Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
The first time I saw Malaysian money I was 18 years old and on my first overseas trip. I had landed in Malaysia with only US dollars on me and didn’t know how I was going to change it for Malaysian money. I wouldn’t have worried but already I’d learnt that no-one wanted my US dollars and I was hungry. How was I going to buy food if I didn’t have the right money? At this point I’d been travelling for a few weeks and thought I had it all worked out and knew what I was doing. Clearly not. I was completely stumped. I went to the backpacker’s where I was staying and tried to talk to a guy I found there. He was from Japan and didn’t speak English – I can’t speak Japanese. I tried using hand signals and showing him the money but he didn’t understand me. So I left the backpacker’s and walked the streets for a while, cursing my decision to not bring my phone with me. I’d decided that I’d use my holiday as a chance to have a digital detox and told my parents that I’d stay in touch by sending a postcard every now and then.
Someone’s been sitting in my chair. Where did that thought come from? I guess it could have something to do with why I was overseas on holiday by myself. I broke up with Lisa just before I left – she said she had feelings for someone else. Maybe my mind is trying to grapple with the break up by saying random things to me like ‘someone’s been sitting in my chair’? Could be I guess. This was not the plan. Lisa and I were going to travel together. We hadn’t made any definite plans but we’d certainly talked about it, as if we were going to be together for ages – like we had all the time in the world. Now here I am, by myself in Malaysia, starving, with no way that I can see of getting the money I need to buy food or of convincing someone to take the money I did have. I was enjoying the walk though.
Is it human? I saw something out of the corner of my eye – it looked like a blanket but it was moving. I went over to it and had a look – it was a baby! I looked around but couldn’t see anyone it might belong to. Next minute this guy appears next to me and says “what’ve you got there? A baby? I’ve heard that unwanted babies get dropped down the dunny in Malaysia.” I looked at him, stunned. Stunned that he’d just appeared like that, stunned that he was speaking English and stunned that he would say something like that. Dropping a baby down the dunny? Who would do something like that? All thoughts of food left me as I looked at this tiny baby and this stranger. Now it seemed I had even bigger problems. I turned to him to ask what we should do, only to find that he had run off. I wondered if I’d been dreaming but no, the baby was still here. Was it possible to start hallucinating due to lack of food? I thought I’d better pick up the baby and try and take it to a hospital or something. I picked it up and it started crying – just like any baby I’d ever held. I looked into its scrunched up, red face and felt completely helpless.