Melor 1

“Hold it, hold!” I said looking up from Rafique and Raju. These two knuckles heads were my closest friends in college. All three of us were business majors.

 

            “What?” asked Raju sipping his ice lemon tea.

 

            “You cannot pause there. What happen next?” I asked leaning closely towards them. Waiting for them to continue...

 

            “He fainted,” said Raju nodding his head towards a flushed Rafique.

 

 Ok, that was anti-climatic..

 

           

“What?”

            “He fainted. After screaming Abang he fainted.” Rafique’s face was getting bright red. He could barely look at me.

 

 

 

 

I was trying my hardest not to laugh. Rafique, BIG masculine Rafique. The adoration of many girls in college, you could hear the trail of girls sighing as he passed them by. Rafique with his dimples, short crew cut hair and Caucasian features (he swore that he was a true blue Malay). Ehhmmmmm….. I shook my head. Back to the story..

            “What happened to the girl?”  I asked. Raju shrugged his head. “His brother and I were paying attention to Rafique, when we turned to the woman, she was gone.”

 

            “Gone?” I asked dumbfounded.

            “Hilang….puff,” said Raju waving his hands in the air.

            “Maybe she is a [1]Pontianak,” said Rafique taking a spoonful of nasi lemak. Raju shrugged his shoulder.

            “Maybe…..” he said thoughtfully. I knew Raju all my life, when he was deep in thought ,(which was not often, he was a carefree, happy-go-lucky fella and hardly takes anything seriously) it means that he was going to do ‘something’ and  that ‘something’ normally includes both me and  Rafique.

 

 

            “Can you tell me, why are we here?” asked Rafique crouching beside me in the bushes. We were at the area where Rafique and Raju had their accident. My wristwatch was showing 9 o’clock.

 

            “I have no idea, “replied Raju crouching on my left side. All of us had our torchlights in our hands. We had been in that position for the past half an hour.My knee was getting numb; I looked nervously at my watch. Mom would be expecting me to be home by 10pm. I told her that I was going to study at my cousin’s house.

 

            “Then why did you bring us! “ I said loudly but was shushed by Raju. I glared at him.

 

Another half an hour passed by, nothing happened. I was getting really nervous. Rafique had already fallen asleep.Fifteen minutes….mom was going to kill me if she caught me with two guys late at night. I got up quickly startling Rafique from his slumber.

 

            “What are you doing? “hissed Raju.

 

            “I’m going home,” I hissed back and would have stock off if I hadn’t bump into something. Something soft, and warm.I turned; there face to face with me was the woman in Raju’s story. Long hair, pale skinned, bloodshot eyes were looking back at me. She was wearing a long bajukurung, I didn’t see whether her feet were touching the ground.

 

            “Ggggggggghhhhooost!!……”Rafique shrieked.

I could hear Rafique and Raju run…..traitors! I turned to run, but the woman grabbed my arm.

 

            “Help me,” she hissed. I tried to yank my arm away from her, but her grasp was strong...“Help me…” She was pleading to me. I looked at her eyes and somehow the eerie bloodshot eyes were gone and all that I can see was tears.  The young women grabbed my wrist and pulled me along with her. She ran towards the forest, passed Raju and Rafique , who were hiding behind a large rubber tree. I didn’t have to turn around to know that they  ran after us..We zigzag through the forest.We were going so fast, at one point I didn’t feel like I was touching the ground. The young woman didn’t say anything, her cold hand was holding tightly to my wrist.

 

We stopped infront of a large [2]Sena tree. The gigantic tree loomed down at us, with its massive trunk and its peeling barks. The branches were in a strange upward sideway formation as if it was blown that way by a storm.

            “Where ….Are ….We …..Going?” I asked out of breath from our sprint.(Mental note, I really need to exercise more)

 

The young woman didn’t answer me. She just looked at the tree, searching for something.

 

            “Come,” she said grabbing my wrist again and pulled me after her. She pushed some dead vines away. Hidden by the thick vines was a small hollow hole in the middle of the trunk.It was big to fit the both of us. I could feel her grasp tightly to my wrist forcing me to follow her.

 

            “It looks dark in there, maybe we should find some matches. I’m claustrophobic,” I said hoping to delay her until Raju and Rafique arrived. God knows, what would happen if they did catch up with us. None of us were prepared for a confrontation.

 

The woman ignored me and stepped into the hole pulling me with her. It was cold inside the trunk; I could feel a gust of wind from above as if the whole interior of the tree was hollow. From outside, the tree didn’t look that large but inside ….I had expected to be cramped against the woman but surprisingly it was spacious and pitched dark. I couldn’t see the woman in front of me but I could feel her pulling my hand, urging me to walk. I walked and walked, it was like the trunk of the tree had expended, I could only sense spaces around me like I was walking into an open area. Had we not entered a tree? Why was I not bumping into something? Surely the trunk wasn’t this big?

 

It felt like a few minutes when she stopped walking. She let go of my hand and through the dark I heard her voice clearly.

 

            “Cover your eyes, “she said. I didn’t know what she meant until I was blinded by a blast of light. I quickly closed my eyes tightly as I felt the light scorching my eyes.

 

I didn’t know how long I was standing there with my eyes closed. Five minutes, ten minutes…..I couldn’t hear anything except soft gentle breeze brushing past me. I couldn’t feel the heat anymore and my eyes didn’t feel like it was going to burn. Slowly, ever so slowly I opened my eyes.

 

            Wow….I gasped…

 

            It was daytime.

 

I was standing on top of a hill. Stretching in front of me, were acres and acres of paddy fields. I could see water buffalos plowing away and I could see villagers wearing straw hats, knee deep in mud planting new paddies. The sun was way above us, but I didn’t feel hot at all.  The gentle wind blowing on top of the hill was very calming giving serenity to the scene in front of me.

 

            “Beautiful isn’t it,” said a voice, almost startling me from my state of mental calmness.

 

It was the young woman that had pulled me inside the tree. She didn’t look gothic and ghostly anymore, her skin had color and her bloodshot eyes were gone, instead it showed sparkling hazel brown eyes, full of life.

 

            “You don’t see this anymore…..unless you go in Farmville, “I said still dazed.

 

The woman looked at me curiously.

 

            “Facebook, “I said as if it was a natural answer.

 

            There was no response.

 

            Ok, might as well skip the chat.

 

            “Where are we? And why did you bring me here?”

 

            “You’re in my village.”

 

            “And where is that? Inside a tree?”

 

She laughed.

 

            “No silly, at the other side of the tree,” said the young woman, she was smiling and swaying along with the wind. I felt like swaying along with her. It was so calm. I shook my head; there was no time for that.

 

            “Oh, right. Silly me, the other side of the tree has a different time zone compared to when we entered the tree,” I said sarcastically to get her attention back to me.

 

 

            “Melor……Melor. There you are.” An old woman came up the hill. She was small and plump.  She had a cane to support her.  The old woman frowned at me, increasing the wrinkles on her face.  She eyed me from head to toe, literally giving me a body scan.Once satisfied, she gave a big toothless grin.

            “Assalamualaikum, I see you have company.” The old lady smiled and looked behind me. I turned and saw Rafique and Raju standing not far from us, looking at their surroundings.

 

            “Sof, what is going on here?” asked Raju shakily.

The two of them had managed to catch up when they saw the woman and I disappeared into the tree.  Figuring that they had gotten us trap, Rafique and Raju waited outside for us to come out.

 

After a few minutes gone by and no us, the two young men stepped into the hole and stumbled through the darkness, leading them to where everyone was now. Raju didn’t look as shock as Rafique , who looked paler than usual.

 

            “Are we dead?”

 

            “How can we be dead, we didn’t hit anything unless those head bumps in the dark must have given us a severe concussion, causing us to be delusional,  “ argued Raju trying to find reason. I raised my eyebrows at him. Really, sometimes Raju amazed me, he can conjure a scientific reason to a ridiculous situation.

 

            “It’s possible we could have knocked ourselves out.”

            “And everyone had the same dream?” I couldn’t help chipping in.

 

Raju was about to open his mouth but stopped.

 

            “*Anak-anak,I think it is best that you follow us back to our house,” said the old woman seeing the glare that Raju gave me and turned to go back down the hill.

 

Melor smiled and gestured us to follow them.

 

We walked down the hill and walked past the paddy fields. If the villagers working in the field noticed us with our strange clothes, they didn’t show any interest. It was as if it was a natural thing to have strangers passing by their village. Men and women were busy harvesting the paddy and I could see children playing near a dam which channels the water into the fields.

 

Rafique couldn’t help dipping his feet in the paddy field and would have stayed longer, playing with the water, had not the old woman warned of leeches hidden in the mud. Rafique quickly scrambled out.

 

 We walked on the narrow borders, with the old woman leading the way.

We found out that her name was Mak Limah, and that Melor was her daughter.

 

 

It was a long walk to Mak Limah’s house. We passed orchards, graveyards; we went up hill and down hills. We past a few streams, the three of us couldn’t resist stopping for a while to drink and splash our faces with cooling natural water. I marvel at both Melor and her mother’s stamina, especially the mother, she didn’t seem out of breath.

As for us, I was ready to past out, Rafique was wheezing and Raju was limping.

 

Their house was in a forest far from the other villagers. There were coconut trees everywhere. The house itself was made of wood supported with four strong pillars made of timber. The roof and the window shutters were made of nipah leaves.

 

Chickens were clucking and roasting below the house.

 

Inside the house was bare, except for a few oil lamps and a nipah mat where, Raju, Rafique and I sat as Mak Limah and Melor busied themselves in the kitchen.

 

            “Why are we here?” Rafique asked as Melor served us tea. MakLimah was leaning against a wall munching on betel leaf. She offered to us but we declined politely.

 

            “Most importantly where are we?” asked Raju.

 

            “You are in our village,” said MakLimah.

 

            “Where is your village?”

 

            “Same place where you live”

 

            “But our home does not have paddy fields, even the nearest village has only dried up paddy fields,” said Rafqiue helping himself to tea.

 

            “You could say we are neighbors,” said Mak Limah lazily, there were red stains on her mouth from the betel leaves. Raju and I exchanged looks, this wasn’t going anywhere.

 

            “You do know that god creates other living things that coexist with your kind, do you?” Melor asked gently.

 

            ‘You mean………ALIENS?” asked Rafique. I couldn’t help shaking my head, aliens…really….Aliens. Rafique sometimes amazed me.

 

Mak Limah nearly choked on her betel leaves trying to stifle a laugh.

 

            “You mean fairies, bunians, toyol?” asked Raju.

 

            Melor nodded her head.

 

            “So what you’re saying is that your orang Bunian?” I asked trying to calm myself. If it was a normal situation I would have thought Melor was mad, but all three of us were sitting in her living room, sipping a cup of tea.

 

            “You got to be kidding!“

 

            “Says the guy who thought she was a Pontianak,” whispered Raju to me. I giggled.

            “Why not, my people have coexisted with you for centuries. We don’t bother anyone; we just live happily and worship Allah. We meant no harm, “said Melor. She was touching her stomach. I had forgotten that she was pregnant.

 

            “How do you travel from your world to our world?” asked Raju.

 

            “We have certain portals or doorways from your world to ours, but it sometimes changes location. Your people sometimes mistakenly wandered into our world by mistake, either to end up staying here or to return back. We, of course welcomes them here into our homes as one of us.”

 

            “You mention that you need my help. What is that help?”

 

            “Melor is trying to find her husband,” said Mak Limah quietly. Melor didn’t say anything, she merely looked down.

 

            “What happened to her husband?” asked Raju.

 

            “We don’t know. He never returned.”

 

            “Returned from where?”

 

            “He was one of you. He accidently stumbled into our world, bleeding and injured with no memories of who he is. Melor found him in the forest, unconscious. The two of us helped him the best we can. When he woke up he couldn’t remember anything. We knew where he was, from the clothes that he was wearing. He was a nice young man Very polite and respectable to everyone. He helped out with the chores. Month past and both him and Melor fell in love.”

 

            “We married. One day he mentioned that he missed his mother and would like to go and see her. He never returned,” said Melor gently, she didn’t cry but her voice was trembling. I felt pretty bad, my mother was a single mother, and it wasn’t easy to raise a child without a father figure.

 

            “Have you tried searching for him?”

 

            “We have but we can’t stay in your world too long.”

 

            “Why?” asked Raju.

 

            “Bunian people are nice people. Some people like to associate us with jins or elves but we’re a creation of Allah to worship god and to leave on our own community. We don’t have corruption here. Nobody is talking bad of each other. We don’t know the word back stabbing. Here, everyone is equal. There is enough food, wealth to go around. We don’t have to steal, everyone is family and we take care of each other. We are cocoon in our own environment protected from anything bad. All we do is work in harmony and devote ourselves to god. But your world is a polar opposite from us. Bad feelings, stealing, corruptions, we can feel all that and it feeds inside us causing us to be sick. You can stay in our world but we won’t last long in yours.”

 

            “What about your husband, what will happen to him? Since he’s actually human?” I asked. Melor glanced worriedly at Mak Limah.

 

            “We are not too sure; we never had an actual human that stayed too long from the community. But Abang Malek is a good man and he was excited to have this baby. He would have never missed the child’s birth.  Something terrible must have happen to him, I know it!” There was an awkward silence at Melor’s outburst.

 

 

            “Then we have to help,” said Rafique.” Do you have any pictures?” Melor shook her head.

 

            “Do you know his name?”

 

            “Malek. We called him Malek but I don’t think that is his real name.”

 

            We have no actual names, no pictures……this won’t be easy……….

 

 

 

            “There they are!” shouted a voice as the three of us clambered out of the hole.  Lights from all directions were shown at us.

 

---

[1]Vampire

[2]Casuarina trees