anthony is a sassy malaysian desert (helpline) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2012-12-25 22:31:00 |
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Finally, he was home. His parents never changed anything about it. Most of his things remained untouched and had already collected dust. He smiled to himself as he opened one of his notebooks, noting his scrawly handwriting. Small pieces of paper that had clearly been torn off slipped out from between the pages. Notes he had passed around to his classmates. He wondered where they were now. And yet, Anthony felt a sense of unfamiliarity with it. It was like having to reacquaint himself with an old friend who had changed. “You remember Navin, right?” his sister invited herself into the room, plopping down on his chair. “He told me to invite you to his party tonight. You should go and catch up with him.” A classmate from four years ago. They had raced down the neighbourhood street on their bicycles, always coming home late to have a game of football, then hang out at the school field with their friends. “Can’t, got that Ministry dinner.” “Ughhhh,” Stacey made a face. “I thought you hated those?” He did. And this wasn’t the first function he had attended since he came back from Australia. The elections were coming up and the government wanted him to make as many appearances as possible. To show that they cared. That they wouldn't abandon anyone. Anthony had promised them he would attend the events that they had scheduled in for him. It was why he was finally home. It hadn’t been easy, trying to convince them to let him go home for two weeks. It was one of the things he’d never really tell anyone about. Like how, when he arrived in Kedah, he was made to heal the VIP wards first rather than the critical ward, if only because a politician had ‘booked’ him to get rid of whatever diseases his family had. “If you get on his good side he’ll show his support for Vols.” Like how, on his third hospital visit, the doctors there had refused to speak to him. Gave him glares, rolled their eyes, and behind his back muttered about how they could have just taken a day off if he was there to do their job for them. “No point in wasting our drugs if the patients are going to be healed instantly,” he had overheard one of them saying. “What’s the point of having us here anyway?” And when he had asked them about any injuries or diseases, they had told him to get himself a medical degree to find out himself. And how, during the football training with the kids, he had a friendly one-on-one match against a professional player who had endorsed the programme. Naturally, the player had more skill than him, but Anthony was faster. But when the player tackled Anthony to the ground, the guards who had been escorting him rushed to the field, roughly pushed the player away and helping him up. “Cukup lah tu,” That’s enough, he had told them in his native tongue, alarmed at the guards’ iron grip on the man. How he was rushed to a scene of a gruesome car accident one night and had to heal two dying people on the spot, his argument with an official because they were letting other people cut their healing queue just because they offered to pay the hospital more. Anthony wouldn’t call what he was doing as ‘work’. He had told Edwin that it wasn’t a job. He had always managed to turn a blind eye whenever something other than healing came into the picture. As long as people were cured, it didn’t matter, right? “Gege,,” Stacey began, looking at him seriously now. “I don’t like what they’re doing to you.” A few months ago, he would be defensive and tell her that it didn’t matter. It was his responsibility; he was supposed to do this. The most important thing was to have people healed. “Me too, mei mei.” Tonight, though, he would put on a smile, hear the long winded speeches of people with empty promises and talk to strangers who wouldn’t look at him twice if he couldn’t heal. He would do anything, for now -- because he was home. |