[BUKU FIXI] NOVEL FXI - KL NOIR: MAGIC

Terbitan: BUKU FIXI

SHORT STORIES BY:

• LILY JAMALUDIN
• COLLIN YEOH
• BISSME S.
• MUTHUSAMY PON RAMIAH
• TERENCE TOH
• P. MAHEWARY
• HONG JINGHANN
• NADIA MIKAIL
• NAT KANG
• MASAMI MUSTAZA
• LEE CHOW PING
• NAZREEN ABRAHAM STEIN
• JOSHUA LIM
• SHALEEN SURENDRA
• SHARMILLA GANESAN
• RIZAL RAMLI
• LIM VIN TSEN
• DEREK KHO
• FADZLISHAH JOHANABAS
• SUKHBIR CHEEMA

JOB (STREET) X NAT KANG

The arrival of the internet started it all, in the dimly-lit corners of cyber cafes which were often difficult to twll apart from the nearest brothel. For a while, it wass possible to find swarms of students in cyber cafes after school, their school shirts turnes inside-out, until the signs above the counters forbade entry to those wearing inside-out uniforms.

Naturally, the students started getting in with a change of clothes. And soon enough, some of them got into earning decent cash with what some would consider to be unsavory behaviour. Yours truly included, of course.

My side income grew even as my grades dropped, and by the time I scraped a string of passing grades for the last tests I'd do in a school uniform, I was probably earning more than my mother did at her office job. Still, I blundered my way into getting a diploma at her insistence, and that was probably the last time she was truly proud of me.

Then came what I'd like to think of as the wilderness years. I moved out from my family home into a nocturnal lifestyle. Thanks to my years of discreet service and a reasonably clean-cut appearance, I was one of a few whose perks of the job meant never needing reservations nor cover charges to enter any of KL's most prestigious clubs, if you know what I mean. 

Life soon became a morass of pulsing house music, neon lights, and the warmth of grinding bodies on a dance floor. I started losinh track of the date but never of time, since daybreak was when I'd curse the sun for not letting me fall asleep after a hard night's work. Or a hard night's partying. Or both, some days I look back and give up trying to make sense of it all.

People said the world was going to end in 2012, and it very nearly did for me. One batch of contaminated product, a few insignificant people died, and I got beaten into a week at the hospital. Never mind that quality control wasn't actually my job, so to speak.

2013 came along, with me waking up on election day in a tangle of limbs that weren't mine, but which were as covered in questionable stickiness as fingers in indelible ink. I barely made it in time to vote, yet was early to a party that night-one that probably had more Greek spirit than the democratic processes earlier in the day.

And then there was 2014. That was the year I left KL with a bounty on my head.

Long story short, some VVIP's idiot offspring overdosed, and demands were made for someone's head to roll. Add in some young punks who thought they could do my job and who knew of the 2012 incident, and I became persona non grata almost overnight.

I barely made it out of Malaysia before they finally decided to come for me.