Far From Perfect

I am highlighting a story  from my book Bitter. Enjoy.  Anyone who is interested to get Bitter at the price RM 21,  you can contact me or my publisher Faisal Mustaffa at this number 0172002944

Far From Perfect

By Bissme S

The first time I saw her was in a television talk show. She was supposed to travel around the world in 365 days. She was supposed to be the first woman in the country to accomplish this.

“I did not complete the journey,” she confessed to the pretty host of the talk show.

“I failed to create history.But I found something bigger. I found God.”

Her boat did leave our country. But she did not reach her destination. There was a violent storm. There was lightning and thunder. The ocean was in a fury.She was thrown into the ocean. Everyone thought she had died. But she did not die. Instead, she washed up on a deserted island. She was all alone, a castaway. She was waiting to be rescued. But the rescue team could not find her. She was lost.

“I was lonely,” she said

“I was depressed. I missed my husband. I missed my friends. I wanted to kill myself. But killing yourself is not easy. You need tremendous strength to end your life.”   

She survived on fruits that she found on the island.

“I thought I will die miserable and all alone on the island,” she said.

The moment she learned she was pregnant, she knew she had to find a way to escape the island. She had to bring her child to civilization.  

“I cannot let my child die on this island,” she said.    

She built a raft made of wood salvaged from the shore and bravely sailed into the big ocean.  

“Before I began my sailing, I did one thing I had never done in my entire life,” she says.

“What was that?” asked the pretty host of the talk show.

“I prayed hard that God will grant a safe journey to my unborn child and me,” she answered.

“That was my first time that I had prayed…That was the first time I believed God existed.”

She grew up in a household where praying was seen as a waste of precious time. Her father always said: “Give a man a fish and you will feed him a day but give him religion and he will starve to death while praying for a fish.”

For the first time in her life, she did not listen to her father whom she loved, admired and respected. She kneeled down and begged for a happy ending from the almighty God.

For days,her raft floundered in the big ocean. She was hungry. She was thirsty. She was dying.  

“But God did not let me die,” she said.

“God is great. God loves me. God had given me the happy ending I wanted.”  

A cargo ship noticed her tattered raft and she was rescued.  Her husband was overjoyed to have his wife in his arms again. Adding sweetness to their reunion is when he learnt that she was pregnant. Since the incident, she and her husband have not left God alone.

“I am glad that I got stranded on island,” she said.  

“Through this ordeal, I learned about God and his greatness. I owe my life to God. I owe the life to my child to God. I owe everything to God. What happened to me is a miracle from God. I will worship God till my last breath.”

The audience in the talk show was on their feet, giving a standing ovation to the woman and what she had said.

*****

A year after her appearance at the talk show, I was working for her. I was her maid. She liked me.

She said: “You are wonderful. You have everything under control. I am lost without you. I am lucky to have you.”

I showed my sweet smile. Humbly, I said: “No Madam, I am lucky to have a kind employer like you.”  

She likes to believe she had gone to a maid agency and got me.  But the truth is a totally different story.I paid her old maid some money to leave her and her family. That would force her to find a maid.I predicted she would turn to her old maid’s agency to get her new helper and I was right.

I paid someone in the agency a lot of money to make me as her maid.I was obsessed with her. I wanted to be in her life...I wanted to be in her house…I wanted to meet the child that changed her life.

*****

I remember the first time I stepped into her house. She looked so different from the television interview. Her hair was thicker and she was thinner.  It was obvious she had spent some time at the gym.

Her husband also looked different from the television interview. His hair was getting less and he has put on some weight around his waist.Of course,I was introduced to the person who changed her life dramatically…the person who motivated her to leave the island where she was stranded … the person who made her believe in God. Her baby was just learning to walk.

“I bought him a present… Can I give him the present?” I asked.

“Of course, you can,” she answered

My present was a soft toy unicorn. Her son smiled wide on seeing the unicorn.

“I think you have won the heart of my son,” she said.

*****

After a year staying as her maid, I thought it was time to open her eyes to the truth.Everything was planned carefully. It was on the evening September 6, she and I were at the porch, playing with her son. Out of nowhere, two strangers climbed over the gate of the house, grabbed her son from my hands and got into a car that was waiting outside the house.

“Call the police… Call the police. My son has been kidnapped,” she shouted with tears streaming from her eyes.

I pretended to have tears in my eyes. Inside, I was jumping with joy. The gangsters I had hired had done an excellent job. I was whispering to myself:  “Save your tears, Madam. This is only the beginning of your tragedy. You have more tears to shed.”  

****

Three days passed. The police have no clue where her son is.  Her tragic story grabbed the headlines of every newspaper in town. She spent most of her time in bed, crying, sleeping and hugging the toy unicorn that I have given to her son as a present.

Looking distraught, her husband said: “I am worried about her. She has not eaten for days.”

“Do not worry sir, I make the best lamb soup in town and she will find it difficult not to eat it,” I consoled him with my sweet smile.

I managed to get her to eat my delicious lamb soup. I cannot have her dying.  She has to be alive to embrace the truth.

Sixty days after the kidnapping, I went missing. She could not find me. Her husband could not find me.Nobody could find me. I left a letter for her. In the letter, I confessed the whole truth.

I told her that I have planted myself in her life…I told her that I was behind the kidnapping…I told her that her son is no longer alive…I told her where she can find the body of her son.

*****

For months, her interview haunted me. Every word she said in the talk show kept dancing in my mind. She would not fade away from my memory.  She likes to believe the god that she worships is perfect. But I know better. God is far from perfect.  

I am sure she will not listen to anything I have to say. She is blinded with her obsession with God. In her eyes, God has no weakness. In her eyes, God can do no wrong.  

But she should understand nobody should be put on the pedestal of perfection. Not even God. I could not let her live in her disillusion world any more. I had to open her eyes to the truth. So I came up with a perfect plan where I would show her that God can be unfair… God can be cruel...God can be ruthless...God loves sad ending....God is far from perfect.

*****

I had hired spies to tell me what takes place in her life now that I am no longer there.I wanted to know the outcome of my plan. I was told that she, her husband and the police rushed to the address I have given her in the letter, where her son’s body could be found. The door was not locked. The house was abandoned.

They found her son lying on the bed in the master bedroom. He was indeed dead. They were shocked to find that flesh from his neck to his toe was missing. Only his head was not touched.

“Why would she take away his flesh?” asked the police inspector.

Next to his dead body, there was a letter addressed to her. After reading the letter, she went berserk. She screamed. She kept banging her head on the wall. She wanted to kill herself. But her husband managed to stop her.

“I cannot continue living after what I have done,” she said, crying uncontrollably.

“Let me die… Let me die … Let me die.”

Her husband had no choice but to admit his hysterical wife to an asylum. I do not blame her for wanting to die.  If you were in her shoes, you would wish you were dead, too. It is difficult to continue living when you know that you have eaten your son.

*****

The meat in the lamb soup that I fed her was not lamb. The meat was the flesh from her son. Unknowingly, she had eaten her son.

I wrote in the letter: “If your God is perfect, your God would have stopped you from eating your son…If your God is perfect, your God would have stopped the kidnapping from happening… If your God is perfect, your God would have stopped me from butchering your son. But your God did not do any of these. Heartlessly, your God just stood like a mannequin and watched you eat your son. Now tell me, do you still believe your God is perfect? Do you still believe your God is great?”

*****

A year has passed since the incident. She is still in the asylum. All she does is sleep. She refuses to eat. She wants to die. She has tried to kill herself through starvation. The nurses had to force feed her. I hope she will get well soon. It was never my intention to drive her mad.

I had only one aim for doing what I have done. I just wanted to show her that God she worshipped is far from perfect.

*****

She was my first student but she will not be my last.There are many people who suffer the same sickness as her.Like her, I am sure they would not hear whatever I have to say. In their eyes, God has no weakness… In their eyes God can do no wrong. But they should understand that nobody should be put on the pedestal of perfection. Not even God.

I will find ways to enter their lives…. to enter their house. I will win their trust. I will become their confidant. I will enlighten them. I will open their eyes to the truth.I will put them in situations where I will show them that the God they worship is far from perfect.

*****

I was watching my favourite talk show. The guest was a famous rocker whose life was filled with scandals, sex and drugs.

He said: “One day, God came into my dream and told me that I have allowed drugs and sex ruin my life…I was wasting my talent away…I was wasting my life away.

“Now I have repented. I am walking the road that God wants to me walk.I am only singing songs in praises of God. I really believe God should be praised all the time because nobody can be perfect as God.”

The audience in the talk show was on their feet, giving a standing ovation to what the rocker has said. And in my heart, I knew I had found my second student….

The End

SHE

Year 2016 is coming to end. One of the best thing happened to me is one of my short stories She from my book Bitter  has been turned into a short film. Thank you James Lee for liking my short story and turning it into a short film. And big thank you to the actors for giving a very emotional performances. I am sharing some of the stills from She 

If you want to watch the video of this short film you can do so as below 

All About My Mother

I am highlighting a short story from my book Bitter. 

All About My Mother 

By Bissme S

You are too beautiful to belong to one man.You should become a prostitute.

The first time I heard those words, I was only thirteen.I was having a dinner with my parents in a restaurant. A tall man in a blue jacket sat at the table next to us.The tall man in the blue jacket had been staring at my mother from the moment we entered the restaurant. When we finished our dinner, the tall man in the blue jacket stood up and approached our table. Looking at my mother, he said: "You are too beautiful to belong to one man. You should become a prostitute."   

There was complete silence at our table. None of us knew what to say to him. We just stared at him. 

The man in the blue jacket had big smile on his face. Slowly, he turned around and walked out of the restaurant, laughing loudly. 

After the strange incident in the restaurant, our lives were never the same again. My mother stopped being a wife. My mother stopped being a mother. My mother abandoned us. My mother became a prostitute. 

*****

“Nobody loves her the way I love her. My love will bring her back,” my father said. 

My father worshipped the ground that my mother walked on. My father said: “She was my first love and I was her first love. Nobody forgets their first love. Your mother will come home. She will become a better mother to you and a better wife to me.”  

My father became a religious man. Every day, he begged the son of God to bring back the woman he loves into his life again. In the past, my father believed all religions was manmade. 

“Jesus is Santa Claus for adults,” he used to say. 

He loved making fun of God, Jesus and religious people in general. Not anymore. He said: “God has been kind to me. God blessed my life with so much happiness and love. But I was ungrateful. I abandoned God. I made jokes out of him. And God punished me. God made my wife abandon me. God wanted me to feel the pain that God felt when I abandoned Him.But now I am repenting my sins. One day, God will forgive me. God will make your mother stand in front of our doorstep with her two suitcases, begging for forgiveness.I will forgive her the same way God had forgiven me. We will be one happy family again.” 

My father has no doubt that God will give him a happy ending. As for me, I am totally convinced that God is obsessed with sad endings. 

*****

Twenty years have passed. My mother has not returned home. The doctors have found cancer in my father. His days on earth are numbered. My father said: “I want to die in the arms of your mother, the woman I love. I must pray harder so God will fulfil my last wish.” 

All of our friends and relatives had given up hope that my mother will return home. Not my father. 

“I have faith in God,” he said. 

“God is not cruel. God will not let me die with a broken heart.” 

Out of the blue, to everyone surprise, my father’s prayers were answered. My mother was standing in front of our house door, with her two suitcases. My mother had tears of regret.She begged for forgiveness. My father did not waste any time. He immediately hugged the woman he loves with all his heart. He said: “I forgive you. The past is the past. Do not talk about the past. Let us start a fresh life with a clean slate.” 

My father’s dream came true. Thirteen months later, my father died in the arms of the woman he loves. Before dying, my father said to me: “I told you that God is not cruel...God is great...God performed a miracle...God did not let me die with a broken heart.” 

But God was cruel. God was not great.God did not perform any miracles. God did absolutely nothing. God is just stood there like some useless statue and silently watched my father in misery.  

I went to see my mother. “I want to hire you.” 

That was my first sentence to my mother who I had not seen for two decades. She was still a prostitute and a proud owner of a brothel.  

I told my mother about my father’s illness. I said: “His last wish is to die in your arms. I want to hire you to play the good wife to my father. Make my father a happy man before he dies.”

“I can only love a man if I get paid and my services are not cheap,” my mother said. 

“I will pay whatever you want. My father must never know that I hired you. You must convince my father that you came home on your own accord, feeling regret over what you have done,” I said. 

A week later, my mother was in front of the doorstep of our house with her two suitcases. She had tears of regret.... 

******

The money I spent on my mother was worth it. My mother played the part of the good wife brilliantly. She brought back happiness, love and laughter into my father’s life. My father died with a smile on his face. My father did not have a clue that everything my mother did was a charade. 

The moment my father was buried, my mother started packing her suitcases. She was ready to go back to her old life. 

“You are leaving so soon,” I asked.

“My job is done here,” my mother answered. 

I said: “You could stay if you want. I will pay you to be my mother.”

She stared at me for the longest time. She said: “I can play any role my client wants except a mother. I do not think I will make a good mother.”  

I was furious. I was angry. I did not expect my mother would refuse my offer to be my mother. I shouted: “Mother, tell me why you abandoned my father? Why did you choose to abandon your son? Why did you choose the filthy road that you had chosen?”

Calmly, my mother took my hands in hers and gently kissed them. Looking into my eyes, my mother said: “When a girl is born, everyone teaches her to be a good daughter...To be a good wife...To be a good mother. But what if she doesn’t want to be a good daughter? What if she doesn't want to be a good wife? What if she doesn't want to be good mother? What if she doesn't want to be good? Do you think a woman has a choice not to be good?”

I did not have any answer for her.There was long silence between us. Then, slowly, she kissed my cheeks and whispered into my ears: “Not all women want to be good. Some women are born to be a woman with no morals." 

Carrying her suitcases in each hand, my mother slowly walked out of the house. ( To read more grab a copy of Bitter) 

Breakfast in Bed

I am highlighting a short story that is featured in my book Bitter 

1) Breakfast in Bed 

By Bissme S

My father used every trick in the book to save his marriage, from tears to begging. But he failed miserably. 

“We are not meant to love one person for the rest of our lives,” my mother said. 

Carrying only her handbag, my mother walked out of our house, to a waiting car. The driver of the car was a young man clad in a yellow T-shirt. He was my mother’s new lover. As soon as my mother got into the car, the young man drove away quickly. My mother did not look back. My father, meanwhile, locked himself in his bedroom. 

I said: “Father, please open the door. In times like this, we should be together. You can always talk to me.” 

My father answered: “For now, I want to be alone in my sadness. I want to grieve in peace.We can talk tomorrow. We can have breakfast together.”

The next morning, I entered my father’s room with a tray of toasted bread, two half boiled eggs and a cup of coffee. I wanted to surprise my father. I wanted my father to have breakfast in bed.

But the tray did not reach my father’s bed. I dropped it on the floor. My father had hanged himself. Tears streamed from my eyes. 

"Do not call the police yet, Malena," my sister said.

My sister took an empty canvas and started painting my dad. 

“It is not every day you get a chance to paint a man who hanged himself,” my sister said.  

I was speechless. I did not know to how to react to what was happening infront of my eyes. My mother has just abandoned my father for her young lover, my father had just killed himself, and my sister was calmly painting him hanging from the ceiling. I felt as if I was in a surrealistic movie which had no head or tail.After two hours, my sister had completed her task.

“Now, you can call the police,” she said. 

“Some people will see what I have done as cruel and utterly mad. But most people don’t understand that every great art must have a touch of cruelty and madness.”  

*****

My mother did not attend my father’s funeral. She said: “Everyone in the funeral will see me as the culprit who drove your father to take his own life. I cannot stand the idea of everyone staring daggers at me at the funeral. I have done nothing wrong. I am not in love with your father anymore. But society expects me to play the suffering wife and stay with him.No one is going to forgive me because I chose happiness over sadness.” 

*****

At my father’s funeral, my sister stood like a beautiful lifeless statue. Everyone thought my sister was too grief stricken to show any emotion. They never stopped hugging my sister. They never stopped consoling her. In reality, my sister couldn’t wait for the funeral to be over.She whispered into my ears: “Nobody told me that funerals can be so boring. Remind me never to attend another funeral again.” 

*****

A year after my father’s funeral, my sister had her first art exhibition. One of the paintings that she displayed was of our dad hanging from the ceiling. She had titled the horrible painting Breakfast in Bed. The darkness and the bleakness in the painting grabbed everyone’s attention. Breakfast in Bed brought fame and fortune to my sister.

 In a television interview, my sister told the reporter: “Breakfast in Bed is based on a true experience. A daughter wanted to surprise her father by serving him breakfast in bed. But when she entered the room, she found that he had hanged himself. Out of sadness, the tray that was in her hand had fallen on the floor. The daughter is not in the painting. But if you notice carefully, you will see the fallen tray in the painting.”

The reporter asked: “Is this story based on your experience?” 

My sister chose not to answer him and instead gave the reporter a sheepish smile. 

*****

My mother no longer wants to stay in this country. 

“This place has too many bad memories for me,” my mother said. 

My mother and her young lover moved to Bali where they run a small motel near a beach. 

“Maybe I will paint again,” my mother said. 

“Your sister is not the only artist in the family. I was an artist, too. Your father was a difficult man to please and being his wife kept me very busy. I did not have time to pursue my passion for painting. Now, I have all the time to pursue whatever my heart desires.” 

My mother was on a creativity roller coaster, churning out one painting after another. But all her paintings had one thing in common. Her young lover was in every one of them. Her young lover without clothes on...Her young lover with his clothes on...Her young lover taking a shower... Her young lover reading a book... Her young lover eating....

“You are obsessed with him,” I said.   

My mother answered: “I do not have obsession for him. I have an obsession for love. He taught me what love is.”  

*****

I was a tortured soul. The image of my father hanging from the ceiling haunted me.I had a hard time digesting that my mother and my sister felt no sadness over my father’s death. 

I have been seeing a psychiatrist over my depression. I told the psychiatrist everything about my life, including the fact that my sister calmly painted my dad hanging from ceiling. There was shocked look on the face of the psychiatrist. 

“Maybe you should ask your sister to join in our sessions,” my psychiatrist suggested.

“I do not think she will do it,” I said. 

“You have not asked her. You cannot make assumptions. Just ask her,” my psychiatrist said. 

I did what my psychiatrist wanted.And I was surprised that my sister agreed to take part in the session without any hesitation.  

“I do whatever it takes to make you happy,” she said. 

“Your happiness is my happiness,” she added with a sweet smile. 

In the session, the psychiatrist brought up the subject of my sister painting my father hanging from the ceiling. Laughing loudly, my sister said: “Do you really believe I will be that heartless to draw my father hanging from the ceiling? Doctor, I have one word of advice. You have to take whatever Malena says with a pinch of salt. Malena has an active imagination.”

My sister has a way of making people believe what she wants them to believe and my psychiatrist was no different. My psychiatrist ended up saying: “I will give Malena something to stop her from having more hallucinations.”

******

My heart could not take my misery any more. One night, I walked towards the ocean. I took off all my clothes and folded them neatly. I placed my clothes on the sand. Naked, I walked into the ocean.When I opened my eyes, I was hoping to see my father. But I did not see my father anywhere. I was in a hospital. I had been saved from drowning and now, I had been committed in a psychiatric ward. 

My psychiatrist said: “You tried to kill yourself. Do not worry. We will rescue you from your madness.”

*****

My first visitor in the psychiatrist ward was my mother, who had flew all the way from Bali. My mother said: “I have done a painting about us.I will hang it on your wall. It will add colour to your room.”

The painting had my mother and me sitting on the beach, enjoying a sunset.My mother’s young lover was in the painting, too. He was sitting between my mother and me. My mother said: “I could not leave him out. He taught me what love is.”

The next day the painting was no longer on the wall.

My mother said: “How could a painting just disappear into thin air?” 

My mother was certain that one of the patients from the hospital had stolen the painting. 

She said: “I will find the painting at all cost. Nobody steals from me.”  

My mother never found the painting. The painting did not disappear into thin air. The painting had not been stolen. The painting is in my stomach. I tore the painting into a thousand pieces and I ate every piece of it. 

 To read more get my book Bitter 

Born to Laugh

I am highlighting a short story that is featured in my book Bitter. Get a copy at your nearest book stores 

Story 2 
Title: Born To Laugh

“Mother, I never see you laugh. Why is that?”

My daughter was 10 when she asked me this question. Kissing my daughter’s forehead, I answered: “Some people are born not to laugh.” 
I lied. In the past, I loved to laugh.  Even the lamest joke could make me laugh my head off.  I have always been attracted to men who can make me laugh. I got married to a stand-up comedian. I laughed the loudest at his jokes. 
The moment my daughter was born, laughter just disappeared from my life. Motherhood has robbed me of my laughter. I could not give any rational explanation for the loss of laughter in me. No matter how hard I try, I could not bring myself to laugh. I could not even fake a laugh. I find nothing funny anymore.  
My husband said: “Your laughter was vibrant and full of life. I love the sound of your laughter. Why have you stopped laughing? I am the most unluckiest comedian alive. I can make the whole world laugh but not my wife.”
I did not have any answers for him. I could only stare at my husband blankly. Out of frustration, one night, my husband walked towards the ocean. He took off his clothes and walked into the sea. He left behind a suicide letter. All he wrote:” I do not want to be the unluckiest comedian alive anymore.” 
I never told my daughter the truth behind her father’s death. I cannot have my daughter hating me for driving the man she loved and called father to death. I told her that her father had drowned. 
“It was unfortunate accident,” I lied. 
My daughter believed every word I told her. My daughter should have known that there are some mothers you cannot trust. 

*****
I am envious whenever I hear the sound of laughter.  They do not know how lucky they are because they are able to laugh.  Once I was eating at a restaurant, I could hear laughter from the table next to mine.  The people who were laughing were a married couple celebrating their fifth marriage anniversary. Before leaving the restaurant, I approached the couple in love and said: “Never take your laughter for granted. Cherish your laughter. You will never know when God decides to be cruel and snatch away your laughter.”
The couple was stunned and had no idea how to react to what I had said. Slowly, I walked out from the restaurant. 

*****
Am I the only person in the world who cannot laugh anymore? Are there others like me? I wondered. Years later, I met someone who also was unable to laugh anymore. Never in a millions years did I imagine that someone would be my own daughter.  
She loves to laugh. Like me, the moment she had a child, laughter disappeared from her life. Motherhood had robbed her laughter. Her life has become a carbon copy of my life. 

*****
“Mummy, I never see you laugh. Why is that?” 

My granddaughter was only 10 when she asked my daughter this question. Hugging my granddaughter close to her heart, my daughter said: “Some people are born not to laugh.” 
My daughter lied. 

All About My Mother

Today I am highlighting a snippet of a short story that is featured in my book. 


All About My Mother By Bissme S

"You are too beautiful to belong to one man. You should become a prostitute."

The first time I heard those words, I was only thirteen.I was having a dinner with my parents in a restaurant. A tall man in a blue jacket sat at the table next to us.The tall man in the blue jacket had been staring at my mother from the moment we entered the restaurant. When we finished our dinner, the tall man in the blue jacket stood up and approached our table. Looking at my mother, he said: "You are too beautiful to belong to one man. You should become a prostitute."   
There was complete silence at our table. None of us knew what to say to him. We just stared at him. 
The man in the blue jacket had big smile on his face. Slowly, he turned around and walked out of the restaurant, laughing loudly. 
After the strange incident in the restaurant, our lives were never the same again. My mother stopped being a wife. My mother stopped being a mother. My mother abandoned us. My mother became a prostitute. 

*****
“Nobody loves her the way I love her. My love will bring her back,” my father said. 
My father worshipped the ground that my mother walked on. My father said: “She was my first love and I was her first love. Nobody forgets their first love. Your mother will come home. She will become a better mother to you and a better wife to me.”  
My father became a religious man. Every day, he begged the son of God to bring back the woman he loves into his life again. In the past, my father believed all religions was manmade. 
“Jesus is Santa Claus for adults,” he used to say. 
He loved making fun of God, Jesus and religious people in general. Not anymore. He said: “God has been kind to me. God blessed my life with so much happiness and love. But I was ungrateful. I abandoned God. I made jokes out of him. And God punished me. God made my wife abandon me. God wanted me to feel the pain that God felt when I abandoned Him.But now I am repenting my sins. One day, God will forgive me. God will make your mother stand in front of our doorstep with her two suitcases, begging for forgiveness.I will forgive her the same way God had forgiven me. We will be one happy family again.” 
My father has no doubt that God will give him a happy ending. As for me, I am totally convinced that God is obsessed with sad endings. 

*****
Twenty years have passed. My mother has not returned home. The doctors have found cancer in my father. His days on earth are numbered. My father said: “I want to die in the arms of your mother, the woman I love. I must pray harder so God will fulfil my last wish.” 
All of our friends and relatives had given up hope that my mother will return home. Not my father. 
“I have faith in God,” he said. 
“God is not cruel. God will not let me die with a broken heart.” 
Out of the blue, to everyone surprise, my father’s prayers were answered. My mother was standing in front of our house door, with her two suitcases. My mother had tears of regret.She begged for forgiveness. My father did not waste any time. He immediately hugged the woman he loves with all his heart. He said: “I forgive you. The past is the past. Do not talk about the past. Let us start a fresh life with a clean slate.” 
My father’s dream came true. Thirteen months later, my father died in the arms of the woman he loves. Before dying, my father said to me: “I told you that God is not cruel...God is great...God performed a miracle...God did not let me die with a broken heart.” 
But God was cruel. God was not great.God did not perform any miracles. God did absolutely nothing. God is just stood there like some useless statue and silently watched my father in misery.  
I went to see my mother. “I want to hire you.” 
That was my first sentence to my mother who I had not seen for two decades. She was still a prostitute and a proud owner of a brothel.  
I told my mother about my father’s illness. I said: “His last wish is to die in your arms. I want to hire you to play the good wife to my father. Make my father a happy man before he dies.”
“I can only love a man if I get paid and my services are not cheap,” my mother said. 
“I will pay whatever you want. My father must never know that I hired you. You must convince my father that you came home on your own accord, feeling regret over what you have done,” I said. 
A week later, my mother was in front of the doorstep of our house with her two suitcases. She had tears of regret.... 

******
The money I spent on my mother was worth it. My mother played the part of the good wife brilliantly. She brought back happiness, love and laughter into my father’s life. My father died with a smile on his face. My father did not have a clue that everything my mother did was a charade. 
The moment my father was buried, my mother started packing her suitcases. She was ready to go back to her old life. 
“You are leaving so soon,” I asked.
“My job is done here,” my mother answered. 
I said: “You could stay if you want. I will pay you to be my mother.”
She stared at me for the longest time. She said: “I can play any role my client wants except a mother. I do not think I will make a good mother.”  
I was furious. I was angry. I did not expect my mother would refuse my offer to be my mother. I shouted: “Mother, tell me why you abandoned my father? Why did you choose to abandon your son? Why did you choose the filthy road that you had chosen?”
Calmly, my mother took my hands in hers and gently kissed them. Looking into my eyes, my mother said: “When a girl is born, everyone teaches her to be a good daughter...To be a good wife...To be a good mother. But what if she doesn’t want to be a good daughter? What if she doesn't want to be a good wife? What if she doesn't want to be good mother? What if she doesn't want to be good? Do you think a woman has a choice not to be good?”
I did not have any answer for her.There was long silence between us. Then, slowly, she kissed my cheeks and whispered into my ears: “Not all women want to be good. Some women are born to be a woman with no morals." 
Carrying her suitcases in each hand, my mother slowly walked out of the house. I never saw my mother again. ( To read more Get a copy of Bitter) 

Kosmo Coverage

Recently the Kosmo newspaper covered me and my book. Below is the article that published