Unfinished business

I started this story in 2004. Back then, I wrote snippets as blog entries on my Friendster account. These two characters, Adrian and Rina, appeared in my head out of nowhere, unpacked, and have claimed a room each ever since. No, they don't co-habit.

From those snippets a story bloomed. Sometimes I concocted scenes, sometimes I dreamed about them. Adrian and Rina want their story to be told, and they chose me to tell it. Of all people. Unfortunately (for them), I succeeded in writing 6000 words or so, and 1 1/2 songs before I decided to shelf them. Not yet, I told myself. I'm not ready to do them justice. Not even when my brother, who disagrees with me on everything, and doesn't generally read my works, suddenly told me to finish the story.

It's now 2012. I have over 20 published short stories, 3 unfinished novels (including Adrian and Rina), and a whole bunch of 1-paragraphs. Most published novelists will say that their first published novel isn't their first novel; they have at least 2 or 3 novels that will remain unpublishable. I don't know if I will tell the same story. I have to finish a novel first before I can say anything.

I don't think I am ready to tell the story of my two beloved characters. I don't know if I'll ever be ready. Right now there's someone younger who demands my attention, whose story needs to be told. I don't know if I'll ever finish his story, either.

But I damn well will try.

For now, here's the opening chapter of Adrian and Rina. I hope they'll be patient and understanding enough to stay until I type "END".

__________________________________________________________

Adrian

I seriously hated this.

The LRT station at Ampang Park was packed like the whole population of Kuala Lumpur had decided to board the train from this station. I adjusted the strap of my guitar case to shift its weight on my shoulder and looked at my watch. It was six in the evening. On a Wednesday. Damn commuters. I thought about hanging around until the rush-hour crowd had subsided, but then I remembered that I only had ten ringgit left in my wallet. And my bank account was nothing to shout about either. I let out a small sigh and queued up to buy my ticket.

I had come to Ampang Park to look for an audio editing software, and also to avoid having to make the longer and more annoying trip to Low Yatt Plaza to look for the CD. But it had been over a year since I last came here, and I found out the hard way most of the shops that sold software had shut down, and the few that still opened for business did not have what I was looking for. Which meant I would have to go to Low Yatt after all. Bummer.

I tugged at the guitar strap, my annoyance building, and walked down the staircase to the underground platform, which practically was a large rectangular room with dark glass panels as side walls. And it was so full of people I’d be surprise if there was any room left to breathe. Most of them looked like office-goers, with their shirts and slacks. Some even wore suits, though I couldn’t figure out why, with this humidity. The women in general wore either baju kurung, kebaya, or blouse-and-skirt. I could even spot several school uniforms, even though it was too late in the evening for morning session students, and too early for afternoon session to be out.

I found an empty spot at a pillar facing the track toward Gombak, which was the last stop and the station after my destination. I unslung my guitar case and leaned back against the pillar. Reaching for my back pocket, I took out my iPod and put on the white earphones. Evanescence’s Call Me When You’re Sober filled my ears when I hit play. The din of chatter around me and automated announcements drowned out as I cranked up the volume. It was bad enough to be surrounded with all these people without having to bear the noise of humanity. A mousey-looking lady standing beside me glanced up at my direction – at my earphone blasting like stereo speakers to be exact – but I ignored her completely.

The train came at the middle of the song, but when the doors slid opened, I could see it was already full. But it didn’t stop the people standing behind the yellow line from jostling through and squeezing into the train. They didn’t even wait for people to come out first. Typical. Put monkeys in suits and they would act the same manner, if not slightly better. I stayed where I was, intending to catch the next train. But, judging from the large crowd still waiting on the platform, I wasn’t expecting it would be any less packed.

Three songs and two trains later, the traffic still didn’t look like it was lightening up. I decided to board the next one no matter how full it could be. In a city filled with monkeys, I wasn’t above being one too. I was standing in front of the sliding doors when the train arrived, slightly to the side to allow potential exiting traffic. It wasn’t that I was being considerate; I didn’t like people bumping into me or my guitar. A short, balding man moved away from the spot at the edge of the door, just beside the seat partition, and I quickly took over his place before anyone else had the chance to do so. Sighing in relief for finding a place without having to push and jostle into the train, I placed the guitar upright between my legs and leaned back against the glass paneled wall. The stench of crammed and damp humanity assaulted my nose the moment the doors closed, and I was thankful I was almost a head taller than most people here. It gave me room to breathe.

Dhuk-dhuk, dhuk-dhuk. Dhuk-dhuk, dhuk-dhuk. Dhuk-dhuk, dhuk-dhuk.

The gentle swaying motion of the carriage as the LRT sped away from the heart of Kuala Lumpur was made more obvious by my leaning against the wall. The motion, as well as the uncomfortable mixture of a riot of perfumes and stench of damp clothing was making me slightly nauseous. I tried focusing on the opposite window when the train got above ground, but raindrops collecting on the outside surface only served to distort the view, which was not helping at all. I closed my eyes and concentrated on listening to my iPod to prevent myself from gagging.

Edwin McCain’s I’ll Be started to play, and even though I love the song, I was in no mood to listen to anything mellow at that moment. I took out my iPod from my back pocket, which was a feat considering how little space I had to move, and shuffled through several songs. That’s when I heard a baby crying loudly from the other end of my carriage.

What kind of person would bring an infant into such a packed train?

The Killers’ All the Things that I’ve Done effectively drowned out the annoying wail and the rest of the world. I closed my eyes again to make the isolation complete.