Everybody knows Leman from Kampung Durian Lima Batang. From little children; the men and women all the way to the village ‘Imam’, there are always stories about Leman. If Dol the Kampung Dusun thug was bad, Leman was worse.
However Leman’s is bad for a reason. That was perhaps something the villagers did not know, especially the children. “Leman has excess energy. He is fat too.”, that was among what his mother used to say when Bibah’s mum came to complain. How can she not complain/ As early as dawn was breaking Leman was already snooping around behind the ‘kundang’ tree peeping ant Bibah bathing at the well.
However, one thing the villagers salute about Leman is his honesty. The 18-year-old Leman knows not how to lie. Sometimes he is just as straight as an arrow.
One evening, hoping to put the excess energy to good use, Leman went to Pak Mail’s orchard. He shook the mangosteen branch with all his might till even the leaves fell. He just let the dark coloured fruits litter around the tree.
“I’ll pick them all up when I’m done,” he told himself.
As he was briefly dreaming up the tree, Leman heard a voice screaming gaily. “Oh no, I’m dead! Pak Mail will surely not give me chance number 18,” he thought. He still remembers he had run into Pak Mail 17 times while stealing the old man fruits. “If I see you just one more time, you’ll get it,” warned Pak mail fiercely.
Leman tried to find a branch with lots of leaves. He tried to hide but the voice he heard kept getting closer. His anxiety quickly disappeared when he saw that the person whose voice he heard was not Pak Mail.
A pair of lovebirds looked strange to him from the top of the tree heading towards the mangosteen tree. No time was wasted as the pair began to engage in action that God deplores. And within minutes the action went into Chapter 5.
Leman watched intently but quickly hid as the girl began to cry. And a dialogue that he used to watch on television was heard from under the tree.
“You have to be responsible! You started it!” she said, stomping her feet.
“It’s like this, Kiah. There’s nothing I can do anymore. We just went too far”.
In a resigned voice, the boy was heard in a clear and firm voice.
“Lets just leave it to the Guy up there”.
Hearing that , Leman shouted in protest.
“What has that got to do with me? You two had fun, leave me out of this!,” he shouted loudly till his hold on the little branch slipped.
Leman fell on the two lovebirds and all three of them died.
by: Adam Tahir
translated by: Azlan Rahman
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