Rest In Peace

Opah penatnya, kalau mengkomer care nak tahu... ngeh. Hari Selasa malam Rabu, opah tak tidor langsung. This time, bukannya opah nak buat experiment macam hari tu tapi opah menyiapkan kerja opah yang tertangguh-tangguh sejak hampir sebulan yang lalu. Since hari ni (Khamis) opah kena teman anney pergi jumpa Dr. SS, opah decided to finish my work once and for all.

So, malam Rabu tu, dengan berkobar-kobarnya opah mengkomer ni duduk kat depan PC tua ni. Tip tap tip tap... sampai tengah malam. Lapor la pulak. So, opah pergi ke peti ais dan keluarkan leftover tandoori chicken yang atuk anney mengkomer tak larat nak habis. Dah makan, takkan nak kerja kot. So, opah pun bukak TV. Masa tu, Channel 9 tengah siarkan siaran langsung MJ punya memorial service. Masa tu, service tu belum start lagi. Cuma tunjuk motorcade menjalar on the highway and opah realised, one of them bawa MJ's coffin. So, I wept! Punyalah... sabar aje aku. Kalau anney tengok opah masa tu, mesti dia kata, if I die, will you weep like that? (once upon a time, masa tengah gaduh, anney kata dia rela mati. Opah kata, eloklah. Anney kata, opah akan nangis bila dia mati. Opah kata, not at all. I'll dance on the street kalau anney mati. So, anney menangis dan mula gibberishing dan sebut nama mak dia, bapak dia... siap tunjuk-tunjuk ke langit lagi. Aku jadi kesian, aku pun ikut menangis dan menyesal cakap yang aku nak nari-nari kat atas jalan kalau dia meninggal. And then, we made up and all is forgotten... so why on earth am I telling you this?!!!)

Back to MJ's Memorial Service, I kept watching and weeping bila nampak his gold plated coffin and totally forgotten about my work. (Pathetic bukan? But in my defence, I loved MJ. Still do!). Then, opah nampak anak-anak dia. The eldest one is so handsome. Yang perempuan tu so pretty but the exact mould of her mother minus the attitude. Yang bongsu tu pun handsome and baru nampak macam MJ. Yang tak sedap tu, both sons chewed gums. Apa laaa... isy. Respect la sikit. Your father wasn't a mere mortal. He was a great man. A superstar.

Then, dia orang mula pay tribute. Opah turned away and buat kerja opah sikit. But then, that reverend's words caught my attention. Dia kata, "There's nothing weird about your daddy. What weird is the thing he had to deal with." Something like that lah. And I totally agreed with him. Then orang lain pula pay tribute sampai the last part where MJ's family semua berdiri kat atas pentas. And at the end, the little girl spoke. MJ's daughter that he shielded from the public eyes, insisted on saying something about her feelings towards her beloved father. And I burst into tears.

I mean, you know he had children. You never heard them talking or whatever before. You couldn't even imagine the relationship they had with MJ, like whether it was even real. But now, it's obvious how deeply the children love him the way he loved them. You need to hear it, then you'll understand.

Opah wept again. And then, dia orang bawak coffin tu keluar and TV showed other things pulak. The premiere of Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince. Aku wept lagi sebab dah lama opah tunggu movie tu keluar... sekarang baru keluar. Pathetic betul opah mengkomer ni.

Then I turned the TV off and started to concentrate on my work. I worked until I finished it at 11 am and sent it out straightaway. Lepas tu, opah terus tidor. Penat giler. The whole day yesterday, opah tak larat nak buat apa.

Last night opah dapat qada tidur. Legaa... then, this afternoon, opah temankan anney gi ke klinik Dr. SS. The one reason opah was adamant to finish my work yesterday coz opah tak nak penat masa pergi ke klinik Dr. SS. I got to watch anney punya driving.

We arrived around 3.15. Appointment at 3.30 as usual. While anney bersembang kat dalam consulting room, opah berconsult dengan isteri Dr. SS. About MJ, of course.

She told me MJ botak. She would know. These medical people talked to each other macam kita orang-orang biasa ni sembang-sembang apa yang kita tahu. Then I asked her about MJ's skin. Why his skin was so white. Opah tahu masa dia buat one show, he was badly burnt. Tapi kalau kulit terbakar ni, takkanlah kaler dia even. Surely only certain part of the body aje yang putih and the rest, macam kulit asal dia. But with MJ, the whole body putih melepak.

Dr. SS' wife said, itu penyakit kulit. Some kind of illness. Being MJ's fan, opah satisfied with the answer. I knew he didn't do it on purpose. Like the nose, kalau bapak dia yang kejam tu tak kutuk hidung kembang dia, surely dia tak pergi cantas hidung dia dan modified jadi macam hidung kartun dalam buku cerita (tengok hidung Peter Pan dalam buku, pointy like MJ's nose. MJ even said, he was Peter Pan). Back to the story, there's always a story behind everything he did. Something forced him. So, I accept it.

And then, we (opah dan Dr SS' wife) talked about the body. Shirley said, kawan dia kata MJ should be cremated. Aku nak je kata, dia orang Islam. Mana boleh bakar-bakar. Memandai aje dia orang ni nak bakar jenazah orang Islam. But then I held my tongue. Opah tanya 'kenapa?' instead. She said, there's so many graveyard thieves.

"Curi body, you mean?" I asked.

"No! Curi jewellery yang corpse pakai." Came the reply.

"Oh! I never thought of it before," balas opah.

"Yeah! Coz you people don't do that."

By 'you people', she meant, kita orang Islam ni la... orait la, I don't mind. Kalau dia kata 'you lot' pun tak kisah. Rasa macam kita ni termasuk dalam magical beings dalam Harry Potter tu aje hah... ngeh.

"I was suprised they didn't open the coffin," kata opah.

"Perhaps because he was badly mutilated."

Aku diam. Ngeri memikirkan apa yang dia maksudkan dengan mutilated tu. Sabar aje aku.

"I think, they didn't open the coffin sebab he wasn't in there," kata opah lagi. "They buried him already. That coffin was just for show. You know... to fool people."

"You believe that?" tanya the doctor's missus. Dia sengih macam aku ni naive to believe that.

"I believe so." But I didn't elaborate sebab dalam hati, opah rasa MJ dah dikebumikan secara Islam long back. The memorial service yang dia orang held two nights ago, just that. A memorial service for his fans.

On the way back home, opah cakap kat anney of my theory. Anney kata, opah would come up with anything to justify what MJ did or did not do. Opah balas balik, of course. Opah will defend those opah loves so much. Macam anney gak and bla bla bla...

Sensing dia dah kalah, anney diam. Ngeh ngeh ngeh...

So, back to MJ. Rest In Peace, Michael Jackson. May Allah bless your soul.