transiency - lasting but short time

Bottom of the torrid night - Kuala Lumpur

At the crossing, where many streets come across, the old man was sitting next to the garbage can and gazing at the air. The smell of exhaust gas, the denseness of the sticky air getting twisted around my neck, and the countless number of horns echoing through to the sky. With a heavy backpack, I'd already been wandering for one hour and more.

When I looked forward, I could only see the back of cars and motorbikes, which rushed as a bundle. I squinted my eyes and the bundle of lights looked like the tangled threads, which appeared on my eyelid when I closed my eyes.

"What am I really doing here?"

I thought it so many times that I couldn't remember how many times I'd repeated.

"What am I doing here now?"

I needed place to sleep. I wanted to secure the bed, and take a shower to wash away unpleasant sweat immediately. But I didn't have any idea what should I do. My feeling didn't make any action for it. Only the fact as one sentence that I'm still alive and breathe was pierced in my heart.

The old man took out the cigarette from his shirt pocket. He tried to light in the blowing wind. He finally caught the fire holding with his hands and lit. From the edge of his mouth, he breathed the smoke, which was flowed away by the wind and faded into the sticky air. Standing in the front of the crossing, I was staring him all the way.

My journey begins from here. It was certain thing. I've already started. I can't look back. But the scene of the town before me belongs to others, not to me.

Kuala Lumpur - there is no place for me. All I need is to stay for short time, to sleep, to eat, to talk to someone and to leave. I don't think I will return again, if "meeting is beginning to leave" - such bitter saying is true.

When the light changed to red, the sidewalk began to be flooded by many people. They are people of all colors and ages, and in different styles. They were Malaysian, Chinese, and Indian. All of them were ready for green, and waiting for the step to go.

I will never pass by them ever. They are people I will never see, meet, and pass by again. And I thought that I was also just a small dot in the crowd for them.

translated by Nao Uematsu ©