The old man, caught in the agonising vice of filial piety for his dying mother and the tender duty owed to his long-suffering wife, wrestled desperately with an impossible decision. To embark on the planned Mediterranean cruise, or to stay. To go or not to go, that was the question that tormented him. He had over half a year of lead time, but as the months bled into weeks, the remaining days accelerated, collapsing upon themselves with inexorable speed. His windows of opportunity to cancel the trip and secure a refund or credit vanished entirely. Ultimately, it was his own paralysing indecision that made the choice for him. With a finality that brooked no debate, he resolved to go on the cruise with his Mrs., left only with the fervent hope and silent prayer that his mother would not pass away during his absence.
Their journey began not in Europe, but in Kuala Lumpur. This stopover was intended as a taste of all things Malaysian before the three-week European holiday commenced. The sojourn in KL offered him jarring glimpses of how much he, and indeed everyone in his orbit, had aged since his last visit to Malaysia two years prior. It was here, during dinner, that his sister-in-law, Eva, recounted her recent, mortifying tale of mistaken affection in Miri. While admiring oil paintings in a hotel lobby, she had reached for the hand of a man she presumed to be James, her husband, holding it sweetly and romantically for several minutes. She was on the verge of whispering loving words into his ear when a sudden recognition—the man’s body scent was utterly foreign—jolted her. She recoiled instantly, freeing her hand and desperately attempting to mask the faux pas, despite the man’s handsome and elegant appearance.
The aging process continued to manifest its toll on their attention to detail and spatial awareness later that same evening at a charming Nyonya restaurant. After their meal, James, ever the adept and dapper hero to his wife, confidently strode across the street toward his car, a white Volvo XC60. He instructed the group to wait safely under the restaurant’s alcove, protecting Eva from the few sprinkling raindrops. The others could only watch as James light-footedly, almost quick-footedly, walked further down the street after failing to unlock the car door he had approached. Their attention was then abruptly drawn by the loud, blaring horn of a car about three or four yards away from him. James, in his panic, had accidentally triggered the panic button on his remote. To Eva’s utter surprise, James managed to open that car’s door—another white Volvo XC60—and jumped inside just as the horn ceased its deafening protest. The three witnesses under the alcove erupted in silent laughter, yet agreed immediately to feign ignorance of his comical mistake. A white Volvo, they tacitly agreed, did not automatically confer ownership, even if one’s own car was also a white Volvo. The suave and seemingly unflustered James cranked up the Volvo’s engine and smoothly revved away with his three passengers, without further comment.
The next morning, their holiday group was completed by the arrival of two additional travellers, Sue and Chris. All were sexagenarians, but the sight of them dragging heavy baggage and cabin bags through KLIA was anything but “sexy.” They looked grey and burdened. The exception was the old man, who maintained an upright, tall, and lithe figure. He carried a 10kg Osprey green backpack and used an old Laucke bread mix bag as his cabin luggage. His fellow travellers offered him a torrent of unsolicited advice, though he couldn’t discern if it was borne of genuine concern for his well-being or simple badgering for his unconventional choice of luggage.
“You’re gonna compress your discs,” warned one.
“Watch out, your 3rd and 4th vertebrae will be damaged,” cautioned another.
“Oh dear, aren’t you worried about straining your neck? Look, you’ll end up with a bad posture,” chimed in a third member of the group.
By the time they boarded the plane, the accumulated stress of travel—checking in bags, navigating customs, scanning luggage with the frustrating inconsistency of requiring electronic devices out or allowing them to remain, removing watches, phones, belts, and sometimes shoes (releasing the resultant odors of dirty socks), enduring long waits, and searching for the correct gate—had utterly exhausted them. They looked dishevelled the old man’s Mrs especially was dragging her feet heavily as if desperately needing her usual afternoon nap.
As they stepped onto the aircraft bound for Doha, en route to Istanbul, the PA system announced that a watch had been found on one of the conveyor belts. The old man glanced at his naked wrist and quickly raised his hand for attention, his crooked yellow teeth exposed in a frantic yelp.
“S’cuse me, that would be my watch,” he declared.
As a flight attendant began the difficult walk towards him, sidestepping other passengers, the old man absentmindedly checked his Laucke flour bag. His eyes widened in a moment of recognition.
“Ooops, sorry. I have my watch here,” the old man mumbled, suddenly looking far older than the 67 years he thought his long hair helped to conceal.
Their itinerary for Istanbul was packed, a must-do list that included the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque. Once one sees the famous duo, the subtle differences between them can quickly blur into confusion. The Topkapi Palace, however, was not to be missed, offering a rather interesting insight into the life of the Ottoman sultans—a world administered by hundreds of eunuchs and entertained by an equally large number of female slaves and concubines in the harem. They learned the fascinating history of Mehmed II, who defeated the Romans and ended the Byzantine Empire by a brilliant, audacious manoeuver: lifting some 70 of his ships over land into the Golden Horn, a major waterway, thereby bypassing a massive defensive chain over the water and bombarding the city from inland with cannons mounted on board their ships. The Spice Bazaar proved to be rather boring unless one had a passion for spices, but the Grand Bazaar offered a stark lesson in local economics, demonstrating that the inhabitants’ deep love for gold was a pragmatic safe store of wealth to escape the country’s debilitatingly high inflation rate of 33% per annum.
During a ferry ride towards the Black Sea, Chris and Sue suggested Bebek to be a worthwhile stop, and the old man, expressing concern about getting “too perilously close to Ukraine,” agreed to disembark there. Bebek, a wealthy suburb, was characterised by roads congested with Mercedes-Benz and BMWs, offering a glimpse into the lifestyle of the upper crust—a society that was fundamentally distinct from the downtown Istanbul traders who had to constantly hassle and hustle for business. In nearby Kadikoy, the old man knew exactly what he wanted to do: symbolically kick the bronze posterior of the famous bull statue, which had failed to deliver the bullish rise in Bitcoin in November, as had been confidently predicted (or promised) by various self-proclaimed Bitcoin sages.
Dinner that evening was at a roof-top restaurant in Fatih. The excuse for the exorbitant evening was to celebrate Eva’s birthday although the actual date had since passed a fortnight.
The old man couldn’t help but notice a British man in his 30s at the adjacent table who offered a smile and a nod every time their eyes met. The Brit was merely having drinks with two friends all evening. Toward the end of the night, the Brit subtly gestured to one of his companions. A moment later, the old man noticed that bloke furtively take a quick shot of him with his phone. Was it a case of mistaken identity? When the three men finally stood up to depart, the Brit gave the old man one final, significant nod. It was a strange exchange indeed.
Being the only member of the group who seemed to receive constant attention, the old man often bore the brunt of his fellow travellers’ mild annoyance. At the customs desk for re-entry to the ship in Istanbul, the officer said she remembered him and, perhaps suffering from a shared delusion with others, cheerfully added, “You’re famous!” This was perhaps the same kind of delusion that had afflicted the lovely lady in the Spice Bazaar who had called out loudly to him, “Hey John Wick, come! Come, try my Viagra tea!” The old man didn’t purchase the tea, but she insisted on offering him a free sample anyway. He later confessed to me that the tea was “very good!”
One day into the cruise, a strong gust had forced them to miss the ancient site of Troy. Helen must wait. But on the second day, they strolled the ancient marbled streets of Ephesus, the remarkable Roman city that stands today as Turkey’s archaeological showpiece. Undoubtedly, they would have walked upon the very steps of St. John at the Basilica of St. John and seen the ruins of the Temple of Artemis.
On the second night, a blonde, svelte American woman approached the old man at the barista lounge on level 5 of the ship. With a wide smile and twinkling eyes, she announced, “Hello, I am Janet and you’re hot! I told my friends to look out for you!” As if that wasn’t enough to cause a stir, she walked over to the rest of his travelling group and loudly echoed the same complimentary words about him. That cup of macchiato will long be remembered as the best by a long shot for the old man. So sweet, even without sugar. The old man’s Mrs. responded glumly later, “Nothing to crow about, she must be vision-impaired since she’s easily in her 80s.” It turned out that Janet possessed some prophetic powers, for the old man did indeed catch a bug and was feverish the following evening.
Despite the inconvenience of a mild form of food poisoning, the old man was soon back on his feet the next morning. On the island of Mykonos, named after the grandson of Zeus, the old man smiled, pinched himself, and said to his Mrs, “Finally, I’ve been touched by the beauty and salt water of the Aegean Sea.” Mary, an elderly woman he had previously met on the cruise, walked up to him from among the disused windmills and told him his tee shirt looked “real nice” on him. The shirt was an old, worn top that one of his sons had left at home—too good to discard but too worn to be brought back overseas as a ‘good’ shirt.
“I’ve never had so many old ladies like anything and everything about me, even down to the old tee shirt I was wearing,” the old man later shared with his sons on social media.
That night, with the effects of the Viagra tea apparently waning, they dined out at the Polo Grille Restaurant. The most popular dish ordered was grilled Maine lobster, which was cooked and served with a sense of ceremony in a massive silver tray with a dome-shaped lid. As if this wasn’t decadent enough, the old man’s party each ordered a rib-eye steak, making it a true surf ‘n’ turf night. The sommelier introduced himself to the table, describing himself as a brutish ex-UFC fighter who had turned to the finer art of wine service. The Mrs looked at his burly black frame, strong square jaw, and powerful muscular arms and somehow misheard or misunderstood, concluding that he must have hailed from Somalia.
The old man concluded his reflections with a final, wry observation: “One thing to remember about cruises… lots of elderly folks, they tend to get the directions and facts wrong!”
Sadly for the old man, he did not realise he too had become one.
Urghhlings 