Iced berries

Over a tall glass of thick chocolate milkshake, the topic of conversation turned to inter-racial marriages. As he blew smoke rings right at my face, he told me that Ivan was getting married soon, and we were all invited to his Operation Freedom One Last Night to party.

"To be honest, I didn't think they'd last this long," I flicked my shake-laden straw at him and managed to splatter his t-shirt. He shortens my life-span, I make him do extra laundry. It's a fair exchange.

"Hoi! Don't la, I'm not going home this weekend," he said, as he slapped my hands lightly. "To be honest, I didn't expect him to marry her. Thought it was just one of those flings."

"O ye of little faith..." I grinned.

"Said the resident cynic!" He retorted.

We went back to sipping our drinks, when suddenly he asked me if I would date a Malay guy.

"Why not?"

"True also, but then you dated Chai, haha."

I narrowed my eyes at him. He never did like my ex.

"You have a lot to say about the people I date hor? So free ah? Want to talk about Ah Bin or not?"

Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes, and feign some nasty blubbering. I shrugged and sipped more milkshake. The thing about being with secondary school friends is that we always know where to hit where it really hurts.

"But then hor, you'll have to wear tudung ler."

The other thing about being with secondary school friends is that you know when to acquiesce to drastic topic changes.

I said, "Wear what tudung? I said date, not marry."

"But if you date then eventually you'll get married right? You girls, all one-track minds one," he said, then ducked as I flicked more milkshake at him. "Hoi!"

"Dunno who told me I would still be a virgin at 30 one hor?"

"Maybe you'll get married at 31," he grinned.

"Haha, I also hope la," I smiled, "but no Malay guys, thanks."

He raised one eyebrow, and asked, "Racist?"

"No, I'll date but I won't marry."

"Why?"

"The whole convert thing la."

"If you love him you will change for him ler."

"I'm not gonna start liking footie just because the guy I'm with likes Man U." I stuck my tongue out before thinking.

"Different ma, cannot compare with football. Eh, I thought you like football? Last time dunno who scream OFFSIDE!! loud loud and curse the referee one?"

"That time betting money ma!"

"Haha, suck la you. But really, you're not a very religious person wat, what's the problem with converting? I mean, it's not like the universe's laws are overturned if you become a Muslim right?" He blew more smoke rings, much to my disgust.

"That's the whole point. If I'm going to convert, I want to believe then only convert. Otherwise why convert? Wasting time only, and bloody hypocritical wei."

"Ask you marry the guy only, you think about hypocrite for what?"

"This is called prinsip hidup la, something you don't understand one." I ducked as he flicked his pineapple juice at me.

"Ceh, copycat. But seriously," I continued, "I don't believe in forcing people to do things that they don't want to do. I also believe that if you like someone you take them as they are." I paused here before adding succinctly, "That's why I don't ask you to stop smoking, dear."

He chuckled, and said, "True also, but it depends la. If you're in love with him then how ler?"

"Dunno. If you're willing then I suppose it's ok ler, but if you're not willing ler? Then compulsory conversion's a bit like emotional blackmail la. If you love me you will do this this this for me. What bullshit is that?"

"Hooiyo, people's religion la, don't go and say bullshit."

"I'm not knocking their religion, I don't care about what you believe in as long as you don't try to convert me. That's all. If I really believed in your god and I wanted to convert, then awal-awal I'd have converted, no need to wait till marriage. If I don't believe, then what's the point of forcing me just so you have one more ummat Islam? No point right?"

"Love ma."

"Eh, don't make me bring up why you went and studied in Nilai, ok?"

With an injured look on his face, he said, "Lowblow la, Saffy."

I laughed.

"Eh, enough with the interrogation la. What about you? You'll marry your girl if she's Muslim?"

"Dunno. Never thought about it."

"I give you time to think now," I smiled sweetly as he grunted.

"Probably ler, not a big deal. Except the bersunat part."


At this point we talked about something else. Superb memory I have, yes? Parts of the dialogue was reconstructed cos seriously, I don't have a superb memory. We should've been talking about lightweight stuff like how much he had to spend on fixing his car after his latest accident. Instead, we went deep into prinsip hidup and stuff like that, bleah.

This is why there should always be beer around when you're chatting. Or maybe beer wouldn't have been good in this case. He tends to want to discuss crazy physics equations when drunk. :p