Reminisces in Ramadhan
The radio is blaring. Someone is reciting verses from the Koran and I know I should be listening but my mom needs me to get the last dish so I go and set it along with the rest. Too much is going on at the moment, and then nothing at all. This is what happens next: A man's low and steady voice, the very same for many years now, will be heard, and we will mouth the same words that he speaks, before the call to prayer announces the break of twilight. We will recite duas, and while the many years of conditioning have taught us to keep our excitement at bay, there is always that sense of relief and repressed euphoria upon the very first sip of something ice-cold. I know this because my sister will tell me, without fail, that 'air jarang / air bandung / (just any cold drink, seriously) is so sedap omg' and our mom will just shake her head in amusement. I know this episode like an old film. We are at the table and I see my dad to my right, my brother on my left and mom just next to him near the end. I'm sitting at the head of the table. I always sit at the head of the table. We've asked ourselves time and again why is it that I always sit at the head instead of dad and we've never found an answer. I look just past the line of my right shoulder and there right next to me is Fiqah, perched, as always on a stool. Today it's the wooden swivelling one. The table is set, decked, in fact, with food. And yet somehow I don't see any of it. It is only the faces of my family that I'm able to make out. I don't know if it's what I wish to envision, but I see them all smiling. Feel their smiles rather, if it were possible to say so. I feel them and I sense I'm slowly pulling my face into one too. That same song is playing and Abang, Fiqah and I are singing it, complete with head-action movement and we laugh at our own buffoonery before challenging each other to complete a whole session of Terawih prayers tonight. I realise I don't feel as hungry as I did before right now. Right now I feel an overwhelming sense of happiness and gratitude before the fear that I might lose this moment someday. And right now though seems a long way from right now. Right now, in fact, I feel a lump in my throat and I think my heart aches so, so bad for right now, right now.