emerald beach

On my iPhone photos, when I click on ‘Places’, there are two single videos in two different places - at Pangkor Laut in Malaysia, and a beach along the Gumbaynggir coast.

Strangely, they both happened to be named Emerald Beach, the one at Pangkor with a ‘Bay’ just before Beach. If you must know, it’s known as a secluded cove, where they serve you fresh coconut and charge you RM10 for one.

In between two lockdowns, I drove up the east coast on a whim, marking my transition between jobs and houses. At Emerald Beach, I make a video of waves crashing onto large rocks.

A year and a half later, at Emerald Bay Beach, my father picks up a piece of putat laut fruit and twirls the stem between his right thumb and index finger, his left hand turning the rest of the fruit.

Shaped like green lanterns, the box fruit is wildly buoyant and said to float in the ocean for up to fifteen years before landing ashore, seeds germinating by rainwater. When crushed, the fruit and seeds are used as fish poison.

My father was born under a Pisces Sun, symbolised by two fishes swimming in opposite directions. As I discover that another name of this tree is ‘fish poison tree’, I think of what really made him want to forget, what started eating away at his memories.

For three weeks he keeps searching for his white car, pointing to photos of the Honda City in the carport. We tell him we are going home soon, that we are visiting for a few days only, and does he remember his younger sister, his favourite one?

He holds a smaller box fruit in his left hand, and tosses the bigger one high in the air. I take a picture. When I look at the photograph later, I cannot find a trace of the box fruit in the air, just a large fish poison tree behind him, the sea crashing onto shore.