Sitting On A Rock, watching a lonesome dark cloud roll across the horizon, and catching a little wind with a Snickers Mini in hand. If there’s such a thing as a Random-Stroke-of-Zen Moment, that would’ve been it.

As always, the rock and the wind would give birth to a lot of ideas. Paper planes and kites. Paragliding. Or bagfuls of dandelions, opened to the breeze. That would’ve been sight.

How long was it since I hiked up Broga Hill?

A couple of things have changed. For one, the oil palm plantation below now has an enclosure, and there are people there charging climbers two ringgit to park their cars . An opportunistic vendor now parks his coconut stall at the foot of the hill, enticing weary climbers with thoughts of ice cold coconut drinks (in truth, almost lukewarm). Some authoritative figure of some sort enacted a few signboards along the way, and - wherever needed - aiding ropes were now available to speed up the ascent.

Other than that, and the fact that it’s now a tourist attraction, and the overlong cattails, everything’s still the same.

Stamina now shot to dust, but I still made it up at least. And I headed for the rock without a thought, ready to push off anyone with the gall to sit on it.

(Which begs the question; Can one buy a rock? If one would invest an insignificantly significant amount of money, can a gigantic piece of rock be bought and fitted around with electric barb wires and a moat filled with piranhas just so only one may sit on it?)

In place of dandelions, I shot a stalk of Lalang into the air, the way that the father thought me. The stalk danced momentarily in the wind, deciding whether or not to follow the flight and, knowing the scientific hopelessness of it, simply danced to the ground.

I felt like it reflected a bit of something, but it’s a fogged mirror, which I drew a face on and forgot.