Voiceless

In Hokkien/Teochew (since I was brought up by a mixture of both dialects, I can't differentiate which is which anymore), they call it "teng kgam" which essentially means, contracting a flu on top of an existing one. Thinking that I was on the path of recovery, I was quickly back at work. I couldn't have been more wrong. Getting caught under the drizzle of the sunny Friday afternoon skies caused the second round of attack by the virus. Very slowly on Friday, I lost my voice.

Lack of sleep on Friday night didn't help so I reckon, sufficiently time with the Z monster should bring the voice back. So on Saturday night, after a game of mahjong with my folks when I was unable to audibly present my "requests" with the "pongs" and the "kongs", I took a wicked cocktail of medication and hit Z wonderland. After more than 12 hours of sleep, I was woken up by this horrible cough and it was so bad, I thought my lungs were dying of being overworked. Without having a need to speak to anyone, I forgot about my voice or in this lack, the lack of it. It was until my whining dog demanded a "yes, dear" from me that made me realised, I was the whimpering one.

Having no one at home for me to whine too, a very sick and miserable me started to "confide" in Tiger (my dog). Looking back, it was rather silly of me attempting to have a conversation with him. It was almost like a monologue and especially on days like that, the dramatic side of me prevails. So I went... "jie jie is sick...", "jie jie got no one to sayang", "jie jie no voice le" I wasn't super crazy, just ask any dog owner and they would be able to identify with me. But the very moment he started to whine back and when I put my face near, he started to lick my chin, I thought he might have understood how miserable I was feeling. There was a funny sense of relief.