Kwailo and Other Strange Tales

By Leon Wing

In this collection of strange Malaysian stories, a man expecting to have died wakes up still living and meets the entity responsible; a neighbor more than minds a child; Red Riding Hood gets a makeover to a Malaysian dystopia; the death of a husband spells more than loss; a father confronts foreign invaders; a Goldilocksian home invader must eat to survive; train passengers witness an accident; ghosts cross-dress, and others at a church get nostalgic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WingsWorldWeb
• Release date: Aug 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201679729

Leon Wing

Leon Wing's poems can be found in PoetryPoem, Readings from Readings 2, The Malaysian Poetic Chronicles, Eksentrika, Rambutan Literary, and Haikuniverse. A poem about the Syrian migration to Europe is featured in the Fixi anthology Little Basket 2017. He occasionally takes some poem apart and puts it back together, on the poetry blog puisipoesy.blogspot.com.   He has short stories published in Eksentrika, Queer Southeast Asia and the Canadian Asian literary magazine Ricepaper, and in anthologies like PJ Confidential and Remang, a collection of Malaysian ghost stories.

Book preview

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

THE SCANNING, UPLOADING, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [e-mail]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is coincidental.

COVER IMAGE BY STEFANO Pollio from Unsplash

About the book

In this collection of strange Malaysian stories, a man expecting to have died wakes up still living and meets the entity responsible; a neighbor more than minds a child; Red Riding Hood gets a makeover to a Malaysian dystopia; the death of a husband spells more than loss; a father confronts foreign invaders; a Goldilocksian home invader must eat to survive; train passengers witness an accident; ghosts cross-dress, and others at a church get nostalgic.

Kwailo

Ah Kow opened his eyes , and realized he was not in hell, nor in heaven, because the ceiling looked as familiar as ever in the morning light.

Last night, he hunched over a bathroom stool, scrunched his eyes shut to stop water getting in, and let his wife upturn a bucket over his grey hair. He washed his body of suds by himself, and she lingered behind the door. In the bedroom, he patted himself dry, aware of eyes boring into the back of his head. As he slipped his arms into a clean shirt, he told her to turn around while he drew up the pajama bottoms. After she left, he shuffled towards the headboard and laid his head onto a freshly cased pillow. He sighed and folded his hands over his stomach. At last he closed his eyes. He expected never to open them again next morning, when his wife would find his lifeless body, all washed and prepared for the coffin.

This morning his wife screamed when she entered his room. He wondered if she thought she saw his ghost. Or she was surprised he still lived past three weeks. That was how long he was expected to live.

He heaved himself up, as usual every morning—before he was expected to die—and dragged himself to the edge of the bed and slipped on his slippers. He took off the funereal clothes and put on normal ones. Should he feel elated to live another day? Or frustrated he had to go through the rigmarole of death preparations tonight?

The pain in his lower body attested to his existence on earth still, as he tried not to hobble behind his wife. As they passed the hall on the way to the kitchen, he saw she hadn’t taken down the cloth covering every mirror and reflecting surface. He averted his eyes from the coffin. In the kitchen he sat at his usual place at the table empty of breakfast. Of course,