Mable

Mable twirled her spaghetti in a fork clumsily, the semi-liquid cheesy tomato sauce strewn across her lips. “I like food when it’s cold,” she grinned widely at me, her baby teeth displayed in a mess of red and yellow.

“Mm-hmm, you do?” I looked at her absent-mindedly, my mind in a jumbled heap. “So tell me why do you think so?”

“Hot food burns my tongue, duhhh!” she poked at her spaghetti and twirled the fork again. She noticed I wasn’t paying much attention as my eyes crossed hers guiltily, and said, “Come talk to me, ‘lex!”

“Not now Mable,” I munched on my ham sandwich. There was that ugly suicide pact between two close friends of mine, that encroaching thesis to submit, and an endless list of need-to-buys for the weekly supply of essentials. I looked around the kitchen, sunlight streaming in through the half-opened windows, brightening a part of what otherwise would be a dark and damp section of the house.

A loud muscular horn rang through the house, and I was jerked back to the real world.

“Come ‘ere,” I said, as I kissed my sister’s forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said, wiping away the soft remnants of my wet lips, pretending to be disgusted. The usual yellow school bus stood outside our gate, a mighty grand sight, and I reminisced the time when I was in her shoes, dreading waking up in the wee hours of the dawn to go to an even less-liked place: the school.

I looked at her one last time before she finally boarded the bus, bag and all, and I went back to stoning, a favourite pastime of mine. My mum passed away giving birth to Mable – some complications apparently arose – and she never woke up again. I was devastated, beyond grief, referred to a psychologist for counselling, and Mable was my stepping stone of overcoming it.

Fatigue overcame me and I fell asleep, waking up when it was already dark again. I looked out towards the porch and saw Mable jumping in hoops on her own, smiling to herself, and a sudden odd sense of calmness flooded my senses. Nothing else seemed to matter – not the thesis, not the grocery worries – when I have my little sister, so innately innocent, able to indirectly soothe me.

My automatic gate opened and I looked in helpless horror as an old vintage drove straight into my sister, her cries resounding in my ears when the screams stopped abruptly. It would be an age-old cliché to say that my heart stopped at that instant, and shaking all over, I went over to the door to see my dad alighting from the car.

I crouched on the ground to look for my sister – or what was left of her – beneath the car.

“What are you doing Alex?” my dad looked surprised.

“You ran over her, you bastard!” my voice shook, trembled. “You ran over Mable!” I couldn’t understand why my dad couldn’t see it, see her.

“And who the fuck is Mable?” my dad pulled me off the ground. “Look kid, you’re getting sodding nuts.”

“Mable’s your daughter, you giant idiot,” I whispered.

My dad looked at me intently in wonder, scrutinising me. And he said finally, “Your sister died with your mum, Alex, your sister died on birth. You don’t have a sister.”

He walked away, seemingly sad and shook his head, and I sat on the ground, trying to digest what he just said.

“Peek-aboo!”

I wheeled around, and there was Mable, standing right before me, alive and well. I smiled at her, her wide grin warmed my heart, and we played catch throughout what’s left of the evening beneath the purple-hued sky.

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Super random story wtf.

You know how attaining full marks for an exam seems impossible? Doubt I’ve ever gotten full marks for any papers since my kindergarten days, since after that it seemed downright impossible – what with the silly mistakes and theoretical questions that require more than gargling facts and logic.

AND GUESS WHAT ZOMG. Yesterday I got back results for one of my mid-sem papers, and for my Basic Statistics for Business mid-sem paper, I obtained 60/60 WTF. That translates to a full 30% after dividing by 2, or if you like it in artificial percentages, I got 100% for my paper which has a combination of MCQ questions, structural questions and theoretical questions like “What is a histogram?” wtf.

Lemme revel in this semi-artificial glory since I’ve never had full marks for any test papers at all since kindergarten/primary school, let alone a pre-university foundation programme exam. D: (And no, I didn’t study like a total nerd but only revised just a day before this particular exam’s paper.)

Damn bangga wtf.

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Just watched Sunshine today with Ding and Andy – quite an alright watch though I wouldn’t say it’s the best. Sci-fi movies tickle my fancies (those tasteful, logical ones, that is). Our own Datuk Michelle Yeoh’s English seems to have improved tremendously, compared to her old effort The Touch. Something I’d recommend to people just to support our fellow Malaysians, especially if you like science fictions.

And for the record, there were several expletives like ‘fuck’ quite uncensored – loud and clear. And to my utter amusement, the movie was rated U here, and rated R (Restricted) in the United States. A sign of liberalism in the censorship board?