Sad But True


Ms Petunia sits on the old chair she found in her 87 year-old grandmother�s house three blocks away. It makes squeaking sounds each time she tries to rotate her position. It indeed showers her with annoyance but none she can do to it. She can�t oil the joints nor tightened the screws for it was no single metal attachment she could find on that chair. She just can�t. That was the reason why it attracts her attention, such design that just fascinates her even more.

She has her tenth puff, listening to Bach over and over again since Marigold handed it to her this morning. Truth is, Bach is never her cup of coffee. She only listened to it if she is stuck inside Marigold�s car, as Marigold is the avid fan of those legendary composers or like she always says, �God�s finest creation�, each time they meet. It amazes her how high her endurance is towards Marigold�s what-a-brilliant-compositions remark. Maybe it�s the Ying Yang thingy. Ms Petunia is always be the quiet, ignorance-is-my-middle-name kind while Marigold is the �limelight thief� (the way Ms Petunia always put it.), good with everyone she meets, just or already. Occasionally, Ms. Petunia will find it disgusting whenever Marigold bumps into somebody she knows. It seems like she knows everybody on the street, no matter where she is being dumped. Eugh!

Ms Petunia fell into a deep thought. The Sunday incident made her think that she is a Diaspora; dispersal of her own world. Her life is broken into thousands of scattered puzzle. Heh! �Dispersal of her won world�. Tragic enough. She likes that word. A smile escaped her lips. She loves to exaggerate, to make everything she feels sounds very bad. Not that her intention to make people especially Marigold to spray full pity to her. Hell no! It is just� her. Ms. Petunia is the one who actually sympathizes Marigold for having to listen to her heartbreaking events with 3-am-in-the-freaking-morning calls.

She is somehow well aware of the fact that she�s becoming a pathetic quarter-of-a-century age woman. Even the nyonya whom she gets her weekly fish supply has a better karma than what Ms Petunia is having at this very moment. Apart from the gossiping routine she does while weighing lumpy, dead fishes, she is also in fact, has a creature of balls and dick, (husband) the term she uses to men whenever she is vexed with the fact that she�s MANLESS. Marigold always nags her on that one, saying that no matter how Ms Petunia despise them, she WILL eventually end up with one. Her words always make her smirk. It is forever in her mind that there is not going to be any luck of hers with man� ANY man.

Ms Petunia decided to have a break. This is going to be her last cigarette of the day. She is just tired. She chooses to let the Bach accompanies her till her conscious mind drifts down. She needs every possible rest she could find. After all, tomorrow, Thursday, September 24, 1998, she will finally be Mrs. Spadeandhoe�