#kolumpo

You’ve probably met Kolumpo before.

Maybe it was dark and there was music — loud, overwhelming. What music? Who cares? It didn’t matter. The club didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except that girl on the dance floor, who was so beautiful, and you wanted to come close—

Before some bitch elbowed you in the ribs and knocked the air out of you. “Woi, buto,” you hear, from below, followed by a shove. “Ini dance floor bapak engkau ke? Tepi la sikit!”

And you’ll look down and you’ll see the flash and frenzied movement, and there was Kolumpo. Dressed in clothes that didn’t seem to quite fit — like they were borrowed — the one thing that would draw your eyes to her would be her skin, marked with tattoos. A rose, here, a dragon there… are those scars? Maybe she doesn’t notice you, or she looks up, and sees you, rubbing your ribs, and gives you this insolent, shit-eating grin, revealing slightly crooked teeth, yellowed by cigarette smoke. “Padan muka,” that grin seems to say. Serves you right, asshole.

Maybe you want to have words with her, set her to her place. But the people she’s with seem a little too tough for you. Nothing you can’t take, no no no. But not tonight, man. Fuck this place. And so you slink back, muttering curses at kurang ajar bitches who don’t know their place… only to forget about it as the night goes on. Who knows?

Or maybe you met her… some place. She didn’t seem to fit in, but something about her compelled you. You buy her a drink, and she takes it, with a smirk. You ask her where she’s from. From here, she insists. No lah, where can, you say. You don’t sound local. Come on, now. Let me guess? Indonesian? Fuck you, she says. Myanmar, no way you’re Malay. She sneers and tells you what to suck and whose fetid orifice you can copulate with, in Canto. No way you’re Chinese, you say. Are you Chindian? She rolls her eyes and tells you which of your ugly family member you can conjugate with, in Tamil… and no, I’m not Chindian, asshole. And the evening can go two ways from here, with two different guesses. Guessing that she’s Eurasian will get you a slap in the face and that’s it for the night.

The other guess… well, it’s a night of passion, all right, not that you can remember what happened (all that booze went through you like a lead ball through butter, but went through her like water). But the morning means good-bye, and she’s gone, like a thief in the dark. Also, she took your money. And trashed your bathroom. And hey, why the fuck does your car have a scratches and dents?

Maybe you’ve seen her at a mamak stall in the wee hours, sitting by herself, quietly staring at the distance, wearing a pair of battered sunglasses, in ill-fitting clothes that are either too tight or too loose, like they’re borrowed from someone else. Her skin, you can see clearly now, marked with different tattoos, of kitchen gods and dragons, of beer logos and massage parlour signs, of lies and glamour and teeth piled on top of each other, over a network of scars on her brown skin (the latest being a large, livid one on her shoulder, scoring off what looks like a bit of beach and a coconut tree). And she must have caught you staring, because you hear, “Brader, lu tengok apa tu, brader?”, in her dark, husky voice, scarred by a lifetime of chain-smoking and something else, and you look up, and you see the grin on her full lips and her crooked teeth before she looks away (you never see her eyes), and takes a deep pull from her vape.

And before you’re able to answer, she’ll silently get up and walk away. And the ané comes back, and says, boss, itu pompuan kata lu kawan dia, lu bayar, ok?

And you do.