Date: 21 August 2026, 8 PM.
Venue: Waterfront Theatre at Esplanade, Singapore
A howl emerged from the character on stage. “You're a bag of rats!”
The character had a pot belly, wore a beard, and sported a mass of curly, rust-brown hair – and when he got upon his feet, after having lain down conspicuously, the audience could see, stretching around his corpulent belly, the waistband of his off-white underwear.
“My mental health is going from bad to worse!” he screamed.
The character was not in a monologue; for the large part of half an hour, he had been verbally jabbed, poked, and mocked by another character: buxom, blonde and lipstick-ed. And cruel.
The (public) pianist is not like a lone barista, who sits at a shop counter, waiting for customers to approach him for a dose of caffeine (which is a legal psychoactive drug, by the way).
People gather up the courage – or recklessness – to ask the pianist to play their favorite songs.
No, this wasn't rock-climbing, this was bouldering – just like her colleagues have done, in Thailand.
But this time, she was stranded on an island in the Indonesian archipelago. She looked at her son beside her, who had just produced some faeces in his baby-blue pants; the poor infant had been born blind. He was howling.
In her hair was still the hibiscus flower her husband had given her, when he had tearfully waved goodbye to her at the ship-port. Where was her husband when she needed him?
I met someone who runs workshops on Guided Journalling. She shared a prompt with me: “What would be the sweetest and kindest thing that someone can say to you?”
Uh... I have to admit I have to think a bit, for that one.
I know! Why don't I look up what others have already said about me?
I feel shy though.
Here's something from J, a poet:
Thank you for your gentle, kindly presence and the warmth you bring to every space you enter.
