'Tourist'

It was cold on the bus and I couldn't sleep. I kept my eyes open for the green signs to tell me how close or far I was to my destination and when that got too tiring I closed them. I shut them without music for the first half of the journey, without drifting off to anywhere. I found the darkness of going through certain places comforting; easy on the eyes. Some of those which were illuminated were beautiful but I was squinting as we passed through them.

Perhaps it was lethargy talking. Or hunger from having to rush myself to board the bus in time.

(The fastest and most hygienic meal that you can have within twenty minutes in Butterworth, with some time for the loo, is probably two cream buns, plastic wrapped like how you knew them in school during recess. Red Bean, Chocolate, or Strawberry. A tall glass of tea with a couple or three teaspoons of condensed milk to wash it all down and you'll be at your best to go.)

*

The first thing that I looked out for after purchasing my ticket back was a taxi. And I laughed because I actually spent a minute or two not finding one (because things are never there when you need them).

Almost instinctively on my part I hunted for a taxi which was already on the road. There were too many drivers loitering around the entrance of the bus terminal, talking to each other in voices too loud that it seemed almost foolish to be asking any of them. I had wanted someone who was already with momentum (so I could say step on it had there been a need for such course of action and he wouldn't have felt less inclined to do so). And so I tried to single one out amidst the midnight traffic.

He saw me as I was walking beside the main road: the cars on his side slowly impeding the progress of his vehicle; nodded after my wave, and signalled and waited as I made my way across the road to him. Only when I was seated in his taxi, did he ask me for the details of where I had wanted to go, making me repeat the names of the surrounding landmarks of the place twice, then thrice; totally destroying my hopes and earlier impression that he was going to be the one who was going to take me where I had wanted to go--efficiently and without complications--when he had answered yes to the place I had asked him, so confidently at the door. But that man did it and for that I am thankful.