I don’t know what woke me up very early one morning, about 4am, year 2000. I just did. My head was spinning and it didn’t feel good. I sat up in bed trying to get a balance but it didn’t help much.
“This is not good” I murmured. “Not good at all”.
Suddenly I felt nauseous. I leaned to the edge of my bed and vomit came gushing out, missing my plastic wardrobe by an inch on the bare concrete floor.
“Hargh…. This is not good! This is not good…” I groaned, my hands gripping my bed’s steel frame. My room mate, Michael, woke up upon hearing the commotion. He was sleeping on a pull-out-frame bed beside me. He looked closer now and saw the aftermath. Instantly he switched on the lights. It blinded me for a while as I remained in a trance.
He took a second look at me and said “Gus! You’re bleeding! Your nose! Your ear!”
I frowned, my right hand reached for my right ear and I felt sticky fluid on my finger, it was red as blood. I looked back at my pillow and saw blood stains. Then I looked at him blankly as if asking ‘What happened? What do I do now?’
“Hang on. I’ll get Joon Sai to drive us to the hospital” Michael said as he rushed out to the other rooms to alert my other house mates and asked them to keep an eye on me. Soon they were standing beside me, Eric and Choon Yap, holding me still as we waited for transport. Jackie and Hock were nearby, or so I remember.
I was still in a daze when Michael came back and I was guided out of the house and into the car. I don’t know how inconvenient it must have been for Joon Sai to wake up and drive from a few blocks away, or for Michael to ride his motorbike to his house and knock on the door, in the wee hours of the morning. Tronoh is a sleepy old country town. Houses in some resettlement areas are far apart, as was ours.
The concern for my friends had to wait as I was not in the position to think straight. The least I could do was hold my palm against my ear to prevent blood from ruining Joon Sai’s fabric seat. There it stayed until we reached Batu Gajah Hospital. I remember nothing about the journey.
More : Transferred
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