Kala Peluh Jatetino Menitik

Suatu Pagi di Pejabat

Ada suatu mesyuarat minggu lepas antara syarikat tempat saya digaji dengan satu syarikat lain yang ingin kami gaji perkhidmatannya. Ada 6 orang yang hadir. Mesyuarat berjalan rancak. Teh-O yang panas sampai tinggal sejuk di dalam cawan dek kerana asyiknya berbincang.

Saya ingin bertanya. ‘Encik Azmi, saya nak tahu…’
Saya lupa apa yang saya begitu bersemangat nak bertanya tadi. Macamana boleh lupa pada pertengahan ayat? Betul-betul lupa.
’Errrr....’
Perhatian semua orang tertumpu kepada saya. Memandang saya, menanti saya menghabiskan ayat.
’..errr, macamana saya nak cakap ya..’ langsung tak ingat, cuba membeli sedikit masa untuk ’refresh’ dan ’reboot’ komputer kepala yang sudah ’hang’.
’.. macam ni lah, saya nak tahu... errrr, macamana ya?’
Dan sepuluh biji mata terus tertumpu kepada saya. Nak mereka-reka soalan baru pon saya tidak mampu pada ketika itu. Betul-betul litar pintas. Atau mungkin litar terputus terus. Adoi.
Masa terus berjalan.
Perhatian tetap tertumpu kepada saya.
Komputer benak belum juga ’restart’.
’... errr...’
Dan ketika akhirnya soalan itu terbit semula, beberapa minit telah berlalu. Berpeluh toksah cerita lah! Mudahnya soalan saya berbanding dengan masa yang diambil untuk mengeluarkannya. Tentu Encik Azmi fikir ’appara’.

Ciss. Ciss! CISS!

Apasal lahhhh pelupa sangat ni! Mandi ginkgo biloba pon tak tentu boleh pulih ni.

Suatu Malam di Dalam Teksi

I took a cab from KLIA to home. It wasn’t THAT late at night, it wasn’t even 10pm yet. I was dead-beat tired having been in one after the other meeting for two days in Johor. The drive home would be about 45 minutes and I wanted to have a bit of a nap.

I was woken up by jerky movements of the car. Fully awake now, I realized the driver, a beat-up looking pakcik was braking hard every few minutes. And the car was swaying left right centre. From the rear-view mirror I saw pakcik’s eyes have glazed over. He was asleep with eyes wide open.

o-oh changgo.

‘encik, kita lalu jalan mana ni?’ Small talk had never been as important as it was that day. It was a matter of life and death.

A lorry had to swerve left because pakcik was doing the sway dance. The lorry honked at us.

Pakcik didn’t reply. He was obviously deep in slumber.

‘encik!’ I raised my voice a few decibels. Sounded shrill to my own ears.

And he woke up.

‘kita lalu jalan mana ni?
’nak pegi jalan klang lama kan? Betullah ni’

And i engaged him in conversations – permatang pauh, malay agenda, bulan puasa, Lina Joy, Safiah, Amy Search, economy – anything, just to keep him awake. He said he has been working since morning and he needs to find extra money for raya.

I told him to go home after sending me. Go home and rest. You don’t need to be cash-rich for raya, you need to be alive though.