I wanted nothing more than to turn back and curl up on the warm sofa at my cottage in Dragon Hall. But it felt pointless. I had already reached the end of King Street. Once across, all that remained was Upper King Street, and then I would arrive in Tombland. So I hardened my resolve. I was looking for a book a friend had asked me to find: a collection of Allen Ginsberg’s poems from 1947 to 1997. I had already tried two shops selling new books, without success. That was why I was trying my luck at a secondhand bookshop in Tombland, reputed to be exceptionally well stocked.

‘Isn’t that a cemetery?’ my friend asked on WhatsApp after I told him where I was searching for his book. I had briefly thought so myself, misled by the word tomb. But it isn’t. There is no graveyard there. The name Tombland comes from Old English or Old Norse, meaning open land.

This area was once the beating heart of the Anglo-Saxon city—a main marketplace where people gathered and traded horses. When the Normans arrived in 1066 under William the Conqueror, the market was moved. Still, life continued to pulse there.

After replying to the message, I looked up. I could see the spire of Norwich Cathedral, its sharp tip piercing the sky. The bookshop couldn’t be far now; it was in the same vicinity.

Just then the rain intensified, and I ducked left into a sheltered space beneath a multi-story building marked ‘Tombland Alley’. I slipped inside and noticed an old, plaque-bearing structure that seemed to have been built by Augustine Steward in the 1500s.

When the rain eased, I resumed my walk, which turned out to be very short. Soon I saw stacks of books arranged outside the building, all priced at one pound apiece. I cursed myself for having been tempted to buy too many books before coming here, leaving precious little space in my suitcase. I could spare only one narrow slot for my friend’s order.

As soon as I stepped inside, warm air embraced me. What a relief after nearly twenty minutes of braving the cold. I was greeted by Phillipa—Pippa, as she is familiarly called—with a warmth that rivaled that of the shop itself. When I showed her the cover of the book I was looking for, she paused, thought for a moment, then shook her head. Still, she asked me to wait while she checked the inventory on her computer.

While Pippa scanned the list on the large screen before her, I looked around. Hundreds of books lined the walls, most of them hardbound, like ancient tomes, reminding me of the Hogwarts library. My reverie broke when Pippa said she couldn’t find the book I wanted. Even so, she invited me to go upstairs, where the poetry section was.

The wooden stairs creaked under my feet. A window along the wall framed the stone exterior of St. George’s Parish Church. I turned left and found myself in a sea of poetry books. The complete poems of Octavio Paz stood there, alongside Dante’s ‘Inferno’, all beckoning me to reach out, open them, and wander through their lines. Sadly, there was no Allen Ginsberg collection to be found.

I went back downstairs to Pippa and shook my head. She suggested I try Book Hive. Another customer, an elderly man with a beard reaching his chest, joined in and advised me to ask at Waterstones.

In truth, I was reluctant to leave the shop—it meant facing the cold again. But I had to head back; I had a meeting scheduled with Tammy, a poetry editor from Nine Arches Press, at Dragon Hall.

And sure enough, the moment I stepped outside, the freezing air hit me, stabbing all the way to my bones. My jeans were helpless against the cold, as was my pink jacket—although the shop assistant back in Jakarta had assured me would protect me even in sub-zero temperatures.

The rain was still falling. I quickened my pace. White vapor puffed from my nose and mouth as I panted. Running in the rain with aching legs was no easy thing. Experiencing it, I realized, is not the same as imagining it—something I had done often enough in Jakarta before coming here.

As I stepped over the slick pavement strewn with rotting maple leaves, I remembered what my football-maniac-friend had said. He claimed European football players were too spoiled. In winter matches, they wore special layered thermal T-shirts, jackets, and gloves—though they’d be running anyway, warming themselves up. Clearly, my friend had never felt his muscles cramp as icy air invaded his body; otherwise, he wouldn’t talk so lightly.

Experiencing the cold helped me understand the feelings of the homeless people I saw near the bridge over the River Wensum. That same cold made my heart tremble as I watched videos of hundreds of my fellow countrymen back home, submerged in muddy floodwaters for hours in the middle of night. Their property destroyed. Loved ones lost. Fathers losing children, husbands losing wives, toddlers suddenly orphaned overnight. How utterly frozen—frozen to the core.

Yet there are people who casually say it wasn’t as bad as social media made it seem. Perhaps they’ve never suffered such misfortune. Perhaps they’ve never felt that kind of ‘cold’.

I myself have been a flood victim three times. Hundreds of books, along with household tools, were chewed to pieces by the water. Even so, the floods I faced were nothing like the disaster of those in Sumatra—an island whose natural wealth has been mercilessly plundered. I remembered driving across Sumatra toward Pekanbaru two years ago. On both sides of the road: barren hills, palm oil plantation, palm oil plantation, and just palm oil plantation. No wonder the forest’s inhabitants fled—like the giant snake I nearly ran over on the Trans-Sumatran highway.

My body shuddered harder. Even my calves were going numb. I walked faster. Dragon Hall appeared in the distance. Soon, the cold in my body would be countered by the warm air from heaters inside—but what about the people in evacuation camps? What could possibly soothe the freezing they endured? Perhaps they were still waiting for aid. Perhaps they were still shivering in the dark night, with no walls to block the cold, relying only on thin tarps overhead. Perhaps their stomachs were still twisting with hunger, waiting for help that had yet to come.

Meanwhile, there are people living in warm houses somewhere far away. Those who profit from trading forest land may already have frozen hearts. Their hearts have become blocks of ice, unmelted even as the glowing screens before them broadcast the victims’ suffering. That is a kind of cold I truly never want to experience.