The Devilish Enticement (Fiction)
The alarm clock beeped twice. He sat up and switched it off quickly. He looked around for a while. Tranquility had overwhelmed the whole town as it was 2AM in the morning. He slipped down from the bed, and changed into black jeans and a leather jacket. He listened out for any kind of noise inside the house. Complete silence. He took 20,000 kyats stolen from his mother’s wardrobe early in the evening from under the pillow. Finally wearing a leather bag across his shoulder, he was ready.He lifted up the bolt of his window as silently as possible. Outside, there was only an occasional passing of a car but nothing else. Giving back a final glance around his room, he climbed out of the window onto the street. It was lucky for him that his parents had let him have the bedroom on the ground floor. The window was left opened ajar to make it ready for his sneaky return at dawn. The concern for thieves or burglars was not the first priority at the moment. His heart was pounding, and beads of sweat were flowing down his forehead. He jogged along the street frequently turning his head behind his back and up at the buildings around.
Nearly 10 minutes later, he saw the karaoke house two blocks away from his home.
“ Hey, man, come quickly. You’re late,” Zayer beckoned him. Thiha and Nyi Nyi were already at the entrance of the KTV house, pulling funny faces at each other. He crossed the road over to Zayer.
“How’s everything?” How much did you bring?”
“20,000. It’s enough for a section, isn’t it?”
“Sure, here it’s only 10,000 for a perfect chic. Not like in Pioneer. Why are you so wet?” Zayer snapped, observing his friend’s sweaty face closely.
“I’m goddam excited. Don’t get yourselves too drunk. Remember I must be on my bed before five,”
“Fine. OK. You’re 16 now. We all are. Stop being like a kid. By the way I like your necklace. Looks like 50Cent’s. It’s cool,” Zayer pulled his friend close to him. Together they walked in.
As soon as they got inside, Kyaw Kyaw pressed his palms hard against his ears. For someone like him who had never been to a place like this, the music seemed quite deafening. The KTV house was opened like a club after midnight. His three other partners weaved in and out of the crowd shaking their bodies to every beat of music. Kyaw Kyaw had known Zayer, Thiha and Nyi Nyi since they were all in the eighth standard. He had been influenced by the rebellious son of a widowed veteran, Zayer, after their cooperation in a street fight some months before.
They all finished the preliminary examination for college a month ago. Only Kyaw Kyaw had the plan to go to college. Others were thinking about working in Malaysia. These four boys had been roaming the Cyber Game centers in and around Tamwe since after their examination. They enjoyed spending nearly 10 hours a day at any Game centre. Slowly their addiction took them beyond borders to the things inappropriate for youths under 18. The Internet Sex Games. At first Kyaw Kyaw was reluctant to join his pals at playing games for hours on ends. He found it hard to cast aside the temptation of sex games after Zayer had lured him into giving a try. Practical lessons were no unfamiliar to Zayer and his gang, but Kyaw Kyaw had not experienced a thing as yet. Zayer, therefore, had persuaded him to steal some cash, and had urged him to have a taste.
Kyaw Kyaw followed his pals towards the bar. His eyes were roving around the club. They ordered four glasses of beer, and Zayer turned to him.
“ Look over there. Those are the specialties. Go talk to them. Choose one and get the party started,” Zayer gave Kyaw Kyaw a push on the back.
Gripping the glass in his hand, Kyaw Kyaw gingerly walked over to a group of girls sitting on a big sofa in the corner. After a few minutes’ chat, he picked one girl. When she stood up, a woman with a hoarse voice approached him. She told him the price, and asked them to follow her upstairs. He glanced back at his gang. He saw Zayer giving him a salute, and the other two beaming. His body jerked in excitement as the girl put an arm around his neck with the other hand lingering around his belt. After the woman, they walked up the stairs to a small bedroom.
It was a quarter to five in the morning when Kyaw Kyaw flopped into his bed exhausted. He made sure the remaining cash and the clothes he had worn to the club were safely hidden in his wardrobe. A new type of satisfaction and triumph seemed to have renewed his individual cell. He fell into a sound sleep.
He opened his bedroom door. The usual uproar of baby cries, his parents’ rows and the taboo words his grandfather used whenever his broken leg annoyed him was too much to bear sometimes. He went into the kitchen. On the table were left only two pieces of traditional Myanmar pancake. Everyone else had finished breakfast. While he was making coffee, his father stormed into the kitchen. His mother was yelling at him from the other room. They were arguing over the bill. He had endured this troubled life from a very young age. His grandfather commanded him to buy him some cigarettes from his room upstairs when the boy left the kitchen with his coffee. In this manner he had learnt to smoke since he was 12.
A week later, Nyi Nyi, who lived four blocks away from him, called. Kyaw Kyaw was delighted to hear his friend’s successful attempt at arranging a date for him and the girl he had been chasing. Yadanar, the girl of Kyaw Kyaw’s dreams, lived in the same street as Nyi Nyi. Now in a few days, he would be dating his dream girl. Resting in front of the computers at the Game centres till sunset was the very leisure for these four kids during their gap year. Kyaw Kyaw was busier than the rest for he had a girlfriend to date. He even denied Zayer’s offer to pay the club another visit.
One evening, about 3 weeks after his night at the club, he was in the shower. He accidentally felt some small swellings around the neck. They were not painful, so he ignored them. The next morning, he woke up to find himself hot with rashes all over the body. His fever was easily cured with home treatment three or four days later. In the months following, Kyaw Kyaw continued relishing the pleasure of sex games, Dota, Counter strike and many other cyber games with his pals. He did not take the frequent appearance of swellings on his neck and loins seriously. He was careless enough not to notice a few white patches in his mouth as well.
It became his duty to take Yadanar home from the computer class she was attending in the evenings. They were strolling along the street after the class one evening. Next year Yadanar would go to college to study law. However, having achieved only one distinction at the exam, he would do a correspondence course at college to study Mathematics. They both shared the sorrow, and kept promising each other to stay in love. He left her at her house, and strode back to his, shoving his hands in the pockets. The northwest wind of December was chilling the atmosphere.
He knocked on the front door. His mother hurried towards him with the key.
“I’m waiting for you. You need to go to Yangon General Hospital with your father right away.”
“ Why, mom? What happened? Is Soe Soe alright?”
“ It’s not about your brother. Your cousin. Aung Lay, is in hospital now. He got hit by a car, and he needs surgery. They say it’s emergency. The doctors are looking for blood donors.”
“ Oh, this is no good. How’s he?”
“ How will I know? Your aunt just called. She’s devastated. Go now. Your father’s waiting.”
Kyaw Kyaw and his father took a cab. Fortunately, the traffic on that Saturday night failed to delay their arrival to the hospital. Once they met the wounded boy’s parents, they were told that two litres of blood were needed to be reserved for the emergency operation. The boy was hurt on the belly, and the operation had already been started. Kyaw Kyaw and the boy’s father had the same blood group “A” as the boy himself. Therefore, a young doctor took their blood samples for infection screening. They all waited. Of course, the mother was sobbing.
Nearly 15 minutes later, the same doctor gestured the two elderly men to follow him to an office. Inside the office, an older doctor asked them to sit down.
“ Is any one of you the guardian of Kyaw Kyaw?” the doctor asked.
“ Yes, sir. I’m his father,” one of the men replied.
“ Can you please wait outside for a while?” the doctor politely said to Aung Lay’s father. The man obeyed with curiosity on his face.
This worried Kyaw Kyaw’s father more. Only he and the two doctors were left inside.
“ Do you know anything about the current health condition of your son?”
The man shook his head innocently. The two doctors exchanged glances.
Then, the gloved hand of the younger doctor put a strip of white paper on a piece of tissue on the table. It had streaks of blood on it.
“ I’m afraid your son is HIV positive. See these two lines,” the senior doctor pointed at the strip. It was, in fact, a rapid test kit to detect HIV infection. The doctor explained that more blood samples were required for confirmation at the National Health Laboratory. The kid was not allowed to donate blood to anyone at the moment. The father was requested to bring his son in into the office for inquiry.
Kyaw Kyaw, like his father, was blacked out when the finding was first informed. At last he confessed. His unusual addiction to internet sex games enticed him into spending a wild night with the prostitute. He had lacked the knowledge to make it well protected sex using condom. All they had to do now was to patiently wait for the confirmation from National Health Laboratory. The doctors even persuaded them to encourage the boy’s friends to have their blood checked.
For the following two weeks, it was like hell to Kyaw Kyaw and his family to wait for the confirmatory test result. Remorse made him bed-ridden. His parents had already begun planning to move to another place. His silence irritated his friends and girlfriend, so they visited his house. His mother cleverly convinced them that he had been on a trip with his grandparents.
It happened to be on the first day of his college student’s life that the truth was confirmed. He and his family were summoned back to the hospital to be educated on the nature and ways of transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Antiretroviral therapy was prescribed to him.
After the consultation, they were waiting for a taxi at the gate of the hospital. No one spoke. Kyaw Kyaw’s heart sank when he saw his mom’s tears falling onto the clothes of the baby in her arms. He ducked his head. It was like the end of the world to him. He could find no word either to comfort or to apologize to his parents. When they got home, the grandfather called out to Kyaw Kyaw.
“ Here, a girl came and gave me this. She said you two are very close friends. I think she is called Yadanar or something.”
The boy took a pink envelope from his grandpa. He opened it. It was an invitation to his girl’s birthday party. He turned his head away clenching his teeth. Immediately he walked into his room, and slammed the door behind him. He took his match out from the drawer, and set the envelope on fire.
