The rain had stopped when Dandey got off the bus. Sweat dribbled down his cheek and wet his back as he strolled home. Puddles on the wet street glistened orange, reflecting the street lights--the city was still wide awake; it had never given the stars and the moon a chance to shine their silvery beams on it. Dandey sighed. He expected cool air that night after the rain, yet the air was still and it was so sultry that he felt uncomfortably sweaty and sticky. He squinted into the dark sky, searching for the moon but failed. Perhaps it was hiding somewhere behind the silhouettes of the tall apartment buildings.
Seven steps ahead of him was a petite black woman, plump--her short hair was adorned with a red ribbon. She was singing a song in her African mother tongue--a peculiar language to Dandey's ears. She must be homesick, Dandey thought, studying in Kuala Lumpur alone, being thousands of miles away from home. The thought of homesick made him feel ambivalent, for he had never felt homesick before. "Why?" he whispered to himself. The woman must have heard his whisper because she turned her head to look at him. Fear vibrated in her song, and Dandey was aware of it. In fact, it made him feel very uncomfortable: "Hey, woman! Relax, I'm not going to attack you or something!" He thought. He felt an urge of approaching the woman and introducing himself to make her feel safe, but instead, he crossed the road and went to the other side. The woman looked at him, she didn't smile back when he stretched a smile to her. "Do I look like a pervert?" Dandey thought. She kept singing as she walked, but her song was different now--she sounded better with her voice sparked with a new-found courage.
At the junction, they went their separate ways. Dandey was alone now, venturing the concrete jungle, heading home. Cars and motorcycles dashed next to him; sometimes they were too close to him that he felt a strong wind, pushing him away--it aggravated him. The noise and the smoke--these ignorant vehicles were driving him crazy. He wanted to scream at these cars, but a familiar, sweet smell stole his attention. Uncanny he felt, he stopped walking and turned--a jasmine tree stood in front of him. Under the orange street lights, the tree glowed orange and green; small, white flowers blossomed all over the tree. Dandey closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The smell of jasmine was so sweet that it evoked a memory he thought he'd forgotten--home. Misty morning, green hills, soft breeze carrying sweet smell of the jasmine tree in front of his parents' house, birds singing their morning chorus, and the Kinabalu Mountain--majestic dark blue drenched in the sun's golden ray. "Is this homesick?" He thought. When he opened his eyes, the sweet smell lingered, and he felt an urge to sing a song, but he has no song like the African woman. So he whislted a tune, a new tune, and continued walking back home.