transiency - lasting but short time

The cold edge - Kuala Terengganu

Perhaps I was getting impatient.

I went out the guesthouse for eating, but I got gloomy by everything around me. Actually not by everything - but the life of other people, that was firmly closed to strangers. Their life. I thought I'd already known that there was no place for me, such as I could feel at home.

When I dropped by the terminal for long-distance bus, someone asked me to buy a bus ticket. He was Indian-Malaysian. I tried to ignore and pass by him, but he was hanging around me with having a bundle of tickets in his right hand. "No. I don't need. Please get out of here." I murmured.

I usually tried to imply "No" with a vague smile on my lips. But I couldn't do it at that time. He grabbed me by the sleeve, and pushed tickets at my eyes. He was repeated annoyingly like "why don't you need it?" I finally lost my patience, stopped walking and stared at him. I found out that I was shouting at the next moment.

"I say NO! Don't you know what I'm saying? Go away! Get out!"

I shouted in Indonesian. While I was in Malaysia, I happened to use Indonesian, neither Malay, English nor Japanese. He was not upset by my big voice, rather that made him more excited.

He held me by the collar, and raised his voice, "say 'sorry!'" I managed to break free from his angry hold with all my strength, and tried to walk away. But he didn't stop. He stood in my way, and shouted me to say "sorry" persistently. I could see intenseness in his blood-shot eyes.

I gasped for breath, and stared in his eyes. "You are the one who should apologize." I said calmly. At the next moment, I clenched my right fist and made a gesture to hit him.

"You are the one who should apologize to me. Understand?"

I said, looking his way. Then I slowly started to walk again. I was in a terrible mood. I felt like my mouth was stuffed with mud. After a few steps, when I looked back, I found that he was taking out something from his pocket. I felt it suspicious. I kept moving and watching carefully his hand.

That was a knife at his hand - something like a sharp fruits knife.

He might have stabbed my back with it. But I didn't think he would chase me. The cold knife glared in the sun's evening glow. The knife's glare stabbed something inside me.

At the bank of the River Terengganu, people were coming and waiting for the boat to the other side. The river was also going to sleep soon. I sat on the road at the bank, and was watching the amber water reflected by the evening sunlight. I kept the sequence of shimmer on the water, sometimes appeared and disappeared, in my heart one by one.

But the smell of durians drifted from somewhere, and mixed with sour smell of dried fish. The town was going to be shabby by the smell. And at that time I thought I was cling to the bottom of the town, the shabbiest.

translated by Nao Uematsu ©