The 3am post

Just a gaze away from my window is the Ayer Hitam forest reserve. Honestly, it's the reason why I bought this house. I wanted to get away from it all. I needed a quite place to retreat to at the end of my work day. I want to be removed from humans as best I can at least for a few hours every night.

I grew up in a squatter house along Jalan Puchong. Old timers would know the place as the '10 Shophouses' area. There used to be, well, 10 shophouses across Jalan Puchong from where I used to stay. That was in the early 80s.

Puchong itself started the transformation into the bustling suburb today when the tin mines stopped being profitable. This was in the mid 80s. Some of you would recall the Black Friday stock crash in New York. I was too young then to understand the full reasons behind the Black Friday crash, and too disinterested now to read up about it. But it affected my life in more ways than I could ever forsee.

My father lost his permanent employment. My mum was forced to work. I had to learn to cook, clean the house, etc. - basically, I became replacement mum. And still had to score decent marks in Add Maths ...

Let's not stray too far from the topic. Even before Black Friday, the tin mining industry, of which my dad was associated with, had been on the slowdown. Black Friday just totally killed whatever life there was in it.

Puchong's tin mines were closed. And filled. And housing estates were built over the former mining land. Kinrara Court really started it all off. Then there was Bandar Kinrara. Then Puchong Jaya. And before you know it, today, there are more housing estates in Puchong than I'd care to remember.

Jalan Puchong was widened 4 times during my stay in the old house. The 10 shops opposite became many more. People started to pour in. Traffic started to stream constantly along Jalan Puchong.

Today, I can't imagine how I could have slept in my old place. The traffic never stops. The noise never ends. You could hear the show offs who were having drinks in the restaurant 4 lanes across Jalan Puchong from my old house speaking loudly into their brick phones just so that the whole restaurant would know they have a brick phone. There was a time when mobile phones were muses of the rich.

When fires break out in the illegal factories in Kg. Michael Chen, also across Jalan Puchong, I could watch from my window and actually feel the heat on my cheeck.

I can't imagine how far removed I was from that world here in my home now. It's still just less than 10 minutes away by car, but it's a million miles removed from here, if you ask me.

It's quite a funny thing - you yearn for what you don't have.

I wanted peace and quiet when I was in my old place. I hated the noise of the old Protons with their half broken engines passing the house. I hate the drunk folks singing hokkien songs in the middle of the night. I hated the fumes of all those sand carrying lorries fueling the construction boom in Puchong.

Now I have peace. I have quiet. But I'm feeling lately that it's too peaceful and too quiet.

I'm not longing for the sounds of a billion cars driving past my house everyday. No, not that kind of thing ... it's just that I feel ... lonely ?

I think I need some help ...