Snapshot

It's week twelve, what amounts to the last academic week. The last presentation for our core module just finished, and now all that's on my mind is food. Food, and warmth. The wind is unduly punishing, and the wool cardigan I grabbed while rushing out of the house is doing little for me. It doesn't help that I unzipped it while I was indoors earlier.

"Help me hold this," I say, passing my laptop bag to B, who is walking beside me. I pull the cardigan free from where the strap of my carryall bag has trapped it, and secure the front. "Shall we go for pizza? I don't feel like having instant noodles again." The campus centre has a fairly good pizza place. While somewhat expensive, pizza is pizza.

B disagrees. "We might as well eat at Jessie's," naming our favourite pizzeria. Unfortunately it is in town, and a little too far for a walk.

"Don't tell me we're going all the way out there."

"No, what I mean is, the campus pizza isn't worth it."

"No." The money-minded part of my brain has taken over. "Asian grocery then?" The campus Asian grocery stocks packed lunches in its fridges, at prices considered cheap in this country.

"I don't know, is the food good?"

"It's-" I stop, remembering that I eat almost everything. I turn to L, walking quietly behind us. "Was the food good?"

"It was quite good."

Satisfied that it's not just me, I add, "Not enough chilli though."

"That's because you eat so much chilli." I don't deny the accusation.

We're in the campus centre now, and the temperature warms immediately. The Asian grocery is past the travel agency and B suddenly remembers that she's avoiding a travel agent.

"I've decided not to go back home after all," she explains. "But after all the trouble I put that guy, he's going to kill me! He kept calling my phone yesterday." I hand her my laptop bag as we walk past the agency, and tell her to check it for damage. She makes a poor attempt at hiding her face behind it.

We reach the safety of the grocery, and make a beeline for the fridge. There are packed lunches there again, but for some reason they seem less appealing than yesterday. I don't like the look of them.

"Maybe I'll have instant stuff today," I concede.

"I'll go buy food upstairs," says L. B is hungry now, and rummages through the buns on display. She picks out a chicken bun. A ham-and-egg bun catches my eye, and I pull it out. B has no more coins, so I pay.

"Is the guy in there?" asks B, cautiously peeking around me as we walk back past the travel agency.

"No," I say, glancing in. "No, wait, yes. He's not looking this way though." I juggle my two bags a little, until I get a hand free to open the bun. B and I chew as we accompany L upstairs.

Upstairs is a nice little lounge, complete with sofas, a dining hall and a take-out restaurant. We head into the restaurant and hang around while L goes queues up.

"That chicken looks good," considers B. "Why don't you eat here?"

"Too expensive." I glance at the pau buns on sale. $1.80 each. Are they mad?

"That's robbery. It's just not worth it," comments B.

"They are pretty big though." Well, not really. Just a little bigger than what we're used to back home, maybe.

"Yes, but I'd get tired of eating them half-way." L is done, so we walk out. I toss my bun wrapper into the dustbin, and happen to get a look inside as I do so. Plastic food boxes lie haphazardly in a pile, interposed with food scraps and dirty wooden chopsticks.

"What a waste," I say. "We always keep the boxes."

"At home, I'd throw them away. Don't you?"

"Never. We always keep them. We have this huge pile of them at home..."

"Oh... I don't. I mean if I'm eating out, I don't want to carry that thing back, you know?"

We walk down the stairs, past the pizza place and its long queue, out to the courtyard outside. Suddenly, B says, "Do you want Turkish delight?"

"Huh?"

She points. There's a booth where some girls are setting up cookies and sweets and things. A box of Turkish delights, generously covered in icing sugar, lies open on the table. One of the girls is still putting up signs displaying the price of each item.

"It's for the Burmese cyclone," explains one of the girls. I dislike Turkish delight, but the cookies look good. They are large, and the price of a dollar, for a charitable cause, doesn't seem unreasonable. I buy one for myself and another for B. "You owe me $8 now," I tell her.

There's a pile of longish roll-like pastries, pale brown dusted with green. I ask what they are. "Baklava," she says. "It's a Lebanese sweet." I give her a $2 coin to satisfy my curiosity, and she hands me one of the rolls on a paper towel. Now juggling two bags, a wallet and a sweet, I put everything down on a nearby bench and sort things out, and only then do I try the confection. The taste startles me.

"It's...really good?"

"Is it?" B is not entirely believing.

"It's like...chocolate." I offer some to L, but she refuses. "I'm thinking of buying one myself."

I break off a piece and give it to B. There's a pause, and then her face is forced into a smile. "Mmm!" L is convinced, and gets a baklava for herself.

"See you guys." B walks off in the other direction, where her house is. I walk down the path with L, finishing off the sweet and the cookie. We pass a dustbin; I consider going home to throw away the paper towels, then decide that that would be a curious brand of laziness. I drop the tissues into the bin.

My mental alarm signals go off instantly, and I wonder why my hand feels so...empty. My brain takes less than a second to work it out.

I spin on my heel. "Where's my laptop?" I think L gasps or something. I don't notice. I'm running back to where my memory says I last had my laptop bag. The bench where I put everything down after buying the sweets. That has to be it. It's a good two hundred metres back, and I'm not running fast enough. I have plenty of time to think of what will happen if it's not there.

All my work. Everything. I'm in a strange country, and suddenly I feel alone. I'm trying to move faster, and my legs can't.

I briefly wonder where L is, and decide it doesn't matter.

I'm not in training, and the adrenaline rush cannot help me. I stumble to a walk, albeit a fast one, gasping heavily. The bench is only a little further now. I pray, harder than I ever have.

I'm nearer the bench, and I see two black handles peeking over the top. I feel partial relief, but it's not enough. I walk around the bench and see my laptop bag, unharmed.

I have never felt more grateful.

I pick it up and inspect the contents quickly. Nothing missing. Still partially out of breath, I walk back. Across the courtyard, I spot L, running in short bursts. So she's not very fit either.

She comes closer, and I hold up the bag, exhausted but triumphant. She immediately stops, face relaxing in relief, and waits for me to catch up.

"I think I'd have died if I lost it," I say, between heavy breaths.

L says something, but I hardly notice. I think I babble some more as we walk. The danger is over now, and I feel light. My joints feel unstable, and a headache is starting to form behind my eyes. I think of checking the mail, then decide I can't be bothered. Somehow we get back home.

"It's high time the dustbin was emptied," comments L. I know. I wanted to do it this afternoon.

"I'll do it later. I'm too tired." A heavy understatement. Physically I'm fine. But something has happened on a mental level which won't sooth easily.

"I'll do it." I nod, getting over to my room door and fumbling with the key.

When I come back L is struggling to get the dustbin cover off. I forget she's never done this before. I prise it off fairly easily, much to her surprise, and get the hot water flask going. It's done in a few minutes, and I make instant noodles. The headache is getting worse.

I need a reboot. I haven't slept well for the past few days. I've been staying up late to finish up that last presentation. I've been heavily stressed. And I almost lost the most precious thing I own.

I curl up on the bed and sleep for an hour.