When he said he will take me camping, I burst out laughing. Oh gosh… Adrian’s prophecy at Arab Street, I thought. Sure, I said without hesitation. I was after all a Girl Guide for three years and a Ranger for two. I had attended camps where the camp commandants were retired military personnel with a delight for torture, where a toilet meant a hole somewhere behind the bushes or a mouldy broken cement slab in a shack and you had to eat the rice you cooked although it is actually half cooked (because the fire died halfway and the most luxurious thing you have to eat it with was soya sauce). A camp veteran by 15, I remember most fondly, camps where they made you sit alone for hours in the virgin jungle in pitch darkness and contemplate the meaning of life while making a circle of salt around you so those pesky bloodsuckers won’t get you, where you come home after a week, looking and feeling like a toad because they made you camp by the riverbank and became feast for the sandflies, and where you march through swamps in search of wild boars and hack through bamboo thickets in orienteering exercises. Yup, I’m definitely no stranger to camping and all that back-to-nature stuff. Yeah, that will be fun. Where are we going?
The barbeque was delicious. How sweet of him to bring marinaded chicken wings, some marshmallows and even sambal for the fish we had caught and cooked. He said he made the marinade and the sambal himself. A vision of Mama nodding her head in approval appeared before me in the fire and I waved it away frantically with my carcinogenic marshmallow on a satay stick. The stars twinkled brightly and for a moment, I swore I heard them sigh. We chatted the night away till all that was left of the fire were embers glowing softly like fireflies in the sand.
I snuggled into my sleeping bag. He asked me if I was cold. No, I’m cosy, I said. You truly are, cosy COSY, he whispered. Alamak, he is corny too… what more can I ask for? He pulled himself nearer, so close I could feel his breath upon my nose. The stars would have sighed another time while we kiss had I not…
“Nooooo… sorry, erm… we can’t do this.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Nope, we can’t. It’ll be just be salah. So the salah.“
“Oh OK, it’s that Catholic thing, huh?”
“No, no… no hanky-panky here. We’ll offend somebody.”
“There’s nobody else around. We’re alone here.”
“We’ll offend some datuk, semangat, or penunggu… you know?”
“Datuk? Grandfather? Your grandfather’s here on Pulau Ubin?”
“No, no, not mine. Nobody’s! It’s just called a datuk lah…“
“You’re real funny, in a weird way. It’s endearing. Which is why I…”
“Really one! I’m serious. Believe me, I’ve seen how angry datuks wreak havoc on campsites and campers the morning after. Trust me, we should just get some sleep. Nite!”
“Huh? Wha…? Err… O-K, nnnnite…”
………
Hmm… that is what will probably happen if someone asks me out on a camping date, so I don’t think a guy who takes me camping is gonna make it, Adrian!
Thanks for the suggestion though, hee…
