Journey home

Coming home is the best thing that could ever happen to me. But the journey back isn’t.

We started off with rough contact, pushing one another to enter the small and compact KTM. The spaces were rather limited to fit all of us. Despite the packed coaches, people continued to stuff their physical body in forcefully, resulting in many angry and annoyed faces. 

At the end of the ladies’ coach sat a middle-aged man who dressed decently enough. But, everything just seemed not quite in place. His presence, even the breath of his lingering in the air makes things uncomfortable for me. Amongst the sea of ladies from diverse races and culture, he stared blankly outside the KTM window into space and nothing seemed to be bothering him despite many ambiguous expressions and frequent stares were thrown in his direction. Ironically, none of the ladies in the ladies’ coach confronted him, nobody seemed to be bothered by his existence, so i conformed to the majority and learnt not to feel anything, he’s just like any other lady in the coach is what i told myself.

Like everyone in the KTM, my attention were drawn to the uninteresting content of my mobile phone. Many pretended to use their samsung galaxies to avoid awkward situations, swiping aimlessly again and again on the exact page, refreshing repeatedly. I was texting my mother about safely boarded the KTM squashed like sardines packed in can. But i left out the detail about the sad looking man sitting just behind my bag. My instinct lead me to switch my backpack to chestpack, something against the law of backpack. It’s ironic how much i tried to prove to everyone i wasn't racist every time, and it all just shot straight back at my face when i encountered such situations. I called it instinct, but more like covert racism. You showed others how perfectly moral and educated you are, but by the end of the day it all just backfires with what you’re trying to portray. Or perhaps, bad cases just kept showing up in the pages of the newspaper everyday that i somehow lost faith in humanity. 

Beside me stood a lady who looked like an indian but doesn't speak the language. She was talking on the phone with someone with language that sounded so different than what we practice here in Malaysia. She was wearing a revealing red checkered shirt, openly okay with it in any sense. She applied very thick and dark eyeliner on both of her eyes which were obviously weary depending on what she'd been through that day. Her palms grasping tight on the handle above our heads, wide stance, trying to defy Newton’s first law of motion. The thing that differs us from the rests is that we’re both not staring at our mobile devices, instead, we were silently watching out for each other’s back. We might be really good friends, but we let that chance slipped. 

Another indian lady came around, still on her work uniform. She was wearing a lethargic expression. In the KTM, she seemed untouchable. I concluded that she had a bad day at work is all. Something caught my attention as an indian college girl stood in front of me. Her t-shirt showing single, taken and in a relationship with freedom (which was ticked). Go figure. A person’s t-shirt shows so much about them. Perhaps she really didn't care that she’s a single lady, or maybe, openly asking for a date as valentines is just around the corner.

Everyone was putting on peculiar expressions, each portraying different stories which no one will ever get to know. There were the excited faces, happy faces while reading their text messages, anger and bored faces. They might be interpreting mine as pervert and strange as i stared at people shamelessly. 

It’s funny how we're so close to one another, our body occasionally touched, but as strangers we are, there were no connections. It contradicts on how everyone wanted to feel belonged, wanted to stay in touch with one another, but none bother to make an effort in knowing each other. There were so many communication and connectivity going on at the tip of their fingertips, they have the whole world! But the world does not revolve around their physical surroundings. Friends, but strangers in many ways. It was just the eerie quietness surrounding the KTM with different stories to tell. 

There were countless things that kept coming up my mind as i stared at the interesting humans’ behaviour. I made assumptions and stories that would never come true. Not in a million years i suppose.

1. The middle-aged man stood up, threatening all the ladies with his parang knife. That is when i will use my Adidas backpack (even though i loved it very much) to defend everyone from his attack. Everyone will join me and together the ladies in the ladies’ coach conquered the dangerous and always-weird-looking man. That explains the weird blue bag and the contents in it placed openly under his feet.

1. Someone in the coach screamed “thief” and my belongings will be where they're supposed to be. My eyes and hands are in excruciating pain from clenching them way too hard. I'm a pro in protecting what’s mine. Baby you're safe with me.

1. Endless staring contest with the indian lady standing in front of me. She do not have the mobility to rotate her body away from my gaze as many people were clamped around her like canned tuna. I will continue staring at her till she felt uncomfortable and decided to walk away at the next stop when things weren't so tight anymore. And i will win the staring contest all by myself, smugly. 

1. There’s a pervert molesting one of the girls in the coach, and i will be the one to catch the molester with my kickboxing skills, proudly returned the girl the justice she deserved and everyone will refer to me as “the heroine”. Some wanted my autograph and a picture taken. 

And the middle-aged man continued staring out the window of the KTM looking at unfinished structures of soon-to-be landmarks of KL, breathing heavily through his nose, with no intention to offend anyone at any cost.