Trust

I had a flight to Cambodia the next morning. So, naturally, I got into a stranger’s BMW in Malaysia. At ten pm. To play football.

I’m having the time of my life. For real, no kidding.

It’s nearly midnight and I’m running hard. Left, attack, side-step right, sprint back to defend. I’m chasing the guy with the ball across artificial grass under bright lights. I stop him, tackle, take the ball. I pass it off. Smiling, laughing. I run again. I can barely breathe. I’m sweating through everything. It’s hot, still around twenty-five degrees, that late. Some random place outside Kota Bharu in Malaysia.

There’s music all around us. The pitch has a roof but no walls. The warm air keeps coming in. Or flowing out rather. More pitches stretch out around us. Teenagers on one, adults on another, all shouting. I talk to my teammates, I talk to the other team. Nobody understands me. They talk back in Malay. I don’t understand them. It’s not like it matters. We point, we wave our arms. We react. It’s sport. That’s what you do. It works. A guy passes me the ball. I take it and shoot. Goal. Or not. I remember I scored some.

I’m stupidly happy.

A couple of hours earlier, I was getting into a car. A black SUV. A BMW. Huge, new, fancy. The leather seats still implied showroom. I sat in the back. The reception guy from the hostel got into the passenger seat, next to the driver. He’d asked me earlier if I play football. I said yeah, I used to, but not lately. Do I want to come play with them tonight? I was reluctant. I was tired, already thinking about my flight to Cambodia the next day. But he said it was fun, him and some friends. So I said okay. Why not.

Now I’m not tired anymore, rather wide awake. We’re driving. We take off. We stay on the ground, today.

The guys in the front row talk to each other. In Malay. I watch the city go by. The food stalls and the shops. New buildings beside old ones. Clean streets, dirty streets. There’s people everywhere, even though it’s getting late. The two of them keep talking. We keep driving. I keep watching.

And then, eventually, there are fewer people. After around twenty minutes. And fewer, after that. The city thins. I’m still watching. There’s nothing else to do. We’re far outside the city by now. It’s trees. Palm trees, South-East-Asia. The sky is black. Pitch dark outside. They’re still talking, in the front. I can’t see much outside anymore.

We’ve been driving for over thirty minutes. That’s when it starts. “It” is hard to describe. But it happens. I don’t know that guy, the receptionist. I talked to him for maybe five minutes. I’m in my mid-twenties, far from home, in a country I don’t know much about. I’m sitting in the back of a car with two strangers. Both of them way older. Forty, fifty. And the guy, he works at a hostel. That’s not a great job. People who work at hostels aren’t rich. This is a very expensive car.

Wait. Why am I thinking like this? He’s just a guy who wanted more people to play football with. That’s probably all this is. Right? Yes. No?

But this thing, it, that thought doesn’t leave. It creeps back in, again and again. It grows. There’s no stopping it. They keep talking. They don’t pay attention to me. I keep thinking. Not watching the outside anymore. It’s pitch black.

Am I fine? Will I be fine? Were there any signs I might have missed?

We keep driving. Where the hell are we going?

I tell myself I’m fine. I tell myself it’s all good. I’m trying hard to be convincing. But it is there. Fear, quietly. That’s its name. The two of them just keep talking about whatever. There’s some trees still sliding past outside, I guess. I don’t know. The clock keeps ticking. Forty minutes now. Forty-five. Fear.

I wonder if I trusted too easily. Did I make a mistake? I got into a car with strangers. A country far from home. In the middle of the night. To go somewhere I don’t know. For what? A game of football. Because that guy was nice and casually asked me to.

What is wrong with me? Seriously.

And then, finally, we stop. There’s the lights, the bright ones. The roof without walls. The fields full of shouting people.

They really are playing football.

---

Season Two · Backpacks · Story 4/12

Well, the story is done. You read it. Maybe loved or hated it. Or none of it. The meaning is yours anyway.

But, there is more. BEYOND will be out soon.