by Allison Lee
I scrambled across rush hour traffic the other day, nearly scratched by the typical speeding Penang driver, all to get to the convenience store for a lollipop. I am not exactly known for making the best life decisions, but the sugary sphere-on-a-stick was much needed for a video.
I retrieved what folded bills I had stowed away in my back pocket, asking the cashier how much a lolly cost while I picked at the colorful bunch, searching for an apple-flavored one. My fingers glitched when she told me it would be RM1.
One ringgit?
A whole buck?
Man, that’s crazy.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to school you on the demand and supply curves of sugar or anything like that. I might study economics, but I’m not that big of a nerd (yet). On my walk home—my pockets now one ringgit lighter and one lolly heavier—the sky was a blameless shade of periwinkle, embellished by clouds that looked like dragons, bears, fairies… I haven’t seen those in years. I was transported back to the grassy knoll near my grandmother’s house in the cul-de-sac. The sky was equally blazing then, only less tainted than it is today.
In the kampung we grew up in, there were no traffic lights. We roamed the streets like it was named after our great-great-grandfathers, and perhaps for some of us, that was true. Lollipops were fifty cents or less, and children gathered around the uncle’s transformed motorcycle to get them—hair plastered onto sweaty foreheads, pockets jingling with coins won from buah guli battles, feet snuggled in too-big slippers from the pasar malam. Meals were bought with cents. We endured electricity shortages by sleeping in the living room to the sound of crickets, the sliding doors left open to welcome the night breeze. Every month brought around new fruit to taste, every day a new cartoon episode to binge. Fairy-tales were told with clouds as illustrations and the neighbor’s dog was friendly with all the kids. If I had to shake my head in disappointment, it was only because I had to finish the vegetable gran had put in my bowl. If I had to vocally take a stand against injustice, it was only because my cousins were getting more watch time of Ben 10 than I had of Powerpuff Girls.
I went to sleep counting sheep—though I counted them in Mandarin, so that never really worked—and dreamt of growing up, becoming whoever and whatever I wanted. I dreamt of futures so bright and cities so grand that they came straight out of a utopia. I looked beyond the pages of my textbook that carried flying cars and concrete cities and believed that the vision my country had for 2020 would become true. I dreamt nothing bad could ever happen to my family and friends, that come tomorrow and the many morrows thereafter, I can still run down the streets named after somebody’s grandfather, my feet bare, chasing after the ice cream tune down the corner, coins in my tiny palms.
But I had to grow up. And grow I did in this city of mine. Now, the city is polluted. The skies appear to be a blameless blue, but oh, the gravity of emotions they carry in them—watching over our every wrong move, every backward shift. I shudder as I catch a glimpse of headlines printed on the newspaper lying coldly in the hands of an uncle sipping his overpriced coffee. I walk past him to get some overpriced lunch to fuel my underwhelmed stomach, only to drive home obeying traffic lights. They turn red and then green, green and then red. I think about how my childhood dreams have been buried in yellow lights as the radio comes on with the news update. It is as upsetting as ever. I used to have to worry about getting run over by motorcycles or being bitten by rabid dogs; now I worry for the health of my planet, the rights of my neighbors, and the Malaysia I’ll be leaving behind for future generations. These days, the clouds seem too perfect to be real, too wispy to be true. They’re all cotton candy fluff, their sweetness in sight yet out of reach. It’s almost like they’re architected to stay up there so no light will ever be shed on the dire situation we are in. If I shake my head in disappointment, it is because the government is tightening its claws around the people. If I had to vocally take a stand against injustice, it is because people are stripped of their basic rights and shunned from humanity all for the color of their skin or sexuality. I was taught to sing songs that praise my country, but what, exactly, am I supposed to be proud of?
I’ve retired cartoons for the news and I sleep no longer to the chirps of crickets but the voice in the back of my head telling me things will not get better. Every toss of the pillow shifts our country backward one step, every roll of the dice sets us back decades. We are further and further away from the pictures in my textbook. Yet—
—I still dream the same dreams, if not bigger and wilder, more daring as if to taunt the universe. I dream of cooler days and bluer oceans. I dream that my friends are able to walk in public, holding hands with whoever they liked. I dream that old laws are turned in for new ones that embrace the diversity and uniqueness we so love to pride ourselves on. I dream forward. And in those dreams I see faces of the people of one proud, harmonious nation in the clouds. And those clouds tangle in my fingers whenever I reach out. And before I could even steal a forbidden taste, I know it’ll be sweet.
But for now, where life and country lack sweetness and beautiful things, an overpriced lollipop will have to suffice.