I was handing in my things and getting ready to leave the office but somehow there was something I had forgotten. So I was going down the lift and up again and walking in and walking out, over and over again. Was it raining? It felt humid, dark and a little cold. Why would any of this be happening at night, anyway? I woke up thinking about being in the 24-hour mini-mart. In the harsh white florescent light H turned around to me and said that my cheeks were red. When I looked at my reflection in the glass door I had an odd feeling. Little black eyes, pink cheeks, then red, green, orange stripes. A girl, hot and wrung out in a blue wrap dress, covered in insect bites and sweat. I opened the door and waited outside, standing away from the street. Earlier when we were crossing the two lanes C grabbed me around the shoulders, nearly dragging me across to the other side. I had blanked out right in the middle while staring at the headlights that were coming from both directions. When we were standing on the other end he looked at me and apologised for his forcefulness. He didn't actually finish a proper sentence. I knew he was concerned for my safety so I was grateful. At that point my mind hadn't come back to me completely. I actually never react well to force, my first instinct is always to recoil. The reason why C had to drag me was because I had nearly pulled away from him in the middle of the road when he tried to hold my arm. We walked into the mini-mart and C pulled a few bottles of mineral water from a shelf in the corner of the store. It was a familiar feeling, I thought. An odd comfort. In our years of knowing each other we have really been all over the place with each other, so many crappy 24-hour places with this sort of lighting. At the cashier counter H was asking the shopkeeper in broken Bahasa if they had any fresh eggs.
