<H1>Chapter 4</H1> <br/><p>At a nursing home seventy-five kilometers down a winding road from Taluk Kuantan, a ninety-seven-year-old man finally surrendered to death. His death was well deserved, even considered overdue by most of the people of Taluk Kuantan. The general consensus was that he should have died years ago, and he had long since been forgotten by most of them.</p> <p>The generally religious newcomers to Taluk Kuantan had fostered a communal belief that God would not allow evil like that to remain in the world for long. He was the scapegoat for everything bad that happened in their region. They considered him a Devil worshiper.</p> <p>His madness and his ramblings about ghosts and demons confirmed their belief in his blasphemy and strengthened the faith of residents divided according to their respective schools of thought.</p> <p>Salman Rusydi moved to Taluk Kuantan in the late fifties to work at the Public Cemetery. The town cautiously accepted him and several members of his family at first, but his first trip to Pucuk changed that.</p> <p>Before then, he had been a solitary, hardworking man who respected the dead but wasn't afraid of them. Their opinion of him began to change shortly before he was expelled for the first time.</p> <p>Salman's unusual activities before and after his trip to Pucuk deeply disturbed the religious scholars, although the townspeople initially didn't know what the real problem was.</p> <p>Salman was rumored to perform strange and unacceptable rituals close to midnight in the cemetery where he carried out his “duties.” The townspeople never understood why the Dermawan family, the respected owners of the cemetery grounds, allowed such improper behavior to continue right under their noses. But it did, for years—except during the periods when Salman was shackled at Pucuk.</p> <p>Those who had seen him walking across town in the middle of the night, rambling and ranting to his invisible traveling companion, chose to avoid him by doing outdoor activities only while the sun was still shining.</p> <p>Rumors spread quickly, and the residents of every house he passed would stare from their darkened windows as he returned home. Sometimes they even saw him running down the street as fast as he could while shouting incoherently, as though he were being chased by the Devil himself. Not one person ever tried to help him during all the years he spent in Taluk Kuantan.</p> <p>As his life drew to an end, he caused no end of commotion among the residents of Taluk Kuantan. His “spiritual” activities drifted further and further into frightening and imaginative territory as he aggressively approached people and warned them about the demons surrounding their peaceful town. The psychiatrists at Pucuk attributed it to chronic paranoid schizophrenia when he was finally admitted there again for the last time, around ten years ago.</p> <p>By then, even the latest medications couldn't unravel the deeply rooted delusions filling his ever-shortening life. He gradually disappeared deeper into his own strange world, spending his remaining years wandering the halls and corridors of the nursing home.</p> <p>Yet, as if he had received mystical foreknowledge of the time of his death, Salman Rusydi asked the nursing home director to meet with him several hours before what would become the final moments of his life.</p> <p>He claimed to have urgent business that needed to be handled after his death, if not sooner.</p> <p>“Yes, what can we do for you?” the director asked suspiciously when he entered his office, aware that Salman's brain had been completely scrambled lately.</p> <p>“You must send this envelope to someone in the town of Taluk Kuantan. You must do it immediately, or you will suffer for your failure!” he rasped hoarsely, as though he were about to breathe his last.</p> <p>“I'll make sure your request is fulfilled immediately, Mr. Salman,” the director said sarcastically.</p> <p>Although violent threats at the nursing home weren't unheard of, no one who was already half in the grave had ever threatened him with such venom. Especially not a deranged patient like this old man.</p> <p>He was well aware that Salman had a long history of mental disorders, but Alzheimer's must have taken hold of him over the past few years, driving him deeper into the abyss of madness.</p> <p>Taking the envelope, the director left the old man to die in his own time. Perhaps the pale green color would soon fade from his face on its own.</p> <p>Pale green was not a sign of a healthy human being, and it certainly wasn't something easily forgotten. Perhaps the old man could be transferred to the local hospital. They were generally more than happy to collect a few extra dinars, regardless of the obligations that would have to be handled if he died.</p> <p>When the director entered his otherwise well-kept office, he tossed the envelope onto the one-meter-high stack beside his desk. There were too many important things demanding his attention. Later, he would hand the envelope to someone to deal with properly, but it wouldn't be done that afternoon.</p> <p>After all, it was already five in the afternoon, and everyone, himself included, had more important things to deal with. Besides, he had to go home and inspect his house after the major earthquake he'd felt the previous day.</p> <p>The television news had reported that its epicenter was about a hundred kilometers away, but no one knew what would happen to structures built without regard for the region's history of earthquakes.</p> <p>Hopefully his house was still habitable, so he wouldn't have to move back into one of the squalid shacks on the grounds of the Pucuk complex. He needed to keep his distance from this nursing home facility as often as possible to preserve his own sanity.</p>