It's Fun and All That 4

My failed attempt to write in Malay. I believe our writing style is heavily influenced by our reading materials...and I just finished Anwar Hadi's "Whatever You Say I Am, I Am Ok". Good God!!!

------------------------------------------------------------------

Seperti biasa malam tu Selasa malam Rabu. But in English everyone will say that "it's a Tuesday night" instead of Wednesday night. Danny persetankan saja semua tu dan akan cakap, "This is all semantic." To which his friends would all retaliate, inside, that Danny is not using the word "semantic" in the right context but what do they know.

Anyway, it's been a weekly ritual for Danny to go to binishell, a dome like building at campus, a symbol long associated with the small town of Churchill. You see in Binishell, there are badminton and basketball courts. And as the president of the Badminton club he has been running the weekly badminton session at Binishell ever since he got elected last winter.

Since the Badminton session is always after working hours, he always has to ring up the security to open up Binishell for him and his club members. Sometimes it's the buff Ian, or the chubby and friendly Anthonio that will come to their aid.

But that night, it was totally a guy he'd never seen before. "Orang baru,mungkin."

Once in, Danny and some of his club execs will set up the nets and what not so that everyone can play. The same. Only that, that night while he was doing his job putting up the net, Auntie and Uncle Lim came, this time without their sweet cute daughter. "Ah, takdak pulak malam ni." Danny sighed, out loud.

"Hey Danny, how are you doing, mate?" Uncle Lim greeted, in his fake Aussie accent. He gotta sound as Aussie as possible for his coming Australian citizenship exam and interview, he believed so.

"Hi Auntie, Hi Uncle. I'm good, yourself?" Danny replied, with a much more convincing fake Aussie accent.

"Eh...you look like you lost a lot of weight di. What happened, you in love izzit?" Auntie asked, this time, still with her proud Manglish and not even showing any effort to speak with an Aussie accent. But the accent was not of Danny's concern. It was the question that caught him off guard.

Yes, he knew even before he was asked the question that he had lost a tremendous amount of weight. But it was not really because he was in love. It was because he fell out of love. Rejected. And dejected. The heartbreak had the 21 year old guy like him, whose 2nd confession, ever, in his life, to a crush got him crushed. And also on auto cruise of weight loss. He eats less, spends most of the time at the gym, balling and badminton-ing, if there's such word.

"Hahaha, no lah Auntie. Just feel like it's time to lose weight di. I feel wayyy better now that I'm lighter!" Danny, trying to feign a happy and positive front.

"Ya lor, look so much better. I can get you date my daughter also, if only you cut your long hair. Hahahaha, right not hubby?"

With the usual badminton peeps

Danny and his sidekick, Evee.

"Haha ya ya, why not, you a good man, young, so very the promising and full of potential." This time Uncle Lim couldn't contain his Singlishness.

"Make sure you cut your hair ya!" Auntie said, before leaving to get her racket.

And there Danny was, standing. Not moving for a good 30 seconds before he shouted out

"Was it my hair, goddammitttt!"