Today I was on the road with a suicide bomber. I was with him for all of half an hour, and paid him RM9 for the privilege of having him escort me home ("Sangat jauh la, he said, 7 ringgit tak boleh") When he dropped me off, he smiled when I said thanks, but I knew deep down in my heart that he was going to kill people someday soon.

He was a middle-aged, short and thin Malay man. His bomb was a Proton Saga painted green with a plasticky lit-up "Teksi" sign atop it and a tankful of auto gasoline. And the way he was driving so recklessly with a broken speedometer, he was just asking to die in a cinematic-scale explosion.

Oh, the places you find terrorists these days. (Sure struck terror into me at every turn. :P)