t h i r d p l a c e
A b ov e A l l E l s e J a c i e T a n C h e n g H w e e
Kuala Lumpur is not what it used to be. Sometimes, Din wished he had been born just a few years earlier, just so he could experience the country’s former economic capital in its heyday. Back when there were still such things as economic capitals. When cities were where prosperity reigned, not languished. But Din had been born 29 years ago, in the exact year when the virus reached his nation’s shores. His earliest memory was of his mother leaving, because his father hadn’t been prudent enough to buy a rural plot of land before the real estate there skyrocketed to unimaginable prices. When a contact-transmitted virus remains at large with no vaccine or cure, the last place you want to be is somewhere as close-quartered as KL. And so the wealthy left. To newly-built housing areas, all marketed as having ample amounts of space, because space was a key commodity in a world where distancing was a necessity. They fitted their homes with high-speed Internet and continued with their jobs that never required them to set foot outdoors.
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