Who is Aling? Part 2

Who is Aling? No longer has anyone known, and nobody cares.

Except for the caring few; and that consists of her late mum, a brother, four sisters and perhaps, some nieces and nephews – not sure either. The fact is that, they formed the innermost circle of the family. The team later joined by the sister in law.



This small wagon acted as the only bridge for Aling and our world, and becomes a life support system for her. This way, her misfortunate endeavor in the hideout continues till the day she dies.

But whatever it is, I am quite sure it doesn’t even include all family members. For example, one of the brothers can’t remember he ever met Aling since 1970s.

On the day she passed away, the undertaker service immediately called upon to the village. The servicemen then asked a villager where about the location of the deceased. The man responded, he knew the location well, but can’t remember there is any members of the family in the said house had just died, if any.

He clearly excluded lonely Aling from the list!

As for me, it was my wife who woke me up at 6 o’clock in the morning, and informed me about the news. “We have to go back”, I replied immediately.

Its quite disturbing on the way back as my maid asked too many questions to whom actually had just passed away, where did she lived, why the funeral is going to take place in grandma's house, etc.,etc.,. At the end I simply lied to her to keep the mouth shut.

That was the first time I saw her, upon my arrival. O my God, this must be Aling. A middle age with small, built, thin, toothless, and lifeless body with short hairs; lied down on the mattress. Her eyes sunk deep inside the sockets - as if to tell everyone that’s how exactly she was hiding deep inside the house for most of her life. She clearly wasn’t in a good shape when God called upon her. The face implied misery, lots of them. The expression on her face contained a mystery that is known only to her. And to God, who dictates the unique path for her in this world.

Imagine the will of God, and how He dictates Aling on how to live her life in this world. It lies well beyond my apprehension, as well as my poor imagination.

It is a lonely world, no matter how we look at it. It is terribly slow, everything moves at a snail pace. Time is incredibly abundant when it’s all about living in a room, if I must describe here. Every moment goes nowhere. Everywhere it’s all about gazing on the wooden floor, wooden wall and a tin roof. With unlimited time in possession, eventually you will be able to recognize every crack on the wall, or to memorize every hole atop, or to pinpoint every pattern and color around you. For every second you tend to submerge in limitless wild imagination, the mind ocean of yourself. Your heart beat, your breath becomes perpetual life music. The heat of the rooftop becomes the permanent crowd, and the wind’s whirling sound becomes your only friend. Once or twice a day the door squeaks open, and a familiar somebody enter your domain as their duty call. This is the only time when your infinitive wandering takes a break. Perhaps is serves as a reminder that there is still another world apart from your own mind; that you corporeal body must still eat and nursed in order to survive.

But what if it’s actually the other way around? Aling may in the wonderland for all these while, ours' too preoccupied and materialistic mind simply couldn’t understand. From this perspective, what we may see as misery may not misery after all. She may love her tiny world that we see as a pitiful cage like no other; and the old house had fulfilled whatever desires she may had in her lifetime. Maybe she treated every break whenever somebody enters the room as unnecessary disturbance that she hated most; who knows? Perhaps this is why, according to the auntie – do not undermine her ability to badmouth anybody who happens to visit her once and a while.

"I couldn’t remember how she like, I can only recap the glimpse of her past by looking at the photo”, said the brother. Whatever.

But I honestly still don’t understand to why she did not move to grandma’s [then] new house instead of staying in the old one. Why she never had been exposed to other family members; she deserved it, like it or not. Why there were no further efforts to cure her on the first place. And why they never openly discuss about Aling, she was a family member, and should be treated as one. These question marks will be buried together with Aling, I suppose. As for me, I won’t ask again from this point on. No heart feeling, sorry; I just speak up my mind.

Looking back, I now realize that whatever God had determined on Aling’s fate, actually it is for us to ponder upon. In my view, it’s all about God’s mercy. It is the mercy that rules, well above anything else. For if God’s judgment is actually based on bad, or good deeds of every human being, Aling are clearly an exception to the rule. What are there to judge when Aling did neither good nor bad for 37 years?

The brother swears that he saw something extraordinary on Aling’s final moments. His spiritually untrained eyes caught the bright white, yellow, green and red lights, akin to firework on display minus the cracking sound, well above the old house for several minutes. However he doesn’t understand what it’s all about, he even drives to work as usual; only to be informed later that the sister had gone forever.

To all the good bountiful souls that taking a good care of her for decades, as a fellow human being, I humbly praise your all.

Praise to you bapa & mama Jojo, mummy, mama, mama Ijam, auntie Alan, Ida, Ali and others, whoever you are, for the distinctive long service of humane effort. All of you are worth mentioning here.

May God bless us all, and rest in peace Aling!


So that's what I mean, my friend's story is exceptionally interesting - Arimi.

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your fan - 37 real |2008-11-17
WoW
is this real?

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Who is Aling? Part 1

This is an interesting story of a woman named Aling, as told by a friend of mine.

While in a coffee shop over ‘teh tarik’ last week, he suddenly posed a strange question to me, “How does it like if you live in a deserted island, all by yourself for 37 years?”

I then replied, “If Robinson Crusoe's story of living in isolation for two years or so can be foretold in a book; I can write about my 37 years of experience in 20 books!”

Yes, Aling lived in a near-complete isolation for nearly four decades; except it did not take place in an island but rather, in an old house!

This is a true story; no matter how strange it may sounds.

Here my friend’s story goes.

I am related to her not by blood, but rather; by marriage. I am married to one of her nieces, so she is my wife’s auntie to be exact.

I never had a chance to see her face, let alone talking to her, in her life time.

First time when I became part of this family, I noticed the remnant of an old house about 10 meters away from the grandma’s house. Strange enough this old house, it is well maintained and tidy, as if somebody lives there.

My instinct always told me that somebody must have been in the house, but I choose not to ask much. Nor that I don’t want to know, but my wife and even the whole family doesn’t talk about it. And as a newcomer, I can’t demand much, can I?

Therefore, I don’t know much about her. But since Aling isn’t with us anymore, I will tell you [almost] everything I know about her.

Aling was born in 1957. On the same year Malaya was freed from colonial rule; it was the year of independence, and the date that is well guarded by nearly all Malaysians.

She was the prettiest among the sisters, I was told on the funeral day. An active young girl with athletic built of sort. And she lived a healthy life until she was fourteen. That is until she was in secondary school; form two to be exact – circa 1971.

By the time, then misery struck upon her. It was raining on the way back from school one day. As the result, she was fallen sick; maybe high fever of a kind, I never knew. The sickness recovered in the matter of days, but mentally she hadn’t from that very unfortunate moment.

From there on, she was completely transformed into different persona. Yes, changed. And change for bad and later, for worse.

She had chosen to stay in her room. Refused to go out perhaps; refuse to meet people; refuse to talk; refuse to communicate; refused everything. She kept herself into a living exile, in her own bedroom.

According to Mr. Anis, one of her cousins [and my wife’s uncle], the isolation cycle wasn’t actually completed overnight. Rather it was a gradual process. She was still quite a normal person for some time after the sickness.

But of course, more and more time was spent inside the room until the cycle completed, and the room became the world on its own. I m not sure how far the medication process took her, but apparently the isolation stays.

It was on a later stage that Aling’s family built a new house adjacent to where she lived. Supposedly this house was to replace the existing, only to saw that Aling wasn’t part of the moving process eventually, not sure why. Her mum reluctant to bring her along on safety reasons, maybe. Or she may persist to live where she lives, and persistently had chosen to remain there. Whatever it was, she lived there till the end.

Life had become a full circle for Aling and her room. So complete that, as the time goes by, Aling completely vanished from the real world, our world. For 37 years.

Who is Aling? For decades, no longer has anyone known, and nobody cares.

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