He just nodded, too shy to say more. In the monsoon, strangers helped strangers. The rain had a way of leveling things—the rich man in his Proton and the old woman selling nasi lemak both ended up soaked, both rushing for the same patch of dry concrete.

Ali ducked under the overhang of a kopitiam, his shirt already plastered to his back. Around him, the city’s rhythm shifted. Motorbikes spluttered to a halt, their riders dragging them onto pavements like beached fish. Office workers in damp baju kurung clutched plastic bags over their heads—a futile gesture. Children shrieked with joy, chasing each other through ankle-deep water, their mothers shouting warnings about demam , the fever that always came with the rains.

“Terima kasih,” she said, breathless, rain dripping from her chin.

The monsoon had arrived. Not the shy, drizzly kind you see in postcards. This was the real thing: a curtain of water that fell not in drops but in solid sheets, turning Jalan Pudu into a rushing river within minutes. Rain lashed the corrugated zinc roofs, a deafening drumroll that drowned out all other sounds—the clatter of trolleys, the bargaining voices, even the muezzin’s call from the nearby mosque.

He watched a young woman in a red tudung wade across the street, her sandals lost somewhere in the brown surge. Without thinking, Ali stepped out, caught her elbow, and guided her to the higher ground of the five-foot-way.

“Here it comes,” he muttered, grabbing the rattan basket of kuih he’d just packed. His stall at the edge of the Pudu market was already half-dismantled, the tarpaulin flapping like a wounded bird.

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