The Latecomers

It was 10 in the morning when I woke up with a headache. I could not think properly. I felt my body was stuffed with everything I had talked or everything I had drank or eaten. My conscious mind warned me but I indulged myself and drank with my friends even though alcohol is not my favourite pastime. Now I felt guilty. I felt guilty about my mom who passed away, I felt guilty about my life, and I felt guilty about everything.

I got out of my room and looked around in the house. I suddenly felt weak and melancholic because there was as much sheer desperation as never before. There were no people in our house and it was more like a ghost house. My sister had gone to her work. I did not have a good relationship with her as we had had in our childhood – in fact, there was little communication between us and if we did, it’d be a fight.

We had been close siblings – in the dense small family of four members, we were more of friends than brother and sister. This fragile little world was gradually abraded by everything that was followed by the sudden death of our father –and now our mother.

I had a glass of water. Cold water climbed down through my dry throat but the row I had with my sister last night cannot be swallowed with the cold water. Her words still echoed around:

“Mom has just died. Do you want to know why our mother died? It is money! We don’t have the money to give her the treatment she required. You should quit having fun with your bastard friends and find a job,” she shouted at me resentfully when I reached home after drinking with my friends.

“Who said I don’t’ want to work? I am just unemployed,” I murmured.

“You are unemployed and you still had money for drinks? Three years you’ve been wasting your time,” she said.

The drink had clouded my memory. I did not remember what happened next. Maybe I’d shouted “I’ve been finding a job!” or just said “Shut up!” Maybe we would have shouted at each other for a while. All I remembered was she was as furious as I, and I could still see her eyes that were brimmed with tears. I wished we had not shouted at each other and fought like we ever did. I had decided to be a good brother or I somehow wanted to show her I was something she could rely on or respect. Everything was stuck in the first step – getting a job.

“I must get a job,” I murmured to myself. I couldn’t let things going on.

I did not want to think anymore and left for the tea shop as this is a part of my daily life. There were a few people in the tea shop as I went in for breakfast. I did not find anyone I know. Maybe it was early for them. I lit a cigarette and ponder the future ahead – gloomy and disabling everything of me. I had not thought about my future much. Now it had changed.

I thought a lot about my future as I gazed into people in the street. Every single thought flew away came back to or metamorphosed into what was the very center of my thoughts –how to get a decent job and settle down. I was thinking to be an entrepreneur but I needed money to start my own business. An old friend with whom I had been friends since childhood popped up on my mind. He had worked in Malaysia for two years and I thought I could ask for his advice. Or, specifically, to ask for his financial help.

I called his number. The same voice that I was familiar with two years ago answered.  Not meeting or talking for a long time could not attenuate our friendship. It was the only friendship I had that lasted after childhood. We could not talk everything on phone. He told me to meet him at the restaurant tonight. I said okay and hung up. I went back home and slept all day. Sleeping was the best way to kill your time especially when you have nothing to do. It was getting dark when I reached the small restaurant where my friend was waiting for me. It was rather a cheap restaurant with cheap rum and other cheap alcoholic beverages.

“It’s very tiring, you know, I worked in a factory there,” he said, “I had to work like a dog. If I don’t do overtime, I won’t be able to send money to my parents. Finally I quit and came back.”

As soon as we poured rum into both of our glasses, he talked about his previous work in Malaysia. It amazed me because I did not ask him. It seemed like he himself wanted to tell someone voluntarily about it. So I listened to him.

“Factory? You are a graduate. Didn’t you find a job in …” I paused, I was selecting words.

“A job in an office?”

“Yes. Can’t you find?”

He laughed as if releasing something that was disguised under for a long time.

“I am a graduate here, but not there. Nobody gave a shit what is my education. I went there illegally. But don’t tell it anybody. It’s a secret,”

“Alright, I won’t.”

“Tell me what are you doing now?”

 “Almost nothing. My mom had just passed away and I have to work now or else I will starve to death,”

“That sucks! I went abroad because I know there is no job prospect for me here.”

We graduated in the same year majoring in philosophy – people said, because of no job prospect for this major, only fools would choose this major and yes, we were fool enough. We just followed what we wanted to learn after we knew our matriculation marks were not high enough to enroll in so-called safe-for-life universities such as Medical College. He risked working abroad and I stubbornly stayed here to find a job or, as people might callously comment, wasted the precious time of my youth.

“That’s my problem. Been three years looking for a job. I don’t have enough money to set up my own business,” I said resentfully, even the food I ate was not tasteful just as this thought came.

I continued, “I really hate that when people say ‘I don’t have a job or I don’t work’, they just see that. I am really tired of trying to get one. My sister thinks I am lazy and I don’t want to work like everybody does. This is so wrong. The first thing in my mind when I wake up in the morning is how to get a job, how to get money. I understand, as a man, I could not survive without a job. But nobody wants to hire me. When I went to a job interview, there would be a sea of people waiting with goddamn certificates. I did not have any certificate and my degree is not something the employer wants. One job vacancy and more than hundred people! What I know for sure is they wouldn’t hire me. At the moment, it felt like falling into a hole that I don’t know what is at the bottom, just falling down,” I gulped down my drink and continued, “I am really depressed right now,” I sighed.

My friend looked at me solemnly as if sipping my words.

“Maybe you should give up searching for a white-collar job and try realistic one instead.”

I had thought about it long ago. I never let myself realize that though. Beneath my dignity. Which was nullified by the series of question in my mind: ‘where or what is my dignity’. He continued,

“It will be difficult for me too. I did not have much money with me. You won’t believe. I drank there and did not save.”

“Really?”

I found myself unable to say anything when I heard that. That really disappointed me. I discreetly hoped he would lend some money to me and then it’d be the start of my own business. Now it washed away my hope.

“It is stress. I drank because of stress in the work.” He said as if explaining his fault.

“That’s funny, we are completely opposite. I always say I drink because I am under a lot of pressure. I don’t have a job. That puts me under pressure.”

We burst out into laughter. We were slightly drunk.

“Whatever, tonight we are drinking till we pass out. Don’t give a shit to anything.”

As we drank, our conversation shifted from one thing to another – football, money, girls and even politics.

“Tell me changes in our country. When I was in Malaysia, they asked me about our country and I did not know more than they. It’s embarrassing!” my friend told me.

“It’s not changing much as the media think but it showed some paces. That’s all.”

“If we have democracy, we will have growth and development, won’t we?”

 I was allergic to such words as democracy, transparency, and politics while I was not having a stable life. Normally I’d shut my mouth and just nod but now I was drunk. Willing to have an argument.

 “Come on, we don’t even have a job. That means we don’t have money. I am feeling like shit when people are shouting democracy and human rights and so on. For me, I need a job, I need money. That’s all I want,” I said.

“Democracy will give you everything,” my friend said.

“We want democracy because the current system is unfair. But no God or saint will give it to you. So you can’t just hope even if you got democracy. Have to struggle.”

My friend nodded.

“I know that. I wish I would be born to a rich family. When you have enough money, you can use it as a magnet to draw more money. Life won’t be too difficult. You can be a douche bag but you will have a good life in the end.”

After finishing our last drinks, we were quite drunk. Before leaving, he said,

“I lied to you. My money was stolen in Malaysia. I did not drink.”

 It rendered me speechless. As we left, I find myself unable to walk home. But I have to save as much money as I can. The roads were teeming with buses and cars. There were many people waiting for a bus and some already in buses. They wanted to go back home from their work surely. Unlike me, they had jobs. I cried:

“They have jobs!”

Maybe some of them had been under a lot of stress from their work and were going to commit suicide when they reach home. But they were still luckier than me. Their family would worry if they were late.

“Congratulations people,” I fell somewhere and was not able to get up. It was warm and safe hugging me tightly to her chest like my mother used to give me strength with her beautiful arms.

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                “Welcome sir!”

I greeted the fat man with a smile as I was taught to do. I opened the door of his glamorous newly-imported car. His spend on dinner in this restaurant would be more than my salary. I wondered when I would have enough money to buy this car. Maybe some point in my life, maybe never.

My friend was true. I finally made a pragmatic decision which could at least feed me. But I did not know how to mention my job, parking lot security in a restaurant when I met with my old friends. I was still looking for the smart job or a chance to be an entrepreneur. But I was just unsmart for the time being.

                                                                                                                           

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Granpa's still sleeping in front of TV

Eighty-five years old is ultimately unimaginable for most of us- perhaps some may think it is a kind of blessing. It is a hope of majority of people wanting to live as possible and long as it would be. "May you live long" is what our elders wish for us when we pay respect to them according to Myanmar tradition. If it was a hope, that's just what Grandpa has already had. If it was a dream, that's just what Grandpa has already been in the middle of it. He turned to eighty-five recently. His birthday party was not a special one- the only guest were the Buddhist monks. His birthday wasn't much different from other days though, all days are, more or less, the same for him. While, together with his grandchildren, Grandpa was enjoying his birthday party joyfully, he suddenly burst out stunning everybody in the house.

"I need to get up"

He was sitting on the sofa. The stroke he had been suffering for more than a decade left the left side of his body paralyzed, he always needs someone to help him when he gets up of the sofa, when he goes to the bathroom and whatever he does. He sometimes wondered if he'd ever be able to wander around the town like he did before.
 
"I am gonna pee! Somebody gets me off the sofa. Goddamn it!"
It made all the family members rendered speechless when the Grandpa finally has done urinating on the sofa. His son and other two grandsons did help him to get up but their attempts had obviously failed.

They, then, took him to his room to change his clothes. All the family union and the meal had been ruined in just a split second, no one has enough strength to make any comment.
Grandpa can be regarded as the man who spends most of his life sitting. He worked as a government officer and needed to stick to a chair all day long. So when he got retirement, he had made commitment to daily walking which lasted for only five years. Now, he had to either sleep in the bed or sit on the sofa in the living room. It became very difficult for him even to walk in the house. Because of his health, one of his family members had to look after all the time but finally they gave up looking after the old man and decided to hire a maid for Grandpa.

It was one of the sunny days at the weekend and Grandpa was very happy to live in such a weekend day because everyone in the house were not going to their respective work, school or university leaving him alone with a maid and a TV turning on all the time in case he watched it. At first, he was pretty interested in some TV programs and indulged himself in watching television all the time. Only later, he found that he wanted to talk to or listen to real humans to whom he felt kind and warm enough to share his feelings and ideas so decided not to watch it too often. His nervous system, on the other hand, didn’t allow him to.

In this weekend, everybody was free so Grandpa started searching a partner to have a conversation with. When he saw his oldest grandson, a university student of twenty years old, he tried to talk to him assuming that he was the right person. His grandson sat on the sofa beside the one he was sitting with a book in his hand.

“Do you know Mr. Fletcher?”

“No who is it?” the grandson replied, a bit puzzled by the strange name.

“He is my professor. He is very good at teaching. Once he explained the lessons, you will fully understand. Do you get the chance to study under him?”

“Dad, how will the teacher of your time still work in the university? Come on, be realistic!” his daughter interrupted as she was dusting the settees in the living room.

“Why? He was just working when I left the university. Maybe he is still working there.”

“You are an eighty-five-year old. Guess how old your teacher is. Presumably, he is rest in heaven.”

Grandpa didn’t say anything just nodding his head gently as if he had learnt something literally new to him.

“Did…… he…… die?”

This is not a question to be answered but an exclamation of mild shock. It comes out naturally when someone finds out something unpleasant and frightened after forgetting it for a long time.

Such silly questions of Grandpa are not much bizarre to his family members. It had been about one year since Grandpa’s memory was lost, he’d regard the maid as his own daughter, he’d tell some ridiculous stories which might probably happen long ago as the yesterday’s events. When his memory became worse, he’d ask someone near him where his mother was or where his children were.

“So your friend is Ko Sein Win, right? He lives on the next street.”

“I have never ever had a friend with this name, Grandpa. And if it was my friend, you have no way to know him.”

Grandpa was only assuming his grandson as his son who was living abroad. He made further questions.

“Isn’t he your friend?” Grandpa said looking straight to his grandson and hoping to talk him back as much as he can. While Grandpa was thinking about to keep the conversation going on, the grandson wondered if he ever finished reading the book with Grandpa talking words of utter nonsense.

“No way!”

His grandson answered it in short and run through the book in order to avoid more silly questions from Grandpa.

“Where is your wife? I didn’t see her around.”

Both Grandpa’s daughter doing chores near them and the grandson himself burst out laughing that somewhat made Grandpa feeling stupid and embarrassing. He didn’t know why they laughed or he simply didn’t realize what was wrong with his question. It made him a bit embarrassed and stupid though. Anyway, whatever came into his mind would soon vanish in not more than two hours. The other person Grandpa chose, afterwards, was his daughter.

“Where is your mother? It’s a long time since I last saw her.”

It sounded like Grandpa suddenly remembered his wife who had passed away ten years ago. His daughter frowned at him as though detecting whether Grandpa was making a joke or something. His daughter, regarded as the one with the most affection for his mother in the family, was really choked with sadness unable to find any word to soothe his father. She felt both terrified and sorry for his father with terribly desperate memory. She didn’t answer anything to his father because Grandpa seemingly forgot his question looking straight at the TV. If only his wife would be together with him.

After a while, his daughter had to wake Grandpa sleeping in front of TV and take him to his room. She was staring at his father, what kind of thing in the world transformed an athletic man into a creep? And barely alive.

The thing Grandpa hate most in the world, weekday came later. He’d wake up early in the morning just to see everyone in the house going out and finally there were only two human beings in the house, he and the maid. The maid wasn’t’ neither a good listener nor a speaker. So all he could do during the day was watching television or sleeping in front of TV. When someone sees him sleeping in front of TV, he or she would make him go to bed but he’d refuse always saying,

“I’d rather like to sleep here. In my room everything is silent. I don’t even know if I am breathing or out of breath. Not like in my room, I am hearing people speaking in the TV.”

When he could not bear sheer boredom, he’d say,

“Who took all my family? Where the hell did they go? Why did they leave me like this? I wanna go out with them.”

In the afternoon after his lunch, somebody he had been waiting for silently visited him. His friend was the only guest who paid a regular visit to him and the same age as him. They had been friends for fifty years. They met in university and they had been in touch since then. His friend was healthier than he was, he never heard of his friend getting any major disease and his friend visits him once or twice a year. When they were young, his friend used to visit him frequently. His friend did not visit him this year at all and he just started to worry whether his friend is alright or not. Actually, he envied his friend a lot. Being able to go where he wants, being healthy is what all the old men long for. Moreover, his friend was the only friend of him who is alive. Almost all their mutual friends died and the two friends seem to be alone in the island surrounded by their grandchildren, sons and daughters who did not know anything about their time- how they passed through their university life, people of their age and their colleagues- that's why both of them were very looking forward to seeing each other.

When he first heard a voice of his friend in the front door way, he couldn’t believe his ears. It was what he’s waiting for. It’s a chance to escape from his life of solitude. His friend was more than a friend to him. He was dying for company. Now it’d be over. He was more than delighted; thousands of thoughts were running through his mind. When they meet, they never run out of things to talk- about their old friends, their experience in university, and their relatives and so on.

"How are things with you these days pal?"

His friend greeted him sitting next to him and putting his hat on the table.

“I am fine despite several illnesses in this year.”

“That’s good, pal. Good to see you in perfect condition.”

“No, not exactly. I am not in the perfect condition. As we grew older, our health is worse”, Grandpa said.

His friend nodded. His friend was skinny and hollow-cheeked; the sign of age emerged significantly in his friend’s appearance too.

“I was suffering terrible diseases two months ago. So I didn’t make it to your house.”

“Now you doin’ well, huh?”

The Grandpa said, frightened by the idea- if his friend couldn’t visit him.

“Yep, I am good. So, where is your family?”

“They are going out. I was alone in this house all the time. I feel like I am a jerk and they like to treat me like a jerk, pal. You know because I am fucking old. I am losing my memory and turn all the things upside down. I sometimes don’t know the number of children I have or whether my wife is alive or not. Then your grandchildren’d treat you like you’re an idiot. That’s it. That’s the life of the old.”

Grandpa sighed as if he had just freed the words of despair that he kept long time ago.

“You are angry with ’em?”

“No, I am not. But I am kind of, you know, upset about everything.”

“I have to admit that I am now having the same situation like you.”

Grandpa was amazed when his friend told this. He thought his friend was having a quality life with his son just arrived abroad.

“Things are hard.”

His friend resumed,

“They don’t want to allow me to do things on my own, you know. I am healthy enough to take a brisk walk but they don’t seem to approve it. Their opinion is that when one’s old, he’d better be sitting in front of their eyes or sleeping in the bed till he dies. There’s no way I agree with such a crazy idea. I’d continue doing what I want till my last breath, right?”

“Yeah, I agree.”

And their conversation shift to their friend’s funeral. His friend said,

“I can’t believe my eyes. I went to her funeral. To my disgust, she was lying in the coffin. Her little body was blue with cold. Guess how many hours she was frozen like chicken in the fridge.”

Grandpa was really sorry for it. He was, actually, imaging how it would be if he died. Scared was it just barely thought!! As they talked about it, their minds went back to the time of their university life. She was one of their friends. Everybody seemed to fancy her. The word “beautiful” can’t be enough for her. She was elegant. Now her remaining body was under the ground feeding worms and bacteria.

They had a long conversation until the blue sky turned to gay and Grandpa’s daughter got back home from work.

“Well”

With a shaky and squeaky voice, his friend said to him.

“It’s a bit dark outside. It’s time I went back to my home.”

There’s a lot to speak between them. Both of them tend to talk more if the time hadn’t passed- their life-long conversation.

“Bye, see you.”

“Bye, hope to see you one day”

One day. It will be on one day. The thought just struck him. Grandpa nodded reluctantly with his eyes full of tears as he tried to get to his foot. His friend also said goodbye to his daughter. Not able to get up, he just had to see his friend going- he didn’t want to ask for help to anyone, it made him somehow disabled.

He had made a lot of thinking after his friend visit. With what purpose was he living? He didn’t know. Nor did everyone know it?

After having half of his dinner- the other half was on the table cloth and on his shirt and longyi, he went straight to his bed. He’d not watched TV for a while or tried to talk to his grandchildren. He wanted to think the conversation he had with his friend again in the bed. Unfortunately, he barely remembered less than five utterances of his friend. What is it to be blamed on?

“Falling asleep is the only way to wake up from this nightmare.”

He said to himself. He didn’t mean to say it. It just came out accidentally. He didn’t know why he said it, maybe he was just used to talking nonsense thing.

“Sleep time. Yeah, that’s it. It’s sleep time.”

He had passed through many times in his life. Childhood, teenage, adult life, university life, his career, marriage life and retirement age. So here was the sleep time when you are supposed to do nothing but sleep. His world came into sleeping when his daughter switched off the light.

On the next morning, he’d be sitting in front of TV and then sleeping. That’s got to be elements that composed of him. He’d be still sleeping in front of TV.



 
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