I jogged up and down the Setiakasih streets, going up and down the numbers, looking into houses, cars, windows that were open. I was an eavesdropper, an intruder of sorts, entering the lives of these strangers, imagining their most intimate secrets, their deepest fears. I saw retired men in shorts and baseball caps walking their yappy dogs, I saw teenage girls with headphones stuck in their ears running in candy-coloured shoes, I saw executive types with portly stomachs and early jowls run up hilly slopes and walk with uneven breaths after. Mornings were cool until nine o'clock, when the sun came out in all its glory. Unless you wanted to sweat profusely and unnecessarily, it was time to get into air-conditioning or under a cold shower.

For one week I alternated between mornings and evenings. I saw a pattern that emerged with nannies, joggers and dog-walkers. I started recognising faces, and started saying hi to some. Then it was the Setiabudi streets, Setiaraya—past even bigger houses, more opulent, more modern. I saw similarities in gate designs, plants and flower pots placed outside, water features and fake rocks—good for feng shui—older women in hats and gloves squatting over flower beds. It was mundane, normal, sedate. I saw lonely people wandering in and out of their cars. I saw mothers with shopping bags, babies, maids carrying all manner of things big and small. People going in and out of their houses. All this time I saw nothing suspicious, until one day I went into a cul-de-sac at the end of Setiakasih 7. I saw a neighbourhood guard post with two Nepali guards. One came up to me.

Morning, madam, where are you going?

I was breathless and said, Oh, just going to jog up and down the road.

Sorry, madam, I need to see your IC or drivers’ licence.

I don’t have it, sorry.

Then you cannot go in.

Oh, I see. Not even to jog?

Cannot, madam, last night got robbery here, so boss said cannot let anyone without IC first.

Okay, I understand, thank you.

As I turned to run in the opposite direction, he said, Madam, where you staying? I walk with you, not safe here now.

No, it’s okay. I am not far.

I ran back to my car, and sat in silence as I drank an entire bottle of water in a slight panic. Then I hit my head on the steering wheel and screamed. I was not going to find anything there. It was stupid. A waste of time. How on earth was I going to find my child? By jogging the streets of the city? By staking out playgrounds? By peeking into stranger’s houses? All I had seen were semblances of human lives, families, fragments of minutes spent on roads, insights into people’s time. I felt like a criminal, stealing glances into babies faces, adoring their chubby hands and feet, their gurgles, the way the adult hands dug into young, soft flesh, the sweetness in the cheeks, necks, I just yearned for my baby, my darling baby girl. Where was she? I drove home, tears streaming down my face, I was screaming into the traffic, screaming for the loss of everything that I knew to be human.