As we come down rapidly descending, just ignore the mere factoid that Peninsular Malaysia is only a part of Malaysia and that in actual fact there is an eastern part of Malaysia worth mentioning which is just across the South China sea, but no, come back, just forget it ever existed because most of those torrid Malaysians do anyway.

Somewhere on the peninsular we're referring to is a brownish green blotch where Kuala Lumpur is, but as we get a closer look coming down, a sense of orderly disorder comes to view. Squares, rectangles and disjoint lines that begin to reveal themselves as roads, some of which seem to squiggle in and out of each other like they were scribbled in by a demonic three year old.

Kuala Lumpur is more of an ungainly mass suburbia in urban clothes than it is a city of two million, and just on the edge of city limits is a place called Bangsar. It sits amidst slopes and man made plateaus laid against a bunch of loosely undulating hills - overlooking the satellite suburbs of Petaling Jaya on the one side, and standing against the sprawl of the city proper, on the other
side.

It is within this general vicinity that we focus on a residential area called Taman Endada Bong - home to our valiant heroes and heroines of House No. 11, Jln. Pegimana Entah....

"Oi! Take your hands off of my nasi lemak! That's mine.", Lorna threatens.

"But it's been sitting there for hours. I don't want to let it go to waste. And besides, it's beginning to smell.", John motions, presenting the pyramid package wrapped in banana leaf up to Lorna's face. She grimaces and wrinkles her nose.

"Ugh, it's yours now."

"Gee, thanks Lorn. You're so kind." Deftly unwrapping the package, John chows down on the rice and anchovy sauce, snorting a bit as he wolfs it all down.

"You're a pig you know."

"The cute little one that went to town and never came back."

"Cute?", Lorna mocks.

"And devilishly handsome too."

"Oh please. I'd sooner make out with Cherry and renounce my straightdom."

"Oh, please, please, puppy dog eyes please?", John's eyes light up. Lorna can only roll hers around.

"You wish. Are you sure you should be eating that? Don't come whining to me about sending you to the clinic in a few hours."

John chuckles, almost spilling the contents of his mouth onto the dining table. "Look who's talking. Like you've never eaten at the nasi lemak stall near the dumpster and ditch, this is probably from there."

"But it's clean!"

"Oh sure and so are the flies that just visited the stall from the dumpster. I bet they washed their hands first.", John grinned, "Want a bite?".

"No! But you're going to that stall and getting me a fresh nasi lemak. Or else." Lorna says pointedly.

"Need a pack of ciggies too? I was going to get some."

"Make it a pack of fourteens, I'm broke.", she sighs.

"Don't worry about it, it's on me. Menthol lights or lights today?", he offers.

It is a house with character, if a clone of a thousand other houses can have personality. Fully detached and sliding downwards as a member of a terrace of other houses, it's the only one that looks more weathered than the rest. Years of intermittent rain and plentiful sunshine have earned it its wrinkles, the house numbered eleven. What once was a brand new white is now browned out in spots, the front door needs a fresh coat of red paint, the almost laughable excuse for a lawn needed mowing months ago and the light above the front door is a mere lightbulb. On the front gate hangs an orange mailbox that looks suspiciously like it was born out of a used engine oil gallon, with the numbers eleven denoted by two spaced and oblong strips of grey duct tape.

Home, sweet home.

If the occupants are home there are two cars parked in the driveway. One is an aging Austin Mini, that tiny little compact car that's small enough to pick up and throw over a cliff. And it's bright red. The other car is yet another tiny little compact but it hails from local shores instead. It's a white Kancil, the car of choice for hundreds of thousands of people with limited funds and
access to limited product variety. For the low end price range, it's either a Kancil or a motorscooter and women in Kuala Lumpur don't ride motorscooters. It ruins their hair.

Accompanying the two cars would be a motorscooter. It's a Vespa that Lee says is chic to hide the fact that it used to be his grandfather's and the fact that even his grandfather had left it for dead. But Lee had brought it back to life by scrounging around for parts at second hand chop shops and getting his buddy to put it back together again.

Whether or not everyone's home the lights are always on, even the clunky air conditioners from the eighties that could crush you flat if they fell out of the windows they were attached to, they were on too. With the electric company's meter rigged, ten fridges could be chugging away, feasting on alternating current and yet the bills would still only cost as much as, say, two large bottles of beer. Apparently city meter readers are automatons that don't question anything out of the ordinary. They couldn't be bothered to, after all, they have thousands of meters to read.

Walking into the house, one notices a sparse yet usefully decorated living room. Tall spindly floor lamps from Ikea emit a yellow ambience from two corners of the room. Dark hand-printed cloths from Penang hang from the wall in between, billowing slightly with the breeze grunted out of an old air-conditioner. In the middle is a thick navy blue rug, met on two sides by medium backed tan fabric couches and a corner coffee table lined with Starbucks mug coasters.

The centrepiece of the room is a huge big-screen television that John had won in a company dinner raffle, though he admits there was no luck involved. He was a member of his company's sports club committee and everyone in it had gotten a prize - the outgoing president had gotten the best one, a five day four night trip to Switzerland with pocket money of five thousand ringgit. The real bosses hadn't complained because they'd magically gotten prizes too. Lowly executive level employees could only grumble and discuss conspiracy theories amongst themselves.

It's a Friday night and John could be out with his pub mates but since it's the end of the month and Lorna's broke, he decides to hang out at home to accompany her because Lee and Cherry are always out and about anyway.

'And our intrepid hero meets the girl of his dreams! Will it be a secret longing or unbridled passion? No, it's a few knowing glances, a night in the sack and they live happily ever after.' John yawns.

'Amen.' Lorna yawns in return. 'Luckily for us, life isn't really so simple, is it? We have to put up with heroes who're all heroic when you first meet them and turn into drivel spouting love slaves once you get them round your little finger.'

'Or heroines who seem so princess-like in the beginning but turn into one of those ugly bitch stepsisters from hell. Once you've been sleeping with them for a few months, that is.'

Crunch goes the sound of their munching.

'Would you have it any other way?', John poses.

'Nope. Life has texture. On the other hand, movie directors are sadists bent on torturing innocent souls - making life seem much simpler than it actually is. Dreams are only meant for idiots in self-denial. People need practicality.'

'And what if from time to time we need to escape? You know, fantasize a bit - live in a dream for just the moment.'

'Then we're lying to ourselves of course.'

'Just taking our minds off things so that we can better deal with them later.'

'Ha! Ideals. And you think normal Joe would mind spending his entire life high and in a drunken haze instead of facing the real world?'

'Normal Jane wouldn't mind living out an eternal trashy novel fantasy either.'

'That's my point! Left alone to our animal desires we de-evolve.'

'There's nothing wrong with dreaming! For good reasons that is.'

'You over-estimate good intentions because we're only self-centred social animals bent on sex and money anyway.'

'Then for the few of us who dream for the better...'

'A lost tribe! Driven to extinction by good paying jobs, house loans and taxes.'

'It doesn't mean that true dreamers are wasting their lives away. And not everyone's a zombie slave of society.'

'And what's so special about you then?'

John pauses. 'I don't think like your normal Joe. In the end, I don't want the same things that normal Joe wants.'

'Really now. You don't want pussy, you don't want to own a Ferrari one day and you don't want respect?' Lorna raises a skeptical eyebrow.

'Come to think of it, yes I do but I'd be just as happy without them. Well, all except the pussy part anyway.'

'Pig.'

'I'd rather have the answers than the obviously mundane. I want life to have some other meaning and not just be your everyday what-six-billion-other-people do kind of thing. I want to unearth life's inner workings hidden away past all social moires and economic woes.'

'Why not be happy with what life does have to offer and not go chasing after some phantom dream?'

'Why should I be content or even try to be content with what I have?'

'There'd be less soul-drain and heartache that's for sure.'

'But like you said, life's not as simple as just life. I need it to be more.' John lays his head against the sofa edge.

Lorna sighs. 'I didn't exactly say that. But what more can there possibly be?'

John turns a questioning glance. 'You have to ask. Is it so hard to imagine?'

'Is it so hard to accept things for what they are?'

'Yes, it is.' John takes a swig of his soda and lets off a long satisfying belch.