turning of the tides

(Finale of the ‘Diabetes’ series of stories) by Martin Bradley

"See you in four days then. Take care darling."

Those are Andrew Goodchild's famous last words to his younger partner, the Malaysian artist Sugar Khoo. They are at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA 2) and it is the sixteenth of March. Andrew is due to board his AirAsia Flight AK 540 (at 12.45pm). Seat 19B

“So far all smiles”, from inside the airport terminal Andrew Facebook messages to Sugar, . “it’s difficult to tell under the blue masks though”, he continues.

Andrew presents his, minimal, bags at the x-ray scanning conveyor. He feels a little guilty about not wearing a belt in his trousers. Scanning officials inevitably ask to see a belt, and Andrew disappoints them each trip. His Marks and Spencer baggy (made in Bangladesh) cotton trousers need no belt, only a cord with a haphazardly tied knot. "It’s such a shame. Perhaps on my next trip I shall wear a belt to please the officials, let them show me where I should place it, and then I can tell them where to shove it" Andrew messages to Sugar.

Then he is in the 'Departures' area heading to his 'Gate'.

To Andrew, Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 appears no less busy amidst this presenting pandemic than at any other time. He is not quite sure just what he expected, empty spaces perhaps, people cowering, shying away from contact but, at this point in our story Andrew has noticed no bell ringing, no ‘Bring out your dead’, and no hook-beaked Charles de Lorme plague masks on black clad doom bearers. Business, despite a world pandemic, is as usual at KL International airport.

Siem Reap, on the other hand, is sanitiser mad.

Andrew finds that entry to Siem Reap airport changes each time he arrives. But he is through. He has no luggage to collect and his host Meyta Souk (Khmer Director of the charity ‘Art will save the world’), leaps to douse Andrew with misting fluid as he steps out of the bijou airport.

“Everyone must be spray,” she says.

Andrew is busy cleaning his glasses as Meyta continues...

“Papa, tourism is down in town”. She pulls a sad face for emphasis. In a place that relies on tourism to survive, this is very difficult for the locals.

“Small business hard no tourists America, Japan, Europe” she says.

To Andrew’s mind that is both a blessing and a curse. No tourists means Siem Reap is easy to navigate, no tourists also means that places are closing, and some closing down which is not such a good thing.

Meyta whisks Andrew from the airport. Her twin sister Meyka is driving. They traverse the dusty roads still filled with pedal and motorised transport and head for the building housing ‘Art will save the world’ along Preah Sangreach Tep Vong St. Andrew's small room has been made ready on the third floor. It is normally saved for people on a ‘residency’, or important guests giving art and craft workshops over a period of time, but as it is for such a short time Andrew thinks it fine.

He slings his small rucksack into the room and, crippled with pangs of hunger, walks through a small adjacent alleyway to Hup Guan Street, which runs parallel to where ‘Art will save the world’ is situated.

He saunters through another small alley

emerging in Siem Reap’s Central Market Street and, over lunch in The Hideaway Lounge, Andrew overhears one ‘journo’ reporting in. He seems to be questioning the low number of reported cases of the pandemic in Cambodia, saying...

“Bob, I’m not convinced that there is a low spread of this disease here in Cambodia, or if it’s a low incidence of reporting existing cases. It could be that there are many more cases of Covid 19 here than we are led to believe. I’ll let you know as soon as I find out more, but it sure seems suspicious. No deaths too, what’s that all about? Yeah, what, no I’m moving on to Thailand next, probably in a day or two, yeah...”.

Andrew stops listening. The news is depressing. He concentrates instead on food.

Later.

“Sorry, sir”, a diminutive but stocky Khmer gentleman in a dark blue shirt, olive trousers and a cap replete with chevron, pounces (albeit slowly) to block Andrew’s path. The Thai Huot Market (supermarket) guard shoves a white plastic electrical device towards Andrew’s face. It beeps, and Andrew’s assailant turns the machine around, revealing the legend 35.6 to Andrew, and waves him past. "Siem Reap is gaining in additional otherness these pandemic days" Andrew considers, a little bemused.

Inside the supermarket, where staff appear to be no older than sixteen (but are in reality in their later teens or early twenties) Andrew gathers his immediate needs into a hard red plastic basket (yes plastic still rules the roost in Cambodia), and trolls back to the room set aside for him above Siem Reap’s ‘Art will save the work gallery’. He sleeps the sleep of an innocent wondering what the morrow may bring.

“They what”, Andrew Goodchild’s amount of disbelief is practically tangible. His shocked brain fights against the heady perfumed scent of Cambodian frangipani.

“It’s the virus. They’re trying to stop it going out, and coming in.” Peter Clayvis, an old ‘hippy’ and Andrew’s friend over the past eight years (but more importantly owner of Burger Krong) answers.

“Well, don’t give it a bloody ticket, that’ll stop it.” Andrew is obviously well past his news tolerance level.

“Andy, please be reasonable.”

“What about my visa?”

“Chill man, it’s valid for a month isn’t it?”

“Well, yes.”

“Cool, there you are then. All this pandemic nonsense will all be blown over by the time your visa expires.”

“And if it isn’t? I only bought enough money and clothes for four bloody days. And my ticket, what do I do about my damn ticket?”

“Look man, the airline will probably extend your ticket, Don’t worry. You have a credit card don’t you? You can withdraw from an ATM. There are so many here. Chill, enjoy your extra holiday. You can continue where you’re at, can't you.? I can't see them kicking you out just like that!”

Life is a little like when you take your eye off of the shuttlecock in badminton.

Andrew was so concerned about what is happening in Cambodia, settling in, getting used to the new room and its little quirks, its sudden noises, the fact that its window opens onto another room, not to the outside, that he had forgotten all about Malaysia in this time of pandemic.

Malaysia, it seems, will be on lockdown from the 18th to the 31st of March. Andrew’s flight back to Malaysia is on the 20th or, rather, won’t be.

For Andrew, it is as if Malaysia was just waiting for him to leave. With a little wave,

and a great big smirk, some large gentleman dressed in some sort of officious uniform firmly closes the gate to Malaysia and effectively gives Andrew the digitus impudicus (middle finger). “See ya around sucker, but not today ha, ha, ha”

It is a vastly different Siem Reap from before, that Andrew wanders on his way back from the FCC. “Quiet, hmmm strange, but nice” he says to himself. There is much less traffic on the roads and no annoying 'tuk tuk, sir?' From eager conveyance riders. It gives Andrew time enough to, quite literally, stop and smell the exotic fragrance of the Frangipani flowers which have turned their faces to the equatorial sun. He is glad to feel the tropical warmth of the day on his skin and to hear melodious birds chattering away on the telephone wires over his head.

Without traffic, without tourists Siem Reap’s back roads exude a charm which had been missing. The recent closing of Khmer food stalls, along the roads nearest to the Angkor Hospital for Children, adds to an Eastern romance scented in the Cambodian air, peace and quiet.

The following morning Andrew is still reeling from the Malaysian news. He sends a Facebook PM to Sugar, the light of his life. Her reply reads "Working working Meeting Meeting...."

"Ah" thinks a crestfallen Andrew, and wonders why he bothered.

Andrew’s enforced absence from his love and his home in Malaysia, his extended vacation, in the beautiful land of Cambodia/Camboge is not really a hardship, merely an inconvenience. His, now distant, partner Sugar once she manages to free herself from her busy life for a few seconds (via Facebook PM), suggests that Andrew….

“Take it as a holiday/retreat; Practice meditation; Do more writing. You hardly got the chance to rest so long, take the opportunity to do some things different.” silently screams. And yes, said partner has been reading ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ recently, Andrew could tell.

Later, Andrew sends another message to his lady love.

"How are you? What have you been getting up to in my absence?" They are innocent enough questions which look, perhaps, a tad harsher than intended when typed out.

Sugar replies "Mmm... Do you think I should tell everything I do on everyday to you ?"

It's as though Andrew's love's hand has reached through the 'Gorilla Glass (of his Samsung Edge 7) and slapped him squarely across his face. Quoting a favourite 1950s TV show catchphrase, Andrew sadly murmurs to himself "I only asked".

"It's like out of sight out of mind. I wanted closeness but all I've got is distance. Damn, it's been eight years. I thought love would last forever. What a bloody fool I've been, thinking we were happy. Now..." Andrew's thought fades into nothingness.

Through the half-lit streets in the slightly cooler evening Andrew walks back a little saddened to 'Art will save the world'.

Days, as they frequently do for Andrew, drag by with little word from Sugar. Andrew, giving in, as he always does at such times, sends Sugar a message.

Quicker than expected Sugar replies…

"Miss you too. Sorry can't talk, at bank now."

Andrew is feeling low, forgotten, and desperate for a tender word, yet he receives...

"I know this is the most challenging time for you, but you can’t expect me to know your feelings towards what’s happening to you. We are both very

different personalities and we see things differently. I know you are safe and there is a place you can stay. So, I don’t worry about you."

Which is not quite the warm, tender, loving reply Andrew is expecting.

“How and where to find the balance?” Muses Andrew.

Siem Reap still has surprises in store for Andrew. This is witnessed in the strange incidents of the bare-chested men.

Andrew walks down Oum Khun Street. It is hot. Andrew is hot. All of a sudden a white man, completely bare of chest with his head shaven, comes profusely sweating towards Andrew (who hopes to turn invisible). In England and in many parts of Europe men bare of chest and head are referred to as 'skinheads’. Andrew’s experience tells him that skinheads are to be avoided because they look for, and inevitably find, violence. Andrew does not look to see if the ‘gentlemen's’ footwear includes the infamous 'bovver boots' for he feels that this is impolite, and quite possibly dangerous too.

Andrew is not invisible.

The sweaty bald-headed bare-chested man stands in Andrew’s path and elicits

"Doyah speak English" "A little" Andrew says modestly, and quite ironically in his English accent. "DoyahknowwhereCentral Marketis?". Says the quite out of breath half-naked ‘gentleman’.

Andrew proffers a suggested route. "Fanks".

As he is about to leave, the half-naked bald-headed gentleman says, a mite condescendingly...

"There, your English is perfeck." "Thank you, I was born in London"

Andrew offers to the man’s disappearing back, only to remember, after, that he gave the man directions to the Old Market, rather than Central market, by mistake. Oops.

Quite curiously, and on an entirely different day, at an entirely different location and time, Andrew walks into Thai Huot Market (supermarket) after feeding himself at the American charity eatery Inn Common. The usual temperature check and hand sanitiser routine are performed. Andrew blithely wanders the aisles, grabs milk, water, some veggies etc, the usual fare to sustain him for another day or so.

He saunters up one aisle and is about to go down another (to find mayonnaise) when, surprise, surprise, there is a half naked, tattooed, bald-headed man approaching him. Andrew stands stock still. Seconds tick by as the undressed figure (clutching a beer bottle and busy drinking) approaches and, thankfully, passes a silent, shocked, Andrew. “Two”. Andrew is thinking. “Two, like London buses, you don’t see one for eight years and then, all of a sudden, there are two. One following close behind the other.”

Andrew hears a commotion behind him. The tattooed man is gone. As Andrew is having his goods checked at the counter, a security guard, holding an open bottle of beer gingerly gives his prize to the counter clerk who rings it up on the till, then places the bottle behind her. A perplexed Andrew wonders “what is all that about?” Two, completely different, but similar, half-naked men (with bald heads) rampaging in Siem Reap. Andrew considers how times have changed.“They must have got lost on the way to the Costa Brava” Andrew says to himself, with a wry and quite superior grin.

"Shit, thirty seven dollars that's effectively one hundred and fifty eight bloody Malaysian Ringgit" exclaims Andrew, to himself.

Howsoever that is the price of the one day ticket which he has to pay to enter Angkor Wat, that ancient Khmer city. Though more than a little disgruntled at the cost, Andrew is glad that he is paying this price at this time of Corona 19 virus, for it means that Angkor is practically empty of foreigners and is, therefore, revealed in all its ancient glory.

Being driven along the furiously dusty Cambodian roads in a tuk tuk, heading to

Angkor, Andrew is inundated not just with red dust but also memories of Sugar, her smile and her very pronounced Joie de vivre. Andrew had never met anyone with such a zest for life before. Eight years later he is still both captivated and overwhelmed by her, her boundless energy and her often grossly annoying, positivity. ‘But that’s Sugar, lump it or like it’ he thinks smiling because of his wordplay.

The ubiquitous Cambodian reddish brown dust gets into everything. It is as bad as Saharan sand as it covers (otherwise green) plants by the roadside, flies in cloud gusts as the tuk tuk ambles past ditches sprouting white lotus flowers, now liberally sprinkled with the dust which, quite literally, and gets up Andrew's nose (literally as well as figuratively).

Andrew hangs onto the tuk tuk's metal frame with one hand while his hat is pressed firmly to his face with the other. It doesn't stop the dust however.

Captive Andrew and his nonchalant driver ride by wayside sellers of bottled petrol, leather brown men on motorcycles carrying live pigs on their backs and converted tractors pulling long trailers of deep black charcoal, partially covered with orange and blue tarpaulins. Occasionally Andrew sees small half-naked children urinating in ditches where other children are fishing. Idly Andrew considers " does that help in the catching of fish I wonder ?" Cambodian life slips by as the motorcycle conveyance passes, adding to the amount of flying dust, and gradually inches towards that ancient wonder, the venerable city of Angkor (built by the Khmer King Suryavarman in the early 12th century).

Unlike some monuments, or places of architectural interest, Angkor never palls.

Andrew's excitement at reaching that temple city sweeps away his loneliness. It is as if he is a young boy again adventuring, not over mounds of sand and pebbles by the wayside intent for road repairs, but eager, delighted and full of expectancy at his new adventure, for this is his solo return to Angkor Wat. Barely able to contain his excitement Andrew pays for his grossly expensive one-day ticket.

His first visit to the city of Angkor was with Sugar, and a group of 'Art will save the world' students, for sketching. The one thing which quickly became obvious on that trip, was that Angkor (the city) extends to about four hundred square kilometres (155 sq miles) and there is no way a non-super-human being could see it all in one day, or even a week. Which is why Andrew has been quite particular (and realistic) about this short visit.

Alighting from the tuk tuk, he stands facing, admiring, the distant temple array. It was built to reflect the 'Mount Meru' of Hindu mythology, standing at the very centre of the universe, in much the same fashion as the Greek Mount Olympus. For Andrew, standing and admiring, it is a most gratifying moment, even in the hot sun.

Slowly, purposely, Andrew walks towards the main entrance. He is so glad that he is one of a few tourists, instead of the normal crowds. To say that the view before him is breathtaking is a gross understatement. Though he has seen it before, the sight of those temple spires reaching up into the stunning azure blue of the Cambodian sky has Andrew shiver as he experiences something uplifting and, seemingly, entirely spiritual. “Perhaps this is the after effect of hundreds of years of human devotion and prayer” he thinks.

The fierce Cambodian sun beats down on Andrew’s cheap Malaysian homburg. It shades him a little and protects his growing tonsurelike bald patch but does little else. He sweats. The area immediately around Angkor Wat has been cleared of trees so that the only shade is under the ancient alcoves and arcades. Usually, for tramping around, Andrew would have worn cheap, loose, Cambodian cotton trousers and a short sleeved cotton shirt, but he has only what he brought over to Siem Reap for his four day (now four months) stay. Andrew is being careful with his United States Dollars, and dares not buy local clothing.

Thankfully, the tourist friendly Wat (temple) has wood laid over the stone for tourists to climb, instead of the much larger, deeper, original stone steps. The climb up those wooden stairs is challenging enough for the faint of heart, but Andrew copes, taking one step at a time, looking around at the exotic and

romantic scenery while simultaneously trying to catch his breath.

Where man has left off, nature has continued. Lichen graces the rocks in the ancient city’s unpolluted air. Seeds, probably dropped or excreted from birds, have grown, year by year, on some of the ruins of Angkor. Nature has enhanced man’s effort with amoebic thick roots framing doorways and enclosing stone window openings transforming them into organically surrealistic sceneries. In a distant part of that Angkor city complex (Ta Prohm) tree roots all but dominate hewn stones, but where Andrew walks the hand of man is still able to revere and reveal the minds of the gods.

Because it is hot, and because Andrew is tired from walking, he is about to rest in the shade of a stone cloister when he hears a soft voice. Andrew turns. In a dim recess, lit only by one candle, a handsome young man sits cross -legged on the floor. "Come, rest a while here" the saffron robed youthful male speaks softly and gestures to a smooth-topped stone in front of him. Shrugging to himself, Andrew moves into the space before the young man. By the light of a dim candle, the person before Andrew appears golden. "It must be the light" says Andrew to himself. "Please sit" the figure says again in a slightly accented but otherwise perfect English. Andrew does so. He is about to talk, but the young man holds a finger to his lips, silencing Andrew, then he closes his eyes.

Inquisitively Andrew looks around. In one corner of this alcove there seems to be a carving of an empty chair, in another a carving of an umbrella and in yet another a carved footprint. The person before Andrew could be no older than thirty five, he thinks. The man's face is vaguely Indian, not Khmer. He has the longer earlobes like far northern Indians, or Tibetans, but his complexion is baby smooth, a midbrown colour.

Andrew is about to close his own eyes when he hears a very soft chanting coming from the young man in front of him. He tries to listen, but the words, not English are, nevertheless, calming, soothing. The chanting never seems to actually stop, but gently fades away into the surrounding stones. When the last vestige of sound has passed the young man opens his eyes and smiles a most beatific smile.

" Please, give me your left wrist.” Andrew does as he is told. The young man ties a red string to Andrew's proffered wrist. " For your chakras" he says, then "repeat carefully after me, three times please, Om Ma Ni Pod Me Hum." Andrew does, then reaches into his bag to get some money. The young man, seeing Andrew's action, touches him gently on the arm. " No" he says,"thank you", and smiles once more. The young man then motions for Andrew to leave, which Andrew does.

Andrew is bemused by the whole affair and, moments later, is a little startled when a woman with an American accent suddenly speaks to him.

" Honey, did you just get that?" She says, pointing to Andrew's red band. "Yes, from a gentleman over there" Andrew points to a wall. "Where Honey?" "I thought it was there. Maybe I'm turned around, sorry. It was a monk, I think, saffron robed and all that." Andrew explained. "It must be back there," he said. "Gee. Okay honey I guess we'll find him" then turning to her husband "I guess it's back there" "But," starts her husband, "Come on Claude, I really want one of those bands to show off to Marge. It's bad enough that we're stranded here with her always showing off. I wan it to be our turn okay?" She says as the couple slowly disappear from Andrew’s sight and hearing.

Andrew retraces his steps. For ten minutes Andrew wanders around but still cannot find the place where he met the 'golden' young man. "Odd" he mutters "distinctly odd." He shrugs, and continues his wandering amidst the ancient Angkor stones, with a growing hunger that only food for the body will quell.

Four months have come and gone, five, eventually six months have shimmered by in the Cambodian heat and occasional monsoonal rain.

It is September. Malaysia remains closed

to overseas visitors until the following year. Cambodia is opening up and is beginning to clamp down on its visa over-stayers, despite an earlier amnesty.

This clamp down is not good news for Andrew. Elderly Government official Sinn Sisamouth (from the Cambodian Immigration Department) brings news regarding Andrew's position. Sinn uses Meyta as a translator.

"He say Government been patient over-stayers because pandemic. Now have to leave. Same all overstayers. Can give one month then leave or prison." "Bloody hell" says Andrew. " And you've told him I can't get back to Malaysia because they're not letting tourists in?" "He know, he say sorry. But Government very strict." Sympathises Meyta. "Shit!" "Andrew, Art also worry about air-con. Ask when you leave. I tell don't know." "Okay". Andrew doesn't want to argue with Meyta. She has been so kind, so helpful, just like a daughter in fact. The crunch has come. It's time for Andrew to weigh his options as he has obviously worn out his welcome in Cambodia, and at 'Art will save the world'.

"I have to leave", Andrew messages Sugar. He explains the elderly Khmer gentleman's visit and his own current predicament regarding the charity founder Art. After ten minutes Andrew receives a reply.

"Sorry. Working, talk later yeah".

The situation with Sugar has deteriorated to the extent that Andrew is convinced that no good can come of staying in the relationship after the brouhaha of arguing about love and friendship with Sugar. When his tears have finally ceased, Andrew Goodchild can breathe again. The breath still gets caught in his throat, but he is able to function at least.

Later, after work, and twisting the painfully emotional knife, Sugar says…

"I am very comfortable moving towards spiritual life."

This is followed by "And I am happy with the arrangement we are having at home".

Andrew had been far from happy with the ‘arrangement’. Not happy sleeping alone, little sex and seeing Sugar almost by appointment, and he says so. This does not make the situation any better.

To try to understand Andrew writes....

“So, just to clarify, you do not want intimacy with me. You do not want us to be lovers and share our bodies”.

Her reply shocks Andrew, the ground moves in an entirely bad way.

“No...I don’t want the intimacy, I don’t want to share our bodies, I don’t want us to be lover…. We reached a stage where we have lost that kind of love.”

Still grasping for meaning Andrew expresses “Sugar. You were everything to me.”

Her reply… ”Sorry….and you know it very clear that you are not my everything”.

Such is Andrew’s state of mind that he decides to just forget everything. Forget the visa hassle, forget he has nowhere to go, forget that the erstwhile love of his love has just jilted him. He buys a cheap bottle of Australian Merlot and slams it into the fridge. Hours later, when the white wine is chilled enough, Andrew drinks glass after glass until, in his grief, he has drained the entire bottle. He gets drunk. The only problem is, that instead of forgetting everything Andrew ends up remembering and being drunk at the same time. He is a morose, not a happy, drunk.

And Andrew is not happy now.

Malaysia is (approximately) seven hours and 6,500 heartbreaking miles away. Andrew’s mood is reflected in the early morning work faces of his fellow ‘Tube’ passengers. Grey or black dressed (be-masked) commuters fill

Andrew's Underground carriage, silently intent on mourning their loss of liberty under Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) and Social Distancing of their lives, while awaiting their various Friday evening freedoms.

As if living in some dystopian nightmare the near silent, sparsely populated, Tube-train carries Andrew to Holborn where he must change to the Central Line to get to Liverpool Street station and, eventually, to the Essex coast of Blicton-on-sea. London is depressingly different, subdued. On the train platforms Andrew witnesses scenes of 'The Day Shift' from Fritz Lang's Metropolis, where grey clad, hunched figures, their heads bowed, drag booted feet reluctantly in their procession towards work.

In a now distant and forever sunny Siem Reap, sunny people rarely wear face masks. Deaths from the pandemic are non-existent, and the predominantly youthful Honda ‘Scoopy’ riding figures exude vibrance. In plague city London mask wearing is mandatory as there have been over 6,000 deaths from Covid 19, and 46,000 deaths over the United Kingdom in total due to the pestilence. For Andrew the contrast could not be more marked.10, Bournemouth Road, Blicton-on-sea, is a one bedroom bungalow. It is at the land end of the road, seconds from the opposite end where a grey North Sea buffers the coastline of the East of England. It is January, three months since Andrew last heard from Sugar. Blicton's daytime temperature is cool. It is swept by a sea breeze and is decidedly uncomfortable for Andrew. He arrives (at lunchtime) to his internet-rented accommodation. Unlocking the door, he slings in his rucksack of minimal clothing and re-locks the door and shivers.

“I really must buy a coat” he reminds himself.

Summer departed with a whimper. Autumn slid into Winter. Hungry, Andrew walks out for lunch before actually inspecting his ‘let’. "Bacon, eggs and chips and a cuppa, alright my love?" Repeats Carole, the busty dyed blonde (ageing) waitress. Andrew knows that he is back in England when he spies an obviously much used bottle of HP Sauce, seated on the scratched red chequered (plastic) table cloth.

The Bournemouth Road bungalow is very basic. The front door leads into a small hallway with a tiny kitchen to the left housing a cooking area, a fridge freezer and a small washing machine. This is followed by a bathroom with standing shower, toilet and wash basin, that in its turn is followed by the bedroom with enough room for a queen sized double bed, a cosy wardrobe and a small white painted bedside table, replete with a gingham cloth covering.

To the right is the lounge/dining room which is the same size as everything to the left. It has a French window leading to a patch garden just big enough to dry clothing on the line provided. The bungalow, such as it is, is clean, unprepossessing and is a place to await the turning of the tides.

Andrew's nine months in Cambodia, his sixteen years in total of his former life in Asia seem like opium dreams now. Swaying coconut palms, waving banana fronds, aromatically frangipani and jasmine scented nights have given way to morning mist and brisk salty sea breezes.

Andrew is well aware that a cycle has ended. Although technically he is back home, in reality Andrew has far less in common in Britain and the British than in all his Asian wanderings.

A freshly solo Andrew has become an expatriate in his own country. He is caught between two worlds, to neither of which does he belong. He is faced with a dilemma. All his belongings, save the contents of his small rucksack, are in Kuala Lumpur. Should he wait the pandemic out, buy a ticket when he can, and fly back to salvage what might be left of his life in Asia or, simply...Not.