Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Short Story Part 2



The cold breeze woke me from my deep sleep. Realizing I was still on the bus without any idea where i was. Since I had no idea where i was, i decided to fall back to sleep. Then suddenly i was overwhelmed by a strong scent. I tried hard to figure out where the scent came from. Tilting my head downward a bit, I realized it came from my shirt. The smell of something familiar.

It had been years since i had smelt that scent. Slowly i whiffed my shirt again, as tears began rolling down my cheeks. I closed my eyes and flashes of it played in my head, like memories from an old movie. Frame by frame of laughing, tears of joy, the laughter, the screaming in joy and agony and defeat. The stinging feeling of defeat.

Four brothers huddled around an old carrom board, with their mother sitting on the sofa. Its odd isnt it, that smile your mother has when she sees all her children together having fun. Its, indescribable. I dont think any civilization was able to come up with a word for it. No adjectives, no pro-nouns, and you can only understand it by looking at that smile.

The four brothers. Different yet alike. Unique in their own little way and the same in that cliched manner. They were the stuff of legends filled with humility. The story that would fill the empty pages of history for tomorrow.

"Zir, what are you thinking about?" My mother startled me.
"You off dreaming about that princess of yours?" my oldest brother intervenes as always.
"Scared shes gonna run off with another guy?" Youngest brother toying with my all so familiar insecurities.
"Probably left this loser already" My witty second older brother as they all burst out laughing.

I smiled, meaningful, so true that my family detect that my thoughts were more important than jokes as they held their breath for my explanation.

"I was thinking, how this feels a lot like.... a lot like home...." They all looked at me as my mother rubbed my hair and kissed my forehead and as my brother looked at each other. Realizing the important idea i had just brought up.

Home is not where you sleep every night, its where you come home to remember the past, live in the present and hope for a better tomorrow. Home is where you are reminded just how important family is, because despite every argument and contradictions, nothing is more important than those who sits with you, and enjoys that same feeling with you. A home is where its okay to be an idiot and have people around to laugh with you about it. A home is a bunch of people eating the same food together. A home is where your mom is... well at least most of the time. More importantly, a home is only a home when you feel like its home. If the people in it and around it make it feel like home. Home is not having to understand what has changed or how are things different. Home is when you look at your brothers and mother and think... This feels like home.


p/s - Happy Eidil Adha my brothers, our time was brief but it made me remember how amazingly like home we felt finally.....

read part one here
read part two here

2 comments:

guess who said...

Where we love is home... Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts. Saya sayang home saya!!!

*smiles*

The four brothers.. the princess... Huzir's character... Oh they are all sound familiar to me..

And yet i know ur still gonna deny it. Eleh.... =P

aire said...

well..its seems to be like a true story..=P
and i do really know that situation...
i am just wondering when will the intruder stops doing it jobs..=P if u do know who i meant...(laugh)
well..i guess the character's inside that surely gonna missed that again..
even it was just a brief time..
hope for more ^^