Tsunami - 6. Tsu Chapter 6

Meanwhile 130 kilometres south of Penang, in Ipoh, Perak, which is a city 200 kilometres north of Kuala Lumpur, a group of boys had just arrived at the St Michael’s Institution, that will be housing up to 200 orphans, as a result of the tsunami, and amongst them, were two young brothers, who looked only part Malaysian, who spoke the language but because of the shock of the event, they could not remember who they were.

The only thing that they had on them was a small pewter necklace each, with just the letters BA and GA on them, and so the nuns at the orphanage gave them the names Bashar and Ghani, and they were given shower and fresh clothes, food to eat and bed each to sleep in.

After a few days, Bashar said when asked by one of the nuns, if he remembered anything of what happened to them, and he said that he and his brother were sent to the car to get changed out of our swimming trunks, when the big wave came, and pushed the car a long way away from the beach.

He said that he remembers when the car stopped moving that there was a lot of water on the floor of the car, and that there was a lot of water around it, so he and his brother stayed in the car till the water went down, before getting out of the car and walking around to look for food and water, that was all he could remember.

During the next two weeks, Kyle and I took it in turns to look after the boys, while the other went searching for any signs of Mei and the two older boys, and with each day passing the more worried they became, as there was so sign of the Mei or the boys anywhere.

Finally, Kyle managed to convince me to return home to Western Australia, and that we would remain in contact with the embassy in Singapore, for any news of any sign of Mei Ling and the boys. I couldn’t live in my home any more as it had too many memories of my missing family, and so Kyle gave up his rental in the city and moved into the house to keep it lived in, just in case Mei returned to her home, while I bought a three bedroom duplex in a nearby suburb, and employed housekeeper to come in to cook and clean three days a week.

Luckily I am self-employed and so I was able to have more flexible hours, to fit in with the times that the boys were not in day care, I was able to continue with work at my computer store, which I had worked hard to establish since completing my computer engineering degree at University, and I have now expand it to provide the electronic parts and software, that I had a part ownership in located in Malaysia, and with a little bit of promotion and the fast spreading of word of mouth, my staff and I were being kept very busy, and this resulted in renting the vacant business unit next door, to allow for the extra demand that was coming from the stock coming from Malaysia.

For the first few weeks since returning from Malaysia, I had been so busy with work and the boys; that time went past very quickly, on the Friday evening of the second week, I was just doing some book work from the business, when there was a knock on the door. I was a bit surprised at this, considering that it was after 9pm, and I knew that Kyle had flown back to Kuala Lumpur, to check with the progress with the searching for missing people.

When I looked three the security peep hole, I was surprised to see younger brother Jared standing there, and also I could see the shoulder of a second person standing next to him, so I stepped back, unlocked the door and I was very surprised to see my youngest brother Isaac standing there with Jared, with a suitcase in his hand, and he was showing the signs of good sized black eye developing, which shocked me a lot, as I stood aside to let them both in.

I had been keeping in touch with Jared on a weekly basis, to get any news on the family, as it was hard getting any information from our mum, when our dad was present; Jared was living on campus while he was doing his university studies, so this left just Isaac left living at home. While my younger brothers went into the lounge, I made my way into the kitchen to make some tea, and I also grabbed an Icepack from the freezer, wrapped it into a tea towel, and went into the lounge to hand it to Isaac, before returning to the kitchen.

Once all 3 of us were seated in the lounge, I looked at Jared and raised an eyebrow, before glancing briefly at Isaac, to indicate that I wanted the full story of what is going on. For the next twenty minutes, Jared and Isaac filed me in on what had been happening at home since I had been away in Malaysia, with Dad getting on the booze a lot more, and being physically and verbally abusive to both Mum and Isaac.

They also informed me that it all ended up in a big argument just before dinner, when Dad made a nasty comment about only having three sons, as the oldest son does not exist, and Isaac stood up to him, saying that Kyle does exist, and that he is still his oldest brother.

This was enough to send Dad into a mad rage, and he started throwing furniture around before starting to his Isaac, until eventually Mum manage to talk Dad into just sending Isaac upstairs to his room. Isaac said once in his room, he packed as much of his belongings as he could into a suitcase and backpack, including his school uniform and books, and climbing out the window, were he began the 6 kilometer walk to the university, to get help from Jared, and he suggested coming here to my place.