On his ankle there was an electronic tag. For a second the man had thought to show this too. Everything was on the level, without hedging or shame. Naked openness that allowed any & all questions, whether from family member or perfect stranger. Married once, yeah. When he got out from one of his stints he had succumbed to family pressure. The one lady who was prepared to overlook his history became wife. A brief episode without children. He was a member of NA. That was Narcotics Anonymous, he explained. Yes, I’m an addict, he confessed to no one in particular more than once during the course, without being asked; at which cousin Hulwana always blanched and turned aside. The drug they had him on now, the one prescribed by the rehab people, was marvellous, better than heroin. Magic; tons better. There was no need to return to the H. Privately later Hul expressed her concerns. How could they be prescribing him drugs. Shouldn’t he be on sleeping pills?… Beautifully innocent Hul, whose knowledge of substances was confined to M, as she called it. How did he first get on? The question, like all others, was immediately answered. Teen years a friend suggested a go. (Replica example of the advertisements the authorities issued of the slide.) Initially, it was a bad trip. After a week he phoned the friend, or cousin it may have been. Bro. That shit made me sick, Bro. The remainder got diverted. The eyes didn’t poke out from the sockets, but grew bulbous and bright; bullish. The one death cousin Hul related brought them out again. Oh. She’s dead. It wasn’t just the last 24 or 27 months Kamal was catching up on, much more had passed him by. One of his and Hul’s relos was soon to marry a Tan Sri in Malaysia. This didn’t bring bulbous eyes; they were more playful now, with smiles and some head-lolling. Oh gee! Tan Sri. Really? Hul was cool on it, merely confirming. Ah. Ah. The connections. Kamal knew how that went. It was a Jamiyah rehab where he was placed, but not the one up at Lorong 26; the one at Clementi. And it wasn’t 6:30pm return; it was 9:30. Kamal produced a document to prove it, passed initially to cousin Hul. After the horrid laksa there would be ample time for the $36 or $38 steak filling the dinner plate he had set his heart on in Arab Street. It wasn’t clear whether his cousin would accompany him, she was tired from the day before. (With something we can’t go into here, accommodating devout Muslim that Hul remained.) In the latter part, seeking root causes & understanding, Hul asked about childhood and upbringing. There was something there, Kamal granted. The Arab father had married a Malay mother, when between the pair there was not a word in common; like ducks & chickens. There may have been alcohol in the house. The two elder sisters had prospered, but would not have a bar of the reprobate brother. On the matter of the programming of life the man had been told that was a matter of particular place and time, Singapore very specifically. Had he been in the Arabian desert, the form of life would be far different. Well, in fact he had visited the desert, travelled from Riyadh to somewhere else in 40 minutes driving, when back in the day traversing that distance would have needed 8-10 hours or more. Along the way, on the drive, Kamal saw the people lived like…In the Stone Age, he wanted to say, when he knew that didn’t fit. At something Hul said about the future, K countered with the short span remaining; yet shortly after he mentioned a term of 20 years from his present point in his late 60s. The miracle drug he named couldn’t be found online, ammo or emmo; the other lilica same. Naltrexone it must have been, though the reported high didn’t fit.
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