..clogs..

..there is a mosque in Bachok, Masjid Pak Pura, that have several pairs of clogs for use by the jemaah...and whenever pakmat stopped by for solat, usually solat zohor, pakmat would used them, going clong-clang for a moment as I made my way to the wuduk area...and for moment pakmat would be transported back to those time when he was just a child of 5 or 6, staying with his mother in Kampong Sirih, Kota Bharu...

...she would be at her sewing machine, keeping an eye on me as I clogged around the house, shirtless but a pair of shorts tied with a gunny sack rope, tali guni, as they called the piece of rope then...nearby was a house rented by some ladies who worked nights in some place mysterious nearby...and they would sometimes sent me on errands like buying food packets, nasi berlauk, or toasted bread, roti bakar, from a coffee shop situated along the main road, a hundred yards from mother's house...unlike my mother and stepfather, these ladies almost always woke up late, usually just before noon...

..later, when I was a bit older, Form One, Clifford School, Kuala Kangsar, my uncle, to whom I had been fostered, would take me home during the school holidays...and left me there by the main road on his way to Banggol...and I would hurried to my mother, took off my shoes and slipped on the clogs..and just sat there on the wooden steps of the house...enjoying the feel of wood against my soles...

...inevitably, my brother Adnan would come on his bicycle...and  I would placed the clogs carefully on the steps next to the tempayan, and cycled barefoot around the kampong...and my mother would peer through her glasses, warning me to be careful and not to fall...

..indeed, love is the flower that passes...and memory the fragrance that lingers...

..