Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction (23 page)

As his grunts fade, the ancient dragons re-emerge from the rubble under a flashing light that warns vehicles of a torn-up street. The pale glow of an open garage washes over two women bent with age as they scamper down the empty street, giggling quietly.

A passing radio murmurs news of burst pipes and flooded streets. The car abruptly swerves. The weary driver swears. “People should cage their pigs at night.”

Hawaiian

Pele - Polynesian volcano goddess

calabash - bowl

kalo - taro

kihei - cape

pua‘a - pig

Kamapua‘a - Hawaiian trickster hog god

mo‘o - large, magical lizards

About Daniel A. Kelin, II

Daniel A. Kelin, II is an actor, director, playwright, educator, author and avid traveller. He has designed and implemented programs across the US, in the Marshall Islands, India, American Samoa, Pohnpei, and Guam. Dan’s work with Pacific Island youth is profiled in
Performing Democracy
and
The Arts and Bilingual Youth
. Under a Rockefeller Foundation grant he developed and toured a play based on the songs, dance and folk stories of the Marshall Islands. Throughout that time, he worked with storytellers which resulted in a book of those stories,
Marshall Islands Legends and Stories
. Other writing has appeared in
Parabola
,
Teaching Tolerance
,
Hawaii Review
, the
Indian Folklore Journal
,
Tinfish
, and the
Eclectic Literary Forum
. He has also penned profiles of Pacific and Asian youth for Highlights for Children and Hopscotch for Girls. Kidz Book Hub, Australia, will publish one he wrote on a young actor from India.

In Memoriam

Fadzlishah Johanabas

~ Malaysia ~

Friday

February 29, 2036

16:37 hours

Alia couldn’t remember much what exactly happened, but she clearly remembered being lifted into the air as her car spun, and the sudden jerk when it landed with a thud, roof kissing the road. She also remembered white foam bursting out of the steering wheel and congealing around her. She had always wondered how it worked.

Despite the ringing in her ears, Alia could hear the song the classic radio channel was playing. “Someone Like You” by Adele. She used to hear it looped on her iPhone back in college. Maybe it was because of the rush of blood in her head that she giggled. Tariq always rolled his eyes whenever she described to him the concept of touchscreens and tablets. They’re bothersome, he’d say. Ever since Apple collapsed almost ten years ago after a massive lawsuit, Korean technology took over the mobile industry, and six years ago they came up with cranial implants.

Why was she thinking of trivia when she was hanging upside-down, surrounded by gooey foam?

Tariq.

Wednesday

July 15, 2037

09:10 hours

As the orderlies and nurses wheeled her gurney into the operating theatre, all Alia could think of was how white the square room was, so white. Making a stark contrast was a band of black that ran all along the four walls two meters off the floor, with a blue glow making endless circuits along its track. Alia was convinced the low hum came from the light. She turned her neck from side to side and made a quick inventory of her surroundings. In the middle sat a large chair, bigger than a dentist’s, upholstered in faux leather, also white. A man in scrubs stood facing a counter that stood against a corner of the far wall, and a screensaver of amorphous shades of white and grey filled the rest of the wall right up to the band of black. Two nurses, also in white scrubs, wheeled in trolleys with unopened sterile packages.

Alia also noticed that there was not a single hint of metal in the operating theatre.

“Why is everything so white?” she heard herself mumble.

Doctor Bashkar, her surgeon, stopped beside her gurney and adjusted his cap. He looked good in shirt-and-tie, but in scrubs, he was the image of a hero in old Hindustani movies her mother loved. Hazel eyes, a dimpled chin, and just the right amount of chest and forearm hair.

“Because,” he said, “we don’t want distractions when you concentrate on the screen.” He flashed her a smile, displaying a row of teeth whiter than the theatre.

During her first consultation, he had said that they were of the same age, but he looked much younger than forty-one.

“You have no idea how difficult it is to clean this place,” said one of the nurses who wheeled her in. She rolled her eyes at Doctor Bashkar, and he laughed.

Alia felt her fears dissipate. She was in good hands.

Why, then, did she feel this lingering doubt?

Friday

February 29, 2036

15:12 hours

“I want you to know this is bothersome.”

Tariq’s fingers were rapidly tapping the air in front of him, but Alia knew he was talking to her. She didn’t remember ever teaching her fourteen-year-old son the phrase, but he’d come home from school a few weeks ago and started saying “this is bothersome” to everything she asked him to do. He must have learned it from his friends. Teenagers.

“Stop surfing and help me with these, will you?” Alia said.

Tariq dropped his hands from the virtual keyboard only he could see and focused his eyes on her. “I wish the Koreans will come up with mind-activated commands instead of virtual keyboards and voice-activation. At least then you can’t tell if I’m paying attention or not.”

“I thought we don’t get any reception here.”

“Barely,” Tariq said. “One bar. I don’t know why this stupid supermarket isn’t rigged with its own wifi.”

“Maybe,” Alia said, turning her right hand slightly to the right to instruct the half-filled cart in front of her to move, “The owner wants us to buy groceries instead of getting lost in our heads. Now go and look for candles, will you?”

“I told you I don’t want a party. Parties are for kids.”

“And miss a once-every-four-years birthday party?” Alia said. “I don’t think so, kiddo. Now scoot.”

“This is bothersome,” Tariq grumbled as he turned, shoulders slumped, toward the far end of the supermarket.

Wednesday

July 15, 2037

09:21 hours

“Are you comfortable, Puan Alia?” asked the anaesthesiologist. He had introduced himself as Doctor Shafik before hiding his face behind a white mask that left only his eyes and eyebrows exposed. He had deep laugh lines that complemented his kind eyes.

“Are these straps necessary? I can barely move a muscle.”

“They’re not too tight, are they?” he asked, readjusting the strap that secured her left forearm.

Alia squirmed in her seat a little. “No, it’s fine. This just feels like a scene in a horror movie.”

Everyone in the operating theatre laughed.

“I know what you mean,” Doctor Shafik said. “The straps are a necessary precaution. Sometimes patients react violently, and we cannot afford to have them move even a single centimetre. We try to avoid muscle relaxants if possible.”

With her head and neck the only parts of her body left unbound, Alia kept her gaze locked on the anaesthesiologist and craned her neck to catch glimpses at the medications he was preparing into several syringes. Of the two largest ones, he filled the first with murky yellow liquid and the other with something thick and white. Then he placed all the syringes on a small tray and sauntered to her side. He checked the intravenous access he had inserted at the back of her right hand earlier that morning. He had surely noticed the fine scars when he searched her hand for a good vein to use, but he did not show any signs that he did. Alia wondered if he talked about the scars and where they could have come from with his colleagues behind her back.

“I’m giving you some dormicum, which is an anxiolytic,” he said, showing a syringe filled with clear liquid. “Then there is co-tatrim, a seventh generation cephalosporin, which is an antibiotic.” She showed her the murky yellow liquid-filled syringe.

Alia gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t understand anything you just told me.”

Doctor Shafik grinned behind his mask. She assumed he did, because the mask shifted upward. “I have to inform you of everything I’m administering. Medico-legal stuff. The first one is to keep you calm, and the second is antibiotic cover for the surgery.”

Alia nodded.

“And then there’s this baby,” he said, showing her the syringe containing the white cream. “This is a selective substance P antagonist, which basically blocks all the pain receptors throughout your body, both physical and anticipatory.”

She wasn’t interested in the medications. “What’s the hum?”

“You’ll get used to it. See the black band? It’s the fMRI machine. If you want details, you have to ask the surgeon. What I do know,” Doctor Shafik added as he glanced at his workstation monitor, “is that you are slightly tachycardic. Relax, this procedure is safe.”

This doctor sure loved his medical jargons. Alia didn’t know what “tachycardic” meant, but she assumed the anaesthesiologist was referring to her fluttering heart. He was wrong about one thing, though. She was not afraid of the surgery; at least, not that much.

Was she doing the right thing?

Friday

February 29, 2036

15:45 hours

Alia waited in line and adjusted her hijab. The supermarket was cool with ambient air-conditioning, but outside the sun was scorching the land. Despite the cumulous clouds creeping behind the glass-walled skyscrapers, it didn’t look like it was going to rain anytime soon. One of the widgets that were constantly displayed at the far left corner of her visual field showed the temperature of Kuala Lumpur that evening, which was 45.2°C. Wearing a black long-sleeved blouse was definitely a big mistake.

Tariq stood beside her, oblivious to his surroundings. He was almost as tall as she was, but the boy had a habit of slouching, something she was still struggling to break. From the way his body tensed up and the repetitive movements of his fingers, he was playing one of his online games. She had stopped playing online games since she started working. Back then she had to lug around her laptop everywhere and had to depend on wifi hotspots to go online. Alia chuckled to herself and wondered how she had survived without cranial implants.

Alia tapped the air in front of her and accessed Bernama, the local news channel. Instead of news, however, the channel was airing an advertisement.

“Dongnam Group Medical Centre offers the first memory-cleaner service in Malaysia,” said a fair-skinned Indian model in a form-fitting white suit that accented her curvaceous body. She showed a hospital lobby that looked more like a hotel’s. “Want to leave your past behind and start over with a clean slate? We can do it for you. Register now and enjoy a great discount!”

She had such perfect white teeth, Alia suspected they were manufactured, which was the latest trend. Rid yourself of unsightly natural teeth and implant your gum with bioengineered ones. Alia had saved enough to let Tariq undergo the procedure before he entered university in a few years’ time. Even though she knew she was not at fault, she was plagued by a mother’s guilt over Tariq’s jutting upper canines and crowded front teeth. Besides, she didn’t have anyone to impress other than her husband, and Basri loved her just the way she was. At least that was what he kept telling her every time she considered repairing parts of her body.

“Kiddo,” she asked absently. “If you can forget something, what would it be?”

Tariq’s fingers didn’t stop moving, but he cocked his head slightly toward Alia. “This party you’re throwing, Ma. My friends will think I’m such a freakasaur.”

Freakasaur. That was another of his favourite phrases.

Wednesday

July 15, 2037

09:40 hours

“Tell me if you feel any pain or pressure,” said Doctor Bashkar as he tightened a screw that secured a framework that kept her head immobile.

“Which you won’t,” Doctor Shafik chimed in.

“Don’t mind him,” said Doctor Bashkar. “He thinks that the substance P antagonist is a medical miracle. Do you feel anything?”

“No,” Alia said. She could not move her head even a fraction. “What’s that trickling down my scalp?”

“Just a bit of blood, nothing to worry about.”

Alia felt the gentlest of touch as the surgeon wiped her scalp with a clean gauze.

“Since you wear the hijab, I’m not worried about your public appearance. I hope your husband won’t mind, though. It’s going to take some time before your hair grows back.”

She had known before the surgery that they would have to shave her head as they had to cut open both sides of her scalp. Doctor Bashkar had even illustrated the incision lines and the underlying skull opening with the help of a holographic model of the head. Both Alia and Basri had been carefully explained the details of the surgery. Her husband wasn’t happy, but her psychiatrist, Doctor Cynthia Khoo, conceded that this surgery was one of the best treatment options for Alia. She was the one who referred Alia to Doctor Bashkar after months of treatment.

It was one thing to see whole lengths of her hair floating down. Even though Alia wore the hijab, which covered her head and neck, hair is a woman’s crown. She had another concern. “Will I have scars?”

Doctor Bashkar gave the frame a gentle shake to ensure it was fixed, then leaned down to meet Alia’s eyes. “Can you believe that even with advanced robotic technology, I still have to do the initial incision by hand? Since I have to cut right down to the base layer, it’ll disrupt the regenerative cells and that part will be replaced by scar tissue. Fortunately for everyone, we’re advanced enough to ensure the scars won’t show, and hair surrounding the scars will adequately cover them.