how to get home

come from Mont Kiara

passing the palace on your right

and take the exit that leads you

onto Jalan Semantan

or come from Damansara Heights

and head South

along the Damansara Link

towards SS2 and PJ

before you join the Sprint Highway

take the exit left onto

Jalan Maarof and drive up the hill

heading towards BSC

stopping at the four way intersection

if you need to

then keep going straight

past the expensive air

conditioned glass

and steel establishment

I don’t frequent anymore



on your left

continue along Jalan Maarof



following the slight bend in the road

and take the next left turning

and you'll come to a T junction

facing a sudden thicket of tropical undergrowth

and there used to be a rectangular sign with

horizontal arrows pointing in either direction

which isn't there now

(turn left and follow it down

back towards BSC for about two meters

and you'll soon reach a small bump

in the road where I fell off my bike

for the first time and scraped my knee

badly and had to go home and get it

cleaned and I cried all the way home

till I got the bandage on and mom

and dad said I was very brave

and the scar is now gone but I



still think of it fondly)

turn right onto Lorong Maarof



continue down the road

watching as the jungle on your

left grows more and more formidable

and on your right a parade of terrace

houses of all shapes and sizes, all looking

a little bit battered and a little bit old

on your left you will pass by

some private housing slash industrial estate

its wide and inviting boulevard

guarded by a barrier gate

and if you go in on foot or on bike

you'll find it leads up a single long

and winding path up the hill

with walls of lush leafy greenery

surrounding you left and right and at the



very top a dead end

keep going straight on Lorong Maarof



you will pass on your left

a street called Jalan Limau Purut

which makes two right 90 degree turns

to form a box by intersecting

again with Lorong Maarof

and circumscribes

the small suburban community

with rows of terrace houses

and nameless perpendicular alleys

cutting through and

connecting the parallel streets

to produce a kind of reticulum

liberally kinked, a grid designed

by an astigmatic

if you take the first turning left

into Jalan Limau Purut

and follow the bend right

you'll come to Emma Rozario's house

just immediately on the left

where Evan, Nirvan and I celebrated

New Year's Eve in 2011 (or was it

2012?) (incidentally, her road happens to run

parallel to a road just on the other side

of the undergrowth named

Jalan Negeri Sembilan

which is where my dad is from

(the state, that is



not the road))

(keep going straight along Lorong Maarof



and take the second turning right

past the petrol station and along Lorong Maarof 5

to trace our journey from Emma's house

to Telawi where we loitered in front of

a 7-11 for half an hour to watch the fireworks



at midnight)

don't take the first turning left


instead bypass the first turning into Jalan Limau Purut

and keep going

past Jalan Limau Besar

till you get to Jalan Limau Purut again

on your left

go up the steepish slope

where my dad taught me

how to ride a bike on my own

go slow so you don't miss it

on your left somewhere

between halfway and three quarters up

is my childhood home

a terrace house with a white gate

and next to us lived a boy whose hobby

was to climb the roof of his house everyday

when he invited me to join him

on his rooftop escapades

my mom and dad said 'no thanks'



I think I was about eight

keep going up the hill



and you'll see that the road ends in a

cute little cul-de-sac that juts out

of the corner intersection

like the neighbourhood's appendix

you'll see at the very tip

there's a clearing where the

asphalt stops and the concrete is covered

by clumps of rough and familiar cowgrass

and all around you'll see an array of

gaunt and cheerless trees towering

over you in a semicircle and if you stare

straight ahead

you see a forest

a deep and forbidding place

possibly no one has ever explored

before

and you are momentarily struck with the same fear

and wonder as you were standing in that place

over sixteen years ago

but what really bothers you is

how small and feeble

the reality is compared to that place in your mind

and you find yourself wondering if that was

really the spot

or if it might have been some other clearing

at the end of a street with the woods

tall and impenetrable as the ones

that swallow up young children in story books

and you stand there staring into the bark

scrutinising the vegetation

trying to see if the place has changed

or if it's exactly the same

was this fence always here?

and that sign there

isn't that new?

the scene before you looks

both increasingly familiar and

increasingly unrecognisable

as the landmarks of your youth

fail to correspond with what you see

image and experience dissolve

into anecdotes

and standing there alone

you begin to worry

because you can't tell anymore

where you've been

or where you are

or how to get home