Leaving Early, Arriving Late

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThe haze has stopped being polite about it. This morning it sat over the city like a damp tea towel, and I left the house already squinting at the horizon as though that would help. It didn’t. It rarely does.

It was an all-day clinic, which is a phrase that sounds manageable on paper and rather less so by mid-afternoon. The morning was long, not in the dramatic sense, just in the way some mornings stretch out like a queue you can’t see the end of. One person, then the next, then the next. I kept the timer going and it kept me honest, though I suspect even a very good gadget has its limits against a full list.

After the ward round there was a meeting, the kind that begins with everyone agreeing it’ll be quick. I’ve sat through enough of these to know that the word “quick” is purely decorative. Halfway through, I had to excuse myself. Not out of boredom, I should add, though I’d be lying if I said leaving early didn’t carry a small, guilty thrill. There’s something about standing up mid-meeting with a genuine reason that makes you feel briefly like a man in a film with somewhere better to be.

The somewhere better was Le Méridien, for a talk. The drive over was the usual Kuala Lumpur negotiation between optimism and traffic, and the haze gave the whole city a sepia filter nobody asked for.

The speaker had come from Kraków, and the talk was very good. I say that without the usual qualifications. Plenty of talks are fine, informative, competent, the sort you remember for the coffee break. This wasn’t one of those. It was clear, well-paced, and delivered by someone who knew the material well enough not to hide behind the slides. I find that rarer than it should be. Anyone can fill forty minutes. Making them feel like twenty is a craft.

It ran late, as good evenings tend to. By the time I was heading home the day had folded itself into night without my noticing, which is either the sign of a good day or a badly managed one. Possibly both.

The haze had worsened by evening. From the balcony I could see it properly, a thick grey wash across the city, the usual skyline softened into suggestion. Buildings I know are there simply weren’t, or were only half there, like a photograph left too long in the sun. I’ll admit it has a certain eerie beauty, which feels like an inappropriate thing to say about air you’re not meant to breathe. But I stood and looked anyway, for longer than was strictly sensible.

Then I came inside and shut the door. Some views are better appreciated through glass.

It was a long day, though not an unhappy one. Full at both ends, interrupted in the middle, and finished with something worth the effort. I’ll take that, haze and all.