COMMENT | The moon last night was a dying crescent, before dawn it all but vanished. Any thief could steal without notice. This is the ungodliest hour, the most unsuspecting.

I don’t know how I am in this coffeeshop so early in the morning. The clock in this medium-sized coffeeshop is small and old. It ticks in an inconsistent rhythm, but I can tell it’s almost 6.30am.

The whole place is silent. Thick, assorted dust brushes down from the yellow-stained fan above me. Just when I am about to change my seat, my noodles arrive. The hand gripping the plate is coarse and brown, with visible marks of cuts and ring-shaped pigments of paler colour.

I look up at him. The white and black in his eyes seem only placed for utility purposes; there is nothing inside, his eyes are deadened. A cylindrical scar stretches from his neck to his forearm like a wounded soldier in a war. I ask him how much my noodles cost. He raises both hands slightly and puts them down again, and looks away.

“How much?” I ask.

“Ten ringgit!” he answers.

“Wow, that’s really expensive.”

“If you don’t want to eat, go somewhere else. Don’t come here and complain!”

My body shakes a little in fear - mostly from the unexpectedness of being shouted at this early in the morning. I eat my noodles. In front of me is a large metallic building shaped like a curved knife. Two blinking lights on the left and right give the building a terrifying face.

I look at the drinks refrigerator, full and untouched. Its colours too have faded. I am told not to open it. An uncle with a Fu Manchu moustache whispers: “Don’t wake up the GST monster.”...