The Story Of The Other Pied Piper

It was several nights after Raya that we decided to have dinner at KFC. Not sure if it was a wise choice but hunger drove our stomachs to make irrelevant decisions at times, even though we had practically stuffed our stomach non-stop since the end of Ramadhan.

At this particular time of the year, KFC was filled with kids in baju raya running about rampant, as if they were let loose only this one time a year, screaming and crying and spilling food and drinks everywhere, basically acting like little monsters on LSD. Not that I hate kids, just that I only ever pay attention to the cute ones, the rest I find annoying. I am secretly afraid that karma will play a cruel practical joke on me by granting me offsprings from the latter group in the future. I pray a lot that that won't happen.

It was pure luck that we found a parking spot without having to wait so long considering the crowd at that time. It wasn't a particularly favourable spot as it was located directly next to a huge dumpster. But beggars can't be choosers. Plus the three kids in our car were already starting to claw each other's eyeballs out, as a result for being in close proximity with each other for an extended period of time, so they have to be let out asap.

As my mother was perfecting her reverse parking, something peculiar caught my eyes. From where I was sitting inside the car, I noticed a figure squatting behind the dumpster, deeply preoccupied with something. Upon closer look, I realized that it was a young man, in his late 20s, fumbling through a large black plastic bag, bulging with trash.

Oh just another madman. Or another sad homeless. There are quite a few I recognize out and about the small town of Alor Setar. But not this guy. And so I continued to observe.

He had managed to collect several handful of fried chicken leftovers, that might last him for about three days, four if he's thrifty, and given that the chicken doesn't rot first. I wasn't the only audience there; the passengers of several other cars who were waiting for the next available parking spot were also watching with interest, or rather, for simply passing the time with this curious scene.

Just as we thought we had it all figured out, the guy gathered all his findings, put it on a piece of old newspaper and placed them on the curb that is quite far from the pathway of cars. He made a sound with his mouth and as if by magic, like Pied Piper blowing his horn, except that this time, what comes out from hiding were not rats but stray cats. They feasted on whatever the guy had collected like there was no tomorrow.

I felt like an asshole of the grandest kind when I compared myself to that guy with such a big heart and because I had quickly dismissed him as a loser homeless guy earlier. Turns out, he wasn't a homeless after all. I didn't notice that underneath the black jacket he was wearing, there was a vertical-striped shirt, a standard KFC staff uniform. I wasn't the only one engrossed with the scene, the rest of the audience was too. Apparently, the three little monsters in our car had stopped fighting with each other and had their attention fixated on the guy, the cats, and an unexpected act of random kindness.