In which hunger propels me to go off the beaten path.

Dinner plans with three others were cancelled yesterday due to a death in the family (friend's grandparent). I had instant noodles and went to bed very early. As a consequence, I was wide awake an hour before dawn today, with a hollow feeling in my stomach and the inescapable urge to eat something.

I waited until it was light and drove two minutes to Restoran Sedap, which is its real name. There were a handful of other people there already -- a young couple in t-shirt and shorts, a group of moustachioed men with aviator sunglasses tucked into the v of their necks, and a father and son. I sat at a table outside, with a view of pejabat UMNO Bahagian Putrajaya across the street, draped in party flags from rooftop to street. The air was cool and the flags fluttered a bit in the breeze.

With a plate of food in front of me, I ploughed through another chapter of Kafka, where reality is starting to melt, like Dali's clocks in The Persistence of Memory. And I'm riding along, because it is Murakami and I'm happy to go off on his tangents.

+++

After breakfast, it was still early. So I drove to the outskirts of town to see the horses. Two girls were in the smaller of two fields behind the club house, going through their paces -- a little bit of trot, then canter, then stop. The girls make sure not to bring their horses too close to the fence. I went around the back to the polo field where a trainer was giving another horse some exercise, making him gallop around the perimeter. I watched them for a bit. Then I heard whinnying from the stables next to the polo field and a clip clopping in my direction. A horsekeeper with a lit cigarette in his mouth is leading his charge in a circle around the parking lot, a mottled white male. I saw the horse stumble and called out is he sick? and got the reply, no, he got startled, is all.

The horse spots me and walks right up to where I'm standing, with the man in tow. The horse pokes my shoulder with his massive oblong face, and I give him a good rubbing. His hair is wet.

"He's just had a wash," says the handler. The horse bends down and bites at the buffalo grass near my feet.

"What do you guys feed them?"

"Pellets. And you. Do you like horses?"

"I've ridden on horses once or twice, but it scares me. Having said that, I still do like horses."

The handler takes a drag from his cigarette and ponders that over. "That doesn't make much sense. If you're scared of horses you can't exactly like them."

The conversation ended there because it was getting hot standing under the sun. I gave the horse a good pat and left.

I think it is possible to like something you are afraid of. But it depends on what your definition of "like" is -- if you like the things that intrigue you, then you can definitely like and be scared of something at the same time. But if you're a person that likes only those things that you can control, then perhaps, in your universe it's not possible.