now that she’s gone
she left me on the 30th April this year, and the best part is i didn’t even get to say good bye. in fact, all i got was a phone call notifying me that she has left for good, gone off with another man to spend the rest of her life with.
i didn’t think much of it at first. i told myself that i could see it coming, and it was about time that she left me and made another person happy. I remember the first day i met her way back in 2001. And i can’t believe that she stood by me for the whole 7 years? i wasn’t really impressed with what i saw, i couldn’t imagine myself being with her at all, but i needed her as i didn’t have anything else. She definitely served me well, even though sometimes i got odd stares from people when i’m out with her.
It was 2001, and for the first few weeks, my family and i were often in a heated discussion because i told them that i wanted to get a suzuki FXR to ride to class. they kept telling me it wasn’t safe to ride a bike to school, whereas I on the other hand insisted it was fine, as i was already riding my mountain bike to class from subang to kelana jaya everyday. secretly, i wanted the fxr because i didn’t want to burden my parents by asking for anything else more expansive.
so that friday morning, i followed my dad to Sg. Buloh before class. We walked in to an empty lot and there she was, shiny and in my favourite colour, RED. my dad told me that he was going to buy me a kancil. i cringed at that thought. i once vowed to myself that i wouldn’t drive a kancil, just like how i would never ever ever ever ever drive a honda… any honda. but what could i have said? she was a 1995, a six year old car and we bought it for 13 thousand. in my heart, i felt a little weird and overjoyed. weird because i felt like a giant in such a small vehicle, overjoyed because i finally had my own car. i reached college and my face was beaming with joy.
months later, i saved enough cash and fitted her out with a cd player. then later on came the subwoofer and amplifier… she was definitely the loudest car i’ve been in. utter joy when i cruised down the streets, i couldn’t care less about what people thought of me when they say me with my windows down smoking a cigarette listening to No Doubts Hellagood or Eurhythmics Sweets Dreams on the radio. it was that year that i got involved in South Saturn Delta. And she became the official bandwagon. She took us everywhere, racing from LUCCT in Kelana Jaya on thursday nights to play at Waikiki, took us to Sri Damansara to the jamming studio, heck, once i even raced through the streets of old klang road heading towards PJ to withdraw cash in the wee hours of the morning because a friend of mine urgently needed cash as he got in trouble with some loan sharks. those where the days when i really enjoyed driving her, with her stiffened and lowered suspension. bliss.. i even remember using her to ferry around a mahjong table when the lan dou kuais (jeslyn, jerome, kee eng and I) wanted to play mahjong after class.
for my final year in college she served me even better. I ripped out the front and rear passenger seats to fit in the table i made for my project. i even got pulled over by the cops and got questioned about why i was overloading her.
“Encik, saya belajar lagi. Ini project saya (pointing at the table). takda kete lain nak pakai yang boleh muat meja ni.. nak sewa van pun takde duit”
i guess he couldn’t see a fault in it, and he let me off without a fine or anything.
but few years down, i began to neglect her i suppose. there were times when i was so broke, she ran out of gas a few times. me and my mates had to walk to a petrol station to fill a bottle with gasoline and drive her back. sometimes i got a little fed up. I kept taking her to the workshop and yet when she was out, another problem occurred. but what hurt me the most was to see that her paint was fading. from a deep red to a pale pink. but then again, it just cost too much to give her a new coat.
i called rueben the other night, told him that she’s gone. sold her to some other guy that wanted to give her a new turbo-ed heart.
“what the hell!! you sold your kancil? ah.. i’m gonna miss it. now that you mentioned it, i remember you car had this certain smell”
“What smell??” i asked
“yeah your car had the cigarettes mixed with some air freshener smell.. i’m sure going to miss it. aww man.. but your car really served you well man… driving to gigs and all that.. now we don’t have a bandwagon anymore”
“dude, stop talking like that lah… actually i’m starting to miss it also.. even though i used to complain about it all the time.. haih.. i guess i never really realised what kind of companion she was eh?”
and that was that. nowadays, i wake up from sleep, open the front get to leave for work. and she’s not there in her usual spot. no more red kancil with the www.foosball.com sticker at the back. no more red kancil with the FRAGILE sticker that rueben stuck on the rear. no more read red kancil with the faded pink roof and right fender. my only hope is that your new owner appreciates you more then i did, even with the new L200 turbo engine which he plans to put in you. i don’t even have a picture of you to emo about 
Monday, May 5th, 2008