The Diary With The Rusted Clasp

The Saturday morning air in Petaling Jaya was a stagnant mix of house dust, old furniture polish and the stubborn dampness of the monsoon season. It left a thick and heavy smell lingering around no matter how many windows you open. Hong Binng Yuan stood in his room, staring at the mess he had made with his packing. Cardboard boxes littered the floor, bubble wrap stuck tangled around his ankles. Basically the twenty-three years of his life were now laid out like a crime scene.

“Brooo, you really keeping all this junk ahhh?”

Hong Jing Yi’s voice drifted from the study table. She held up an old broken Transformers action figure which had a long lost arm. She raised her eyebrows as she stared at him judgingly.

“Hey... That’s Optimus Prime, lah. Have some respect.”

“He only has one prime directive at this point... to go straight into the rubbish bin.”

Binng Yuan snorted and returned to folding his t-shirts. He was packing his suitcase with the same frantic energy the entire morning; sorting his life into keep and leave piles.

The sunlight cut through the window in golden stripes, illuminating dust motes that were in air suspended; blissfully unaware that in three days, almost everything in this room would be shipped off 8720km away.

Their mothers radio crackled downstairs. Jing Yi had cranked the volume to the max until the sound drifted up the stairs and filled the house with the familiar hum of Glide FM 91.3.

“...and that, listeners, was Mr and Mrs Tan’s fifty-eight-year love story!” The DJ’s voice was raspy like a rapper’s. “Married in 1956, just one year before Merdeka mannnn... can you imagine, falling in love while the whole country was trying to fight for independence? Her family had money, his family didn’t have two cents to rub together, and everyone said it would never work. But years later, they’re still arguing about whose turn it is to walk the dog, take out the trash, or cook dinner... Gosh... That, my friends, is what we call TRUE love. Thanks for sharing this beautiful story, Uncle Tan, you have just won an all-expenses-paid trip to Langkawi, courtesy of our friends at Glide...”

“Oooo... Langkawi!” Jing Yi yelled from the hallway. “I want to win something from this show one day lah. Imagine the luxury hampers, or dinner at KLCC, wahhhh. Dream come true leh...”

“You’re seventeen okay... What story are you going to tell them? ‘I have a crush on the boy who sells curry puffs outside school’ ?”

“Excuse me, Amirul is very good looking... can cook plus cute, its a good combo if you open your eyes...” she argued while giggling.

“Help pack the box, Jing Yi. We’re running out of time...”

She ran back upstairs to help sort through the graveyard of old notebooks, broken pens and dusty Form 5 notes and textbooks. But she stuck her tongue out and made a silly face at Binng Yuan before helping. The room was basically a disaster zone with bookshelves half emptied, drawers pulled out and the wardrobe vomitting clothes on the floor. The stand fan in the corner continued to click rhythmically in a loop that would surely outlast his departure.

Binng Yuan glanced at his two suitcases and laptop bag by the door. Those were going with him on the flight. Ten days worth of clothes, laptop, passport and essential documents. While everything else was for the shipping company.

It was surreal. A company in New Zealand was footing the bill for a full container, sparing no cost just to secure his arrival. Just three weeks ago, he was eating cold Maggi noodles at 2 am debugging codes; now grown men in Auckland were synchronizing their schedules to ensure he didn’t land in an empty apartment as they were terrified to lose him to a competitor. “If you go with anyone else, its our loss, we’d rather that didn’t happen” they said over a video call recently with a sincere and enthusiastic smile.

“Hey bro, what’s THISSS?”

Binng Yuan didn’t like that tone in her voice. Almost like a harbinger of trouble. He turned to find Jing Yi holding a slim dark green notebook with a rusted brass clasp and worn out edges over time. His own messy seventeen year old handwriting was forcefully etched into the leather.

His stomach dropped. “No...”

“Ooooo,” she practically buzzed with the chaotic younger sibling energy who had just struck gold. “Your diary from 2011. SPM year. Wahhhhh, bro, you really kept a DIARYYY?”

Her eyes lit up with unholy glee as she was attempting to unwrap a juicy piece of gossip.

“GIVE IT BACK!” He reached his hand out. She darted away, clutching the book to her chest as if she was guarding national secrets.

“Let’s see what my teenage bro was soooo dramatic and sad about...”

“JING YI!”

She let out a high pitched shriek and bolted again. Her bare feet slapped against the cool tiles as she took the stairs two at a time. Binng Yuan scrambled after her, hitting his shoulder against the doorframe. His heart hammered. It seemed like an irrational reaction to a stack of old paper.

“Mum said not to run down the stairsssss!” he shouted a hypocritical statement as he lunged after her.

“Mum is not HOMEEEEEEE!”

They barreled through the living room and then around the dining table. The radio in the kitchen continued its broadcast; completely oblivious to the chaos. The DJ was reading sponsor messages for Valentine’s Day luxury hampers as Jing Yi burst through the back door into the garden, breathless and hysterical. She circled the curry leaf plant and the half dead bougainvillea bush they constantly promised to discard. The morning sun was scorching hot and the air held the scent of wet earth from last nights rain and their neighbours early barbecue brunch.

“Give it BACK Jing Yi. I swear...”

“Say the magic word first brooo...”

“I will set your phone alarm to 4am every day for a whole week okay! GIVE IT BACK!”

That slowed her down. She glanced back with a defeated grin and in that split second of distraction, her foot caught on the coiled garden hose. She stumbled and the diary flew from her grip and she fell to the ground with her arms flailing.

The diary hit the cement floor with a dull slap and that was enough for the rusted brass clasp to finally give up and pop. It skidded across the floor and flopped open as it hit the wall and landed face up.

For a moment, they were both still and then they both ran towards it. Jing Yi looked down chest heaving. Binng Yuan stood frozen with his hand suspended in the air.

Taped to the centre page was a crooked yellowing photograph of an indian girl in their old school pinafore. Her hair was braided into one thick, heavy rope that reached her knees. She wasn’t smiling. It was a candid shot captured for the school magazine during a debate.

Beneath it... in his own cringe-worthy handwriting: Rajalakshimi.

The name was ringed by a series of wonky, lopsided hearts drawn in blue ballpoint pen. It was a desperate scrawl of a seventeen year old boy who had no idea how to navigate his feelings.

Jing Yi’s mouth dropped in shock. She stared at the photo, then up at him. The back to the page as if she was trying to verify the reality hadn’t changed in a blink of an eye.

“Brooooo...” She sounded like she was choking on the air. Her eyes wide and bewildered.

She pointed at the page, her other hand clutched to her chest as if she was suffering a cardiac arrest but she was just over reacting.

“Didn’t you... didn’t you HATE her????”

Binng Yuan didn’t say a word. He simply stood there under the scorching sun, in the middle of his mother’s wilting garden. He was two weeks away from abandoning this history but here he was, staring at his teenage ghost and a face he tried not to think about for a very, very long time.

Glossary For International Readers

lah : a Malaysian/Singaporean English speech particle used for emphasis; it has no direct English translation, it gives sentences “flavour” and allows Malaysians to soften commands, express exasperation, or show agreement based on their intonation

Petaling Jaya (PJ) : a major city in Selangor, Malaysia, bordering Kuala Lumpur

Merdeka : Malay for “independence”; refers to Malaysia’s Independence Day, August 31, 1957

SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) : Malaysia’s national high school leaving examination, taken around age 17

curry puffs : a fried or baked pastry snack filled with curried potato and meat/vegetables

Maggi mee/noodles : a popular instant noodle brand, used generically the way some cultures say “ramen”

KLCC : Kuala Lumpur City Centre; home to the Petronas Twin Towers and a major shopping mall

Langkawi : a popular island resort destination off Malaysia’s northwest coast