Since the previous new moon, I have been touring various locations where earthlings gather, colloquially termed “watering holes”.

Observing your hidden resentment, and open conflict, I am reminded of one of the proverbs from your ancient sages from China:

“君子和而不同，小人同而不和。”

short stories

Allow me to present a few sketches of human behaviour, that I have dreamt about. Perhaps this might entertain you until the next new moon.

Graphic and disturbing imagery follows. Reader discretion is advised.

Harold

The wind flipped the pages of the Harold's book, but he did not notice. The pungent, smoky titillation that the Scotch whisky presented to his olfactory senses proved too captivating.

Gazing at the honey-coloured concoction, Harold marvelled that he had had an entire bottle of the delicate liquid to himself. Not too long ago, he had watched enviously as men in tuxedos poured a dram for casually-dressed, corpulent tourists from abroad, and now he, Harold McDonald, could have this bottle, all to himself, in the convenience of his lodging. What a little convenience that an inheritance makes.

But, unbidden, a memory came to Harold like a grainy video: long hair, flying in the wind — green leaves, rustling — laughter, tinkling like little windchimes.

Where was she now? The bottle of Scotch sat expectantly on the shelf before Harold, as if eager to please, while he roamed a restless hand across his bald scalp and frowned; how could he ever rid his mind of this video? Dang these thoughts!

It wasn't fair! He had retired! Everything his friends strove for, he now imbibed in excess! Private gardens! Famous acquaintances!

And yet — and yet — her voice came, floating to his ear of ears: “I'm getting married to Mark. This is goodbye, Harold. I don't think we should meet again.”

• fin

Siti

“Help me,” said the woman, sobbing piteously.

Sheena stopped mid-stride, looked up from her high heels, which she had been inspecting for dirt, and then noticed the woman: red puffy eyes, tear-streaked cheeks, mucus —

“What's wrong?” Sheena softened, and knelt down to where the woman was perched on the curb of road.

“My boss —” the latter choked out, “My boss —”

“My boss make me fuck men!” At this last burst of emotion, the woman started wailing.

Sheena found that a lump had formed in her throat, and she attempted to swallow it. What should I do?

“Let's go to the police station,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “I'll go with you. Can you manage to walk?”

The woman silently nodded. She has no bags with her, thought Sheena. Did she escape from her boss, in a hurry?

“What's your name?” asked Sheena politely.

“Siti. Siti Sri Bandar.”

A pause swelled into the conversation.

“I have a daughter,” continued Siti, “back home in Mujina. She's turning 10 years old, this year. Please don't tell her about this.”

Siti looked at Sheena, pleading.

“Your story is safe with me, Siti. But I want you to tell the police officer everything. This is not right, what your boss is doing. If they go after your boss in a criminal investigation, this may appear in the news. I hope the reporter or the judge keeps your name anonymous.”

Sheena paused.

“I'm so sorry this happened to you, Siti. Can I buy you a cup of teh?”

• fin

bookshelf

1. Editor: Margaret Thomas. “The politics of defeat: Preliminary chapters and the secret diary of Francis Thomas”.
2. Publisher: NVPC, Singapore. “Guide to Impact Measurement: from intent to impact, for non-profits.”

#lunaticus #CraftingStories

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?

Trying to massage the sense of panic that was rising within her, she chewed on the oily piece of bak kwa that she had packed.

Far away from the coastline, the ship's captain looked around him. He had told Chio Tee to jump overboard, together with her son. The ship, named The Unsinkable Giant, was going down, and he was going down with her. There was no way out of this disaster.

A quiet despair engulfed the captain from the depth of his bowels.

Around the captain were treasures from all over the world: caviar from Russia, cheese from Switzerland, and raw salmon sashimi from Japan. All of these were sinking down, down, down into the ocean, never to be seen by humankind, ever again.

• fin

Credits:

Appreciating Felix Cheong for hosting the session on Creative Writing, and for delivering the prompt: the soundtrack named “Jungle Drums”, from the 1990 film by Wong Kar Wai: 'Days of being wild'.

Kudos to Isabel Ng, Vivian Teoh and Janice Tan for venue support.

#CraftingStories

A death in his family meant that Izra was called to the funeral. There, a female church-goer approached him and then, over several nights, inundated his family's telephone with calls. (There were no personal handphones in Izra's time). Izra's father, annoyed, instructed him to put an end to the calls. Izra did so, but little did he expect that the female would later unleash a vicious rumour that Izra was a philanderer who had used her and disposed of her.

Soon Izra's colleagues in church began changing their tone towards him. Try as he might, the rumour proved difficult to quell. But, eventually, he got married, and four decades later, at a reunion with his ex-colleagues, a lady said: “Now we know you are a good man”.

I, too, have been slandered. But Izra teaches me: “Time and Patience are the greatest warriors known to Man.”

#CraftingStories

Elga wistfully moved her thoughts away from her mother's gentle yet firm touch, and settled her mind on the little plushie that she had bought from this country's National Oceanarium: a penguin. Snuggled next to the moon-white pillow in her room, it'd be her companion for the remaining five days.

Looking at herself one last time in the mirror, she took a deep breath, and strode into the bar, where a waitress in red lipstick and power blazer stood to attention. “Table for one, please. I'm fine by the bar.”

Mamood tossed restlessly on the wooden floor. This abandoned shophouse lay next to a busy road, and the chatter of motorbikes, and blares of overloaded trucks, ate into his thoughts whenever he tried to focus his mind.

It was no good. He couldn't think properly, at this rate.

And what other matter was exerting more pressure on his thoughts than the fact that his employer had withheld his salary for the fifth month straight? Mamood felt a deep sense of helplessness. If he complained to the Labour Force, something might happen to get the money flowing again into his meagre bank account, but then his employer would be sure to find out that Mamood was the one who snitched, and who could tell what his employer would do after that? Blacklists were common in this industry. Once an employer set his mind to bar your way into any other company, you were as good as a dirtied paper cup: into the trash bin you go! I'll look for the next paper cup to use, out of my stock of a million paper cups.

It was no good. He felt smaller and smaller each day, working without salary. His stomach sat with a gnawing sense of unease.

He flicked on his VisionBoard and looked in his Search History – where were those nude photos of that fair-skinned beauty? His friend had sent him those photos from don't-know-where – and Mamood didn't know her, and neither she, him —

“No money, no honey”, it is just as they say, Mamood thought ruefully. I have no money to buy beer, but a Vision is better than nothing.

Mamood tried not to think of the singularly pretty girl in his home village, who, he knew, had never even deigned to so much as glance in his direction – she only ever had eyes for the muscular baseball captain —

anyway, back to this Vision...

The next day, the Sun shone bright and golden, all warmth and geniality; it was the kind of weather when young brides, resplendent in flowing white gowns and floral bouquets, hopped outdoors for photoshoots with their tuxedo-ed – and secretly perspiring – bridegrooms.

Suddenly a thunderclap erupted from the blue heavens, and a vast grey array of clouds loomed on the horizon, and within ten minutes, a heavy storm had unleashed itself.

Elga hadn't expected it to happen so fast; she wobbled in her high heels; how could it rain on this day of the Final Lap of the International Motorsports Competition? It wasn't fair!

And yet, rain it did – and how!

Elga had no choice, she hadn't brought a raincoat out to the grandstands; she watched as the three teenage boys next to her whipped out umbrellas.

Everyone who had paid for a ticket to the front-row seats in the grandstand were still glued to their seats. It seemed as if they had decided that getting drenched was part of the experience – though the ticketing agent had conveniently omitted inclement weather from the shiny advertisement pamphlet, back when she had bought the tickets in her mother's city.

There was a strange kind of solidarity as all her fellow spectators sat still in the grandstands and felt the full force of a tropical rainstorm bear down upon them.

“This isn't rain,” Elga muttered to herself. “This is a curtain of water.”

Mamood's yellow boots were filling up. His socks were squelching.

“Hey there! Move faster!” His fair-skinned boss screamed at him, in the downpour.

Boss was holding an umbrella. Mamood rested his gaze on the bright yellow umbrella for a moment, wishfully, and then went back to hauling the metal pipes on his shoulder, as the rainwater pelted his scalp.

Plop, plop, plop.

How blunt and unflinching, these raindrops! How very much like how his mother used to rap his head, whenever he had played soccer in the grass fields for too long.

How many times have I told you, Boy, come back before sunset! Do you know how worried your Mama was?

Mamood suddenly felt something warm trickle down his face, amidst the cold rain that ran down his oily scalp in rivers and torrents. To his surprise, it was tears from his eyes.

“Faster!”

“Yes, Boss.”

Suddenly someone screamed. The worker in front of Mamood pointed to the far end of the construction site.

There! A concrete wall had collapsed under the weight of the rainwater and the wind. As if on cue, a bunch of workers – light-reflective vests shining in the gloomy rainstorm – ran to the wall.

Was someone trapped under it?

Mamood glanced at Boss, whose eyes were open and round with shock.

Oh, Mama. Has someone died in front of me?

Elga packed her luggage bag for the fourth time in the same morning. The penguin wouldn't fit inside.

“Don't worry! You're coming with me in the airplane cabin,” she sang.

Yip had won the International Motorsports Competition. Again. Elga had always known Yip could do it. She had a hundred, no, a thousand, photos of Yip, stored inside her VisionBoard.

There was Yip overtaking Yong, two years ago... Here was Yip popping a massive bottle of champagne and spraying his team-mates with the bubbly...

What fun! Wasn't Yip the best? Elga felt a sense of pride swell up, within her bosom. Yes, Yip, I'll always be your fan. I hope you'll notice me one day.

Flicking her VisionBoard open, Elga called for a taxi driver. “To the airport, please. Okay, I'll wait fifteen minutes”.

Elga's next stop: a beach, somewhere else in the archipelago, where her friend had apparently just visited. “Wish you were here,” her friend's VisionCard had read, together with a picture of a buggy vehicle that chugged its way up a sandy coastline slowly.

“Mamood.”

“Yes, Boss?”

“I am sending you back home now. I have no money to pay you.”

Silence.

“But, Boss, what about the past five months? You always said you would pay me after I finished my work.”

Boss slammed the table.

“When I say I have no money, that means I have no money! Now get out of my office! You're going home tonight, I've booked a flight for you already. My secretary will pass you your airplane tickets. Get out!”

Mamood froze. This was happening so fast. His socks hadn't even dried from yesterday's freak-bombshell of a rainstorm.

Something dull and red pulsed, deep inside Mamood.

“Your tickets, Mamood.” Boss's secretary. The fair-skinned woman, chubby and bespectacled, peered over at him from her desk, a cruel smile in her eyes. “Pack your bags and we'll send you to the airport in a taxi.”

“Okay, Boss. You say, I do.”

Mamood quickly flew to his untidy bedside upstairs. His heart was thumping in his chest. His eyes darted all over the plastic bags and unfolded clothes. There! In a book titled “Migrant Workers' Poetry”, he found a slip of paper.

With trembling fingers he flicked open his Vision Board and punched in the digits.

“Hello, Labour Force? My name is Mamood. Can you help me?”

• Fin -

#CraftingStories