Atticus Payne
Malay / sia
“Malaysian” is what this form, these cards, these checked boxes and black-white-gel-signed
pages will call me. Isn’t that apt? Malaysia—a country; a word; two words; a slash fitted
between my ribs, dragged down to gauge that pretty, neat wound. Fourteen red-and-white stripes
they form, a perfect mirror of the glorious stripes, the Jalur Gemilang.
Malay-sia: Malay-in-vain
A non-identity, a nothingness to encompass everything, left out in the cold because I, because all
of us, cannot share in that heart of “everyone’s family”. The blue of unity? It is royal blue; never
to forget the star and crescent that rule you. The fingers that hold the coveted pens, the ones that
sit on golden chairs, will never look like all of us. Malaysian?
We are not, and so we are.
I scribble it on that smooth form, the form I’m begging to be my ticket out of this suffocating
land, those neat little letters these fingers of mine have learned to write, obedient and ‘right’, tell-
taleing a polyphonic truth. Malay-sian. I am Malay-sian.
Anak Malay-sia.
Sia-sia je. Vain, all in vain, because I will never be able to say what it means, other than lines of
description running too long, telling the story of everything I am not.
Not Western enough for you. Not Asian enough for them. My English too obscure, my Chinese
too weak, my Malay a string of words that leaves my tongue in vain, always to sound a little
wrong; a little fake.
This is how I know I am Malay-sian. Malaysian I am not.
And what is that worth? Bersia-sia, pun.
Translations:
“Bersia-sia” / “sia-sia” both mean “in vain” or “uselessly”.
“Bersia-sia, pun”—”in vain after all”.
The Jalur Gemilang is the Malaysian flag.
“Anak Malaysia” means “child of Malaysia”.
Anxiety
Breathe. Breathe. As simple as an inhale and an exhale, yet so perfectly constructed, yes? What fantastic machines we are, fashioned organically by the creator. What there is in a breath. The pull of your diaphragm, the expansion of the chest cavity, pressure in and out. Calm. Calm. Think of breath. Remember? A swallow. Air rushing in, filling your lungs, oxygen squeezing in countless miniscule alveoli within the lining. Shh. Do you remember? The way it works? And then, next, the gaseous exchange. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. Fascinating, like clockwork. Yet adaptive, unlike metal and wheels. Aerobic turns to anaerobic respiration, burning glucose and oxygen to form adenosine triphosphate and setting your muscles, each cell that knits into tissues that pull on joints, bones, movement through this strange, dangerous environment. How well made we are. How I long to praise you, oh God. How I wish I could hear you now. Yet here you are, at the heart of everything, as you must be, just as you were previously, yesterday night when I wondered at the vastness of this existence. What is man that you condescend to him? Who am I that you would hold me up in pain? And yet the greatest One stoops to care over every human, contemptuous as we remain. Remember, remember. He has never, will never, can never leave you. He is here. Even now, he is here. In remembering, do you not feel him? That is how you know, in this time. That is how we all must know him. In words, in memory of all he is. Bits and pieces that come up at just the right time to prompt you every which way. In the storm of screams, here you are also. And you are unafraid. So what should I fear? It is all in your care. All I need do is wait and do the best I am able with the controls I have been given. That is all. How doable.
Previously published in Outlander Zine.
Atticus Payne is a teen writer and self-dubbed professional daydreamer. A Best of the Net nominee, she is also the publication director of healthline zine. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Outlander Zine, immortal journal, Paper Crane Journal, and others.
