The Glue That Binds Us Together

by Virodeil

She moves to Malibu, and both loses and finds herself there.

The Glue That Binds Us Together
By Rey

She moves to Malibu, and both loses and finds herself there.

Author's notes: A gift for Brievel, who was the single audience of this story, who then requested that I post this for everyone to see. It's my NaNoWriMo 2017 project, edited and rewritten time and time again before I even dared to show it to her, and even afterwards till now. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Chapter 1

It comes now, altogether: unreal reality;
No time to react, no time to act, let alone to mourn;
Unreturned, all the path trodden; erased automatically.
It comes now: with the old gone, change is born;
What to say, now, what might be able to shatter
The glue that binds us together?

Monday, 9th March 2009

It went through. – The scholarship application, at last, after five other failures. My dream….

Even if it's not really that dream – studying in England, studying creative writing or geography or anthropology, travelling all over Europe during spare times, trying on various lines of work for the sheer experience of it…. But "Make do with what you have" has always been my motto, anyway, as pushed by the circumstances of my family and upbringing. This is no different. And at least, this time, the make-do part is a full-paid scholarship, abroad; to my next choice of master's degree – a further study on English as a language – at that. All accessibility options are said to be available there, and I can bring my spouse and/or children, too, so I can't complain, can I?

Besides, my primary motivation in applying for a scholarship has been to prove to myself and my family that I do have a drive and a strong commitment to succeed, that I am not just a pushover for the demands of my various relatives and their views and opinions.

On a slightly different note, this may be my only chance to get a master's degree, as well. My jobs can't provide me good incomes – though lots of satisfaction and contentment in life, most of the times – especially with the very recent addition of a pair of little twins in my life, let alone funding a two-year tuition at a university. Also, my parents have agreed to support me financially in raising the aforementioned little twins, who are technically our distant cousins, who have been rather violently orphaned about three months ago in a car accident; however, they draw the line on spending more money for my education, as per usual since I was small.

Maybe, I can use this chance to prove I'm not a disappointment for the whole family, too. – A female for the eldest child, a half-blind and half-crippled for the eldest sibling, a daughter with "un-cool" bachelor degree in English language education, with an even-more-"un-cool" set of teaching and translating and car-washing jobs: a family member to be just taken care of when the elderly parents are no longer there to do so, with switched roles to that of the younger sibling in reality, at that.

It's my chance to shine, and perhaps also bring about a better, happier life for Niel and Lia, whose parents are recently deceased in a car accident, whose elderly grandparents cannot take care of them, and whose new adoptive grandparents are, at best, lukewarm towards them, despite the latters' promise to support them financially.

So I send my yes and thank-you in reply to the acceptance notification, plus a note about bringing my children – a strange notion, still, that, despite all the months I've spent with them – with me.

A scholarship, at last, affirmed and confirmed.

In the United States.

In California, to be more exact.

In Malibu, to be even more exact.

On applied English linguistics, because it's the subject that got approved by the scholarship board.

At Stark University, because it's the uni the scholarship participants have been going towards these two years.

While my spoken English is still not so good, despite four years studying it.

While my studies will not be the only thing that demands my full attention.

Oh, well. I already said yes.

Uh, I need to tell my family soon. Logi – my best and only friend – too.

I need to tell the twins, most of all.

I already said yes, moments ago.

Irrevocable.

A master's degree.

Abroad and far away, on the other side of the world.

Towing a pair of hapless, helpless three-year-olds with me.

A pair of three-year-olds whom I have been acquainted with – not even close yet – just these three months.

And we'll be on the total mercy of a scholarship from BBN – Badan Beasiswa Nasional, the National Scholarship Agency, the semi-government agency that manages it.

How will it feel, going and living abroad, alone for once in my life except for two toddlers that I don't even know well yet? How will it feel, even, flying in a plane? To another continent entirely, on the other side of the world, with winter time and probably snow and most likely icy weather? Are there lots of freaking tornados in California? Or is it some place else in that country?

Am I just prolonging the twins' lives for a little while in doing this, instead of them dying with their parents in that car crash months ago?

Will I be able to survive there, let alone thrive? Will it be a good environment to raise a pair of highly impressionable children, if only for two years? Are the rumours about gangsters and public gunfights and hedonism and extreme liberalism true?

Are people there kind and accomodating to disabled folks like I am? Will I be able to understand their dialect well in reality, removed from the staged and clear words in the recordings meant for listening and pronunciation studies? Will I even be able to speak English, only English, without pausing and stuttering too much? Will my interlocutors be patient with me, understand what I'm saying?

Will I be able to navigate round the campus and lodging and take care of myself plus the twins all on my own, in a totally foreign country that I didn't even have much drive to research about? Will I be able to pour my attention on Niel and Lia, as surrogate mother instead of just a baby-sitter, without sacrificing my studies?

Will I be able to muster the will and the discipline to complete the course within the time and GPA parameters, after dividing my time equally between that and the twins? It's not my first, second or even third choice, after all, and Stark Uni seems to focus much on technology in all its programmes, too, which is far from my forte.

Uh. Just moments after saying yes, and I'm already dithering. Great.

I'm beginning to regret this.

But I already said yes.

Oh, damn. What did you just commit yourself into, girl?

Friday, 13th March 2009

My parents were shocked.

My younger siblings, too, all five of them.

My work colleagues, as well.

My extended family, no less.

Our family friends, at that.

Gits, all. Why were they surprised that I got a scholarship abroad?

My only comfort has been, ironically, the twins, who were ecstatic with the impending move to the world out there, and who have been tailing me absolutely everywhere since then, in fear of being left behind.

Worse, in fear of being separated from each other in case of them being left behind, or so I deduced from their babbles. – Damn their grandparents, and damn my parents too. Those oldies talked about putting the twins for separate adoptions for financial consideration in front of them, not long after lia and niel got out of the hospital those few months ago. The fossils believed that little children can't possibly understand when the adults are talking about them.

Huh, even I understood the gist of what my parents were talking, when it came to me, when I was the twins' age, and I was a perfectly ordinary child if not for my weak ankles and sight.

And neither lia nor niel are ordinary, I suspect. For one, they're often too quiet for children their age, with uncanny remarks about the past, present and future, and also interests that are usually reserved for adults when they do talk and play. For two, they tend to shy away from toy miniatures of city cars, in which their parents died and they were severely injured. – Possible eidetic memory recall; possible preternatural maturity or innate gifts, too.

Well, but I can't think about those yet, or about myself for that matter, now. There is an undergraduate thesis to race to finish; there are jobs to quit from in amicable terms; there are numerous papers to complete for myself and for my new adoptive children; there are many, many things to buy, to pack and to put away; there are various contingencies to prepare for; there are savings to figuratively break open and/or reconfigure for an abroad withdrawal….

There is also Logi to convince that this decision won't land me and my little tagalongs in trouble.

Huh. I'm not one toe away from home yet, and I'm already pretty overwhelmed.

Curling up tighter on my narrow, ricketty mattress, I bury myself from head to foot under my tattered, fuzzy blanket, and try not to groan aloud on the thought because I'm sharing this tiny bed with a fussy, clingy pair of twins who had to be battled before sleep, just as it's been since Monday.

Nathaniel Christopher and Natalia Christina. They're going to be my sole responsibility in about a couple more months or three.

My whole body aches on that very thought.

Sleep-deprived, stressed out, inexperienced, physically and financially challenged…. Great. I'll be already a mess when the time comes to depart sweet, sweet home.

Wednesday, 3rd June 2009

I feel weak, all over.

The oral thesis defence was surprisingly easy to face, easy to undergo. But now, as I'm seated behind my usual chartered rider on the motorcycle that's carrying us away from the campus, it feels like I'm closing a chapter in my book, never to open it again, and it frightens me.

Everyone is ecstatic now, about me getting a scholarship, about me going to America, about me continuing my education, and/or about me achieving something, after the week-long shock.

Everyone, except for me.

And Logi, but they've insisted to go after me anyway if my little family is in trouble, so they sort of don't count.

The passports, the visa, the air tickets and other papers have been ready since last week.

I'm going to leave my home country for the first time ever, in about a fortnight from now.

I'm going to fly in an aeroplane for the first time ever, too.

With toddlers in tow.

We won't be able to return home for two or three years once we're there, or even more, if I don't manage to get some children-friendly work during the summers and save enough money for the pricy peak-season round-trip tickets for the three of us. The scholarship agency only provides us one set of tickets for departure and another set for returning home upon the completion of the master's programme, after all.

Is this how settlers and pioneers felt, in those western old-time tales? It's aweful.

I always wanted a master's degree, ever since I thought it's the highest rank of education, when I was nine or so. I persisted to go to university despite some people's scepticism because of that. But now that it's so, so near at hand….

More than three-quarters of me wishes I didn't say yes to the scholarship, screw my pride and screw all those chances.

What a coward.

Thursday, 18th June 2009

There was no representative from the scholarship agency waiting for me and the twins at the airport.

They had promised they would accompany and assist us from here onward.

The absence was excused with an apology via phone.

My family fretted. I shrivelled inside. – With such a negative beginning, what would await us next? Would Logi's dark predictions about this venture be true?

And then I found that non-boarders aren't allowed to enter the boarding room. So I and my little tagalongs said our farewells outside of the room, just now, then we were entrusted to a worker from the airline, who promised to deliver us to one of the flight attendants once on board the plane.

We're treated like some baggage, and I thought things couldn't be worse.

Seated here in the boarding room, with the twins playing train with their shared suitcase in front of me, all that I wish is that we could return home.

And we can't. Not if I don't want to shame myself before my family, and my family before our relatives and friends; not if I don't want to set a bad example for all five little siblings that come after me; not if I don't want Logi to tell me "I told you so."

What a nice trap I've let myself into.

Logi doesn't need to tell me that sentence. I tell myself that.

`I told you so.`

Friday, 19th June 2009

08:33 PM

My head throbs. My eyes feel squished and watery. My ankles, quivering within the confines of the boots, feel like they're being stabbed by a million needles each, constantly. But despite the concentrated pains there, I feel so sleepy.

And exhausted.

And sticky.

And achy, all over.

And heartsick.

And thirsty.

And nervous.

And overwhelmed.

I rode in an aeroplane! After nearly twenty-one years of life, I flew; away from my country, at that.

I can't say I liked the experience, though. Daydream fell short of the reality, and not because the reality's better than the dream. – All the fear of crashing when taking off and touching down and during turbulent patches, spanning the whole three long air travels – from Jakarta to Hong Kong, then from Hong Kong to San Francisco, then San Francisco to Santa Monica; twice changing aeroplanes during long hours of transit, in which I and my charges and our luggage were deposited in the uncomfortable boarding room for the next flight over like pesky sacks, first in Hong Kong then in San Francisco; thrice – twice in transit and once just now – fussing about retrieving my baggage while trying to herd the clingy, tired – and consequently tearfully bratty – Niel and Lia; the twins missing their naptimes and exhausted by their plays and unable to rest well during the flights, seated upright in the same seat for hours like that, and thus insufferable for everyone in the respective aeroplanes till they took involuntary naps, having been exhausted by inconsolable crying and whinging; the precious stock of drinking water that I was forced to empty before boarding the first flight, given the no-liquid policy on board, only to find how expensive the mini bottled water sold in the plane was, that I still had to buy in consideration of my little charges….

And now I'm alone again but for the twins newly asleep in crisscrossing clothslings at my either hip, ironically in a very crowded place, in an unknown airport.

Not that I know much of anything about airports in the first place, or how to arrange transportation – or anything else travel-wise, for that matter – round here… or anywhere, come to think of it again.

Huh. I am standing on a piece of another continent, one that I never stood upon before in my whole life. My booted feet are rooted on a little patch of carpeted floor by a glass wall just outside the baggage area of this airport terminal, on the other side of the world. – But the sounds and words people have been making all round me, they're just some white noise that doesn't seem different from the other airports I visited, including where this trip began. The things they wear and carry aren't special, either, as seen by my limited sight, blurred further by exhaustion and sleepiness. And, ironically, now that I'm so close to my goal, everything feels like a crushing failure. It's… surreal.

The flight attendant has left us here. She did seem harassed, somehow. I can't – won't – blame her for leaving us before the promised guide from BNN arrived.

No, I blame the scholarship agency which promised me many, many things, and didn't deliver until now. Totally.

Because they promised my guide for the next two weeks was going to meet me and my little entourage outside of the baggage area here, and I've been waiting for two hours already for whoever that person is. They didn't even pick up my calls all these hours.

I feel so stupid and embarrassed and tired waiting out here in the open, in easy view of passers by.

Not that they care. Nobody has even tried to hustle me off somewhere else, thus far. They're so busy talking fast and walking fast and rustling fast, focused in their own purposes, like individual fishes in their own bubbles, even late in the evening like this.

Their purposeful bustle just makes me feel even lonelier, even more daunted, somehow.

Even colder and smaller, too. Even more like a child people often claim that I look so much like.

Even more afraid, as well, because now the agency seems to be pulling the same absence as before.

But before, I still had my family nearby, and I was still in my own country.

What is the agency playing at? Why do that to a poor scholarship participant? A practically blind and semi-crippled one at that? While she got little children with her?

Damn. Should've shaken off my pride and just… go home.

08:50 PM

Trying to guide a heavy, unwieldy trolley along an uncertain path in an alien place is hellish. The trolley must be dragged awkwardly from behind with one hand while the other hand sweeps ahead with the cane, since I can't rely on my – presently very, very limited – sight, with my eyes too painful and watery to open like this, given me staving off exhaustion and sleep for too long. I can barely understand the instructions of the few kind souls I've encountered, too, because of their thick dialect and rapid talk and visual landmarking. And worse, some people are either so much in a rush or so glued to their gadgets or both that I – therefore also the twins – and my trolley, moving so slowly amidst the crowds and maybe not within the correct human currents, are often bumped and jostled and squished or tangled together. Stumbling and falling afterwards, often with the flavour of curses added from those tangled up with me, is a painfully familiar occurrence, in all senses of the word.

It's been ages, it feels, and yet we're still trapped within this bustling airport building. Claustrophobia is beginning to set in. Worse for me now, though maybe better for their sleeping schedule later on, the twins have been rudely awakened, and have taken up whimpering softly once more.

"Sabar ya," I murmur croakily to them for the umpteenth time, begging just as piteously. (`Be patient, please.`) If only I could indulge in a similar crying session….

And with the brief loss of concentration caused by that thought, I trip, again. – A too wide, too hesitant sweep of my cane makes it slide before the path of a person rushing to the opposite direction so close to my right, trips the said person, and got lodged under the falling… man, who is loudly and angrily cursing at me over the clatter of whatever he has been carrying. With the cane still connected firmly to my hand, down I spill onto him, too, twins and all.

"Sorry sorry sorry!" I babble weakly, repeatedly, even as I fall, even as I do my best to scramble back onto my wobbly feet, aided roughly – and most likely, unintentionally – by the man shoving me aside as he does his own scrambling.

"Watch yourself, girl! That's my new camera You're breaking!"

My heart pounds. I wish I didn't understand him. Why couldn't I understand those kind, instruction-giving people instead? And I heard no sound of breakage!

The man roars more things at me, but the words are nearly unintelligible to my ears this time, thankfully.

I back away, out of the range of his spit-rain and his anger, still babbling sorry, still with a frantically thumping heart.

He grabs and yanks at my cane, just as my other, flailing hand manages to hit the side of my trolley.

I scream. The twins scream. The cane, ripped away from my grip, clatters loudly onto the tiled floor.

The crowds surge away from us.

He growls something about me costing him… something-something interview? With… Tark? Tork? And I must… pay? Then… what? There's too much of "Bitch" and "Fuck" thrown in, and the twins are still sobbing loudly in my ears.

Worse, he has begun to advanced on me again.

With one hand flailing for the handle of the trolley and one leg doing the same for the cane, I retreat once more, clutching the crying children with my free arm. "I have no money!" I screech.

Somewhat predictably, he snaps a sarcastic bark of laugh, followed by yet another barrage of curses.

And then he shoves me away. So down I go again, this time backwards, and crack my head goes on the tiled floor, hard, while all breath whooshes out of my lungs.

I feel so, so dizzy, and nauseated, and humiliated, and like I'd just been exploded by something.

Everything feels surreal.

And then, things begin to trickle back in.

The tiles are cool under my back.

Nobody is bothering me or yelling at me.

What are these, squirming and yowling on my front? – Oh, the twins.

…The twins….

`The twins!` – My heart pounds harsher on the realisation. `Is that madman still here? I must get the children and myself to safety. We're not punching bags!`

Laboriously, I shift to my side and half crab-crawl, half scramble to my trolley. Then, shakily, up, up, up I go, rising to my knees then to a half crouch then to a leaning upright position, all while clinging to the trolley's sideframe. Everything hurts, and I feel both faint and oversensitive, but I can't stop. We must get away.

Thankfully, the madman seems to be gone already, and we seem to have been getting closer to the exit all this time, judging from the warmer, outside air that occasionally wafts past my face now that people have shied away from my immediate vicinity. Now I just need to muster some strength to push the trolley towards the direction of the salvation, and hopefully, the twins won't remember this horrible experience later on. Hopefully this will soon be just a nightmare for me, too: one that I can forget or even laugh about in the future.

Well, a nightmare among other nightmares, but at least it'll soon be just a patch of history… right?

So I right myself and my cane up, give the heads of Niel and Lia a brief, shaky caress,

And scream, again, when a hand lands lightly on my shoulder from behind: large and, as it turns out, belonging to a man.

"Hey, calm down, kid. It's all right. Looks like you've just lost a catfight. What happened? Where are your parents?" The hand resting on my shoulder twitches, but the anger behind the soft, rumbling voice doesn't seem to be aimed at me, so I relax a little.

"No. No parents. – Who are you? I mean, your name? What's your name? May I know your name?" I babble, even as I shrink away from this new stranger – yet another man.

"Harold Hogan," he says, and there's an odd, ironic tilt to his voice when he adds, somehow almost humorously, "I'm here to rescue you."

I shake my head vigorously, uncaring of the blooming pain at the back of it. "I need to… go. Have to go. Go. Outside. To the city. Thank you, Mister Harold. Sorry, no. I must go." I retreat further away from him, clutching the handle of the trolley with one hand and lifting up my newly retrieved cane as paltry defence with the other. To think that I thought the nightmare was ending already, just now….

And then the man offers something that I find very, very hard to deny right away, even as he finally lets go of my shoulder: "At least sit down for a little while somewhere before you collapse back on the floor? You look like you're about to faint." Or at least it's what I think he says. Now that he has more to say, his words blur together faster, again, just like those spoken by those kind people before. Not that I fully understand the things that I think he says….

"I don't know. Where to sit, I mean. I'm sorry. Can't see. I mean I can't see. I'm blind. Almost blind," I respond to what I know, in the only – embarrassing – way that I can do it. "Night, too. Must go to city. Don't know anything about city yet. Search hotel. My children sleepy. Not book hotel yet."

And then, I realise what I've just said. `Oh damn. Why did I say I'm new here?`

09:30 PM

Mister Harold Hogan, who said he prefers to be called Happy instead, guided me and my fussy charges to what felt like a minimarket. – An expensive minimarket, in my – admitedly rather uninformed – opinion, which demanded five dollars for a tiny bottle of apple juice; and I had to buy three, for myself and the endlessly whimpering children that were still nestled in my arms.

All the same, now, after a few minutes spent drinking the overpriced beverage and taking deep breaths, while perched on a steel bench outside of the minimarket with the twins seated to my either side, I don't feel so shaky anymore. The substantially insufficient drink is worth the price, just for this.

The undemanding companionship Mister Harold – Happy – offers, as well.

He hasn't even asked for my name, all this time, just parking himself somewhere nearby on the bench, commiserating with me about the displeasure of long travels. He is somewhat distracted by something, maybe his mobile phone, but I find I can't begrudge him that. Besides, the mild distraction causes him to speak slower in his responses, which is a boon to my yet-unaccustomed ears.

Then the suspected cause of the distraction rings, and Happy moves away with a quick "Just a moment, Miss" thrown at me.

"'Ntuk, Mi," Niel whimpers plaintively the moment the virtual stranger vacates the bench, as he burrows deeper into my right side and plops his open, half-empty juice bottle – thankfully upright – on my lap. "'Sih lama 'ga?" (`Sleepy, Mummy. We there 'ready?`)

My heart clenches on his address. – "Mami." I asked the twins to call me that when I told them I was going to take care of them from then on, months ago; and, against my expectation, they readily agreed. It still feels fresh until now, regardless of how long it has been since the first time either of these little ones called me that.

It still feels fake, too; a title that I haven't earned in the least.

I'm yet to behave truly motherly to these children, and I don't yet feel motherly towards them either, deep in my psyche. I have always been embroiled in my jobs and uni work and, during these three months or so, preparations for my undergrad thesis and coming here. I've always been too busy and tired to do anything but distractedly supervise some playtime and/or mealtime, bathe the children each morning and evening, and tell them a story before bed.

Stress and exhaustion are cheap excuses for emotional distance that can all too swiftly be addicting, and definitely not mother material. So why in the world did I ask them to call me that?

"Sabar ya," I whisper to the little boy, while nuzzling the top of his head. (`Be patient, please.`) – An empty plea, not even an answer; but Niel seems to be contented with that, judging from how he wordlessly climbs onto my right thigh, claiming it for himself, right after I've plucked the bottle from his new perch and re-capped it.

"Lia?" I check on the other twin, next. But the little girl just utters a soft, sleepy moan when I find her own bottle loosely gripped in her hands and pluck it away for storage. She doesn't react when I shift her onto my other thigh. Already more than half asleep, then, poor baby. To think that I promised her and her brother that we're going to sleep in a bed tonight….

There's still time to fulfill that promise, though. So, without waiting for Happy, whose voice I can't detect amidst the hubbub, I pack up the juice bottles – empty or not – in the nearest bag with enough space for them, re-lash the drowsy twins to my either side, then climb back to my feet. I'm already feeling better and less jittery, so there's no more reason to stay here and torture these poor children more, with that. There's no use waiting here for somebody who won't ever come, either. That damn lying, cheating scholarship agency….

Before I can begin to direct the trolley to – hopefully – the exit gate, however, Happy calls out to me while trotting closer. I can only deduce "name" and "kid" from his barrage of words, and maybe "boss," so I tell him, "My name is Chandra Avandia. You can call me Ava. My children Nathaniel Christopher and Natalia Christina." He's earned this courtesy from me, and even beyond that, although I don't know how to repay his kindness without hurting myself or the twins in the process.

"Let's go, then. Do you know where your hotel is? What's its name?" he says, next, or at least it's what I think he says in his distracted rambling. He helps me push and direct the trolley deftly and briskly from his place at the other side of the handle, meanwhile, which makes me suspect that his time of loitering with strangers like me is nearly or already at an end, signalled by that phone call he's just received, since he usually let me direct the trolley myself before this.

"No hotel yet," I confess sheepishly. "Internet at home bad; not very accessible, too. You know good cheap hotel?" Well, might as well plunge in. He already knows of my plan – or the general lack of it – and that I'm new here.

"Ah, kid," he sighs in response. A part of me bristles indignantly, being considered a trouble child, judging from his tone, but another part – the survivalist part, maybe – insists that I not correct him on the address and perception. Being considered a child has many downsides, but not a few upsides as well.

I can only hope that this decision won't backfire on me and my little tagalongs.

Saturday, 20th June 2009

02:40 AM

I sit up with a start, eyes unseeing. – Where am I? Where are the children? What's going on? What happened? Why am I still wearing dayclothes? I was sleeping! But did I mean to go to bed? What did I dream just now? This bed is too comfy…. And why did I fall asleep with my feet on the floor?

I rub at my eyes, clearing them from all the grit and cobwebs.

But my eyesight doesn't improve, even after my eyes are free of obstructions, and even after I have wiped them with a little bit of the mini bottled water I've just found by sheer luck on the long wooden counter – maybe? – across the bed. Messing with the touchscreen panel on one of the bedside tables does not cause the room to brighten, either.

My heart plummets to somewhere beneath my socked feet, beneath the lush, squishy carpet. I shiver, but not because of the chill of the air conditioner running in this alien room.

I can still see vague shapes, colours in dim spectrums, broad shades of light and shadow, but… but….

The shivers turn into shakes. My heartbeat picks up its tempo and vigour.

That long time ago, the eye doctor who diagnosed me with weak optic nerves plus glaucoma and cataract warned that I was going to lose my eyesight at some point, sooner or later, measured in months and years rather than decades.

She said that stresses could quicken the process.

And I've been under a lot of stresses, quite recently.

Plus there's the enthusiastic meeting between the back of my head and some tiled floor at the airport, just last night.

It's not just some nightmare. The tender spot at the back of my head is a very real evidence to that.

One of the places that the doctor warned never to suffer hard impacts, if I could help it, for the sake of my eyesight.

It's been twelve years since that verdict was spoken, too, well beyond the count of "years."

My heart thumps faster, harder, rebelling on the conclusion my brain draws. Turning round and falling on my knees, I bury my face in the thick, soft, fluffy blanket covering the bed.

Having my eyes closed and obstructed doesn't differ much from having them open, now.

Helplessness is a cold, clammy feeling all over my body, inside and out.

I can – could – read with my own eyes. I did read aloud for others, including the twins, and the last time was a couple of days ago. I like – liked? No, like – to decipher handwritings. I like the sensation of writing with a pencil or a ballpoint pen then highlighting the words with various colours. I like colours. I like sketching and drawing things. I like bicycling. I like watching sun-dappled foliage for hours. I like to eternalise that kind of scenery with the camera I spent years saving for. I like to watch and play with bath toys bobbing on the wavy, chlorine-tinged water of a swimming-poolr, especially when I have company. My super-thick, magnifying spectacles helped me a lot; and even now, it sits in my pocket, digging into my right hip, ready to be used at a moment's notice.

But they can't be used any longer, no doubt; not by me, at any rate. Wearing these specs won't return me my eyesight.

And with that bitter realisation, sobs break free from my strangled throat.

07:20 AM

"Hey, kid, did you–? Oh."

Happy knocked at the door, asking if I and "the littler kids" wanted to get some breakfast downstairs. Now he gawks at me, freezing at the door after I've opened it for him.

Well, not surprising, that. I must look a sight to him, with swollen eyes, rumpled clothes worn since early Thursday morning, and a woebegone look on my face.

"Are you…. What's wrong?" Happy remains at the door, even though I've retreated to the bed, not so far away. He only comes in when I beckon at him, and takes a seat at the lone chair set at the desk across the door instead of on the bed beside me.

So polite and considerate. I'm truly fortunate that I met him – or rather, he encountered me – yesterday night, or things might've gone worse than before, than now. He somehow got the permission from his – very rich, very generous – boss to help me find a hotel to sleep in for the night, since I wouldn't be able to travel to Malibu so late and in such exhaustion. I think I even met the boss, briefly, or maybe even rode with him to the hotel, but I can't trust the fuzzy, choppy memory I retain from the last leg of last night.

And now he's asking me what's wrong with me.

I really, really owe him this much – and even more – don't I? After all, somehow, in some way, he also managed to get me an overnight stay at one of the two smaller bedrooms in the suite rented by his boss, didn't he? When my a-quarter-awake self was fussing with room prices, having just been woken up at the end of the car-ride?

So, after a deep breath, regardless of my stammering English, regardless of the fact that he is yet a virtual stranger to me, I tell Happy everything: the scholarship and the absent agency's representative, my conditional and growing blindness, my occasionally weak ankles, my fears of how I'll function and work and care for the twins if I go totally blind before my studies are finished, my not-so-good English skills….

My eyes have gone leaky again by the end of the rambling confession, my face is buried in my hands, and there's a warm body pressed flush against my side, with an arm thrown over my shoulders.

Happy says nothing, to my endless gratitude, and the twins haven't stirred either on the bed behind us. Better yet, the man, briefly leaving my side, then proffers the mini bottled water to me, the one that I ironically tried to use to 'revive' my eyesight before he came.

"I'm sorry," I blubber, after a short glug of the water. "Thank you. I'm… I'm…." But what can I say? My mind feels empty and numb, now, after reopening those wounds.

The water bottle crunches in my tightened grip. I should've obeyed every instinct not to persist to come here. I wish I could hate that angry stranger who helped clinch my new reality, too. But as it is, I just feel so, so, so exhausted with everything.

"I…," I stutter, take several deep breaths, wipe my free hand across my wet face.

"I… I'm sorry," I try again, in my most level voice. "I cannot. You will embarrass. I mean, I'm like this. People maybe think something… things…. I embarrass – I'm… embarrassing."

Happy chuckles, but I can't detect any mockery or cynicism in his voice. "Believe me," he says, in a clear, slow voice that nonetheless doesn't seem condescending, "my boss can be way worse than you in public. I'm used to it."

A tired, dispirited huff of laughter tears itself out of my abused throat. "Oh," I say, with my face once more being cradled by my hands, "I remember. How much, this room, last night? Must pay. Car travel too. This so nice. Too nice. Can pay little by little? Could you, ask your boss? I don't want debt."

He squeezes me closer briefly, and there's a smile in his voice when he says, "My boss has many faults, but a miser and a bad man isn't any of those. Don't worry about it, kid. Just worry about the littler kids and yourself. It's already more than enough."

More than enough. I agree with him. But still. "Must pay you, and your boss too, some way."

"Eh," he shrugs, with one arm still loosely slung round my shoulders, "just don't give up on your dreams and those babies. They need you." Then, after a contemplative pause, he adds a little hesitantly, "It'd be nice, too, if I knew you're safe – all of you. Got a lil sis bit older than you. You remind me much of her; and if I was your brother, I'd like to know my sister's safe, too. – Your scholarship agency seemed…."

Happy doesn't pick up his words again, even after some time spent in companionable, only semi-awkward silence. But he needn't, indeed. I can very well fill in the blanks myself.

My chest clenches.

I try to distract myself, by coaxing the twins into sleepy wakefulness, by introducing them to a half-enthusiastic Happy, by taking a thorough – if hurried – shower for myself and my half-awake charges, by discussing the cheapest lodging plans available in Malibu with Happy and the twins, by shepherding the all-too-energetic Niel and Lia – having been woken up thoroughly by the warm water and the not-so-long trek to the breakfast hall – through a meal of all available dishes shared in little bites; and still, Happy's unspoken words ring in my head and haunt me like a persistent, malevolent ghost.

What'll the scholarship agency pull, next time?

10:10 AM

I jolt away from my brooding mood and my mobile phone when, through the open door of the bedroom, an unknown man appears and yells, "Ooooooh! The lost lambs!"

Lia, who has been trying to scale my back to my shoulders, falls back onto the bed behind us with a startled squeak. Niel, curious as ever with people, scampers across the carpeted floor from the bedside table that holds the room's landline phone towards the stranger.

With a squeak that nearly matches Lia's, I toss the phone away, mid-texting to my mother – on behalf of our entire family – to report my own little family's safe arrival in America, and dive forward, catching the little boy round the waist. "Niel! Jangan suka begitu, nak," I scold him half-heartedly through the frantic heartbeat that feels like pounding in my throat. (`Niel! Stop that habit of yours, child!`)

The said little boy wriggles and whinges in my tight hold. The stranger chuckles mischievously before I can scold him, too. The sound gets fainter as the man moves away to the other smaller bedroom next door and… gives an order to Happy?

Oh. Oh. Oh. I was just about to scold the boss!

A bratty boss, for certain, but one who let a total stranger room in his excess space for the night without any dangerous ulterior motive – any that I could detect or have experienced, anyhow. Then again, which boss isn't bratty at some point or in a way?

Sighing, I drag Niel onto my lap and cuddle him, telling him in a whisper not to stray from me since my eyesight has gotten worse and I can't keep him safe if he's out of my reach.

The little boy shakes his head to that.

His words, delivered in an innocent, earnest tone, chills me to the marrow: "'Tu kan Oom Tony, Mamiii. 'Nti 'mana-mana ba'eng." (`Dat's Uncah Tony, Mummyyy, doncha know dat? We'll go v'rywhere widdim.`)

Neither of the twins woke up during the car-ride and room check-in last night, as far as I was aware, and they were never out of my hearing's reach this morning, even when I was taking a shower. There was no mention of an Uncle Tony anywhere during all that, and I don't even know who "Tony" is! So how did Niel know before me?

I really, really, really don't need this complication on top of everything else.

So, swallowing hard, I choose to ignore it and instead ask Niel to be wary anyway, before I release him to play trampoline on the bed with his sister – a luxury that I won't encourage on our own beds, whenever we'll get them.

And still, I can feel his stare on my back as I root round the carpet for the whereabout of my discarded mobile phone, even though I can hear him busy squealing and chattering with Lia.

01:20 PM

The bus speeds and sways, sometimes jerking and trundling on some uneven patches. Faintly citrus-flavoured wafts of cool air, all artificial, dull the heat radiating from outside the large windows and briefly shun the smell of sunkissed everything from my nostrils. The blinding light of afternoon sun, however, remains, since the twins love to watch the passing scenery whenever we're in a ride, and so the deep-green curtain on the huge window beside my seat has been tied back.

The seating itself is rather cramped, especially with everybody toting smallish luggage of some sort, whether plenty or few, and with both of the twins perched on my lap like this, but the seats are generously padded, regardless. To my limited experience even in my own country, all these make it a rather fancy affair for an apparently pretty common public commuter transportation for a comparably short distance – between Santa Monica and Malibu.

We've been some time into this supposedly hour-long trip to the bus stop nearest the hotel Happy has helped me book till next Monday, and it's only now that, quietly, I marvel at the fact that I'm riding in a bus alone, children and new-found acquaintance discounted, in a foreign country no less. My parents never allowed me this independence, although they didn't exactly locked me at home and in my room like many other parents unfortunately do to their disabled children, and I've been yearning for this my whole life.

But now that I'm experiencing the freedom in reality, it scares me. I feel so vulnerable and moorless, ready to float away with the wind, especially since the interior of this bus feels more like the overnight buses I ever took with my friends and family to various towns on the other side of the island during holidays. It's like I'm off to yet another continent, almost….

Happy, who happens to be travelling in the same direction after driving his boss to the airport, is seated beside me, on the lane-side of the double seating, shoulder to shoulder with me – or rather, shoulder to ribs, since he's tall – and not uttering a peep. The silence stretching between us has been companionable, but right now I need a distraction from my own thoughts, one that won't excite the twins into chattering and squirming again.

Unfortunately, he didn't even remark or ask about my talking wristwatch just now, when the record of a robotic woman's voice dutifully announced the time on the command of my button push – in my own language, in a not-so-tiny voice at that. He still seems to be pretty busy with his phone, judging from the quiet beeps, bleeps and chirps it's been emitting thus far, almost constantly.

Is he ignoring me by chance or deliberately?

Is he quiet for me? Or maybe he doesn't know how to act towards me? After all, while I was checking out of the hotel room just before lunchtime, the boss – somehow acting hurt with me and my tagalongs leaving him alone – remarked that a twelve-year-old like me wouldn't be able to gain an independent lodging in a hotel, and I retorted that I'm twenty-one, not twelve as he ascertained, backing it up with my national identity card. Helping a child and helping an adult must feel quite different, and Happy didn't realise that he was helping an adult woman.

Not to mention, I sassed his boss, rather childishly at that, after the said boss had been generous enough to have let me stay in that room for free. Come to think of it again, did I say thank-you to the boss yet? Oh girl….

I wish I could just run away from my own body, now.

Awkward.

Keeping silent for the whole ride isn't good for my chances of staying sane and forming a good acquaintanceship – or maybe, even, friendship – on the side in this alien new world, though, is it.

So, "Do you live here? I mean, in Malibu." – Short question. Good, unintrusive topic as well, I hope; and I can only hope, because our cultures are purportedly so different from each other that what I consider small-talk may be disastrously not for him.

And, "Yes," Happy rumbles. Short, but it doesn't sound curt or impatient. I'm encouraged.

"Where do you work?" – I want to say, "Can I work there, too, during my holidays from uni?" but wariness holds me back. – Many foreigners, especially female, are trapped into human trafficking in that way, or so the news programmes sometimes say. I shan't be included in that number! Nor will these little children now babbling to each other in a murmur on my lap, for that matter.

Happy shifts a little, putting away something – maybe the phone he must've been tinkering with? – before turning his head to me, judging from the direction of his voice and the shift of the shadow shapes beside me."Stark Industries, from Stark International," he says, still without reservations it seems. "Stark University is a rather new addition to the ranks. It belongs directly to Stark International, though, naturally, not Stark Industries."

"Oh?" I raise my eyebrows, interested. "What is – are – there beside that – those, I mean – ehh, no, that, right? I assume Stark Industries are – is? – like… child company, or something, of Stark International? I mean, what else, I guess, beside Stark University, and what are in that other one? Stark Industries?" We're getting into a conversation, at last! But this bloody language barrier won't let me be!

Well, but I entered my bachelor programme in English language education – instead of my own language – by sheer bullheadedness, didn't I? I entered this scholarship programme similarly, for that matter. I can only hope he'll be patient with me, then. And….

"Oh, some," he chuckles. "Stark Weapons, for one." He pauses, but I just nod my head for him to hopefully continue, clueless to what he is talking about and intrigued to find out more; relieved, as well, that I am no longer alone with my thoughts.

"Do you know Tony Stark?" he abruptly asks, after a rather lengthy pause that feels somehow soothing to me, despite its awkward air.

I shake my head. "No. Must I – I mean, should I know?" – Is "Tony Stark" related to the Uncle Tony Niel talked about or Happy's boss? Or the latter, really, if I got Niel's statement right? But there must be millions of people named "Tony" out there. What's special about "Tony Stark," anyway?

Happy snorts, sounding amused. "Nah," he grins. There's an inside joke there somewhere, I know, but he doesn't seem to mock me by it, so I let it just be, not digging further.

Even if he did mock me, I should be accustomed to such, anyway, from twelve years of hellish compulsory schooling, the memory of which has just dulled a little with four years of nicer company and acquaintanceship – if not quite friendship – at uni. Throughout all my childhood, teenhood and young adulthood, I've got only one constant friend aside from a few close relatives, and this person – as unique as they are, defying gender norms and all expectations – wasn't even a schoolmate.

Damn. I'm already missing Logi, this soon….

"Tell me more? Stark Weapons is in Stark Industries, right?" I prompt him, smiling. And for once, maybe because the short, easy phrasing, or maybe because we've been a while into this conversation with me being active in it, the words feel more natural and fluid on my tongue.

The next bits that spew forth from my mouth, though, put the illusion of competence to rest.

"You said 'for one'. What is the two? I mean, second – the second company, other than weapon? If you can tell me, though."

I'm beginning to resign myself to sounding like a total idiot. I still stumble the longer I talk.

But exercising one's language skills is like exercising muscles, isn't it? I've long known that, even before I received and studied theories about it at uni, given how my various relatives, schoolmates and best friend tried to teach me their respective mother tongues and cultures. So, given how little I've used my English speaking skills thus far, I guess I'd better be grateful that I'm still more or less understandable in the first place.

Well, and that this particular conversation partner of mine seems to have the patience of a giraffe calmly chewing on young leaves on treetops, of course.

He talks, and talks, and talks, still in the slow, clear pronunciation that he favours with me, and I listen: about the divisions under Stark Industries: about Stark Weapons, about Stark Communications, about Stark Energies, about Stark Wares, about Stark Mobile. Then he moves to talking – more briefly – about the divisions under Stark International other than Stark Industries and Stark University, hence about Stark Foundation and the committees for Stark Grants and the Stark Exposition for Science and Technology. He even talks briefly about his job as a driver for Stark Industries, to which his boss belongs to.

He seems so happy with his job, in his own bland way: contented, satisfied, even fond.

The siren call for me to ask – beg, even – for a chance to work in that conglomerate has ratchetted quite a few notches at the end of his long, informative narration, during which I have also won several thumb-wrestling matches with the increasingly bored Lia and Niel.

`Patience, patience,` I tell myself, then ask my own questions to various details that Happy has expounded about. `Have to make sure everything's fine first. Have to. But it's not like I've got glowing credentials here, anyway; I don't even have a work permit! Do they accept part-time jobs done by a newbie at uni? Got the twins to think about, too, don't i.`

And he answers.

And we talk.

Unfortunately, the twins have chosen a very 'good' time to whinge for my attention, asking me to retell about my unconventional first meeting with Logi, my only constant friend growing up.

02:10 PM

The main space of the hotel room Happy speedily booked for me late this morning is small and rather cramped. It's barely enough for a somewhat crieky, somewhat weathered, tough double bed placed to the left going in past the bathroom, set against the opposite wall, furnished with a couple of standard pillows and a thick, fuzball-riddled duvet. It's flanked by a pair of bedside tables with bare tops, each of which has a narrow drawer beneath the top, with one containing what might be the menus of room service and the other a pocket notebook and a pencil. A small desk plus its accompanying stool are nestled on the corner opposite the front door, with a row of electric outlets set on the wall it's facing, which is opposite the bed. Beside it, running along the right wall perpendicular to the front door going in, is a low, narrow dresser which stretches directly opposite the bed beneath a hanging, rather small flat-screened television set. The tiny, compact bathroom whose wall runs beside the bed opens its door to a small, simple wardrobe closet across the hallway to the front door, making the closet stand beside the other side of the dresser.

It's tiny for a hotel, maybe, yet so large in my perception. Usually I spent holidays with at least eight people crammed into one room – my parents and us, their children. Now the occupants will be just me and the twins – who are even now running all over the bed, thankfully after I've wrestled their shoes off.

"I…. Thanks, Happy. You help me, much." I fidget with the hem of my T-shirt, shifting from foot to foot, as Happy and I cluster on the narrow hallway leading to the front door, flanked by the doors of the wardrobe and the bathroom. Totally out of my depth, here, as well as alien, not to mention awkward as hell.

A large, strong hand lands on my tense shoulder and squeezes it warmly. "You're quite welcome, kid," comes the equally warm reply. "Now, I must be there for my boss at the airport, soonish, n'wanna see my lil sis 'fore that if I can. You gonna be all right here?"

I give him a jerky nod. "Let the children say good bye to you?" I murmur tentatively, still as awkward as before. – I've never dealt with total strangers on my own before this!

He squeezes my shoulder again, before letting his hand fall. "Sure. N'you may wanna bring the kids to the mall later. There're a few rentable trampolines there. They seem to like playing trampoline on the bed so much. It'll be safer there, too."

I laugh. But inside, I wince. "Don't tell them?" I beg him, even as I pad away to the bed to gather up the twins. "My wallet thin!"

He laughs in turn, teasingly. I huff at his humour on my expense.

However, after the little ones have given him a good-bye hug, as we're all gathered just beyond the door, the air becomes awkward again.

"Sorry, bothering you. But, umm, can I – might I? Get your number – your phone number? If you would? Let me, I mean? Just… to talk, for talking. I like talking with you. If you would? I'm sorry, if I rude or something. I just…. You tell me – told me – you want to know… how I am – how we are. Do you want, still? Do you still want…? – This place, everything, so new to me. I know only you here. Want to know your sister too if she want. Then…."

"Gi'm." Happy suddenly snaps his fingers three times near my waistbag, which has rarely left my person since Thursday and contains all the necessary things including my mobile phone.

"Oh," I mutter dumbly, reeling, figuratively screeching to a stop.

It takes me an embarrassing, long handful of seconds to process his abrupt request, then oblige it.

Mutely, I nod when, finished with inputting his number into the phone, he insists that I contact him if I've got any question about Malibu in general or a particular place in it, or if I need help about the children, "Or anything else, really."

He only folds my phone into my hand when I verbally agree.

I feel like a kindergartener being lectured by her elder.

Still, something, moved by his concern and consideration towards me and my little charges, bulldozes through the awkwardness of both the moment and the topic, and I blurt out, with cheeks burning, "Would you like to be my friend?"

In moments like this, I'm happy I'm now nearly totally blind.

As it is, I am glad, too, that I'm way shorter than he is. The top of my head barely reaches his shoulder; so, currently, I'm staring at his chest, putting no effort to make as if I were looking right at him.

I have never asked anybody this. Classmates, colleagues and peers – they're all automatically acquaintances to me, friendly, and friends for whatever length of time I manage to maintain contact with them. Even Logi, my friend outside of family, school and work, asked for my friendship first. But now that I'm in a completely foreign country and situation, that there's nothing tying me and Happy together but his surprising kindness and care and the fact that we were travelling at roughly the same direction these two times, I'm desperate for some acknowledgement of something more than distant acquaintanceship that's just a step up from "total stranger."

I only wish the words wouldn't sound and feel so childish, insecure, raw, even to my ears.

I can only hope that–

"I wouldn't give my number to you and keep an eye on you if I didn't care, y'know. Want a pinky swear for that? I think Jenny did that with her friends. She's my lil sis, by the way. I'll definitely talk about you to her. Who knows, she might wanna contact you herself."

–Oh. Oh.

"Thank you," I repeat, more fervently than before, with a semi-histerical laugh bubbling in my throat. "No need pinky swear. So girly. Childish. Nice though. Not meaning Jenny childish! But thank you for… everything." Still not raising my eyes to meet his, I switch the phone to my left hand and stretch out my right for a handshake. "Friend?"

Happy drags me into a bear hug instead, with his left arm round my back and his right arm round the back of my neck, pressing my face into his chest.

It feels… odd; new, strange, but not unpleasant. – Neither my family nor the various groups of people I call my friends back home are much inclined to be tactile, except for Logi; but even Logi has a reason for clinging to me, according to their – only half believable – claim, namely leeching some of my body heat apparently to boost their own – a matter of survival, in other words. I rarely receive hugs, as the result, and rarely initiate them as well.

I feel truly like a child, with this bear hug, but for once I don't mind it.

I regret not returning Happy's hug before it's too late, though.

I face the narrow, Happy-less hallway blankly for a long time, even after the echoing sound of his quick footfalls on the outside hallway tiles has faded, clutching my phone in one hand and the hands of the twins with the other, all as if to a lifeline.

Sunday, 21st June 2009

02:27 AM

I wake up far too early again.

The world remains a mess of blurry shapes and colours, unfortunately; worse now that my eyes are yet barely adjusted to wakefulness. The illumination of my torch creates just a foggy circle on whatever surface it happens to be pointing out, so I turn it off again. No need to make reality more painful and useless than it is. And speaking of which, those bottle-bottom spectacles must go some time, or I'll be driven mad by their useless presence….

A trip to the bathroom revives me a little bit, but sadly doesn't make the alienness of my new reality go away. The discomfiture remains a roiling, slithering mass in my chest, a terrible itch just beneath my skin.

But it's not the only thing that currently plagues my chest; no, it's not. I'm paying for the lack of sustenance I treated myself the whole of yesterday past the complimentary breakfast in the previous hotel. – I ate breakfast there, together with the twins and Happy, and smuggled foods that could be smuggled, and took three of the bagged breakfast available on the receptionist's desk; but they've all been demolished by Lia and her brother by nightfall. – And now, my chest burns as fiercely as my empty stomach, taking up a protest on the intruding stomach gas and acid rising up into it. And I've just found out I forgot to pack my usual set of medicines for this chronic illness of mine….

Would it be rude or alarming to Happy if I asked him for stomach medicines this early in the morning? Could I just venture out somewhere to buy them? But if the twins woke up….

My hand reaches for my mobile phone, placed strategically on the bedside table closest to my side of the bed, but freezes midway. With a hitch of a half-in-vain breath, I return myself to the bed and drape an arm round the twins instead.

No, I can't ask Happy. We are barely friends yet, despite the claim. I can't do anything nice for him yet,too, as repayment for past favours. I can't just take and take and take, without giving back. It's wrong. He's done so much for me and my little charges. I can't ask him now about this, and maybe not even later, not until I can do something to repay his kindness.

Huh. It's never been put as acutely as now: I have nobody here. Just not yet, maybe; but "not yet" is a long time coming.

Too long time, maybe, even, if my stomach continues to act up and invade my chest….

08:30 AM

The pattern of breakfast in the hall followed by smuggling titbits off the sideboards and ending with picking up breakfast bag from the receptionist counter continues today, despite the lack of Happy. The twins asked about him, wondering if he'd join us, just before we got out of the room for the daily 'foraging' of food. They even asked me to call him, and I managed to dodge that only by saying, "Oom Happy lagi kerja, nak." (`Uncle Happy is working, children.`)

But right now, as we're trying to settle down back in our room, and I'm trying to settle the stomach that's suddenly got loaded with so much food, a text message pops up on my phone, and it turns out to be from Happy.

As Lia has somehow predicted, minutes before.

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Kid, you awake? Sorry to bother you. But well I know I'm bothering you, yes. :P Tony got me up at an ungodly hour, after we returned from his party AT 2 LAST NIGHT. Got to eat finger food the whole night and couldn't even get drunk to forget that horrible unmanly meal coz I was working. Goody. Don't get drunk though! Won't bail you out of jail if you get caught by the police. Now was that Chinese restaurant any good? Good portion at least? Did the littler kids bother you too much? Did you get much trouble going places with your age and toddlers in tow?

I give the phone – and by extention, the page of the text still open on it – a frown.

The two of us – Happy and I – chatted about various things after he left me here last afternoon, all by text message. The topics ranged from the general layout of USA to this hotel and its surroundings, from jokes to several somewhat personal questions and anecdotes such as our jobs and little siblings – the latter of which he only has one: a little sister by far by the name of Jenny, the one that he talked about briefly before he left me here. My phone balance has gotten worryingly low for my projected triangulation of time and need and just-in-case by now, because of that, but I couldn't help it. I really, really, really needed to know that I wasn't totally alone out here, caring for a pair of little children at that.

I still need it very much, really.

We never – directly, at least – asked each other about what we had just been doing, however.

This makes our friendship ramp up to a new level, doesn't it, in the western standard? But isn't it too fast for such a new thing? At least that's what I got from all those websites about types of relationships all round the world, and also from people's anecdotes about their friends. Won't a friendship crash fast, too, if it's built too quickly like this? I really, really, really don't want that! But if I try to let it stay in the brand-new-buddy zone, will Happy think I am too aloof or secretive? Will he think I'm too open too fast, too desperate for company despite the fact of it, if I initiate something new on my end?

What's that about "Tony," anyway? Niel mentioned an "Oom Tony." Happy mentioned a "Tony Stark" that might be a popular public figure out here. And now he also mentioned a "Tony" that's maybe his boss and maybe his friend… or maybe both, in some strange way – a type of friendship that I've never known before, if it's true. Again, are these four "Tony"'s related? Are they the same people? Or two different people, maybe – Uncle Tony that's also Happy's friend, then Tony Stark that's also Happy's boss? Happy never mentioned a friend named Tony in his messages yesterday, though….

And what's that about regarding me as a kid? I'm bloody twenty-one years old!

Well, almost….

Anyway, can't Happy and his boss see that? But then again, even the hotel staff who helped me and the children navigate the breakfast hall pretty recently asked if we were going to be all right alone like this; or, if not, they could help us contact "Cousin Happy."

Blech.

One of the twins slips into my lap just as my frown turns into a scowl, remembering that breakfast incident.

It turns out to be Lia, judging from the voice when the said twin pipes up, "Oom Happy 'napa, 'Mi? Ga bisa dateng ya?" (`S'rong wiff Uncle Happy, Mummy? Can't come, huh?`)

My eyes widen, losing the scowl. – How does she know that it's Happy who's just texted me? I never talked with either or both of the twins about his messages to me – even yesterday, when there were a whole bunch of those!

My hair stands on end. But I force my tone to remain light when I ask her to please go play with her brother, and I'll see about inviting Happy if he's not working, either this afternoon or tonight.

And then, while absent-mindedly keeping an ear for the twins' toy car race, whose track spans the bed and the two bedside tables, and whose obstacles include the pillows and my – closed – laptop, my chat session with Happy begins for the day, with all caution about acceptable questions and diminishing phone balance resignedly thrown to the figurative wind.

To: Happy Hogan
Text: You are lucky. I have been awake since 02:30 AM. I wonder what Jenny would do to you if you woke her up early because you were woken up early. ;) I am not a child, btw! What I said was right. I'm 21 years old.

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Well I just won't tell you will I? Don't wanna give you ideas after all. :P At any rate people know well that misery loves company.

To: Happy Hogan
Text: I thought your name was "happy," not "misery"? Shall I call you Misery from now? :P

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Well I'm still Happy. Happy to spread my misery early in the morning after a 2 hour sleep. And speaking of which why didn't you use the time to sleep as much as possible to get rid of the jetlag? Was joking about waking you up just to chat you know. Could always delay replying till the afternoon if that's when you wake up. Or is there anything wronger with your eyes or the littler kids? Could steal some time to visit if you want some company. Could bring Jenny with me to keep you company for the day too. She's free today and seemed interested when I talked about you.

I laugh a little wetly. `Cheeky, overgrown prat. And why does he avoid talking about my age? Damn prat.`

To: Happy Hogan
Text: If you're "happy" to spread misery so early in the morning, then I'm "jenious" to do the same in days randomly, or maybe prank you. Nothing wronger with my eyes or the kids, btw.

…No, not my eyes, just my stomach, and my situation, and my future prospects….

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Whoa! You Jenny in disguise? O_o

To: Happy Hogan
Text: Hmm. I could join Jenny in tackle you… Good idea. :D

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Whoa! Hey! One Jenny is more than enough!

To: Happy Hogan
Text: I wonder what she would say if she saw this message…

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. This is not the Happy you are looking for. Delete delete delete

To: Happy Hogan
Text: Your password is incorrect. The action cannot be excecuted.

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Peanut butter? Jelly sandwich? Chocolate cookies? Vanilla ice cream?

To: Happy Hogan
Text: This computer need a password, sir, not messy food.

Well, and I desperately need him to stop talking about food, or my stomach will act up worse. It's already a burning, roiling mess inside right now; worse than before it got re-stuffed with food from the breakfast spread, ironically.

Thankfully, he diverts himself… though the alternative isn't much better.

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Coca-Cola? Sparkling cider? Orange squash? Oolong tea? You drank oolong tea last night at the restaurant? Or maybe green tea? Jasmine tea? Now I really got the urge to haunt some Chinese restaurant…

To: Happy Hogan
Text: This computer need a password, sir, not drink list. :D

From: Happy Hogan
Text: So tell me the password Ms Computer.

To: Happy Hogan
Text: The password is: "Sorry I wake you up so early this morning and I will not repeat it again when not important." :P

From: Happy Hogan
Text: I did say sorry! And you said you'd been awake since tooearly O'clock. Well the password is too long too. I'm in danger of forgetting it. In fact I'm forgetting it right this second. Now I need to go drive a car for a worldclass sulker so byebye!

I give Happy the character rendition of a tongue-sticking-out emoticon as the answer, before escaping the messaging page, locking the phone up, and stowing it on the desk, far out of the range of the still-ongoing bed-top car race.

Well, damn, I forgot to confront him about claiming to the hotel staff that he's my cousin. Never knew such a big, honest-seeming, prim-and-proper-seeming guy could be this slippery….

I give the thought a shake of the head; and then, to hopefully forget the torture my stomach is dishing out on my belly and chest, I dive into the race on the cheer of my little ones, with my own favourite jeep – with its body painted neon blue and its wheels coloured lurid pink.

01:20 PM

An unknown number sent me a rain of text messages, claiming itself – himself? Herself? Themself? – as "Tony," Happy's friend, while I was busy throwing my breakfast back up into the toilet bowl. That person, right away, claimed familiarity and boredom, as if we'd been speaking with each other for a long time already. With how it's increasingly hard for me to breathe and how burning nausea keeps haunting my belly and throat, this is a very, very unwelcome, unnerving development.

I've tried to ignore it. But the message downpour won't stop, and my phone balance, set on abroad mode like this, with half of the messaging fee burdened on me as the recipient, won't survive the drain; not after the hit it took from my conversation with Happy this morning.

Worse, many of the messages are variations of:
Heeeeeey u ther?
and
Im boooooored!

Useless, uselessly often repeated, and… well… Now I find that I hate chatspeak, when I must depend so much on a text-to-speech application like this. It ruins the pronunciation of the screen reader of the phone, forcing me to spell the message letter by letter and wait for the audio output to read those for me each time.

It's always reminding me that I have to rely on screen readers on my phone and computer, now, instead of my own two eyes, and I hate it even more than the tideousness of letter-by-letter spelling.

To top it all, forget responding to the barrage; by the time I'm finished with reading one message, at least three others have arrived.

Even worse, maybe picking up my potentially dangerous misery and not knowing how to alleviate it, the twins fret and whinge. There's no napping for them, and no playing either. They keep clinging to my homeclothes – soft, baggy, thin shorts and an equally soft, even-baggier, even-comfier T-shirt – wherever I go, even for a wretching session in the bathroom.

And my phone keeps ringing its text message alert.

Giving up at last, I lay myself on the bed, with my head turned a little to the side to avoid pressing on the tender bump on the back of it from two days ago. Lia quickly scrambles to my left, worming herself into my arms, and Niel, having no other option, parks himself on my right, clinging to my back.

I send a plea home for a speedy top-up on my phone balance. Then, it's time to send back a message to the unknown number.

To: Tony
Text: Write good English, please. My screen reader cannot read your text. How do you get this phone number anyway? Then please don't send so many messages. The money in my phone is limited. More message mean less money. I need the money for emergency call.

And "Tony" – instead of the requested top-up of phone balance – answers, right away, in ten separate messages.

From: Tony
Text: So booooooring. I dunneed a second Pepper!

From: Tony
Text: A blind huh? Well you can help me test some new prototype programs for their accessibility then! Wanna wanna wanna? Good pocket money ahead! Can even fork out some of the pay to put money in your phone as you said it.You strange girl.

From: Tony
Text: No telling Happy I got your number! He'd be a most un-Happy critter if he knew. Pity me! (I capitalized the H in Happy if you didn't know. Clever huh?) I'm writing good English! See? (Not see with your eyes I know! Don't be mad at me okay?) I'm just soooo boooooored.

From: Tony
Text: Got ideas for accessible toys? You could ask the littler kids as Happy says it for ideas too. You can invite me to play then. Promise I'll behave!

From: Tony
Text: In fact can I come? Please please please please please please. It's so boooooring here. Will behave I swear! Can bring the 3 of you some donuts or burgers or both or whatever please let me come? You felt like good company and here it's all baaaaad.

From: Tony
Text: Ooooooo. I wanna cheese burgers! You like cheese burgers? Wanna some? Get me and we can party on cheese burgers!

From: Tony
Text: Don't tell Pep I'm bailing out of the meeting though!

From: Tony
Text: I'm surrounded by old booooooring people with old booooooring arguments. Save me!

From: Tony
Text: Please can I come? I'll come anyway if you don't reply in the next minute! This machine needs some cooling down before it explodes! Else I'll just hit the bar HARD and Pep'll be doubly mad at me. I put the hard word in all capitals by the way so I really mean it.

From: Tony
Text: Come ooooon. More pocket money for you if you don't tell Haps. Don't tell Pepper either! She's *WORSE*!

This "Tony" is like a leaky tap that's too stubborn to be stoppered!

They're a creepy leaky tap, at that.

I can't decide whether Tony is a rich teenage brat, a genius five-year-old with ADHD and/or autism, a mafia boss with the fettish of acting like a boy, a lonely child trying to act brave and confident and outgoing, a creepy sexually disordered stalker of random people who is applying a new strategy to a new victim, or maybe a genius-professor type who is deeply attuned with their inner child and has long forgotten about how to interact socially… not that I myself am any good with social interactions, though, really.

But still.

To: Tony
Text: I'm sorry. I don't know you. How can you know me? I am not a programer, too. I don't know how to help you. How do you know there are children here? We are taking a nap. I'm sorry. My phone money is nearly empty. I maybe cannot answer your messages if you send me so many messages. Half of the fee per message is paid by the reciver. I have told you. I need some money in phone for emergency call. I can't do that if it's empty.

Thirteen messages appear on my phone's inbox as the response.

From: Tony
Text: Sending you some selphone balance. Making you a mobile bank account. Those are what you meant with that bit about money in phone right? Now can I come there? Please please please please please?

From: Tony
Text: Saw your name at the college. Is Avandia your last name? Sounds like a first name. Why language studies? Boooooring. Can I enroll you in IT too as a double degree? It's my college so I know well it's got good IT program. Not the best yet but it's still a new college!

From: Tony
Text: Why Chandra? Researched it. It's a god's name. Male. Huh. You round like a full moon when you're born? But you aren't pimply like the surface of the moon. Can I call you Chan-Chan? I'll call you Chan-Chan! You Indian? (Asian Indian I mean. Stupid Columbus.) Do your family call you Chanayah or something like that? Do you even still have family? I don't and I don't mind so don't be mad at me okay?

From: Tony
Text: Golfing is boooooooring! Save me!

From: Tony
Text: The littler kids might like the golf car. Or maybe just run around the field. At least it'll be of some entertainment.

From: Tony
Text: Haps said the kiddies like the trampoline. Let's meet up at the mall if you don't want me to come there. Those little monkeys will go jumping around for HOURS!

From: Tony
Text: I swear I'm NOT a perv. Just save me from these horrible chit-chats pleaseeeeee. Let's meet up at the mall or at the beach or wherever.

From: Tony
Text: You can tell Haps but don't tell Peps! I just need somewhere awaaaay from here.

From: Tony
Text: Hap'll understand. Pep won't.

From: Tony
Text: Will send you some McD. Saw good car and doll Happy Meal there. Or you wanna some other? Talk to me at least!

From: Tony
Text: You got the notifications for celphone balance and that mobile account yet? Look! That's one good distraction there so thank you.

From: Tony
Text: Better yet if you invite me to your fun. I need some fuuuun! But not the fun I usually have with girls! Promise you I'm not a perv! Promise I'll just sit all quiet!

From: Tony
Text: Snicker snicker snicker that oily oily oily man thinks I'm closing a deal with him. Nope I'm checking in with the bank for that mobile account.

Uh. Note to self: ask Happy how to get cheaper phone plan here, right after this. – It'll be too late if I must send yet another begging message for someone to top up my phone balance from home! And what's this with Tony sending me some phone balance? How? I didn't ask them to, for that matter! I just asked them to please stop! And what of that mobile bank account they keep talking about? Did this unknown person hack into my personal information at Stark Uni? How did they know I'm enrolled at Stark Uni? How could Happy have such a friend?

Heh. Second note to self… get "Tony" to really shut up. They're really creeping me out! And the more energetic heartbeat they've caused in me really, really, really doesn't agree with the excess of stomach gas that's crowding my chest.

Still, they could be a friend; if only….

Well, more friends is a good idea, if I know who the friends are and can be sure that they are not stalkers or casual phone tappers… or even worse.

Logi could help…. They claimed they're a rather good judge of character…. But I haven't even met this "Tony" yet! How could I send Logi the photo if I haven't even met the target yet? But inviting that creepy, chattery stalker here – to my hotel room – would make the precaution a moot point, wouldn't it, even if by doing that I might get the photo Logi requires?

I sigh, and give Tony my curtest-possible reply, once for all those messages, even as the twins snuggle deeper into my either side, seeming to be deeply asleep at long last, on their own at that.

To: Tony
Text: I ask my mum to send me money in phone so I can call and sms people. If it's phone balance then yes it's right, but don't send me that. I get it from my parents. Thank you. No need bank account. Don't have mobil bank account and don't plan having that too. Already have usual bank account. Already enough. Like creative writing/geographie/antrophology but no those in scholarship so I choose next choice after those. No very little about tecnology. No last name. Avandia is second name. How you know my name and university and twins? Please don't look. It's private right? I think western people like private. Eastern people are more open but not open like this. I don't know you yet. I know Happy but not long yet. I don't know if you are male or female too. Some girls are called Tony right?

And, in response, Tony sends me thirty-two messages, including the verbose denial that he is a girl.

Monday, 22nd June 2009

04:01 AM

"Tony" turned out to be the man who gave me a ride and an overnight stay in his hotel suite when I and my little tagalongs firstly arrived in the United States. Happy's boss, in other words.

All the generocity was not for free, apparently, as I had firstly assumed, judging from how he's been keeping me awake intermittently all through the night with his messages. No longer wheedling for a spot in my hotel room or a "friend-date" somewhere in the city, he's shifted gears, so to say, and he's been spending yesterday until now talking about his technological ideas, mine, and… well, other things, most likely – things that I've been too sleepy and miserable to remember, let alone contemplate.

But then, can I really count this strong-armed acquaintanceship as payment for those favours? After all, despite the hundreds of messages we've exchanged with each other, which have been contributed mostly by the prat, my phone balance has never run out, and he promised me he's sending some balance to my mobile phone. I've never actually gotten the chance to check the balance, busy taking care of the twins and texting and trying to breathe, forget trying to sleep, but still.

And now the poor mobile phone is vibrating its text message alert again in my hands – one, two, three, four, five… thirteen times – when I've barely finished replying to the previous seven messages in one.

`Damn you, Tony. When do you ever stop? I'm knackered!`

08:12 AM

To: Happy Hogan
Text: Happy, do you know easiest rute from hotel to Stark University? I need to go there for confirming my scholarship today. My scholarship agency has not replied to my e-mail. Thanks!

09:20 AM

From: Happy Hogan
Text: Got permission. Will pick you up at hotel soon. We go by bus. Prepare what you need. We'll return to the hotel for your things if everything goes well so no need to lug everything to the campus yet. Send my regards to the littler munchkins.

09:37 AM

"Why didn't you tell me that you need medicines? I told you, didn't I? If you needed anything–. You don't think being unable to breathe an emergency? Even if I didn't tell you to contact me, you should've contacted me anyway for that."

Happy is mad. I've just asked him for a brief detour to the nearest pharmacy for drugs and/or aids that could soothe both my stomach and lungs, as we're crossing the hotel's lobby towards the front door, and he explodes into a hissy fit.

It's more fearsome than my parents' infamous fights, somehow.

I lean away from him, as far as possible without actually letting go of the crook of his guiding arm; surreptitiously ushering the twins away from him, too.

Not surreptitious enough, apparently, however. Happy stops talking, and lets out a gusty sigh. Ruffling my hair with his free hand, he leads us to the bus stop near the hotel's front gate in a broody silence. The twins scamper back and forth before us, under the cheerful morning sunlight: two blobs of darting bright red in my vision, which seems to have gone even fuzzier after the lack of sleep las tnight.

11:45 AM

"I'm sorry, Miss Avandia. We've just checked, but the BBN agency only paid the amount required for the downpayment of the entrance fee. The agency also has no scholarship program arranged with us under your name. The amount paid so far is enough for if you meant to secure a temporary place with us, before you found a way to pay the required installment prior to first day of class. But, unfortunately, it's not enough to secure you a permanent place in the program; and without it, we can't secure a place for you in the dorms. I would suggest you contact your scholarship agency for clarification and further funding, or apply for a scholarship from Stark Foundation, or find a student's loan as soon as possible, or explain your problem to the embassy of your country and let them handle it. We still have time until the fourteenth of September; it's the first day of class. With the downpayment for the entrance fee already paid, your place with us is secure until then. You will need to secure three thousand dollars more for the entrance fee and one thousand for the first semester, after classes begin but before this year is out. The tuition doesn't include accommodation, however, so I'd suggest you secure that too before class starts."

No scholarship.

I must pay four thousand dollars if I want to go on with the study programme anyway; at least for now, and it's without counting in accommodation and daily expenditure.

Four thousand dollars that I don't have.

Scholarship that I don't have.

The professional-but-kind-sounding woman that's seated across from us – me, the children and Happy – in the foyer of the administrative offices building still talks, on and on and on, and Happy talks with her, but I can't even open my mouth.

I can't even breathe, truly breathe. It's worse than before Happy got me the medicines and the portable oxygen tank in the pharmacy before we arrived here.

In just one moment, after waiting a quarter of an hour for the staff here to verify my claim of scholarship, after all the hopes and efforts of my family to send me and the twins here, after months of hard work and preparation and waiting and dreaming and hoping, my whole world has shattered.

And to think that I've brought two little children here.

I feel faint.

Everything feels surreal.

My heart feels like it's fallen to the depths of my guts and let out ponderous, erratic beats there.

Reality feels so far away, but at the same time so near, so acute.

Sharp. Harsh. Unforgiving, cutting.

Cold.

So cold.

I'm alone.

I sway on my seat, I think. I don't know. My body feels detached from the rest of me, or maybe I'm the one detached from the rest of reality. I can still feel the cold, though, the clamminess, the whispers in my ears.

Somebody jostles me. My booted feet no longer rest on the carpeted floor. People are talking, faintly; I can still hear them. Good. I want to hear!

I don't want the cold, the muffled detachment. Please? Somebody? Help me out? Away from here? – What's going on? What's happened?

Something's tugging me further into oblivion. I fight with all my might.

Oblivion feels like dying.

I don't want to die!

Hands lay me out on a lightly padded something. I struggle weakly to sit up. – I'm not dead! I can't lie down or I'll die!

I sway harder, feel my brain squeezing inward in my overstuffed skull, feel nausea faintly churning up in my belly, feel my heart thumping even harder and more erratically, feel children's voices screaming in my empty, empty head.

Hands are steadying me. People are still talking. – What are they talking? Who are they? I can't recognise their voices.

A sharp-smelling something is put under one of my nostrils. It stings the nostril, stings the tunnel inside, stings my airway, stings my lungs.

It stings me awake, little by little. Or rather, it drags me into reality, little by little, like trying to pull out a heavy spoon which has been drowned in a bowl of moistened maizena with a delicate weaving yarn instead of fingers.

A hand pats my cheek a little roughly. It works in tandem with the sharp-smelling something. I'm glad.

The touch also means, "Come on, come on, don't do this. Come back. Pay attention. I want to speak to you." I recognise it, I get it.

I fight.

I blink.

I blink again. Somebody is wrapped round me, like a wall of muscles, feeling and smelling like a man.

But why can't I see? Who is that? What's going on? Why's everything dark?

"Uh," I mumble blearily. Even I sound so far away. My tongue feels so heavy, too; just like my limbs, just like my shoulders, my head, my heart….

But my head is clearing up, little by little, as an oxygen mask is fitted over my nose and mouth. My hearing follows suit. Maybe my eyes, too, soon?

"Hey, hey, Kid? Can you hear me?"

"Uh?"

Happy's voice, reverberating on the wall of muscles flattening my right ear. And he sounds like he has been calling for me for a while now, in time with his rough patting on my left cheek – now my left ear, after the mask's addition. So his voice is the source of the whispers I heard? Then, the children…?

"Thank God," he sighs.

And the wall of muscles wrapped round me sags, as if in relief.

Happy, me, twins. Stark Uni. Administration staff.

No scholarship.

The world gets fuzzy again.

Oh. Oh. Oh, no. What a nightmare!

"Happy?" I slur out. "…You…?"

"Yes, it's me," comes the answer, even as my fingers clutch at something that might be his shirt, spasmodically.

"…Kids?"

"Just outside, with a pair of staffers."

"My eyes…?" I reach up a clumsy hand, rub at one eye, then the other, then blink again to get the blackness out of my sight.

To no avail.

"My eyes," I whimper. My breath hitches despite the oxygen supply. "My eyes. My eyes."

The world is so dark. What's going on? Electricity shortage? But Happy isn't alarmed! Nobody else is alarmed with the darkness, too. So… so… so…?!

"Hey, kid?" Happy drags me onto his lap, cuddling me close. I have neither the will nor the energy to spare for alarm or confusion over his action, though.

"My eyes. My eyes," I plead. My hand, still rubbing vigorously just above the rim of the oxygen mask, go damp, then wet. "Happy, I…." My throat closes up. My brain spins faster inside my squeezing skull.

The darkness will be a reality if I speak about it.

But isn't it dark already? I've opened my eyes as big as they can! They even prickle when my finger touches the eyeballs!

"Happy," I swallow. My throat makes a clicking sound inside. "Happy, I can't see!"

A large hand grabs my finger before it can continue rubbing at my eyeballs. I blink, blink, blink, blink again.

The world is still dark.

My heart tattoos a more frantic rhythm in my chest, in my hands, in my ears, in my throat, in my feet. My body feels cold, so cold, so distant, again.

"Happy, I can't see."

`Happy, I can't see. I want to die. But I can't die. I brought little children into this. It's a foreign, foreign country. No scholarship. No sight. No place to stay and to work and to study.`

My voice sounds so small and far away, but I persist. Happy must know. He may have some solution to this – temporary, it must be just temporary – predicament of mine, just like he did for the others since we met days ago.

"Happy, I can't see. Dark. All dark."

And, in response, he folds my head in his arms, tucking his chin on top of it.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, and his breath is as wet as my cheeks.