White Poster Pt.3: Exodus

As Halim, Hazli, and I drove down Jalan Banjir, we were greeted by Pak Tan’s empty salon and what was left of it. Apparently, it had been demolished by local officials to build an overpass, so more customers could go to that new shopping mall that everybody was crazy about. Halim scoffed at the ruins and wondered why the heck we went to such a dump as kids.

“You see that’s where false hope will lead you--to ruins.” For as long as I remember, Halim never loved the capricious nature of the town and Malaysians. To him, we seemed primitive and lacked perspective. To him, we were just a bunch of blind birds hoping to catch a worm or build a nest.

If there was one thing we knew best about Halim, it was that he was not blind like us. But he had one thing that all Malaysians did best--dream. He never coughed it up, but we knew that he did it better than anybody around the town. This little Malaysian boy knew how to dream but in a way us Malay boys could never truly comprehend. It was in his stories, the music that he listened to, and his religious nature.

He topped each class, prayed five times a day, and was loved by all the girls in school; he lived what Malaysians, called the “Perfect Life”--the Malaysian Dream. Someday, he would probably grow up to be an influential banker or politician, guiding the blind to his vision. One could only assume that Halim was satisfied with his life and accomplishments, but he never was.

His vision did not rest in Malaysia, but in a place he called the States. A place where all the girls we talked about lived. A place that our local papers couldn’t stop writing about. A place where Halim knew he belonged. A place where Halim deserved better.

But I liked the posters here in Malaysia better.

One day, he pulled me out of class to reveal his master plan. He reminded me of the story of Exodus in the Qur’an where Moses led a people to safety from the brutality of an Egyptian king. He explained it too quickly, unable to even control his own thoughts. His English made it even harder to understand, and I wondered why he couldn’t just say it in Malay.

“I don’t want anybody to know.” All I managed to understand from the ruckus was something about some escape to the States in the next few days. He really stressed about this thing called the “American Dream” which sounded just like the “Perfect Life”, except it was in America--as he would say. Halim said that all those girls that we stared at when we were young laid away from our coasts and Pak Tan’s salon.

“They’re there, Hamzah, they’re just there.” It came to no surprise that Halim wanted me to follow him on his great escape--his Exodus as he said. But he sensed my indifference and confusion and simply scoffed at me.

“You people just don’t get it don’t you?” He turned his back and walked towards the exit, towards his Exodus, and towards his American Dream. He may have been smart, lucid, and aware, but he was not afraid to sacrifice everything for change. And that… that was never the Halim I knew.