The Emptiest Raya I Ever Had

Assalamualaikum? Hai, Hanafiah, how’s life? How’s raya? I guess dis raya is not much worth of a celebrating eh? With all the problems around you, it made dis year’s raya kinda short, empty and meaningless, but maybe the mmost memorable by far.

Okay, like usual, few days before raya, I was tossing back and forth on the bed, being restless thinking about whatever I was thinking, about my problem, anyone’s problems, and my brother’s problem. All these stuffs get into my head, unstoppable, uncontrollable like the water flowing in the river. But neither nevertheless, all dis problems aren’t something that I can deal with, nor it’s my problem to deal with, nor that I’ve any way to solve it or perhaps it’s unsolvable only time could tell when.

So, I decided to make myself busy, with all the trivial stuff I can find, and the first thing dat I saw as I went down the stairs, the wall on the right side. This wall is full of high esthetical value graffiti, created by the most artistic graffiti painter anyone could find in the history of graffiti that is Danial Iman and his other dark sidekick, Amirul Iman, who are both my nephews.

I decided to paint the wall, and when I went outside, I saw dat old, rusty, small gate, with broken plastic letter box. I think its time to change, maybe I cant change it completely, but at least I can paint it, at least that will keep it going through during this festive season, or these hard times. I think I can do it, it’s easy I tot. Yeah it was, a little bit. After buying all the required tools, I started painting with the wall first. What made the process harder was not the procedures itself but the hardships that came from the cranky masterpiece creator, my both beloved nieces, maybe this was just some sort of test, a fasting test dat is. Iman was sulking when I scold him to take his bath and the true masterpiece creator, who is just about to rise, Fatihah Iman, the true hidden mastermind of the graffiti creation, also decided to take actions into her own small hands, haha.

Well, I finished with painting the wall, but still my mind, my heart wasn’t finished, it wasn’t completed. I don’t know what are the relevance or relation between painting the wall, the gate, and what I felt dis raya. Dis mixed up feelings; maybe it’s just that I need to ‘repaint’ my feelings back? But for now I just know I need work, I need to become busy, like other previous moments, I need my mind occupied but not with trivial matters, but things that are noticeable, that will make people at least stop and say ‘hey, it has changed, it has improved’ like those sort of things. But then again I was staring, waiting for the phone to buzz, but it didn’t. It just didn’t. Maybe it was the same on the other side of the phone, other side of the line dat is, or maybe, I was clapping single-handedly.

The next day, I painted the gate with its original color, the darkest color anyone could find in one’s heart, black. Before painting, I scrape off the dirt or any rusty part that had chipped out and wipe it with a cloth to clean off the dust or any small unwanted particles that could disrupt the painting process. After fully finished painting the following day, I went to buy the new post box, dis time it’s aluminum, not plastic. I hanged it on the gate, tied it with a string, and painted the house number, ‘306’, on the red box.

Then I rushed and prepared myself to balik kampong. I was in a hurry, but its normal to forget sometimes even the most important, crucial things when you’re rushing. As I went thru the Sg Besi toll, few kilometers after dat I remembered I had forgot to bring my baju melayu along. Damn, adoi, astaga, how could I forget? Then I told mom, and we went back to Melawati by following the UPM Serdang exit.

Well, I just hope this is the end of all this misfortunes, like i had always wished ;-)