I, OF ALL people, will attest that the heinous haze is no choking matter, and certainly nothing to sniff at.
Each time chain-smoking Indonesia exhales in our direction like a disdainful Parisian, my health is invariably b*tch-slapped and I end up clinging to life support.
Each time the haze strikes, my rockin’ body goes on strike. Firstly, within minutes of catching the slightest whiff of Eau de Indo (no ethnocentrism intended – I am of Indonesian descent), my unshakable rhinitis and sinusitis flare up OPERATICALLY. A tremendous, hours-long sneezing aria unfolds, climaxing with me shooting my pancreas through my nose.
Next to display their talents are my chronic poor blood circulation and tendency to light-headedness – after just a few lungsful or smoked Sumatra, I’m floored by violent dizziness and nausea, face mask or no. As I spastically struggle to stay upright, keep my lunch down, and hold my breath while in public, no one comes to my aid, as I look like I’m being electrocuted.
Also getting in on the act is my incorrigible Irritable Bowel Syndrome, which reacts to haze exposure by inciting by digestive system to throw a diva fit (perhaps vaping is more its thing?). I instantly experience tremendous stomach upset, and futilely wrap my arms around my gangsta-rapping belly, as I pray that my silk-and-lace undies can handle a minor oopsie.
In a star-is-born appearance for the current haze season, my obstinate eczema has surprisingly stolen the spotlight and is chewing the scenery. On any given day now, you can find me rolling around on the ground, squirming from the fire of prickliness and irritation lashing my skin. Even my hair and internal organs feel itchy.
(With my long list of chronic ailments, I’m wondering why I haven’t been euthanized).
Oh, and of course, my eyes feel raw, as if I’d never been taught how to blink; and my throat feels abraded, like I’d been swallowing uncooked pasta.
(It would probably help if I’d slap on an N95 face mask and goggles each time I let myself loose on the world, but I already modelled that look during the last haze crisis in 2015, and I’d be damned if I’d commit the fashion faux pas of “repeating”.)
However…
Despite my haze martyrdom, as I lie on my deathbed once again, in a state of total delirium (hence this article), I clutch at straws and try to determine the pros of being suffocated and bathed by pollution. I am determined to see the proverbial silver lining to this toxic cloud, which may simply be obscured by thick smoke.
Here are five things I was able to cough up:
1) If I were to dress up in an all-beige ensemble – hat, shirt, pants, thong, open-toed stilettoes – I’d effectively fade into the background when outside. Once camouflaged, I could go on a rampage across the land, undetected. There’d be places I could infiltrate, people I could avoid, and gay sex videos in Sabah hotel rooms I could secretly record.
2) There’s a skyscraper about 1.5 kilometres to the south of my house, which dominates the view through my front window. It resembles a broken Transformer giving birth. Its tragic aesthetics have abused my eyesight for years. The haze now mercifully obscures it from view, like a giant cataract.
3) I enjoy seeing weird things in amorphous objects like clouds and smoke, less because I’m extremely creative or visionary, and more because I’m bonkers. I haven’t yet seen Jesus on a piece of toast floating in the haze, but here’s hoping.
4) I’ve always wanted more street cred, and as a kid, I thought taking up smoking was the way to earn it (didn’t we all?). Smoking never took (I accidentally swallowed a cigarette butt and was mortified), but with the lung cancer and emphysema I’ll undoubtedly contract from the perennial haze, I’ll finally have the respectability of a dying, life-long chain smoker.
5) Face masks tend to make me feel deliciously nefarious and mystifying. It also does wonders in concealing whatever blemish I might have erupting on my face (in my case, my face IS my blemish). I could also try my luck at holding up a gas station or two – for N95 masks.
So now that I’ve worked myself up into a frenzy, I’m going to grab my IV drip, my crutches, my urinary drainage bag, and my oxygen tank, and I’m going to go out there and haze the roof!
I’m going out in a haze of glory!
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times