Si Tenggang’s Homecoming

[Sila baca macam tengok citer Desperate Housewives. Bila time narrator, guna suara Mary Alice Young. Baru feel skit. Sesapa yang tak tengok, baca jelah camner pun. Er... ala2 obses skit sbb duk tengok Season 2 skang ni. Baru abih download.]

Voice of Mary Alice Young:
There’s something Amri always do since he was a little kid. He followed what his mom told him.

[Flashback in kindergarden years when he got caught following his friend went back home using a might-be-dangerous shortcut road]
‘So you think you can follow them because it seems fine. What if they want you to eat ***t?’, his mom said.

He followed what his teacher asked him
[Flashback in high school; Amri's wearing white uniform and green trousers]
‘Do you want to participate in this competition’, his English teacher, Pn Oslina asked him.
‘You need to participate in this so that we can send a representative’, Ustaz Asri came to see him outside of the class.

And he followed what the dean asked him
[Flashback in Kak Shimah, her sister's friend's house, a day before she getting married]
‘I want you to checked out on Brunel University and try to apply for those university. They don’t have online application form so you need to send them letters,’ the dean talked in the telephone.

Currently Amri is in UK. On the way to the cafeteria, with his best friend Tahir, he talked about the allowance that he got.
‘Well, it’s totally enough for me to live here. Yeah, surely I can’t spend without thinking. But yeah, it’s good enough for food and for me to go around.’
‘That’s good,’ Tahir sometimes reply shortly.
‘You know what, under this scholarship, if you get married, you will get some extra allowance and also rent allowance which I currently don’t get it because I am single’, Amri added.
‘Then you should get married then’.

And Amri always listen to the advice from people around him.

["Teng teng teng teng, teng teng, teng teng" montage being played]

SCENE 1

[Scene change to Karl]

Karl Rupp, known as Karli was an Austrian studying the same course as Amri. He loves to help people.

‘There’s going to be a student for student seminar this Monday’, Karl already started giving his helping hand since the beginning of the semester.

‘Can you please take the marker back from the lecturer’, another lecturer just asked him to get back the marker mistook by Dr. Igor.

‘Can you help me with my program’, Amri plucked in his USB drive into Karl’s laptop. Karl gave some check with the program but it cannot be run as the file created on MATLAB 7 while Karl was using MATLAB 6.5

‘I can go check it in the lab if you want’. Thinking that it’s going to burden him, Amri decided to disagree with the plan.

‘Well, the lab is currently full. That’s one of the reason we come here,’ Tahir seems to think the same way. It was not lying but surely it was the best excuse. Karli started to edit some of the code, try to make it run on his laptop.

‘It’s okay, I can show you tomorrow’, Amri said, as they are going to have an hour lab session on the next morning. He intentionally forgot to mention that he is half starving as he only ate sandwich for his lunch and a 99p of Oreo biscuits which he could get nearly 7 of the same thing if he buys it in Malaysia.

‘I guess I’m leaving now’. Amri was trying to leave when Karl’s friend knocked on his door and drag into 3 minutes light talk.

‘So I guess I’m going’, Amri said again, seconds before Karli started to inspect again his program. ‘It seems right’, Karl had a few looks to the formulation.

‘Okay, I’ll show you tomorrow, and we’ll see what happen. Because Karla got different answer. That’s why I’m worried if I made a total mistake’. And Karl didn’t just stop there. He started to explain the reason of that.

Karl loves to help people

SCENE 2

Last Friday, Amri was having an emotional breakdown. He was sitting in the library for an hour but he cannot absorb what he read. He felt hopeless and annoyed with everything around him. He looked pathetic. So he started to voice up his feeling on the internet. And at the end of his blog entitled Feeling stupid and restless, after paragraphs of frustration, he wrote,

‘I guess I am too emotional today. I should just be calm, I guess. You
know what, recently I was thinking, it would be good if I am married
these days. At least I don’t have to worry much about food, and the
dirty laundry. Kak, get me someone so that I can get married as soon as
I go back to Malaysia (that’s a shout of frustration!)’

And like woman having her period, Amri’s depression goes away as time moves on. But he never know that people who were reading his blog didn’t take it for granted.

SCENE 3

[In Amri's room. Around 11 o'clock in the morning. The sun shine brightly outside, but it's always cold as it is early winter]
Amri was so excited showing the video to his parent. He just sang in one of the concert organised by the student. To have such opportunity was great. Because he thought that he had some other activity, other than hanging in the library or computer lab. And he could wrote about it in his blog.

He also happy because he was used to be in the bathroom singing back in home that he never thought people want to hear it.

But his excitement was truncated a little bit when his mom said, ‘…with this kind of attitude, he’s looking for someone?…’. His mom was referring to his act of singing as something quite immature as it was a sign of having fun on his age. The tone was just fine as his mom was enjoying watching the video. No tense mood at all, but Amri surely not used to hear that from his parent.

Later in their webcam session, his mom said, ‘your sister told me what happened. So you wanted to get married?’. It was good that Amri does not have face that blush because surely it will if he has. To have such discussion freak him a little bit. Maybe a lot. ‘It is just a year and you are busy with your study now’, as she try to explain that it should be fine for this moment. And she seems to agree if it is going to happen next year.
‘Make sure you have the money first,’ his mom gave some kind of lighter permission. Trying to say something right, Amri covered up his face couple of times as he felt so ashamed talking to his mom about this matter. It is something he never talk neither face to face nor cam to cam. He tried to ended up the conversation saying he got class at 1p.m. Again, it was not a lie. It was the best excuse on the right time.

SCENE 4

Amri got an email from his brother. His brother’s mother in law was willing to find the so called right one if Amri wanted to. So it seems that the story was not finish there. It was brought up into the air of his brother’s in-law family.

SCENE 5

It was 2 o’clock in the morning. Down in Albert Road, Amri heard the sound of car door being closed. Amri already turn off the light ready to sleep. Sneaking out the small windows from his room in the attic, he saw some girls going into their house. But his mind was thinking of something else.

The idea of getting married so soon were never part of his plan. Maybe because he had not feel the same sparks he felt for the girl he fell for back in high school, towards any other girls. Maybe because he was too afraid to tell his family the idea of getting married.

And as single as he is, Amri doesn’t give much effort to get someone. When suddenly out of the blue the image of his so-called first love appearing on his mind, together with some girls he knew back in his previous university, he noticed that he might up to something.

Getting married was not a bad idea as he may continue his PhD later on in UK. And as it is basically about research, most of mathematics students doing PhD spend their time in front of computer, which can be done at home. It might be good to be accompanied by someone.

At least, that is the logical aspect of the idea. He started to initiate the concept of married for life and not necessarily for love.But he also think whether he will have the chance of pursuing PhD when his master courses seems blurry until at certain point he was not sure he is capable of continuing until doctorate level which later relate to the necessity of tying a knot to someone.

And at this moment Amri wonders, is he following what people said this time around? And as the room getting colder, under the duvet, Amri floated away after few minutes. He fell asleep…

THE END

//Amacam, ada mirip2 citer DH tak??? He he….

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