No Antenna

By Veera Ermyntrude*

Middle-aged ladies in my neighbourhood can always be counted on tell you the latest buzz about town. That has always fascinated me. How can something so confidential and chronological be presented over coffee like a radio documentary?

At times Mrs So-and-so will come to my mum with a Gossip FedEx; the conversation will go on until Mrs-So-and-so’s husband needed to leave. At other times, mom decides to stop being a taker and be a giver instead.

There are men who are good at this too, especially my dad’s FedEx pals. Most of the time I don’t understand what they are saying. Usually it’s about the stock market, Chinese association updates or the latest decision or announcement by politicians.

The older generation does this too. Visitation never comes without a bag of news. I’ve found that aging people have their own form of hype, and they command lengthy exchange of conversations. They get as much news as the middle-aged fellas, if not more. Only thing is that the accuracy of their information is highly suspect. The level of trustworthiness of their FedEx counterparts declines with age. Either the story is incomplete, one-sided or blown up with convincing facial expressions.

Close to high school graduation, a creative close friend gave away cards with descriptive illustrations. The guy who aspired to be a pilot had a plane on his card; the one who was nicknamed ‘Cow’ had a cute, spotted milk cow on it; and mine was a car with a bright circle on top. The antenna was missing. I was downgraded to this from having “no satellites” previously (I never knew who was seeing who, how they got together or which couple on the disciplinarian board broke up).

I wonder why I don’t get FedEx deliveries. Maybe because I don’t send out posts to others? My knowledge of a certain family’s secret comes from secondary sources and beyond. But if it comes to me, it will end on my side because I usually forget about it.

I don’t like to admit this, but FedEx conversations are not always performed discreetly so it is easy to eavesdrop. Well, even if you don’t want to pasang telinga, they are going to talk that loud anyway. And not only do they talk loud, they also talk fast, in terms of timeliness of information.

Let me illustrate. About half a year ago, my friend’s motorcycle crashed into a Proton Waja two junctions away from my house. He was thrown off about seven metres away but sustained only abrasions on the shin. They say the pillion rider usually gets the worse blow because he is unaware of what happened in that split second and has nothing to hold on to unlike the rider. I was the pillion.

For two minutes or so, I stood up from where I fell, went over to check on my friend, bent down to inspect his motorcycle and the Waja … all the time panicking. Reasons: It was my first accident, we hit a Waja, and we were late for a friend’s wedding. The Waja driver asked if I was okay, and I insisted I was. I hurried my friend to get up and get going since the bike looked “fine.” A small crowd was growing at the scene. All the time, I was trying to hide my face.

“Ni OK ma? (Are you OK?)” my friend gasped.

“Can we leave now? Please? I don’t want my parents to find out about this yet. Can we go now?” I whispered loudly to him. We must go immediately; if not for the wedding, for the sake of avoiding being the FedEx topic for the week.

“You better get a check-up at the hospital, Miss,” the Waja driver came over again.
“I’m fine,” I nearly barked at him.

“What fine? Your legs are shaking,” he pointed to my lower limbs.

I looked down. My knees were knocking madly. I lifted my head to reply but the weight of the helmet suddenly tripled (which reminded me that my head banged into something but the helmet was still securely in place after the whole incident). My head was heavy, and there were blinking black spots everywhere.

Trying to reach for my handphone, I felt a sharp pang exploding from my right shoulder. My body felt like a lump of plasticine as I walked haggardly to the sidewalk and sat down. My hearing was about to go bonkers as my friend removed my helmet.

“Hel-lo … it’s-me,” I choked when my brother picked up the call, “Lis-ten-care-ful-ly… I-I-had-an-ac-ci-dent-be-hind-house … I’m-o-kay … Don’t-tell-mum-come-a-lone … bring-car-take-me-to-hos-pi-tal … Don’t-tell-mu-mu-um-o-o-o-ka-ay …”

He agreed to my terms and very soon I saw a figure so familiar to my eyes. My brother picked me up as I limped into the battered Kenari, head hung low. This time it was not to avoid the crowd. I barely had the energy to lift this hard cranium. A worried looking mom was at the passenger’s seat.

“Yo-u-be-be-trayed-mm-mee,” I stuttered in suppressed anger, “I-tt-told-you-not-to-tt-tell-mom.”

Even with eyes shut tight, I could feel the car moving very fast to our destination. Brother the driver let out his ultimate defense, “It’s not my fault! Even before you called, a man down the road came on motorcycle to break the news already.”

I nearly passed out.

Ah well, perhaps I should learn how to kaypo from now on.


*guest writer from Penang