Chapter 25: A Dangerous-looking Goofy Smile
Both Arash and Hana were asleep at the same time; although they were separated by time and space. These soulmates not just synced in their likes and dislikes; even their consciousness turned off at the same moment.
However, both have different experience through the night; Arash's sleep was disturbed by their little baby daughter's intermittent sobbing while Hana's sleep was so smooth; she was smiling in her sleep.
She dreamt that all her experiences were a dream and she was laughingly retelling the story to Arash and their eldest daughter while she was feeding their baby at breakfast. Everyone was having a good time.
However, all good things must come to end. As morning came by, she suddenly opened her eyes and she was greeted with the inky darkness mixed with the earthy smell of her cave dwelling. When she realizes that all was nothing but a dream, her eyes misted as a few tears streaked down from the corner of her eyes.
Kuro, the ever loyal little pet was by her side looking at her worriedly. It slithered to her face and rubbed his cheek at Hana's cheek, carefully avoiding his horn, lest he might hurt his mommy.
"I'm okay. Don't worry." Hana breathed in a few times to steady herself and rubbed Kuro's head dotingly. She wiped away the tears streaking down her face while switching on the torchlight function on her smartphone.
Kuro slithered off to the side and started its daily training with its electricity diligently. Hana focused on her pet's training for a short while and exclaimed admiringly in her heart. The little one had improved a lot. It was not long until it could display its prowess as Hana's personal charger.
Hana moved her sight towards her second pet and found it lying lazily at the usual place. She shook her head and wonder when this fluffy one would stop resisting her advances.
She stretched her stiff body a little. Ah..it's already morning again...is it the fourth day already?
Hana finally remembered what was wrong from yesterday. She had forgotten to contact her hubby before she went to sleep!
She panicked and quickly opened the chatting app to load for Arash's messages. As she left her smartphone on the special spot, she went about making a small fire as soon as possible. She can't always depend on her smartphone for a light source.
Hana contemplated for a moment on a solution for this as her deft hands busily rubbing a piece of dried wood to light her tinders.
[When I have time, I need to find some beeswax to make some candles.] Candle making wasn't that complicated as long as she had the main ingredients at hand.
But the real issue was how to obtain beeswax without angering its inhabitants?
Well, the naive aunty had not thought about it yet. It was super easy to purchase some from the craft store before, so it didn't occur to her it was going to be the nightmare of her life if she attempted her idea later.
A short while later, Hana's small fire was lighted at its usual spot. Hana went over to her vertically standing filters and observed for a while. They looked stable. The water accumulated also looked crystal clear.
Hana took some water to gargle away the unpleasant feel in her mouth and went over the cave door/window to spit the water out. She rubbed Shiro's head as she moved past her second aloof pet.
The disgusted water splashed a little into Shiro's eye. It unhappily rubbed its eye using its white furry paw. It flexed its claws out unintentionally from annoyance but keep it back after being stared down threateningly by the black snake, as if daring it to make a move.
As usual, oblivious to the internal strife between her two pets, Hana gingerly took the rest of the water collected from the filters and filled them into a closed bamboo canister. She placed it diagonally beside the fire to let the water inside boiled before she had the courage to drink it.
While she waited for her filtered water to boil, she grabbed two bananas and a pack of 3 in 1 instant teh tarik(1). She chomped them down while checking her smartphone for Arash's messages.
Surprisingly, after the initial loving greetings, he had not spammed the chatbox. Hana knew Arash must've known she forgot again and patiently waited for her response.
Hana adjusted her face's angle, centralized her irises and made a puffy monkey cheek to make a funny face. She called for Kuro to pose together with her and snapped an interesting comedic wefie for Arash. She habitually sent over the picture, knowing it would fail.
It uploaded sluggishly like a snail, pausing intermittently for a long time. Hana just ignored the uploading process as usual and continued messaging her hubby about her day yesterday after she apologized.
She shared her plan on the rack she was going to build today for the three filters and Arash's opinion on it.
Today she needed to complete the filter rack, ferry back those extra bamboo canisters and check on her fish trap. She truly hoped to get some fish. It wasn't easy eating the same thing day in day out.
After she finished pouring out her heart into the chatting app, she waited and waited, but Arash's reply wasn't coming in.
[Is he taking revenge for yesterday?] Hana was sure her hubby was not a petty person.
[Maybe he was busy with the kids and all.] Hana convinced herself cheerily.
She decided to return early today and messaged Arash again before she started on the permanent filter rack building.
She left her smartphone on the Internet spot and when over to her stash of things. While flipping through her notepad, she went through her objectives as usual and updated her inventory list. She needed to prepare well today before going out. She can't afford to make the same mistake again.
She didn't realize the goofy wefie of her and Kuro was successfully uploaded!
....
Arash's were awake quite late today. When he woke up, he saw their first daughter cooing her agitated baby sister.
"It's okay. It's okay. Shhhh...shhh.." She patted her baby sister's butt in a rhythmic motion gently like how Hana used to do. The agitated little one drifted back to sleep after a few minutes of whimpering. She was still sleepy.
"Pity Papa. He is very tired. You're a good girl right? Right? Mama's not here, but I'm here." She caressed her little sister's head affectionately.
"Mama said, if one day mama is gone, I must take care of Papa and you." She planted a light kiss on her little sister's forehead.
Arash was touched by his five year old daughter's sensibility.
[Our daughter had grown up so fast ayang...]
When his girl realized her papa was awake, she excitedly jumped on him and urged him up.
"Come on papa! I got something to show you! We got a message from mama!" His daughter whispered audibly beside his ears. Both of them tiptoed together to the living room. Last night, when Arash was awake a couple of times, he had move to sleep beside his daughters.
Once there, the excited girl took her papa's smartphone on the coffee table and leaped on his lap. In front of Arash's unbelievable eyes, his daughter expertly typed in his smartphone's password and navigated towards the chatting app.
[Kids these days are amazing!] He lamented. When he was at this age, he was just a snotty brat who loved to climb trees. There're no such things as gadgets. He enjoyed video games when he was slightly older; it was in his primary years (2).
"How did you know how to open Papa's phone?" Arash was curious. He never taught his daughter his password.
"Mommy teach one (3). She said if got migincy (4) can use phone one. See Papa, I even know how to call you." She answered proudly.
[I knew it.] Arash chuckled. He usually helped his daughter open the kid's educational game app all this while. He never knew his help was not needed.
"Papa, papa! Lookie here! Mama funny face with cute little thing. What is this Papa?" His girl showed Arash his smartphone.
Arash was astonished!
A picture was delivered from the other side!
As he observed the not-so-nice looking face his wife made for him, his gaze drifted to the menacing black entity beside Hana.
His hair stood up and goosebumps appeared. The sleek black reptile was circling its body around Hana's neck while a foot of its upper body lingered very near to Hana's cheek. The silver horn was like a unicorn's, but sharp and threatening. The eyes look evil. The forked tongue was even touching Hana's cheek! Sharp teeth were seen from the half opened mouth. The snake looked really dangerous! Not at all adorable as what Hana used to tell him every single day!
Arash didn't know that was Kuro's attempt at making a goofy smile to accommodate his mommy's urging.
"Papa, papa, papa! You okay? What animal is that?" His daughter's urging broke Arash's reverie.
Arash cleared his throat, "Ehem, it's a snake sweetie."
"Really? Why did it have a horn then?" His daughter asked confusedly.
"It's a special breed one."
"Ah!" As if was struck by an epiphany, his cheeky little daughter showed a comprehending look.
"It was so cute! Papa, I want one!"
Arash sweated with his daughter's twisted understanding of cute.
[Like mother, like daughter.]
Unbeknownst to Arash, his daughter had accidentally forwarded the picture to his wife's family chat group on a different chatting apps while she was fiddling with the phone.
....
A shocking picture was sent to 'Family Ribena' (5) group by Mem Shaza's son-in-law, Arash.
It was the picture of Hana dying as she was being attacked by an exotic never-been-seen dangerous-looking black snake.
The chat group burst into a frenzy of messages by Hana's mother, brothers and sisters. She had come from a big family.
A lot of them were worried about Hana as they realized that they had not seen her reply in their chatgroup a single time in the past four days. While others believed she was pranking them. Before, they had assumed she might have used her hubby's phone to reply for both of them (she did that a lot of time). The replies were short and perfunctory; as if Hana and Arash were super busy with something.
When the chat group finally calmed down, the participants realized Arash nor Hana didn't reply a single time to their questions. This elevated their worry to an unprecedented level. Mem Shaza (6) tried to phone her daughter, but only receiving an out-of-service notification. She then tried calling her son-in-law. However, because everyone was trying to do the same thing, the calls clashed with each other and none came through.
Another reason was, the cheeky daughter of theirs had unassumingly muted Arash's smartphone while she was playing with it before. With the incoming of multiple calls and Arash's forgetfulness to charge his phone, the already low battery smartphone on the coffee table finally switched off without any of them knowing.
At that exact time, Arash was busy cooking a simple chicken porridge for both of his girls. After an awkward moment of mutilating the poor bird into pieces, he transferred all of the meat pieces into a boiling pot of water.
He remembered, Hana said to put in a slice of ginger and a few cloves of garlic to remove the chickeny smell(7). Some carrots and cauliflower were a must to make it a balanced meal. When everything was boiling nicely, then add some washed uncooked rice.
He was thinking, how much rice should he put in? Feeling confused, he just added one small cup of washed rice into the simple chicken soup.
After everything was done, he let the porridge simmered under the lowest fire and washed his hands.
"Who wants to bathe raise up your hands!" Arash jokingly asked her daughter while hanging the apron at its intended place.
Raising up her hands enthusiastically, she elatedly said, "Me! Me! Me!" while jumping up and down.
A crying sound came from the bedroom.
[Just in time.]
Both of them held hands and went to the bedroom together to fetch the little one before going to the bathroom.
As the porridge simmered gently, Arash was monitoring the kids playing with bubbles in their respective tubs while remaining oblivious to the storm brewing in the chat group.
Author's note:
(1) 3 in 1 instant teh tarik = a popular pulled milk tea in Malaysia. There's instant ones now. We loved the Lipton brand.
(2) primary years = Malaysian basic education system was divided by two; primary level (7 - 12 years), and secondary level (13 - 17)
(3) Mommy teach one = (....one) is a local slang when Malaysian used English. It doesn't have a meaning.
(4) migincy = since the daughter is 5, we made her words filled with errors intentionally. It's from the word 'emergency'
(5) Family Ribena = "Ribena" is actually not a real family name. Attaching 'Ribena' to a name brought the meaning 'childish' as it is named after a kiddy drink by the same name (its a berry grape-y flavor drink very popular with kids).
(6) Mem Shaza = "Mem" is a shortform of 'Madam' used generally when shown respect to an elder (woman) who's usually very imposing. "Shaza" is an arabic name. The Malay ethnic in Malaysia used Arabic names to name their kids, very rarely they would use Malaysian language.
(7) chikeny smell = this one was self invented by us haha. There's a raw chicken smell that's not so nice lingering in porridge if one didn't cancel it out with ginger. That's also the reason why most cooking use ginger in many kinds of dishes.
Oh yes, let us write down the meaning of the names according to appearance;
(1) Hana = (Arabic: boundless rezki/sustenance), (Japanese: flower), (Korean: No.1)
(2) Arash = (Arabic: a figurative 'throne' where God stood while observing His subjects)
(3) Shaza = (Arabic: fragrant)
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mrandmrsmooncat A 2000+ words this time since the creative juices are currently flowing so well (laughing).
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