DYING FOR PIZZA

 I said goodbye to my second daughter with a glad yet sad heart. She was leaving Msia, to join her husband who had left a day earlier for America, after his long 2 months' break back home. It would be 6 months before I get to see her again. She has been travelling to/fro USA multiple times over the past years, as he was working there. But after they got married (finally), it looks probable to be a permanent move. After she gets her spouse visa, who knows when she will be back. 

I am glad for them; of course they must stay settled together, no more separated, so they can build their own home, their own family. The day before she left, I sat her down to pray blessing for her new life as an "official" wife. Everyday ever since she was a teenager, when God gave me a vision of her as His flower, I have prayed she bloom with the beauty and fragrance of Christ wherever she is planted. I am so blessed God gave me visions for all my children from when they were young.  And that's what I told her to remember as I blessed her going, to begin a "proper" married life. I didn't expect to cry, after all, she has been coming and going so often; I should be used to it by now.  But mothers being mothers, I found myself choking and  tears welling up as I prayed. The day after, I walked into her room. As usual, it was still messy, though I could see she had tried to tidy it up. I thought of clearing the stuff lying around , but I couldn't get myself to do it. Maybe another day. Let it be for now. My one and only son left in the house told me he wasn't eating that nite. 

So it looked like (another) maggi mee dinner by myself. That's what I normally do, whenever I am home alone, which can be quite often. Like all young people, my children have always had their own things going on, which I know I  shouldn't begrudge. But instead of moping, I decided to go for a movie. That afternoon I had my weekly prayer session with the Orang Asli kids in the children's home where I volunteer regularly. Still I managed to make it just in time to catch "A Quiet Place - Day One" in the late evening. One of the perks of being a white-haired senior citizen is a cheap movie ticket. Especially on a weekday, you can have almost the whole hall to yourself - I counted 6 other souls with me in the cinema. 

I was first attracted by the mention of a cat in the movie review. Apparently Day One is the prequel to a popular alien movie series, which I had never heard of.  So I actually went for Frodo, the cat, which turned out to be a real beauty with its black/white fur, and a "purr-fect"  actor too, though it never uttered even a meow (unlike my own very noisy cat Maffin). Frodo was such a so-koool cat, strutting around in the chaos of New York City, which has been utterly overcome by ferocious gigantic spider-like aliens, bent on attacking anything that made any noise. Which meant everyone had to be (literally dead) quiet, in order not to be turned into instant very bloody minced meat. Hmmm, I wonder what if like the aliens, we can't see anything, but can only hear. We humans are so used to making and living in the midst of noise. As the movie begins, it flashes a note that the noise New York city makes measures 90 decibels. As a comparison, Google says the mean noise in KL during normal traffic conditions on working days ranged from 67.4 – 73.6 decibels. But I digress...

A Quiet Place didn't have many fancy scenes. It's really apocalyptic gloom and doom - well, it is a horror movie after all. Throw together a black woman dying of cancer and a white man who is her diametrical opposite,  emotionally scared of death into the chaos of an alien invasion.

The result is a very poignant drama of human relationships, spiced up by the spectre of horrid flying creatures all out to kill.  The gravity of the situation was very well accentuated by an effective music score. This is the first time I hear of Lupita Nyong'o, the lead actress. She is Kenyan/Mexican and has several international accolades to her name. With her big expressive eyes, she is very good as Sam, whose dying wish is just to get some pizza from her fave joint in Harlem, after attending a puppet show with her fellow hospice mates. But that involved maneuvering through an alien-infested city with her cat. 

The obvious contrast of Sam walking right in the middle and in the opposite direction of masses streaming out to get to the evacuation pier was so well-placed. When everyone is thinking of trying to stay alive, she is thinking of...pizza! Some may well question what's the (dumb) obsession with getting pizza, when you could end up as an alien's next dinner. 

But I perfectly understand Sam's mind. She's dying already anyway. It reminds me of my own husband, stricken with cancer. In  my desperation to keep him alive as long as possible, I put the whole family on an all steam, zero salt diet. After two days, he told me to just let him enjoy food while he could. Humans are so apt to get our priorities all wrong. It's as Jesus taught, in Matthew 16:25-26 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

So this woman's heart only yearns for the pizza from the days of her youth, when her father played beautiful piano music in a downtown pub. She isn't interested in a young man tailing her, but what starts as "tolerating" his presence grows into an inter-dependence that's beautiful to watch. There's no lovey-dovey romantic stuff. It's just an unspoken "caring" born out of the grit of having to face life's adversities together somehow anyhow. So they are both ok, ok, ok (the only words Eric, the male protagonist, can manage), even though their world is collapsing all around them.  And I guess watching her dying with such dignity grew him up.

There was a particularly touching scene when they made it back to Sam's apartment, and she finds all her pain medication gone. (I can relate to her distress; as I remember my husband's morphine patches, which are so necessary to ease the pain of the cancer in the body.) Both have been through harrowing moments, keeping quiet, trying to dodge the aliens.  Actually come to think of it,  it can be pretty hard trying to be quiet all the time; even breathing, especially hard breathing, panting or gasping emits noise. So it was indeed very clever of Sam to use a storm as a cover-up and a let-up for both of them to just scream out loud their pent-up fears and frustration as the thunderclaps resounded in the air. And that's when Eric rises up to be the hero, going out by himself to get the medication Sam needs. 

There were moments of suspense. As when Eric follows Frodo, the smart cat, leading him to perch precariously on a ceiling ledge with aliens just below them. And escaping the creatures in the surging waters of a subway tunnel, ending up safe...in a church,  alight with candles. It brings to my mind the words of the Bible in Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

There are tender scenes too. When they finally get to the pizza place, it's all destroyed. But Eric again hunts around till he manages to find another joint where, yes, he got Sam her pizza. And Sam, giving her (long dead) father's old jacket to Eric, as they stand on the balcony, watching the rescue boat that's moving out of the pier. And the final climax, when Sam tells Eric to "Run," as she distracts the aliens swarming around them. She deliberately makes loud noises, using a rod to smash/hit cars, drawing them her way, to open a way for Eric to jump off the pier and swim out to the waiting boat.

Of course, the ending is a foregone conclusion; Sam will die. But the way it was played out was so...moving. Eric is rescued from the waters. Clutching Sam's old jacket and Frodo, he reads her last message, telling him how to take care of her cat, as she thanks him for "bringing her home." And the scene flashes to Sam herself, smiling as she pulls the plugs out of her boombox player. As the lyrics "I'm feeling good" blasts through the air, aliens loom up behind her. 

What a way to go - with a literal bang. When it's time for me to go, that's how I want to go.. without any fear,  home to a place already reserved and prepared for me. I tell my kids, when I go, make my funeral wake a celebration, even as there will be mourning. For I know it's beautiful where I am going, where my husband has gone before me, where my good Father, my faithful God ..."will wipe away every tear from (my) eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away," and "these (His) words are trustworthy and true." (Revelation 21:4-5)