My Longkang

Mother Horn is about 50 today. She used to have lovely rich long hair, big, bright dazzling eyes and well endowed with ‘physical’ assets. She has only a little education and used to work for a small factory. However as she was much needed to help with her father’s noodle stall she soon had to stop working.

She had her heart set on marrying. However her dad just found her indispensable. Her brother was given a small set-up capital to start a small business. Poor Mother Horn had to sacrifice herself. She was needed at the noodle stall the whole day. She is also called Martha.

It so happened she fell in love eventually with an Iban man. Martha is very well endowed in the upper regions. This guy liked to ‘toot the horn’. Once they were spotted and she has been called ‘Mother Horn’ ever since then.

Pic courtesy ofthanks, Neo

Her father was very much against an inter-racial union. Also every one knew he couldn’t afford to lose her help at the stall. Exit: the only suitor in Mother Horn’s life.

Years go by. Her father passes away. At first the brother used the family home as a store for his textiles business. He left the toilet and kitchen for her to stay in. Total area: 80 sq.ft. I know the dimensions. I was once her neighbour.

Soon, as her poverty became more ‘biting’ she began to look more unacceptable. Her brother sold the flat and the new owner evicted her. Mother Horn has to look for accommodation and a job.

Ah Meng is now a very prosperous man. His wife feels Mother Horn is too ‘low class or no class’ to be allowed into their luxurious home. She is now working as a helper in a noodle stall. She wipes the tables and washes the dishes.

To supplement her income, a local bread seller gives her some of the left over crusts from the bread cutting machine.

Her brother visits her exactly once a year to take her on ‘chingming’ or visit the graves. Her luxuriant locks are now a shadow of how they once were. The bicycle she is using I recognize as belonging to her father from decades ago.

Her umbrella and dress has been through ‘wear and tear’ to such a stage that there is almost no dye left on it. Her clean blue Japanese slippers are almost worn away. Her lovely teeth are just as dazzling though.

If you ask me, she looked a little like Farrah Fawcett when she was young. It was her smile and bright eyes. She copied Farrah’s hair style at that time.

She is now very tanned as compared to her youth when every one praised her for her beauty, faultless complexion and very fair skin. The years of squatting by the roadside washing the dishes has reduced her to this stage of her life.

She has at least 25 more years of existence to go. What if the bread seller stops giving her left over crusts. What if her services are no longer needed washing dishes as she ages.

Whose fault is it? Her dad’s? Her brother’s? Or her own?