Disclaimer
This is a fiction novel. All the characters have no relations with those who had and still lived. The places have no relations with the existing or past regions. This writing is based on writer's creativity with sprinkles of some historic facts to make this story interesting.
The year 1511 was marked as the start of the Malay's dark ages. The empire of Malacca, the ruler of the Malacca Strait, collapsed under the Portuguese conquistadors, and you believe what your history textbooks told? How could a strong empire just simply being conquered by only a fleet of army? How could we admit defeat when they only reached the Malaccan bridge? They were thousands miles and months journey away from Malacca and they only took one bloody month to finish their job. Its just not make any sense to my logic. So I investigate...and what I found out was even more unrealistic. However, how could you denied something that you see and feel for yourself?
Or was I dreaming?
No. I don't believe it was my imagination.
The weekend morning was gloomy enough, pale and grey, like those in England. The difference is, it's usual to have that kind of morning there. Well, I have never been to England before, but TV shows presented me with enough information to make me know everything every Londoners should know about their nation, except about one rather important matter. It is about a secret that only minority in the western world know, in conrast to those who knew about it in their colonies.
Including me.
So, I went to do my weekend routine as usual. Waking up. Waking up for the fourth time and finally awake. Yawn. Brush my teeth. Have an extremely cold shower. Make myself a breakfast. Have a peek at the news. Spat my coffee out of sudden. The list actually halted before I spat my coffee, not that I spat my coffee everyday. I only spat my coffee that day, involuntarily and instantaneously. Something in the Metropolitan Daily news caught my attention and the coffee inside my mouth that day.
The Metropolitan Daily always has something interesting to be displayed in their print. Their news are different from other news medias. "Goat-abusing men not allowed to be near livestocks", "A women swallowed tape worms to get fitter", "Mind controlled by wife", just to name a few. They also have an outstanding interest in the mystical world and believed that they do exist. Once, they interviewed a shaman about the unknown world, but the public just read it for entertainment sake. Who would believe such bullshit?
But this one is different. It took me about twenty minutes just to digest the report with logic, which eventually made myself think that logic was not applicable anymore for anyone who read the same news and to accept it as a fact. It was a discovery that made the government almost banned Metropolitan Daily for "lying" and announced that the news piece was a false statement almost immediately after the information was released.
"Zombies in 1511" was the headline of that day. It was claimed to be leaked from The National Archeology Bureau, which at that time were excavating some sites in Malacca. Before that, they do found bodies that were believed to had been involved in the Portuguese-Malaccan war. I heard that the NAB was actually aftering the body of Hang Tuah after they finally solved the puzzle of where he rest in peace, which I also thought was the main reason why the excavate those places in the first place.
Well, who doesn't care about zombies? There are zombie-based movies premiering almost every week. People began to afraid this undead plague as they thought it is possible. And after the news came out, nearly every store nationwide were raided with people who concerned about what might happen. Employees escaped work, students skipped classess and people were admitting themselves to hsopitals as they thought that they were having "weird" symptoms.
Simply said, the day went with havoc. Even neighbouring countries were affected. The Malaysian government have to denounce the Metropolitan Daily for a while, apologise to ASEAN an emergency Association of South East Asian Nations meeting and announce a temporary emergency period. But no serious damage occured as only half of the Malaysian population give a shit. The other half were making fun and jokes about how rediculous the news was and about the people who believed. Almost three days later, everyhting were back to normal like nothing happened. That is the Malaysian way of reacting to events. We even have a proverb for it - as hot as the chicken's shit - it will eventually cool off, but in a very short pace.
But, the truth doesn't stop there. The news has captured my interest to start investigating, and what I found out is even more unrealistic...
No comments:
Post a Comment