Two: Creative Writing Competition
A NUS Literary Society Publication
Masthead Joan Theng Editor-in-Chief Isaac Tan Executive Editor
Cover art: Untitled by Isaac Tan
Two: Creative Writing Competition Editor’s Letter Convenience Jerrold Yam Jun Jie Bei Feng Yeo Yong Seng
Dreamcatcher Alexis Chen Weiqi Seventeen Koh Jia Ren
Symbiont Jerrold Yam Jun Jie 11.11.11 Jerrold Yam Jun Jie
Last July I had A Dream Ng Qingyang Stuck Tan Qian Li
For Those Lost In Transit Koh Jia Ren Prognosis Jerrold Yam Jun Jie
Any Dream Will Do Tan Jian Xiang In Transit Sherilyn Chew Sunday Mass Ng Qingyang Don’t Rain On My Parade Alexis Chen Weiqi No Man’s Land Ng Qingyang Show Me The Money! Alexis Chen Weiqi
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Editor’s Letter As the residual dust of examinations is swept away by time, I found myself questioning what needs to be done next. It is not a particularly difficult question as everyone would advise finding a job or planning activities for the society. While those could be enjoyable pursuits, it is too hectic to launch myself into a buzz of activity straight after my exams. In the midst of utter frustration, I realised that the Olympics are around the corner – now that is something that would bring me some degree of pleasure. I have to confess that my enjoyment of sports is merely relegated to watching a couple of racquet sports. But what really intrigues me about the games would be how it has a sort of enchantment that turns the most stoic among us into a boisterous critic; yelling at the stupidity of the players for not being able to return a rather easy shot. Whether one sees it as a spectacle of sporting achievement and unity or as a flimsy veil that is entrenched in politics, the Olympics certainly has a hold on most of us and the spirit of competition can never be greater. Now wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were a stadium full of people cheering our writers when they recited their literary works? Well, if we could build a time machine, it would no longer remain in the fertile recesses of our imagination for the modern Olympic games from the start of the 1900s to the 1940s did include artistic events such as poetry, drama, painting, sculpture, music and architecture.
While a re-enactment of such events would merely be a foray into speculative fiction for us, we at Symbal firmly believe that we should celebrate the courageous few who dared to present their works for scrutiny and to compete with their peers. Hence, it is with great pride that I present to you our very own version of a literary Olympics – the winners of the Creative Writing Competition 2011! Many thanks go to Aaron Maniam and Alfian Sa’at for judging the poetry and prose categories respectively. As for you readers, I can assure you that you will not be disappointed if you were to run this race with us and click through the works. An open mind with an enthusiasm for the power of words will leave you greatly rewarded when you finish this race – Symbal Issue Two. Isaac Tan Executive Editor 3rd May 2012
Convenience When you both agreed to sleep in separate rooms, each relegated like guilt, lust, or some other regret to a shelf of capillaries, the heart’s coded pulse, the life built, then broken to mimic compromise—when that vow was born I couldn’t tell the difference. Either, or both, pointed fingers at the snoring like it was a puppet we propped against the door and shot with pellets, the rhythm of achievement rude in our ears—how rain, unstrung, meant a good night’s sleep. That night it probably didn’t rain, or it leaked a little, or it poured like freedom down mature, wedded minds, uncoiled from each other, accomplished, adult minds sleeping in separate rooms. All I knew was it didn’t matter to the rest of our family, not the help, not Grandma who commissioned your hand in marriage, not that ambiguous weather or that boy of fifteen, already asleep. Jerrold Yam Jun Jie 1st Place
Bei Feng I don’t often acknowledge power and authority. But here, By the north-faced window of a room tiny in the turbulent strength of your majesty, I know I’m small. Roaring in my ears, Your songs of legendary courage Tell me of a wild and bitter north Of vast black seas under cold grey skies Of stories about the brave and silent All immortalized and sacred In an eternity of ice. I don’t often acknowledge power and authority. Yet here, Nothingness in the infinity of your breath, I concede. Yeo Yong Seng 2nd Place
Dreamcatcher I see you wallow in her pity Morning comes, you start to Do you sense the absurdity? stir I collect and count your I look at you and then I’m sure sorrows and sins I’ve been down this road In your favourite game where before no one wins Then pushed away, kicked out It’s not like you to be afraid the door To hide behind your In your light, I shrink, but masquerade darkness, I bask So come, sweetheart, show me You drew me in, gave me this your face mask In your repent I seek solace I ask of you to remain the same I relish the hunt, live for the Hidden in the petals, a lone game thorn With my shadow alone I twirl Look, my love, a child is born Be not a boy, be not a girl But be careful where you The wings you’ve grown are tread black and broken One wrong step, the child is So fly, be free, but be dead unspoken I felt the ground shaking And when you think you’ve before we met seen the key And I knew you were never a Then, my angel, come back to threat me But honey, if what they say is true Then I’m going to Hell with you. Alexis Chen Weiqi 3rd Place
Seventeen We construct ourselves like moth’s wings, Fuse snowflake scales onto our bones To tuck our marrow away from the cold. We gravitate towards flickering flames; too close our wings melt like rain into the sand of the shore where things beyond us meet, where I first met you dancing freely around the bonfire. Koh Jia Ren Hwa Chong Institution Honourable Mention
Symbiont For hours in its withered nothing has changed. Mom palm, both rivals tells me all that happens and conspirators, the host in happens for a reason, reason each other slipping through my fingers in is unacknowledged. Your body the wet of discarded prayers perches on nights like this, when I on the curious, geometric believe, a secret triangle tattoo, your body seared like drawn by my legs, my arms burn marks straddling the bird against my chest, our limbs in your chest like seatbelts. I collapsing in wonder, feel your sparse, desert hair this flesh-forged sanctum, this grazing my chin, this harvest architecture of hope. of padded cloths not yet its mother’s image, not weight Jerrold Yam Jun Jie enough for gratifying sunsets Honourable Mention or their watercolour crimes, their slick interrogations with furniture. At the hospital your skin flakes like our favourite spot in front of the TV, velvetyplastic, my fingers are running through its debris with all the tenderness of regret, sifting its cancerous snow for hints, for what to do and how to keep surviving. The elder child must take the lead, it is the pencil for scrawling vows,
11.11.11 When your voice soars from its eddying seat, the reheated dishes are unamused. Moonlight overtakes the table, hospital white in jest, it is hoping even surprises have deadlines.
That gelato shop, you persist, eyes reddening from asking too much of the present, or Mei Mei’s favourite carrot cake—it is a very special date, no? I imagine our family’s history rolled out, beaten like dough, this instant our faces brewing in personal enclosures, once a millennium, too soon expired. Jerrold Yam Jun Jie Honourable Mention
Last July I Had A Dream Last July I had a dream of a winter night that was a charcoal cat with starry eyes glistening like drops of dew clinging to the underside of a tattered maple leaf redolent with the scent of you. Ng Qingyang Honourable Mention
Stuck Mad gestures, obsidian eyes bright like clear jelly wobbling, slow and unfocused. That escape from the cognitive mode of experience, release from that accidental moment of being shut forth like sticky envelopes never to be opened. Sealed, clammed shut, a collage of icy smiles their voices ever resonant, sunlight trickles, drips and engulfs. Waking, sleeping, speaking on land but bubbling helplessly with white noise, the static that carries the underwater.
Tan Qian Li Honourable Mention
For Those Lost In Transit It’s the fish that break the surface and gasp for air to drown. Embroidery ripped from its seams, it’s fabric unraveling into wisps of strands stranded in the wind. It’s the people stolen from our midst. Breathing in the bittersweet of receding dreams we collide into the morning as those who have never known the Sun. Kind eyes with vacant gazes are empty places. With faces hardened we learn how to run in the rain. Koh Jia Ren Hwa Chong Institution Honourable Mention
Prognosis as the real one, trembling after She undresses, eases into the happiness, recliner, arms locks itself in your husband’s spilling past its rim, an eager like an oath, experiment. you can feel his pulse Ennobled hands are hiking mingling, snug the mountain in joy’s familiar profits. And of her inhibitions, as if finding your eyes a home glaze over, underwater vows in its vulnerability, spreading pushing to gel thick break the surface, the doctor as placenta. Instruments clink is giving us and tinker a moment and my parents their own rituals. On the stare screen, an image at the image, at each other, swells like a ghost, kids miraculously efficient, in a museum. They embrace. the fruit of compromise not Irreverent tales are whispered needing to raise the way kids scratch oaths its voice, its arms, not crying, into palms strangely and promise never to do wrong not at fault for deserving again. attention. It shakes your hand in your Jerrold Yam Jun Jie mind Honourable Mention
Any Dream Will Do know it. His mother sat down Jeffrey had just returned to watch. Their homes, those home from school, and by that shown daily on the TV time the food had gone cold. screens, were unlike theirs. “Jeff, eaten yet?” Large enough to afford space between the sofas and coffee “Yeah. Ate dinner with my tables, with room for the friends.” actors to give a performance of shouts and cries and screams. He dropped his schoolbag at the door, and slumped onto “I make dinner every day, the the sofa. The TV, a least you and your father can cantankerous plastic box of do is to come back early-” twenty, was extolling the virtues of detergents and hand “Ma, it’s not like I don’t come cleaners. His mother shuffled back at all.” into the kitchen. A porcelain spoon clinked into a bowl, and “Ya, but outside food is no she came back out again, a good for your health.” She bowl of soup in her hands. pushed the bowl towards him, “I cooked some soup for you, “Next time, don’t come back so drink it.” late. Study is important, but don’t forget to have dinner.” He looked at it. Black pieces of boiled-down chicken and the “Okay, Ma.” swollen red shapes of wolfberries floated beneath the She put it beside him, and he oily surface, and the heady nodded appreciatively. The TV smell of broth grabbed him in went back to its usual: a its embrace. He put it aside. A drama serial of everyday life, thin column of steam rose into as they were supposed to the air.
“Back then, no such thing as
“Don’t do that. Drink it here, while it’s still hot.”
going out late. Your greatgrandmother would catch whoever who didn’t turn up at He took a sip. The broth dinner. Not that anyone dared- seeped into the corners of his gums, overpowering with the ” gummy taste of chicken fat, “Ma, things are different now. each drop wrung from the desiccated meat. He tried not Pa has to work, I have to study. How can we come back to gag, and downed another mouthful. so early?” She seemed to see the point in “Not so fast. Slowly, slowly-” this, and sighed to herself. He left the dregs. His mouth was still bitter with the “True,” she said, “Everyone wasn’t so busy then. But how aftertaste of herbs and ginseng. can you get by without money? But as soon as he put the bowl Last week, when I was at the down, his mother whisked it away into the kitchen. market-” “Ma, I’m going to study.”
“I’ll get some more for you-”
He reached for his bag, but his “No need, Ma. I’m full.” mother held him back with a She gave him the bowl, all the flurry of her hands. same, and ushered him into “Wait, I’m not done yet. Drink his room. A bed was cramped your soup, I boiled it specially in a corner, and under the shuttered windows a desk, for you.” heaped with books and papers. He took the bowl. “I’ll drink it Jeff switched on the fan. in my room.”
“I’ll do it myself, don’t worry-”
The TV was still on in the living room. A travelogue was airing: The windows opened, and this time about the gardens of fluorescent light flooded in Yunnan, a departure from the from the common corridor. His snowy landscapes of Seoul. Jeff mother switched on the lights. pushed the door flat – his mother hadn’t bothered to “You know, back in those days, close it – but the tinny tour we were poor, but we had guide’s voice kept coming in everything we needed. No air- through the doorjamb. He tried con, TV, Mercedes and all that. a few more times, left it alone, We got by on what we had-” and turned up the fan. “Ma,” he said, “Things are Maybe when you’re older, his different. You can’t expect mother used to tell him, when society to change and people to you have a job and can afford stay the same.” to bring us old folks on a holiday. But to him, the hills “I know, but how’s your father and flowers were just an image supposed to come back early? on a screen, while his One month’s bill costs more homework and test papers than a hundred dollars, and I were there, real, in front of don’t even use that much.” him. He couldn’t be sure of what they said, especially if it “Don’t look at me, I don’t even came from the TV in the living know-” room. Jeff scribbled a bit into his foolscap paper, and stopped. His mother continued to stand in the doorway, lit by the dim yellow lights behind her. “Won’t disturb you now. Go ahead and study.”
The voice stopped for a commercial break, and Jeff peeked out from the door. His mother hadn’t kept the dishes yet. He stepped out of his room. It was eight-thirty.
The voice stopped for a commercial break, and Jeff peeked out from the door. His mother hadn’t kept the dishes yet. He stepped out of his room. It was eight-thirty.
“Li Ming, De Hui. They didn’t even get in-” “But that’s what you retook the year for. Is it so hard for you?”
“Ma, you want me to call him He dropped onto the armrest. for you?” The sofa squeaked. “No need, he should be back soon. You know he doesn’t always pick up his phone.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if the university will accept me. Once they see my score-”
The phone was on the table, the receiver placed neatly on the hook. The travelogue started up again. Jeff felt like going over and switching off the damned thing.
“Once they see your score, they’ll know how hard you’ve worked for it. They’ll give you a place. I’m sure of it.”
“Ma, why do you watch these shows? It’s not like we’ll ever go there-” “It’s good to learn more about the world,” she said, hardly taking her eyes off the screen, “And don’t think that you’ll never go there. As long as you study hard-” “Study hard, study hard,” he said, spitting out the words
Jeff fumed. His mother hadn’t gotten the point. They’d look at his score, and they’d reject him on the spot. He might then apply to the nearby poly, but he had no thought of doing so. He could have went there a long time ago, instead of ending up second to a guy with a degree. Another commercial broke the silence, and his mother turned to face him. “Why so upset?”
“How about Pa? Doesn’t he work hard enough?” “That’s why we keep telling you-”
you, I make sure you and your father have dinner to eat. Is that how you’re supposed to talk to me?” “Ma, it’s just-”
“-that education is the way to get ahead,” he said, “I know! But how’s it fair to him?”
“I’ve been doing this for ten over years. Do you think I like doing this? If it wasn’t for you-”
“Why should it matter, fair or not fair? We’re giving you the “Ma, it’s not like that-” chance to study, we want you to have a better life. What’s “If it wasn’t for you, I’ll be out wrong with that?” of the house working, and now you and your father come Jeff didn’t want to be home later and later. What dissuaded, not this time. His more do you want?” mother’s eyes went back to the TV, but he edged in closer, The clock ticked on, uninvolved casting a shadow over the with the squabble beneath its footworn tiles. hands. Jeff looked away. He only wanted to clear up the “What’s it? You’re blocking-“ matter, and ask why it was always about scrabbling after “Why’s it always about some want or achievement. money?” he asked, “Why’s it But that’s how it had always always about not having this or been for her – scrabbling. She that? If you can sit here and had scrabbled from one life to say so much, why don’t you go another, from the kampungs of and work as well?” the past to the flats of today. And when that proved to be “Jeff!” The travelogue was insufficient, it became about back. This time, his mother scrabbling towards a bigger didn’t even look. “I take care of and better tomorrow, his
would-be degree a part of that My exams end next week, I dream. can find a job then.” He retreated into his room. His father held the blueThe voice came in through the coloured note over the table. doorjamb, softer now. It wasn’t His arm trembled over the long before a key clattered dishes. outside. The gate creaked open, and there was a pause “I don’t want you worrying as his father dropped his about such things,” he said, “I shoes outside and came in. don’t have change. Take it.” He took the note and folded it “Pa.” in his hand. It felt crisp, as though recently drawn from His mother came out of the the ATM. His father continued kitchen, and placed a bowl of eating. rice on the table. His father muttered something in thanks. “Thanks, Pa.” She made no mention of the quarrel, except with a He grunted. Back in his room, disapproving shake of her Jeff could hear them talking head. His father didn’t notice. about their finances. His father was still working, Jeff “Hey,” He pulled a few stalks of was certain, but they had spinach to his plate. “How’s come up short for the month. school?” Something about rice in the supermarket, or the price of “Okay.” the food in the hawker centre. It meant that something was Jeff waited by the door. His on the rise again, and not just father pulled out a fifty dollar “the aspirations of the people”, note from his wallet. as he had heard before. His mother started up again, and “It’s for next month.” he listened in at the doorjamb. “I don’t need so much, Pa.
“Ask your supervisor for a raise. He knows that you’ve a family to feed.”
was starting, and the programmed music tinkled through their little home. Jeff thought the same was coming “You might as well ask the from his neighbour’s window, others if they have a family to but he kept his attention on feed,” his father said, “Do you the sounds outside his door. know how many Chong has Finally his father said, under his roof? And that doesn’t include their maid-” “I’ll look for another job. Pang knows of something I can do. “Other people got a maid, why Maybe he can help.” should it be my problem?” she said, clearing away the dishes. “But how can you go out to “We have little enough-” work again? You’re not getting younger-” “His mother lives with him. Other people’s lives are not “Our boy is still studying, and that easy.” he must go to university. If we The bowls and plates went into can’t cut back, this is what the sink. Water hissed from the we’ll have to do.” tap, and his mother began to scrub. The plates clattered out of the sink and onto the wire rack. “Then how?” Another hiss washed the suds away, and his mother patted “Tighten our expenses a bit her hands dry. Jeff moved lah, don’t buy so much-” away from the door. “But I already buy the cheapest “Okay, okay,” she said, “We’ll in the market. How much cut back. Just don’t go out to cheaper you want?” work again, it’s not good for your health–” His father had no reply. Nearby, the nine o’ clock serial
And in the kitchen, the tap was and stuffy room where he kept dripping. Thud, thud – each his papers and the shadows of drop drumming against the strangers passed beneath the metal basin with its fall, each electric lamps. But there was drop heavy with the burden of somewhere else, he was sure. their thoughts. Their lives were Somewhere real, where success dripping away, Jeff thought, was not a stream of and the best they could tell abstractions on paper, but a him was to sit by and study. reward of good and honest Did they think that he was work – the work of his hands, unable to help? Or did they the work of others. That was think that they were shielding what he wanted, more than him from this world, until he any bright and glorious future was big and ready? they could provide. He opened the door, his mind decided. He was tired of all this. The books on his table – who said “What is it, son?” they weren’t an extension of his parents’ dreams? They “Pa,” he said, taking a passing knew that studying was the glance at the TV, “I’m going to way to get ahead, that the find a job.” rewards would go to the best and brightest. But they didn’t Tan Jian Xiang know that the numbers on the 1st Place sheet, like the 4D numbers they watched every weekend, were not judged by the infallible eyes of heaven, but by the simple grasping methods of man. Teachers, parents, students; they were all complicit in grading a person by the scores in his hand. He was no exception. The world held him here, in a small
In Transit
repelled me at the same time with its wild unpredictability.
I met her in the train going up to London, when I was Such was the London I had returning from a trip to the lived in for two weeks and countryside. The weather in thoroughly admired, but from a town, from what I gathered, distance. I had never dared to had been mostly grey and plunge myself full head on or depressing, but I enjoyed the go out and get drunk on the cool misty showers and the bars with my friend Toby and grimy sidewalks littered with his girl Alice. It was not for me trash and broken bottles – they – I preferred the promise of a appealed to some part of me steady, predictable life back that bristled again the home, where things were a unnatural cleanness of a city guarantee. London was the lovingly swept at 5am by femme fatale of my city invisible hands. dreams, but then that, as Toby loved to drawl in his alcoholI had been out the whole day, slurred voice, was “cause so I was bone-tired. The you’ve never been to New York, countryside had been lovely, you backward swine.” but it was good to be back amidst the hustle and bustle of When I told him I had no taste the city. There were so many for American food, he snorted people here in the gritty and blew rings with his drabness of the underground. cigarette smoke in my face. The ragged hobos, the winos, the businessmen, the teenage Toby and Alice – they were a muggers, the beautiful women good pair. I was technically all dressed up on nothing a supposed to meet them at the week. The clerks, the store station, but then Alice called assistants, the pot smokers and said they couldn’t make it with red eyes and messy hair. and they were so sorry. In the There was such a glorious mix background I could hear of life in this town that drunken shouts and people appealed to me, but also
crashing into things. I figured “Could I ask you a favour?” it’d be best if I just left them to From her voice I could tell she their own devices. was a fellow Singaporean, with that inevitable tenuous So while I was there on the connection countrymen have train, a girl boarded and when abroad. walked past me. She was decent looking; straight black In a resigned monotone, I hair that fell to her shoulders, clutched my wallet tightly to tired eyes and slight crow’s myself and said, a little feet. When I shifted slightly in sharply, “Sorry, no, I’m not a my seat, she caught my eye charity.” and stared at me briefly. Then she gave a small, hesitant She looked surprisingly hurt smile, and took a seat nearby. and somewhat annoyed. “I wasn’t going to ask you for I leaned back and started money. I just wanted to know snorting through my tickets. I if you had a copy of the train was thinking of planning schedules with you.” another day trip, to Cambridge perhaps, when I felt more than “Oh.” I was instantly heard a small cough beside suspicious again. She was me. probably one of those elusive pickpockets with nimble, I looked up and saw her slender fingers that could pick standing there, shyly and something right out of your awkwardly, rather like a young jacket while you were turned schoolgirl. away. “Yes?” I asked curiously. She stood there for a few seconds, uncertain and insecure, then finally seated herself in the new vacated place beside me.
She caught the flash of doubt in my eyes and shrugged. “It’s okay then, thank you.” She turned to leave, but something in me caught and I blurted “Wait.”
She turned back with an air of gave a small laught. “It’s nice wounded pride and cast a hard here, isn’t it? I mean back glance at me. I’ll hate myself home, you look at people on for this, I thought almost the train and they sort of death involuntarily, and then held glare you. But here they out a copy of my pamphlet. actually smile back or nod or something. It’s nice.” She smiled then, a surprisingly sweet smile, and accepted the “Yeah I guess so. Never really proffered brochure. “Thank thought about it that way.” you.” Then she slid into the seat next to me. She cast me a long sideways glance. “You don’t feel kind of I made a small show of alienated in Singapore? I mean, counting my money, but after with all those stone-faced realising it was all there I people around you on the figured she was harmless. She train. All the time.” certainly looked too tried to be able to execute a feat like that, I sensed she expected some especially in the train. I felt sort of approving answer, but I guilty about having condemned had nothing to say. Her so fast and decided to make expectant, slightly supercilious small talk to compensate for air was making me my behaviour. uncomfortable. “So how long have you been here?”
“I don’t know,” I finally blurted. “I just never thought about it.”
“A week, two. I don’t know,” I She turned back to the thought this was very queer of brochure and continued her – most Singaporeans had a perusing the schedules while I penchant for meticulous awkwardly fumbled with my scheduling of their holidays tickets. abroad. She pretended not to notice my quizzical look and
There was an old man sprawled in the seat next to us, drool dripping from a corner of his mouth and pooling on the floor. He looked up from his inebriated state to give us a wrinkly, yellowtoothed grin. “Poor guy,” I heard her murmur. “No family to take care of him. It’s sad what society has come to.”
back to the brochure and I, compelled to make amends for my previous animosity, tried to strike up the conversation again. “So where are you headed to?” I asked her, her head deep in the list of train departures and arrivals. Her head jerked up and I saw her fists involuntarily clench and unclench. Then she grabbed her right hand with her left in an effort to quell some sort of repressed emotion. “Oh, um, nowhere really. I mean Cambridge.”
“He’s just some drunk idiot.” I snapped. I don’t know what it was about her remark that nettled me, but the underlying tinge of piety was a sting. The sense that she was trying to pass herself off as a sweet, I couldn’t help but snort a kind and caring girl when in little, she was obviously lying. reality I be she was as screwed What did she have to gain by up as any of us. lying? Or maybe she really was a scammer. Nonetheless, I “This whole town is full of decided to oblige her. drunk people.” I muttered. “Me too, actually. When are “Thant’s not true.” She you thinking of going?” snapped back. “I don’t know,” she laughed. We were silent for a few “That’s why I need the full moments, perhaps sensing the schedule, you see.” And she awkwardness of our chance looked at me, a little critically. encounter. She quietly turned
“I’m sorry, I guess I’m just too I felt my face flush a little. She wary here. Lots of pickpocket, had no right to criticise me, not you know.” after I’d helped her. Stop feeling embarrassed, I mentally urged She nodded sympathetically. myself. “Some guy stole ten bucks off me the other day when I “Just a desk job, nothing dropped a note on the ground. special.” I replied, a little Ten whole pounds. I was so bitterly. pissed.” She nodded slowly. “You don’t I laughed, more so to ease the seem too happy about it.” atmosphere between us than out of genuine amusement. Not really. I did hope to go into She gave me a slightly engineering but I wasn’t smart appraising look, as though she enough.” were sizing me up. I tried to appear as nonchalant as She looked at me with a slight possible, but the truth was she sympathetic air. I hurried to fazed me a little. Her eyes add, “At least it puts food on eventually dropped back to the the table.” I didn’t want to schedule list, and I figured that sound ungrateful. was the end of the conversation. I dug up in my “Yeah,” she stopped, lost in bag to look for a novel to while thought. away the time. “So what do you do?” “So, what do you work as?” She asked suddenly. She She considered. I wondered if flicked back a strand of her she was going to lie to me hair and looked me full in the again. “R&D sector.” She said face for the first time. I wasn’t after a brief pause. She named sure if it was just me, but her a fairly well known research eyes seem to hold an edge of hub near where I worked. scorn.
I sized her up. She did look quite the type, with her studious dark eyes and neat black hair. Yes, very likely. “R&D for what?”
hair obscured her face, her aimless direction of travel, her appraising eyes. Who does she think she is, I thought irritably, it’s not like she has anything to go on.
“Can’t say,” After a pause, she As though sensing my gave a dry laugh. “Not like it thoughts, she turned to me matters now, anyhow.” and quietly said, “It’s not like that. I’m not just some sort of I caught the break in her voice vagrant going around picking and looked at her. “What peoples’ pockets. Really. I’m happened?” just having a break here. You know, get away from routine She sighed and shook her and schedule and stuff. To be head. “Nothing worth free for a while. I feel like I can mentioning, really. Hey where be myself here, you know?” does this train stop?” She looked at me as though “Elephant & Castle.” she expected me to understand. “What stop are you getting off?” I sighed and inclined my head “King’s Cross. And you?” slightly. I didn’t see the sense of her reasoning, or how “I don’t know.” exactly she wanted to “be herself”. London was beautiful, “For a scientist, you sure don’t yes, but I could never fully seem to know a lot of things.” I assimilate into that sort of said, a slight edge in my voice. culture or ever feel like I This girl both bemused and belonged. I looked around for a annoyed me- her evasive person to prove my point, when manner, the way she leaned my eye lighted on a man across slightly forward so that her from us. No one batted an
eyelid at his outfit- long flowing walk around scaring people,” I black dress with jeans retorted. underneath, shiny red handbag and eyeliner so thick “Maybe some people are just it made Marilyn Manson look different,” was her tart tame. He kept walking back response. and forth- from the glass door I was tired of talking to her to the railing and back again, now- she was by turns gentle long, slow strides that and scornful, and it confused emphasised his deliberate me. I didn’t want to vex her walk, as though he had a any further than I already had, purpose in that aimless tread. so I turned back to my novel. “These sort of people? Really? The train continued whizzing They’re insane. Nobody dresses on through altercations of light like that,” I ventured forth the and dark, through tunnels and question, gesturing at the man. platforms packed full of people Or at least what I thought was getting on and getting off. It one. was wearing late into the night, and the noise in the train was She looked him over and I saw dying down to subdued, tired her smile a little. “No. That’s murmurs and the occasional just who they are.” interjection of laughter.
I rolled my eyes. “For crying I was in fact starting to doze out loud, they just need to pull off, ensconced in the warmth themselves together.” and in the soothing rattle of the train’s movement when I I couldn’t have anticipated that heard her voice break through she would turn on me so the veil. She seemed to be violently. She practically spat coming from very far away, her at me, “What do you know voice sometimes broken byanyway? Have you ever felt left was it tears? I couldn’t tell, and out and lonely?” pretended to be asleep while “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I she continued speaking, very dress up like a woman and softly, under her breath,
almost to herself.
dark, good looking. Didn’t mean any harm. He said he “I lost my job last week. They could give me work. So I fired me for being incompetent, followed him to this restaurant though God knows I am as on the East End and we sat qualified as any of those idiots down for a drink. Two drinks. there. I was so drunk then, And it was pretty cold and maybe it was my fault, but I dark and he invited me just didn’t know where to go or upstairs to where he stayed.” what to do. Then my friend invited me to go for a trip in Her voice dropped to a whisper London. So I said yes. I don’t now, tired and sad. “I think I know what I was thinking. I may…” Her voice trailed off just couldn’t face it. I ran and she didn’t finish her away. Like a stupid kid.” sentence. After some silence, she added, like an Her voice was coming from afterthought: “He gave me further away now, and the some money and a place to wind whooshing past the train stay though.”. windows seemed to carry her words off into the cold winter I didn’t respond, unsure if she air. But she continued talking, knew I was sleeping. And what not caring if I was listening or would I have said anyway? not. Eventually I felt her turn away and sigh, a deep, exhausted “My friend left a few days ago. I sigh filled with fatigue and told her I couldn’t take the despair. return ticket, couldn’t go back. I’ve managed so far, but I don’t The train suddenly came to a know what I’m going to do. shuddering halt, jerking me And then I met him. This fully awake. A robotic voice man.” Her voice started to sounded over the intercom: choke up for real this time. “He was a really nice guy. Tall, “King’s Cross Station.”
I blearily collected my I didn’t ask her how she would belongings and did a get the money for the plane perfunctory check of my ticket or even where she was valuables. When I got up to staying. I took out my wallet exit the train, she stood up and and pressed a few tenners into followed me. I didn’t turn her waistcoat pocket. around. “Just so you can sleep warm It was cold on the train tonight.” I told her. platform. The wind was unforgiving tonight. Even in my She looked down at her pocket, thick coat, I was shivering. reached her hand in to feel the What more her, dressed so money and looked up at me lightly, frail as a reed and half again. Her face suddenly went as slender, yet there she stood dark. unrelenting and unswayed by the cold. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t need your help. I can “Aren’t you cold?” take care of myself just fine.” she retorted, passing back the “I’m fine,” She said brusquely. money. Then she quietly said again, “I’m fine. Sorry.” “So says the girl who got herself knocked up,” I “No no, I wasn’t angry or muttered, mostly to myself, but anything. Do you need any loud enough for her to hear. help? Can I, you know, buy you a coffee or something?” A look of consternation swept across her face. When she She sighed a little, and I saw spoke her tone was icy. “Forget her frosty breath coming out in all I said. You’re just the same small white puffs. “No, it’s as everybody back home. okay. I can manage. I should Goodbye.” go home soon. Singapore, I mean.” With that, she turned and left the station.
I sat down on a nearby bench, I also tried to find her by feeling the weight of a day’s browsing through their list of exertions upon my shoulders. employees, but this proved Her presence had irked, and impossible because I didn’t strangely enough, disconcerted know her name. me. I stood up to go when I saw a Sherilyn Chew lanky, greasy-haired twenty 2nd Place something standing in a corner of the station strumming his guitar and singing. He was offpitch, his hair was slicked back and sprayed bright pink, and he badly needed a belt to keep his pants up. All of which I usually would give a scathing glance and then ignore. But for no reason, I went up and dropped a tenner into the beatup hat at his feet, to which he gave me a toothy, cigaretteyellowed grin. Then I left, bewildered at what I had just done. The rest of my holiday in London was fairly uneventful. When I got back to Singapore I tried Googling her workplace to see if I could locate her position in the company but the results turned up nothing.
Sunday Mass
Of course, this was a place where people didn’t believe in coincidence, where everything happened for a reason, and everyone was conceived for a purpose–just like the characters of a well-scripted play in which I was not cast. But I guess a part of me was still hoping that she was different.
It was nearly noon by the time the sermon ended. The people streaming out of the highceilinged hall were strangely silent, and there was a sanctimonious air about them that made me wonder, not for the first time today, what I was doing in a place like this. In fact, I had half made up my mind to leave when I felt a pair “Do you… come here often?” of eyes staring at the back of my head. “Yeah, pretty much every week. I’ve never seen you around People who say you can’t feel though.” someone staring at you obviously don’t know what “I used to come every week too. they’re talking about. Her gaze But I stopped.” was so intense, I could almost make out the colour of her “Why?” she asked inquisitively. eyes, which were, in this case, Her head was cocked slightly to a lovely chocolate brown that one side, which I thought was shimmered in the sunlight like adorable; suddenly I realised I stained glass. The rest of her wasn’t looking her in the eyes, features were arranged in an and as I shifted my gaze incredulous stare that perfectly accordingly, I was mirrored my own feelings. inadvertently reminded of three things: how beautiful they “Alex? What–” were, how I was drawn to them from the very beginning, and “A coincidence,” I finished. how foolish I was to have thought that I could forget them so easily. The realisation
that nothing had changed in Eventually it was she who the past year was accompanied broke the silence, in a voice with a burning sensation in my that was slightly too cheerful. cheeks–one that must have been quite visible to her, “Oh, my boyfriend is here too. because she, too, reddened You’ve never met him before, slightly, and for a few moments have you?” there was an awkward silence that stood between us like an I had never met the lucky invisible stranger. bastard, and neither was I particularly anxious to do so, And in the briefest of those so as she skipped off to get moments, that quantum of time, him, I decided that this was as there were a million things I good a time to leave as any. wanted to say, but couldn’t; a million questions I wanted to And this time, I knew I ask, but didn’t. I wanted to wouldn’t be coming back, just know how she could believe in like how I knew the pervy old an omnipotent creator when man that sat beside me later half the world was in a state of that day was trying to see tumult; I wanted to know how down my blouse. she could accept that everything Ng Qingyang happened for a reason when I 3rd Place lay in bed every night, dreaming of a love that was as forbidden as the fabled fruit itself. But more than anything else, I wanted to sidle up to her, caress her rosy cheeks, and inhale the autumn scent of her hair, because that was how beautiful she was.
Don’t Rain On My Parade Almost as if they are acting on their own, my hands knock on the cheap, painted white door and turn the knob before even getting an answer. I take my usual seat, place my feet on the coffee table and ignore the eye contact being initiated by her. She seems to be used to it, because she no longer clears her throat before speaking. Instead, she waits until I take out my nail file, like I always do, as some sort of security blanket.
slightly from each other. Today, it is navy. Her hair, greying, is in the same bun, and her black-framed spectacles have the same chip on the top left corner.
I look away, and gaze around the room. Everything’s the same as it was when I first came in two years ago. I guess I’d call myself a regular. But unlike cool, overpriced coffee joints or boutiques with unpronounceable French names (that everyone always says loudly when they’re sure it’s really pronounced that “So, do you know why you’re way, with a face that screams here today?” she asks, finally. ‘Duh, how could you not know that?’, even though they only I look up at her, and she just found out), being a regular smiles at me a little too at the school counsellor’s office warmly, and gestures with her is so not cool. hands, as if it would somehow prompt me to partake in this I’ve been seeing Miss Kinder so-called conversation. She is (pun not intended) for nearly wearing the same crisp, white two years, and she always, shirt and dowdy grey pencil always gives me the same false skirt as she always does. She smile and asks the same only dares venture deeper with questions. With my eyes still her five different sweater vests lazily searching the room for that are all seemingly anything new or remotely identical, except that upon attractive, I respond, “Well, closer inspection, you’ll realise Miss Kinder, I think-” that the shades of blue differ
“Oh, how many times do I have to tell you? We’re friends, just My parents tried for years to call me Jenna!” get a child, so when my mom finally got pregnant, they swore Friends? That’s interesting. to treat me like royalty. Apparently, this included “Well, Miss Kinder, I think that feeding me with everything maybe you asked me here they could buy. Chocolates, today for redecorating advice. cakes, chocolate cakes, But judging from the same cookies, burgers, pasta, eight motivational posters, the chicken, ice cream and weird, smiling stuffed llama, everything else that made the purple and maroon chairs Rosie O’Donnell become the that clash so terribly with the happy woman she is today. green walls and the curtains And yes, all of that happened with dancing sunflowers, I say when I was just a little kid, don’t bother. You needn’t which meant that I wasn’t little change a thing.” for long. “Always the same sense of humour. Let me get the ball rolling then. Let’s talk about your problem.” “I don’t have a problem!” And I mean it. I don’t have a problem. Everyone has a little unhappiness in his or her life, but that’s just what makes us human. It just depends what you choose to do about it that makes you have a problem or not. For me, it started when I was just a toddler.
“So, how was your day today? Did it start well?” Miss Kinder asks, with the same smile. I’ve always wanted to tell her that it was sort of creepy, the way she looked at people, and that she should feedback to Counsellor School to remove the smile training programme from their curriculum. But I always decide not to be cruel. After all, boring as she is, she’s one of the two in this school who’s never picked on me.
“Well,” I respond, almost normal to be such a big, routinely. “I woke up late today blubbering child. And as because my phone died and my sophisticated as five-year-old alarm never rang. I had to run kids were, all my friends called out to the hall to check the me Fattie Pattie. Yes, the time. I don’t have a clock in my horror. It was Fattie Pattie this, room. I only overslept by fifteen Fattie Pattie that, oh look at minutes, so it was okay.” Fattie Pattie, still eating so much! Who ate the cookie from “You say it was okay, but you the cookie jar? Fattie Pattie ate were late anyway. Not that I’m them all! here to judge.” As I graduated from The “Well, obviously if you woke up Underworld, I thought that late, you’d be late too.” things would be better in grade school. Boy, was I wrong. The “So what makes it okay?” name-calling got smarter, and the jokes got meaner. Why What kind of question is that? does Fattie Pattie love math But of course, I bet she has class? Don’t be fooled, she’s never heard of being just here for the Pi. However, fashionably late. I do her a the most common greeting favour by standing up, fluffing would have to be, “Would you my brown shoulder length hair,like some fries with that?” and giving a little twirl on my five-inch stilettos without It wasn’t like I wanted to be moving a muscle out of place. Fattie Pattie. It was just so “This is why it’s okay,” I say, hard to lose weight. summoning the sweetest smile I could. “You were two hours late though. What happened?” The first few friends I ever made in my life already knew “Well, I decided to try my new at the age of five that it was not teeth whitening strips. I had to
leave them on for half-an-hour, moped about how they looked. so I couldn’t do anything. If I needed change. I started to not, I might’ve swallowed them starve myself, as all aspiring and died of blood poisoning.” dieters who wish to see change do. As of two years ago, I only She smiles and nods, ate two apples and nine grapes prompting me to continue. Her a day. Also, I made it a point to eyes don’t even twitch the jog for a couple of hours in the slightest bit with judgement, evenings. I’ve fainted about but I always think that if I’m thirteen times from this, but judging her, surely she’s it’s all good. I lost all my excess judging me too. I try not to tell fat, and the Fattie Patties her too much. stopped. This made me very happy, but it made Miss Kinder “So, after that was done, I worried. curled my hair as usual. It’s kind of short now, but I’m “I went on to do my make-up. growing it. I burnt my fingers Concealer, foundation, on the curler this morning, but bronzer, blusher, eye shadow, it’s okay. Better than having eyeliner and mascara, as flat hair. No offence.” usual. It’s important to look not only flawless, but also, like “None taken. What did you a Goddess. Clothes are always have for breakfast?” quite easy to pick out, but I’m way fussier about shoes. These I shift uncomfortably in my are one of my favourites. I seat, and she breaks her smile never wear anything shorter for a second. “Of course, I’m than four inches.” sorry. I forgot for a moment.” “A lot of your peers say that After three consecutive you indeed wear too much summers of FAT Camp make up. They don’t think it’s (Freakin’ Awesome Time normal. And they say that your Camp), I had enough of sweaty, shoes, well, are not the most smelly and sad kids who only appropriate for school.
How does this make you feel?” “Language.” First of all, who the hell uses words like ‘peers’ and ‘indeed’? They’re bad enough on their own. But used in a sentence together? Wow. After I lost all the baby whale fat, I still didn’t feel accepted. I still didn’t feel me. Then I realised that maybe it wasn’t just the weight that made me feel down about life. It was my whole look. I then turned to hours of Youtube tutorials on how to apply make up, style hair or walk in heels effortlessly. I really wanted to get rid of the feeling of emptiness, and this seemed ideal.
“-when they’re jealous. It’s a fact. A known fact. Everyone’s jealous of me. I’ve suddenly turned from an ugly dumpling to a beautiful swine. Can you blame them?” “It’s ugly duckling, and a beautiful swan. A swine is a female pig.” “Oh. Whatever, I don’t care.”
Secretly, I am very embarrassed at my mistake, because she already knows so much about me. I don’t want her to figure out I’m not smart either. She probably knows that already, but for some reason, I refuse to let her find All the videos worked wonders. out from myself. I looked awesome. I felt awesome. Everyone stares at “It was raining this morning. Is me all the time, and I know it’s that why you were so late?” with envy. “Yes,” I lied. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t dress up for school. Is it better On my way to school, with my to come sloppy? I don’t think Miu Miu on my left shoulder, so. Anyway, everyone always and my polka-dotted umbrella talks shit about people-” in my right hand, I struggled to
flag the bus while keeping my spit at and to torture. She balance and trying not to slip. started Fattie Pattie, and I will The bus pulled up too closely never let it go. to the sidewalk and splashed dirty water at the ends of my After seeing her perfect beauty jeans. That always makes me for years, and seeing her be upset. But today, the pain of chosen over me for every thing something else made me barely imaginable, I’ve become used pay attention to my damp and to the fact that she is truly an dirty designer clothes. evil bitch with a black hole as a heart. She found joy in making Two stops after mine, she got my life miserable. I also think on. With her waist-long she steals lunch money from chestnut-brown hair with light the kids at school, and uses blonde highlights, her super them to buy explosives to long legs that went from her destroy orphanages and animal waist till next Tuesday, her shelters. I can’t be sure, huge, doll-like eyes in the most though. What I was not used to piercing shade of electric blue, was the fact that she was Samantha is gorgeous. I mean, dating Jake. she really is perfect. Scratch that. I didn’t know she Fucking bitch. was dating him till I saw them today. He got on the bus after Even though I blame the whole she did, playfully grabbing her school for having the same waist as she released the most fucking stupid herd mentality, heinous sound from her I blame Samantha for making mouth, which I assumed was a my life hell. People like giggle. She does not deserve listening to perfect people. him. No one in the school does. People like mimicking what Jake was the nicest person I perfect people did. And have ever met, without any Samantha, being perfect, exaggeration or biasness on his decided that being fat and ugly extreme hotness. Thick, curly was something to laugh at, to brown hair, deep, intelligent
and overwhelmingly sexy eyes and possibly the best upbringing in the world, Jake was both beautiful inside and out. I don’t know how he resisted, but he was the only person to have never made fun of me along with the crowd, other than Miss Kinder.
off with someone you hate with all your might, knowing that he will never love you back, for more reasons than one. It makes you wonder… was it all worth it?
Eventually, I pulled myself together, reapplied my make up and dragged myself to All the name calling, mean school. I shoved all my jokes, and sometimes even emotions back into its little physical abuse could never container in my brain, like I amount to the same hurt I felt always do. All the hate, the when I saw them both skipping sadness, the jealousy, the class together that morning. He anger and especially the fear. I is not one to cut class, not to walked on, trying to look like a mention fall for witches. My million bucks, even though I suspicions were right all along. knew I was no more than a Samantha is a Succubus. dollar. I got off a stop after they did, “Miss Kinder… I mean… and flung myself into the Jenna. Have you ever… Have nearest public toilet, crying my you ever been in love?” I ask, heart out. My immaculately immediately regretting it. applied make up smeared all over my face, but it didn’t “Patricia, you’re only eleven. I matter. The pain was building wouldn’t worry about that if I up so badly that I vomited all were you. You have more over the floor. The acidic taste important issues at hand,” she burned my throat and my says, with the smile back in its tongue, and the pain I felt was usual spot. almost relieving. It’s amazing, what the heart does to you. Alexis Chen Weiqi Seeing the love of your life walk Honourable Mention
“I think your parents are perfectly reasonable, David.” They say that with a cigarette “Is it the dog?” in your left hand and a beer in your right, the world becomes “David!” momentarily perfect. I was in the middle of appreciating this Anyway, it was funny because momentary perfection one even though they weren’t all Sunday evening when that far away, neither of them something funny happened. seemed to take much notice of me. In fact, as far as David This was quite some time ago, was concerned, I might as well around mid-November, and have been invisible–although the only reason why I the same couldn’t be said for remember it was Sunday is the girl, who shot me the because my then girlfriend, occasional nervous glance. who isn’t my girlfriend She was very attractive; her anymore, had tried in vain to foxlike features looked out of drag me to church that place beside David’s plain morning. Because I was in a countenance, which was in higher state of awareness, it turn crossed by a look of took me awhile to realise what exasperation as he uttered his was going on between the next words. couple. “What exactly is the problem “Is it Abby? I swear we’re just then? If it’s something about friends, but I’ll stop seeing her me, just spit it out. I swear I if that’s what you want.” won’t get offended.” No Man’s Land
“I told you, this has nothing to “David, can we please do this do with Abby at all.” somewhere else?” she cast me another nervous glance. “Is it my parents? I know they can be difficult sometimes.” “Don’t worry dear, he’s as drunk as a pig–”
“David, please.”
friendship, or innocence, or a nuclear-free world, and there “–now if you’d just tell me are no flowers for bad things, what’s the prob–” which doesn’t really make sense because any third-grader “Stop it!” the girl shrieked. “The who knows his idioms will tell problem is that you’re too you that life isn’t a bed of nice!” roses. So I hardly ever give people flowers, and if I really While nice has always been a have to, I give them paper popular euphemism for boring, ones, for the simple reason my instincts told me that the that they’re cheaper. real problem lay elsewhere altogether. In fact, I was willing “Oh David, why must you to bet both my remaining beers make this so hard for me?” that there was a third party involved in the equation–and About this time I accidentally that this third party wasn’t let out a huge belch–to which Abby. Exactly how accurate my Susan reacted by casting me hunch was I never got to find an exasperated glance, and out, because David now pulled then running off with her face a bunch of flowers out of in her hands. To my surprise, nowhere and said, “That’s only David, instead of giving chase, because I’m in love with you, simply stood there and shouted Susan.” after her, “I’ll be waiting for you to change your mind!” By now I was starting to think that Susan’s concerns might And he stood there for a long be genuine after all, and that time after that, with his arm– didn’t even have anything to do the one holding the flowers– with the flowers. Meaning, I slightly extended, as though think flowers of all shapes and Susan were going to come back sizes are silly, because if you any moment and take them think about it, they only from him. represent good things, like
And then he just walked away. grace and wisdom and He didn’t throw the flowers on whatnot. Which is stupid, the ground and jump on them, because obviously if you flip a nor did he toss them into the coin it either comes up as bin and make rude signs with heads or tails, and if you flip his fingers; he simply walked enough coins some will come away with the flowers cradled up as heads and others tails, in his arm, his face slightly and it has nothing to do with crestfallen but still full of hope. God at all. And in that face I saw a shadow of my past self, Anyway, I must have drunk someone who believed that more than I realised, because faith and sincerity could solve when I tried to get up I ended all the problems in the world. up puking all over my shoes, Consequently, I found that I and when I groped about in my could read him like a book: a pockets for a napkin or book in which he would wait something all I found was some for months, maybe even years, change from the beers I’d for Susan to accept him, until bought earlier. And then my it became crystal clear that phone started to ring, which nothing of the sort was going to made my head hurt, but I happen, after which he would didn’t feel like talking to my finally give up, because not girlfriend so I just threw it in even the nicest guy in the the fountain. Then I looked at world is stupid enough to wait the coins in my hand, and you for something that’s know what they say about impossible. Most likely he coins and fountains and would console himself by wishes coming true, which is saying something like, “God stupid, too, but I threw them in has better plans for me”, or just for the hell of it, and “her part in my story is over”, nothing has changed since but the funny thing is, had then. Susan decided to accept him instead, then he would no Ng Qingyang doubt attribute it to God’s Honourable Mention
only will you have an amazing sleep, you’ll wake up all shiny Money, money, money! Always and happy inside. sunny! In a rich man’s world! That’s why I like to think about The alarm blasts in my ear hot, rich guys before I sleep. again, interrupting another perfect dream. I’ve been having I roll over, turn my alarm off the same dream for months and rub my eyes sleepily. All now. A really hot guy takes me this waking up in the morning out on a series of dates, where for school isn’t worth it. If I he proposes to me in different weren’t already in my third ways, but always with the year in a Polytechnic, I’d give it same diamond ring. It is fate up. I stay up late doing that something like that would projects, and I wake up early happen to me. The evidence is for school. In the weekends, I there in the form of a recurring even work part time at Toys ‘R’ dream. Us, where I have to interact with bratty kids who like to Okay, maybe it’s not really scream in my face. It’s terrible. evidence. I once read that if All I want to do is to bum you keep thinking of your around without having to troubles before you sleep, you’ll worry about anything, and end up dreaming about them, there are only three ways I can making your sleep restless and do that: 1. Have a rich family interrupted, and making you to inherit everything from. 2. even more stressed out when Work hard and earn lots of you wake up. So, if thinking money. 3. Marry a rich man about a problem before you and spend his money. sleep will make you dream of it because it’s the last conscious I sit up, rub my eyes further, thought that enters your mind, find a morning glory in the then thinking about a really corner of my eye and flick it at great thing means that you’ll my younger sister, Maya, who dream about it too. Then, not is sleeping soundly on my left. Show Me The Money!
I turn to my right, and see my That only leaves me with a older sister, Jess, also sleeping.final option if I want to be Three grown girls having to happy in life. share one tiny bedroom. I hate the claustrophobic feeling of 3. Marry a rich man and spend this room. I hate the lack of his money. ÖÖÖ privacy. Sometimes, however, things 1. Have a rich family to inherit are easier said than done. everything from. I meet my best friend Kai at the bus stop outside school. We I slowly get out of bed from the light up our cigarettes to get us foot of the bed so I won’t step through the morning lecture, on Jess. I walk on pieces of and confirm our plans for the unwashed clothes strewn onto afternoon. We are going over to the floor on my way to the the National University of bathroom, which is a mere four Singapore (NUS) after school steps from my room. My bones for a little field trip. We stub make strange cracking sounds out our cigarettes after our last as I sit down to pee. I have to puffs and head for lecture. get to school at 9am for some stupid lecture. I’m always It is our fourth trip to NUS, exhausted. There isn’t a point and we are certain that this for me to go, or even to study will be the time. Like we always for my final exams anyway. My do, we head to the bathroom GPA is too low to get me into a nearest to the main entrance. local university, and my We touch up on our make up parents could never afford to (several times), and as she is send me overseas. Just as well. undoing a couple of the I really hate school anyway. It’s buttons on her tight blouse, I too tiring, and honestly, I’m too fold up the hem of my shorts lazy. twice, and put on the pair of heels I kept in my bag this 2. Work hard and earn lots of morning. I look in the mirror money. and check out my new super-
long legs. After inspecting each With Kai still on the line, I poof other’s hair, face and teeth, we my hair up with my hands and walk out and head in different walk over to him slowly, saying directions: she, to the School of into the phone, “John, I will tell Business, and me, to the you one last time. No means School of Medicine. NO! I’ve had enough. I will not be your plaything… a subject As I loiter around the School of of your abuse anymore. We’re Medicine, my phone rings. through!” “Lisa. Oh my freakin’ God it’s so warm today,” she exclaims I add a dramatic sniff at the loudly into the phone, and I end, and Kai whispers, “Got know she’s found a target, and him?” is probably leaning over, fanning herself and popping My eyes flick up for a moment, another button open. I love and as expected, Nerdy Boy is that girl. looking at me with concern. I give a small grunt of I giggle, and let her continue affirmation before I slam my her one sided conversation as I phone shut. His half step light up a cigarette. I take a towards me followed by a slow puff and glance around. hesitant intake of breath is my My eyes dart around the cue to inhale deeply on my courtyard for a suitable cigarette, exhale with a huge candidate, and land on a guy sigh and burst into tears. in a lab coat. Short, well groomed hair, rectangle, black As if it is all planned out, he framed glasses, out-of-fashion runs towards me with his baggy blue jeans and a pair of hands rummaging through his hideous track shoes, he looks pockets. Because he is Nerdy boring as hell, which pretty Boy, he pulls out a much confirms him to be both handkerchief and offers it to single and an easy target. me. Without looking at him, I take it, dab the corners of my eyes, and slowly look up.
I open my eyes widely and innocently and look deep into his. “Thank you,” I mutter softly, without looking away.
says, “You know, you shouldn’t be smoking. It’s bad for you. Trust me, I’m a med student.”
I’ve just passed first base.
I look at my cigarette and whisper, “Things haven’t been “Are you okay?” he asks, with easy… But…” genuine care in his voice. My eyes move up again to meet “Y-yes, I’m okay…” I respond his, and I add on more firmly, with more sniffles. “But maybe I just found a reason to quit.” “Erm… Do you want to talk about it?” Third base: passed without a doubt. “No, I don’t want to bother you with my troubles. You’ve been Just a second more of looking so kind.” into his eyes and I get up, stubbing my cigarette out on “Boyfriend issues?” the bin next to us. I turn around and give a sweet half My eyes fall to the floor, and I smile, and stretch out my say softly, “Ex. Ex-boyfriend.” hand with his handkerchief. Second base: cleared.
“Oh, you can keep it if you like,” he says, not even bothering to hide the hope in his voice.
I take another puff on my cigarette, and move off to a nearby bench, still holding his handkerchief. This tells him “I would like that very much, that it’s okay for him to follow thank you.” me, which he does. I let out a small cough, and of course he
I keep the handkerchief in the Three seconds later, my phone back pocket of my short denim vibrates and displays her reply. shorts, and reach my hand out again. “Just the hand, this See you online at 8pm. So time?” much to tell L He reaches his hand out Lisa © (8:11:03 pm): Why’re quickly and shakes mine, and you sad, babe? Didn’t get the says, “Martin my name is guy? Martin.” Kai (8:12:23 pm): Almost got “I’m Lisa… Are you studying to him. Remember Benjie? The be a doctor, Martin?” I ask, still dentistry student who brought holding his hand, while my me home to meet his family eyes express interest in his lab after 2 dates? coat. Lisa © (8:12:35 pm): Oh yes, “Yes. I’ll probably be a doctor Eager Beaver Benjie, with the in about a year or two,” he says little pest brother. What about with such pride. him? “That’s so cool,” I say, slowly Kai (8:12:38 pm): WELL. retracting my hand, with my fingertips brushing the back of Kai (8:12:57 pm): I was having his hand slowly. a nice conversation with Sam, the biz student I met today, Probably forgetting he has a when all of a sudden, Benjie lab coat on, he asks, “Would strolls by with his piece of shit you like to get some coffee?” little bro. He pointed at me and yelled BENJIE, IT’S THE While we walk off, I drop Kai a TREASURE HUNTER! text message. Lisa © (8:13:01 pm): Huh? Homerun. Will tell you how it goes tonight J
Kai (8:13:14 pm): I was confused too. Benjie was like, Kai (8:15:16 pm): Then what’s what?? the problem? Kai (8:13:32 pm): Then he Lisa © (8:15:45 pm): His shouted, YOU SAID SHE WAS MOTHER. She kept calling him A GOLD DIGGER!!! every few minutes to complain about her back or her teeth or Kai (8:13:40 pm): STUPID her kidneys or whatever. I LITTLE SON OF A BITCH. mean, what’s the point of marrying a doctor when he will Lisa © (8:13:48 pm): obviously choose Mummy over HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA you? Bet all his high salary is gonna go to her and her bills Kai (8:13:52 pm): NOT anyway! COMFORTING AT ALL! Lisa © (8:15:59 pm): Sigh. Lisa © (8:14:21 pm): Hahaha Sometimes I think the money sorry it had to happen. Poor isn’t worth all the crap we’ve you! got to go through. I mean. People calling us gold diggers Kai (8:14:41 pm): Argh, forget and all… it, forget it L L Anyway, how was it on your side? How was Kai (8:16:31 pm): Don’t let whatshisname? others drag us down! They’re all jealous and stuff cos we Lisa © (8:15:12 pm): Martin. know from a young age what Ugh, it was terrible. The first we WANT. They’re all bitter cos half hour I had to listen to him they didn’t think of it and they talk about why smoking is bad. can’t do it too cos they all think I think he was the one who they’re so cool and they don’t wrote that Reader’s Digest wanna look like followers. I tell article, you know… But okay, you, they’re worshipping us on that wasn’t so bad. He was the inside. And the money is actually quite nice. definitely worth it.
Lisa © (8:16:46 pm): Guess you’re right! Can’t stand this poverty crap much longer. Kai (8:16:54 pm): Yup! Okay NUS obviously isn’t playing for our team… We need a new battle strategy. Lisa © (8:17:34 pm): Got it! Next Wednesday, 3pm, Sentosa Cove?
She is one of the wisest people I know. I truly admire her. We both stop dead in our tracks when we reach the houses by the sea. Each house has a dock with their own yacht. Some had several yachts. I have never used yacht in its plural form before.
The gardens all have identical Kai (8:17:46 pm): Okay! palm trees with leaves in identical shades of bright, It’s like I’m living in a bad rich-people green. There is classic fairytale cliché where even an air of islandthe totally elegant princess-to- appropriate music that calms be awaits her prince in her and relaxes you because the lovely gown with her little aura is so intensely wealthy. ferret friends. Except that I’m not elegant and I don’t wear Oh wait, no. That’s just music gowns. In fact, I admit that I’m coming from speakers a little on the skanky side. But disguised as rocks. Wow, they hey, it’s 2011, and guys are have speakers disguised as into different things now. rocks to play ambience melodies! “It’s probably best if we go in different directions. That way, “We. Have. To. Live. Here,” Kai we can play the lost girl card, says, practically drooling. and ask them to bring us to quiet places where our ‘friend She turns to face me, and says might be’,” says Kai, as we again, “We have to live here!” walk in to Sentosa Cove.
This time, she slobbers as a small drip of saliva leaves her mouth. She doesn’t even bother to wipe it off as shoves me towards a row of houses, before sprinting off in the opposite direction, where a young Caucasian man is walking his cat.
posing outside a house with a Maserati and 3 Porsches. No one comes out. I give up, and walk towards the bay to sit down on a steel bench with floral engravings. I put my legs up, and my chin on my knees, while I enjoy the view for a moment.
This place truly has everything. Click. Click. I take the map I took from the guest entrance out of my I immediately turn. shorts and open it, trying my best to look confused and lost, It’s like life is finally being while still looking cute and handed to me on a silver approachable. I was never good platter. at maps, and after fifteen minutes of walking around Dolce & Gabbana gold-framed trying to find anyone that aviators. Navy blue polo-tee could be my age, or actually, with the classic Burberry print anyone at all, I find myself on the collar. Armani black genuinely lost. There is not a denim cropped jeans. single person in sight, except Ferragamo leather loafers in for the occasional security toffee. A large, black DSLR guard driving around in his camera with a huge lens. All on buggy. I guess rich people don’t a sexy Chinese male who walk. They’re probably being looked about 21. Or 25. I am chauffeured around in cars not really looking at him, so I that cost more than my whole can’t be sure. My eyes are fixed flat. The buggies here have on his platinum Rolex. taupe leather seats. “I hope I didn’t startle you,” he I spend a good ten minutes says, flashing the brightest,
whitest smile I have ever seen. lifetime of happiness?” he says, wiping his camera. He has a platinum Rolex. Because feigning interest is my I have to try to be less obvious forte, I say, “That’s great! I here. “That’s a nice camera,” I really believe in following one’s say, as if it’s the most passion, and not letting interesting thing on him. anything get in the way of “What are you shooting?” what you love doing. So, is being a photographer “I hope you don’t mind,” he rewarding on the wallet?” says, flashing the same dashing smile, “but you make There is no way photos of that a beautiful subject.” quality can fetch him even the gold frame of his sunnies. My heart skips a beat as he hands me the camera. In the “Oh, yes! I earn about $50 to display screen is a picture of $200 per photo that is selected me. for use. Of course, I’m just Except that you might not be getting started, so I’m only able to tell it’s me because it’s paid by my dad for photos I all blurry. And because the take of the events and parties picture is so dark. I’m no he hosts.” expert in photography, but I’m pretty sure that half my head “Oh, for like events coverage isn’t supposed to be cut off. and stuff in magazines and “What do you think? Beautiful, newsletters?” isn’t it!” he exclaims, his voice full of hot air. “No, not really. He sends them out to our relatives, so that “Photography is my passion, they can enjoy them too.” my true love. It’s the only thing in life I see myself doing. This So, Richie Rich here comes camera costs over $8,000. But from a wealthy family and what’s a little money for a holds a fake career, sort of like
Paris Hilton being a singer. That could work out nicely. Inheritance is key. So what if he’ll never get a paying job in his life? He’s got everything covered. “How rude of me! I haven’t introduced myself! I’m Lisa!” I say, reaching my hand out confidently.
marrying a man with a huge potential inheritance, it is important that he is an only child. Rich people have too much politics in their family, and having siblings could potentially even rid all chances of getting an inheritance at all. And obviously, Dannon here isn’t planning to take over the family business anytime soon.
“Like, Elizabeth?” he asks, shaking my hand after keeping the cloth back in his pocket. “Oh, wow,” I say, hiding my disappointment well, “I’ve “No… Just Lisa.” always wanted an older brother. All I have is two “Nice to meet you. I’m Dan. As sisters.” in Dannon.” “I don’t have an older brother, “Oh, not Daniel?” I say with I have three. And I have three hopeful laughter, trying to hide sisters as well.” that fact that I have no idea where this is heading. I think I can actually hear the sound of my heart shattering “No… That’s awfully common. as I turn to leave. My older brother is Danby. Our parents have good taste in Alexis Chen Weiqi names.” Honourable Mention An elder brother? Automatically, the giant cheque presented to him (and to me, as his wife) in my head has been reduced to half. In
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