Short-Story Archives: The Stain (Part 1)

This is a little short story I have written to paint you guys a picture of life in the colonial Southeast Asia. The story will be divided into multiple parts. Here is part 1:


"Ah Seng, Ah Seng, eat dinner!" a familiar voice calls to me. I await squatted outside the family hut that belonged my father's father. My father squatted next to me nonchalantly as usual. Some few yards away, I keep vigil watch over my grandfather who laid on a mat inside a small hut of thin wooden planks made just for him. He stopped walking ever since his leg swelled with pus. We had no money for any sort of doctors and he insists that his time has come and was unwilling for the family to spend another coin more on him. Thus he remained doomed to that little prison, slowly waiting for the afterlife.

"Ah Seng, Ah Seng? When are you getting a wife?" My mother asks in Hokkien while serving rice with steamed vegetables. I remain silent. "Ah Seng, Ah Seng, if you don't have wife, how do you have children? How do you pass on the family name? You must think of the family first," She continues. My father seems oblivious to mother's nagging and the world as he chomps on his food. The smell from his clothes tells me he has been smoking that vile opium again who had poisoned his body and mind rendering him unable to work. Poor mother, I thought as I scowl at him.

"Ah Seng, Ah Seng, take this bowl of rice and give it to grandfather, if he is going to die better a full ghost than a hungry ghost." I nod. I have been put in charge of delivering food and water to my grandfather but I dread at that duty; the hut is fouled with the stench of his rotting legs which had by now grown into a grotesque mixture of red blood, white bone, yellow pus, and black dead skin. He would smile gently at me each time I come, but I could not bare to return the gesture. After I am done with my solemn duty, I would quickly rush home to wash my hands off the disease, the misfortune, and perhaps the guilt of failing to be a filial grandson.
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"Ah Seng, Ah Seng!" the voice in Hokkien pulled me out from the clutches of the dream demons right before cold water splashes on my face. I jerk up from my gunny sack bed in response. "Woi, Ah Seng, time to toil! Boss said he will make you starve if you dare to be late again."

I immediately scan the coolie dormitory with my eyes which are in full attention and in shock; the dormitory is empty save for me and Ah Fook. "Die!" I exclaim and quickly rush out of the dormitory with Ah Fook. "Thank you for waking me, but you will also be late." I asked him while we rush towards the jetty.

"That is what brothers do!" he replies with a smile. He is the closest thing I have to a family ever since I sailed to Penang. This place is foreign and the work is heavy but unlike back in Fukkien, I will not starve working hard here; that is of course if the boss will not have my head this time. Despite it all, Ah Fook made all this bearable. We had countless adventures and managed to bail each other out even at the worst of times. Perhaps meeting Ah Fook is my fortune in life which coincidentally is what his name means in Hokkien.