22

Chapter 22 is in its last page. I sit before the computer while the remaining lines materialise into place.

It’s not particularly interesting, as last pages go.

I imagine it would go something like this:

She sits in front of her computer, typing, like she did almost every time a chapter ends. Except during the close of Chapter 20, that was crazy. But the ones before and after, well, they involve her sitting alone in her room, navel-gazing without much enthusiasm.

For some reason, she muses, Jack Johnson’s easy tunes are always accompanying her during – as she would dub 21st June from now on – her Dark Day. Ironically, all he’s repeating now is “You better hope you’re not alone, you better hope you’re not alone, you better hope you’re not alone (etc etc)”. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jack, she thought with a tiny smile, the facial effort being all she can manage right now. It’s the same song she listened to last year at this very moment – she has the blog post to prove it. Coincidence or cosmic joke? She chuckles silently, amused that a punch line can be so literal.

This year, however, it’s a little different. She can deal with being alone, for twenty odd Dark Days have thought her a thing or two about having no expectations. She is neither sad nor bitter. She isn’t even numb. Perhaps the correct description is that she has accepted, surrendered, let go. The ending of a chapter and the beginning of another – everyone does it differently. Some celebrate, some mourn; some get high, some slump low. Perhaps it has been written somewhere that she will always spend hers alone, in her room, listening to Jack Johnson, sipping a glass of melancholy – both shaken and stirred.

It’s not so bad, actually. There are worse places to spend it. All in all, she has it easy.

The biggest difference, of course, lies in how empty Chapter 23 is. The fresh, spotless pages scare her. For the first time, she has no story draft – the plot can go anywhere, the characters can develop into complete strangers, and the setting, oh she knows too little about the setting. The book can propel into a completely different direction, even cross several genres, and she can’t decide if that’s a bad thing or not.

Nevertheless, the pages must be filled. She’ll have to make it up as she goes along.

******
It is a Dark Day. Pudu Jail is to be demolished today. When development bulldozes its way through, nothing survives – not a historical site, not the longest painted wall recorded in the Guinness Book of Records, and definitely not our pride.

Read story here.

I am repulsed by this statement: “The government is of the opinion that [the Pudu Jail] is not something we can be proud of. There are many other things we can be proud of compared to a jail.”

Yes, we are proud of many things in Malaysia, and they happen to include a jail. In fact, we may be holding a jail in higher regards than we are with politicians who decide what we can or cannot be proud of.

Read “Pudu Jail: Walls come tumbling down, history bypassed — Badan Warisan Malaysia” in the Malaysian Insider.

I was only half my current height when my parents first took me on a tour to Pudu Jail. We looked into the barren cells that inmates used to live in, watched a disturbing video on how whippings were carried out, and sat in a dark room while listening to an eerie audio re-enactment of a hanging process.

We peered into the hole which death row inmates dropped to their demise, imagining their bodies abruptly dragged down by gravity and, possibly, guilt. We read the explanation written by the side of each type of noose.

The place reeked of grim hopelessness. And then I saw the wall – a mural of lush green forest painted by the prison inmates.

Even at that young age, the peaceful artwork so full of life struck me as a stark contrast of what the wall held within – Death, and its companion, Despair.

An otherwise intimidating architecture, softened by gentle strokes of colour. It’s like someone has painted Hope, and couldn’t stop, until he ran out of wall.

Now, every time I pass by Pudu Jail, I’m reminded of the day my Dad held my little hands as I stared in awe at the wall, forgetting to close my mouth as always.

Now, the building is gone, save for a small section of the wall flanking its main gates. Will I still remember the hope, the childish wonder, the warmth of my father’s hands?

If a developed nation can only step on the wreckage of its yesterdays to go higher, tell me, how high is enough?