The writer

Keywords: Brunei, contemporary literature, short story, Mussidi

Literary work of the Bruneian writer Mussidi (real name - Haji Morshidi bin Haji Marsal, born in 1955 in Brunei/Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam) falls at the end of the XX-beginning of the XXI centuries. After completing his secondary education in his homeland in 1974-1977, he continued his studies in the UK with a degree in art and design in education and received a corresponding diploma. Ten years later, in the UK, he completed a one-year course in electronic graphics. However, from a young age, Mussidi was drawn to writing.

He began publishing in the then-only Brunei magazine Bahana, as well as in Malaysian and Singapore publications. It is no coincidence that Mussidi's first stories revealed his own style, reflecting his art history education and skills in electronic graphics. In his miniature humorous and satirical stories, characters are often animated in nature, their manifestations in actions and feelings are exaggerated, events are accelerated to fit into a few lines of ^a short story1.

Mussidi is now retired, but still works as a design consultant for radio and television in Brunei. He continues to write short stories, describing himself with his usual humor as "the son of a Brunei frog"². His humorous literary miniatures grotesquely reflect the contradictory world of people with their problems and sorrows.

Below is an abridged summary of several of his short stories.

"Chaos"³. Mussidi tells readers about the incident at the vegetable market.

A curly-haired customer is outraged by the high price of spinach. The old merchant shouts and swears. Curly doesn't get involved in swearing. The noise attracts the attention of the entire market. A crowd of onlookers gathers.

The merchant is fuming, expressing long-accumulated discontent: the house burned down, did not receive help, rice was washed away by the flood, its remains were gnawed by mice, vegetables do not give income, fertilizers are not available at prices; how to live - 8 children are on her shoulders, and her husband can only do what children do. The woman began to cry.

Curly was taken aback. Then the fat man came up and slapped curly hair without a word: don't hurt the old woman. The fat man gave a lecture on respect for elders. The merchant weeps, lamenting her misfortunes. Curly is ready to fall through the ground. The crowd is waiting for developments. People grumble, wasting time waiting. Their whole lives are filled with expectations: waiting for a late bus, waiting for a salary increase, waiting for their husband to return, waiting in line at the dentist, waiting in line at the public toilet, waiting for the end of advertising on television...

Curly shivers, almost losing consciousness. Something is expected of him. He babbled: he was married for 5 years, had no children, and now his wife got pregnant, and she was drawn to spinach. He began to cry. They are both crying with the merchant. The crowd was moved, sobs were heard, one by one people were infected with deep sadness and remembered the bitterness of their lives, crying in a noisy crowd.

Curly listened and watched in confusion: one woman complained about her daughter who lost her virginity early; her mother-in-law was sad that she was ashamed to have a grandson born from an extramarital affair; one woman screamed about an unfaithful husband; someone's husband died in a road accident; a guy shed tears - he didn't have a job for a long time 10 years old; an old man swore that he couldn't possibly die; a woman sobbed about her daughter who died during an abortion; a boy's soul aches because of taunts about his bribe-taking father; a man swore at his drug-addicted son; a small child cried, he was not allowed to watch TV; someone is unhappy in love; a man cried because of a bald spot on his head; a girl was indignant that she was raped; a teacher grumbled at his students who did not want to think, read poorly; a disgruntled person was angry that the teachers in the school were completely stupid; a wife wept because her husband was a drunkard and a gambler...

The vegetable market was awash in tears. Everyone was crying, gradually forgetting what they were crying about, and it seemed to them that crying was commonplace, as if they hadn't stopped crying since they were born...

Five policemen, several officials, an imam, a journalist came, and surprised passers-by approached.

Curly kept muttering about his beloved wife, who was pregnant with spinach, and this merchant inflated the price. He loves his wife very much... His love today depends on the price of spinach, and it is sold too expensive.

The merchant lamented about the difficulties of life: if not for the need, she would not have sold dearly...

Bruneian literary critic Amin Amaluddin sees the story "Chaos" as a symbolic picture of today's society with its economic and social problems4, with dissatisfaction with life, as different people vie with each other.

In the story "Heart"⁵, which Professor Brahim of Brunei University called a caricature ⁶, the client gave his heart to a doctor for examination and treatment. The doctor took the heart, put the label on it, and put it in the refrigerator. A week later, the patient came back for his heart. The doctor searched for it for a long time in a box with other human organs piled there, but could not find it...

Mussidi was a pioneer of this style in Brunei, then there were followers. His mini-isto-

The stories, written in an original combined style, where the narrative flashes like an oral narrative and reflects the life of ordinary Malays like a mirror, attracted the interest of readers of the Malay world - in Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore.

Here is the story "Insomnia"⁷. A 40-year-old owner bought a bull calf and taught it to talk for ten years. From year to year, the host poured out to the bull-listener his thoughts on politics, economics, religion, culture, philosophy, etc.

Experiencing insomnia, the owner often read books to his ward all night with the lights on, and he slept sweetly to the singing of the river flowing nearby...

Then one day the owner's wife suddenly heard the bull's voice: "It's going to rain, I can feel it in my bones." The woman ran into the house in a cold sweat. Sure enough, it was raining. And the bull said again,"I told you it was going to rain."

"Not only is your master crazy, I'm already crazy too!" the confused woman said. But when she learned that other people had also heard the bull speak, she was overjoyed. And so the whole village reached out to the bull to ask their questions about education, economics, politics and get answers.

The next day, the whole country knew about the talking bull, who spoke intelligently and coherently and turned out to be wiser than many politicians. Every day curious visitors began to come to the village. In the evenings, the whole village was ablaze with lights. Many residents have made a good living selling drinks and cookies for visitors.

But then a wild black sharp-horned bull came out of the jungle, broke into the pen, and ripped the belly of the famous bull with its horns.

The story of the talking animal is over. Or maybe it was a hallucination from insomnia?

The story "Smile"⁸. Everyone has the right to smile. If someone decided not to smile, why should the other person interfere?

One person smiled everywhere and always. He was asked, " Do you get paid to smile? How long have you been working as a smile manufacturer?" He said, " 20 years. We should smile whenever we want, and for free." And he kept smiling at the sun, the rain, the wind, the janitor, the buses, the dogs, the cats... He smiled when he saw old people standing next to young people sitting, when he noticed a man spitting at the bus window...

His smile didn't bother anyone. Then, suddenly, he stopped smiling. Everyone started asking: Why? Smiley replied :" I'm tired of smiling!"..

And then every day at the bus stop, he talked about things that made him tired of smiling.

Readers are waiting for new stories by Mussidi, and to their delight, the writer, now retired, stated in an interview that "a writer cannot stop writing for a long time, no matter how much he holds back."⁹

Mussidy published collections of short stories in 2008 and 2009. In early 2012, he appeared under a new literary name10 and published "365 mini-stories of the Son of the Brunei Frog". "I became a frog," he joked. The stories first appeared on Facebook pages. They became " gymnastics for the mind and the personal attitude of the author to write one story a day for a year." The book itself appeared in response to the reaction of Facebook readers who supported the aging writer.

Here are the contents of several stories from this collection.

"Football" ¹¹. If I hadn't injured my leg at the age of 12, I would certainly be a professional footballer now, playing even more skilfully than Ronaldo. I don't know what would have happened if I had become an international millionaire star player at Manchester United with the name Morshidi. My father would probably be sad about my arrogance.

When I was 10 years old, I played in an adult team, I was famous, but I couldn't play in the national team, my age didn't allow it. When I was 12 years old, there was a new player in the team. He was a close friend of mine. A few days after our mutual vow of lifelong friendship, he broke my leg until it broke, and then disappeared. I believe that he broke my leg so that I could not become a superstar international footballer and surpass him.

"Ouch." He took the newspaper for 80 cents, handed in a 50 Brunei dollar bill, and received a change of 99 dollars and 20 cents. He wasn't sure if he paid $ 50 or $ 100. No, he thought it was definitely $ 100, and he didn't need to return $ 50.

Cheerful, he wanted to do something nice. Several of his friends were in the coffee shop, drinking coffee, too. He ordered something for around $ 50...

When he came out of the coffee shop, he saw a guy snatch the bag from a woman. "Thief! Thief! " she screamed. Together with the others, he began to catch up with the thief, chased quickly through the alleys, others lagged behind. His foot caught on a rock and he fell. The thief was gone.

Those who ran after the thief, not understanding, grabbed him, tied him up, and beat him. My face is bruised.

"Ouch! Ouch! he shouted in pain and resentment. "I'm not the thief!"

"Atom". Now that I'm old, I feel like I'm getting dwarfed, small. I hesitate to express myself as a writer, but I still feel proud that I have achieved a lot. Every day I want to disappear, and keep decreasing, but compared to the previous day. And it has already become a small dot.

If someone asks where Mussidi disappeared to, say, " Uh, he's in the process of becoming an atom."..

After the publication of "365 mini-stories", the author noted ¹²: "Today I "rest" a little from writing stories, although my brain never rests from new ideas... My "rest" doesn't face an artificial strike or fatigue and feelings of laziness. It is very possible that this is closely related to the age factor."

Mussidi himself gives a modest assessment of his work in an interview with Brunei ¹³ television: "I'm not that popular... I treat my stories critically, they are not mature enough, from the point of view of comprehension... Themes - life around me. My goal, ideally, is to increase the spirituality of society and the individual..."

¹ Dunia Melayu se-Dunia, 26.01.2014.

² Media Permata, 24.05.2013. ³ Mastika, 09.1981.

⁴ Amaluddins Blog, 01.10.2013.

⁵ Berita Minggu, 28.02.1982.

⁶ Perwila, 28.06.2013.

⁷ Bahana, 09.1987.

⁸ Berita Minggu... ⁹ Media Permata...

¹⁰ Krafiti, 24.07.2013.

¹¹ Cerpen Tapak Tangan, 16.05.2012.

¹² Cerpen Borneo, 16.05.2012.

¹³ Wawaneara, 08.05.2012.

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