My kingdom for a bumjet

Day 131 - Malacca

Someone always has it worse than you.

If there is someone telling you that then they have, statistically speaking, a 99.99% probability of being right. It's not always a great deal of comfort as a person's suffering is uniquely their own but it is unimpeachably true. It's true unless you are that one person who has it worst. And if you are then you have my woefully inadequate sympathies. The person that caused my bus to Malacca to make an unplanned stop wasn't that person but he did cause me to stop feeling sorry for myself. He'd eaten something that didn't agree with him and, despite what was no doubt a considerable period of clenching and hoping, he could hold no longer. The driver pulled the bus over to the side of the motorway grudgingly accepting that a disrupted timetable was better than disrupted upholstery. The unfortunate guy whose bowels could take no more probably couldn't think of a worse situation in which to empty them. Cars zoomed by and he would be a billboard for unplanned defecation. But small mercies had given him a scattering of bushes just big enough to conceal his lower half when squatting, the business end if you like. He made for the bushes with the speed of a person who knew that too fast or too slow would both bring disaster. He got to the first bush, stopped, dropped and "ohhhhhh'ed". The relief must have been enormous, the humiliation manageable. But small mercies were swiftly undone by large iniquities. The pungent smell attracted (or did not repel) a pack of stray dogs who appeared from nowhere and formed a circle around his squatted figure. They seemed to take exception to his desecration of what must have been their garden. I don't know if you've ever tried to throw rocks at snarling stray dogs while attempting to clean your shite-speckled nether regions next to a busy road while a busload of people watch you but I wouldn't recommend it. He eventually made it back to the bus. I hope it's now a fond anecdote but I do fear that part of him died inside that day. The other part came out of his arse
Hot, wet and sticky is not a Prince song about Malaysia but it could be. He was referring to climatic conditions I believe. 'Wet' was last night. The rains poured onto Kuala Lumpur much as they had 10 days previously. The bus slowed to an impotent crawl and it was too late to do anything by the time Kim and I reached Malacca, 100 miles south. 'Hot' was the morning sun beating down on us as we walked the streets of the old town the next day. Malacca was like a smaller version of Georgetown, colonial buildings and street art present and correct.

'Sticky' was the situation. The push and pull on Perhentian, or rather pull then push, ought to have been enough to persuade me to cast again into a sea that was suddenly full of fish. But when has that ever been my way? Far better to pursue hopeless causes and get attached in the process. No matter how much I told myself that I had no claim over her and it was just the nature of the game her kissing the Dive master on the last night still stung. I found myself annoyed that she did it and annoyed that I was annoyed that she did it. There didn't seem to be a way to articulate these feelings without seeming a bit too involved. And since we still got along as friends I didn't want to scare her off. We stopped for a beer in the refreshing shade of a bar and in that refreshing Dutch way she addressed the sweaty elephant in the room. She apologised, I understood. She categorised me and the Dive master and I felt better. You sometimes can't have who you want and for once I felt peace with that.
We met up with Luke and Holly and two of their acquaintances in the evening for a few drinks but retired early. Kim was tired and subtly pointed out that I would be fifth-wheeling if I stayed. God knows how long it would have taken me to notice. Come the morning we were back on the bus to Kuala Lumpur and our separate ways. Now that the end of our little adventure together was upon us a kind of intimacy returned. Hands were held and we leaned in just a little bit. It was an unspoken epitaph to something that was nothing much but was, at least, real.