He looked up and saw the KL Tower looming above him, its red eye pulsating at the top. He turned around, pulled some clothes from the open wardrobe, straightened the sheets on his bed, found two white pills from his bedside drawer and swallowed them with water from a bottle. He sat on the side of his bed and looked at his watch. He had no idea if Nim was going to show up and felt a pang of regret. It was impulsive, asking her to come over. He had no idea if she was even in town, and had assumed that she was.

Omar walked into the kitchen and opened another bottle of whisky. He had been drinking heavily for three days, and had thought to stock up for the weekend ahead. After the meeting with Inspector Awang, he had called the office, told his secretary to cancel all meetings and appointments, drove home and started drinking. He had called PT Raja to update him of the new findings, put the volume down on his handphone, closed the curtains, turned on the stereo and sat on the couch, unmoving, until he drank an entire bottle and had passed out on the couch.

When he woke up, he ran to the bathroom and retched violently. Only bile came up, and his stomach growled in pain. He stumbled into the shower and vomited again, his stomach heaving in waves. The cold water revived him and he glared at his reflection in the mirror. His face unshaven, his eyes bloodshot, his right fist shaking with anger. His mouth contorted in anger and he let us a scream, his mouth widening into an O and then a snarl and then as an image of Alba flashed into his mind, his body shook and heaved with tears, and on the bathroom floor, he wept.

After the suicide attempt, I was inundated by calls from Sumi, Fairman, Imran and once by Omar, but I felt the distance in his voice, and responded appropriately with the same measure of coldness. My near-death-experience had informed me that there were beings of light—I was certain that I had been carried by a guardian angel of some sort—and that the promise of an afterlife was real. The road to heaven was not paved with roses, it was paved with the unending rays of a brilliant, undying sun.

Papa was beside himself and it pained me to see him like that, but I assured him that it would never happen again. I had resolved to see things differently. My father was at death’s door, waiting, and I realised that he was only living for me, that if I ended my life, he would end his own. The cyclical nature of life and death was not profound, we had glimmers of love, and perhaps it was enough.