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