Young Writers Society

We were silent for a short while, before Damon spoke up. “Are we going to walk to Sarah’s house? It’s going to take fifteen minutes to arrive there, and that’s by car,” he said. We were walking to the neighborhood, consisting several lines of houses, similar in basic structures, but had different decorations. They were all terrace houses with backward brick V-shapes roofs, which were important because Malaysia was hot and humid and it was easier for the rain to flow down that way.

The air wasn’t as hot as I expected it to be, so I fished out my mobile phone and checked the time. It was nine. I looked around, and reaffirmed my suspicion that I knew this place. This was the area in which Sarah and I once took our extra classes together when we were in primary school. Father made me stop when I was twelve, at the start of the second term of Year Six, because he said it just made my grades worse. I was glad I proved to him it didn’t matter when I got full five As in UPSR, the important exam you took at the end of Year Six.

I was pretty sure the tuition center was a few blocks away from here. And there should be a restaurant there. Maybe I should go rest there first and think about what to do next?

I tilted my head before turning my attention to Damon. “There’s a restaurant nearby. Do you want to stop there first?”

He must had been rubbing his stomach absentmindedly when hearing ‘restaurant’ because he dropped his hand when he saw where I looked. He looked away, embarrassed maybe. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

I nodded slowly, and led the way. Hmm. Did this guy get hungry easily or did he just like to eat? Interesting thing to wonder. We didn’t talk as we went to the restaurant. Some citizens walked their dogs and I went careful not to get too close to them. Others were jogging. Overall, people on the pavement weren’t that many this morning. The cars drifted by, but they weren’t many too. I guessed we had passed the period when adults went to their working places.

The tuition center was at the corner of the block. Two-stories height, it boasted its smooth gold and silver outer structure, with a rendered-with-white black ‘Dynamic Tuition Center’ at the top. The restaurant was beside it. It was a mamak restaurant, which meant it was owned by Muslim Indians, and majority of its workers were Indians. You don’t have to worry about having halal foods—foods free with intoxicating substances and haram sources—here, not like when you go to the Chinese restaurant where there should be pig-based meals haram for Muslims.

We went into the restaurant, which was occupied by some customers, those who were either jobless, or didn’t work in these hours. Fluorescent lights brightened the place, and I took a sit at the decorated wooden table near the outside. There was no glass wall and a door to enter the restaurant, so you could pretty much enter anywhere. Plastic tables were set outside the restaurant too for those who wanted to eat there. Damon sat in front of me, his eyes lingering to fill in the view of the surrounding.

When the waiter came, I ordered a roti canai accompanied with hot tea as beverage. I wasn’t much an eater if it wasn’t desert or snacks or something sweet. Damon ordered a nasi lemak along with coffee. Gazing down, I saw his foot tapping, and I realized he couldn’t keep still. His hands kept scratching the back of his head, or he played with his fingers. Either way, he wasn’t looking at me.

I couldn’t stand wondering what was on his mind, so I asked. “You look like a a heated worm. What’s bothering you?”

He stopped what he was doing and stared at me sharply. “You,” he said. “You bother me.”

Eyebrows raised, I was taken aback, completely not expecting that. Mockingly, I put my hand on my chest and opened my mouth to deliver an exaggerated shock. “Me? My presence’s too much for you?”

He clicked his tongue and didn’t give out a reply.

I suspected he wanted me to be serious, so I cleared my throat a bit, and rid any expression in my face that didn’t show seriousness. I put my hands on the freshly-wiped table. “Alright, spill it out.”

He was fuming, and I could tell by his taking time that he was trying to put his thought into words. I was like that sometimes. It was just one of the time when you had so many things in your mind, but you struggled to pour it out of your mouth, afraid you wouldn’t say the things that you really wanted to say. It just made want to learn about Damon more.

“I just—I just don’t like the way you treat foreign workers, okay?” he said, refraining from raising his voice. “They’re here for an innocent reason, which is to support their family financially. They’re sending the money they get to their family across the country. God, it’s not an easy feat, leaving their beloved ones behind. And now you’re accusing them—all of them—of something only a few of them done.”

He took a deep breath, and I was tempted to interrupt him when I saw a trickle of sweat on his forehead. He was putting his all in this. The intrigue in me of why he would push to this limit to defend the workers rose, and I decided to let him say his piece. I wanted to know. This was obviously something he deeply cared.

“I know... we have this negative perspective about foreign people in general, especially those not from Western countries. We admire and appreciate the Westerners, but those from poor countries like Bangladesh and Nepal, we treat them like they’re inferior than we. Urgh. It’s like they don’t belong in this country. Perhaps it’s because they keep increasing in this country, illegally or not. They’re taking our jobs, and we complain about that, when in the first place they got the jobs because we thought we were too good for the jobs. We were picky.” He paused, wanting to see my reaction.

I bit my lower lip. Damon had a point about the job thingy. Just look at the sweepers at the street, and you’d realize they’re not Malaysians. It was always the foreigners, because sweeping things—huh, it was too beneath us, too energy-consuming. Some of us thought, just because we had a high educational background, it meant we had to have high-level works. Sometimes we just started slow, and from there, we built our way to the top. I wasn’t going to deny that.

The waiter arrived with our foods on the tray, laying them out on the table. We uttered our thanks as he left, and I stared at my roti canai. Damon didn’t say a word anymore, but I could feel he was just waiting for my reply. I wasn’t going to agree with him completely, so I thought our eating time wouldn’t just be filled by us eating, but also by us arguing. And I didn’t mind arguing, as long as it was about something important. I suppressed a smile. Damon should expect a debate after I took my first bite on the roti canai.