The world as a whole operates increasingly in the mode of urgency, of emergency, of dangers that require immediate reaction and attention. The poor, as refugees, as migrants, as minorities, as slum dwellers, and as subsistence farmers, are often at the center of these emergencies. Yet their biggest weapon is often their patience as they wait for relief to come, rulers to die, bureaucrats to deliver promises, government servants to be transferred, or drought to pass.

Arjun Appadurai, The Capacity to Aspire: Culture and the Terms of Recognition

He was standing in the long line at the immigration checkpoint of Kota Kinabalu International Airport, on another grim exploratory mission representing the Haji. A nascent sense of restlessness pooled at the bottom of his stomach.

Why is he doing this?

With a gleaming degree from Cambridge he could have slipped into the ease of a desk job in one of the many air-conditioned offices, high in the canopy of Kuala Lumpur skyscrapers. There, he would be rewarded based on a silently understood recognition of his worth, without the prerequisite of proving himself. If that had been the case, this trip could instead morph into an indulgent, island-hopping vacation. As he shuffled forwards — the sound of authoritative stamping on passports up ahead punctuating the early morning stillness — he tried to clear his head. But all he could think of were potential excuses he could give the Haji for cancelling this visit. In another reality, he was on a boat heading towards the smattering of islands off the nearby coast. The real world could toss and turn elsewhere, out of sight, and he would let it. Yet, he knew he could never do such a reckless, fickle thing. It would be irresponsible.

• Tags: Aizuddin H. Anuar, Issue 16, Malaysia