THE CITIZEN

I come to in a bare room, handcuffed to a chair. Before me is a desk and beyond, a motivational poster of sunlight bursting through the clouds -- Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Make it Happen. I must be in a public servants office. 

The door opens, and in steps the policeman from Toa Payoh Mall. He smirks, scratching his crotch in mockery, and sits down. His name: Constable Hidayat. 

Behind him, a chinese man I do not recognise steps and conspicuously places himself in a corner. He pulls out a plastic white contraption, places it in his mouth, and presses a button. As he inhales, the stick glows green, and the man exhales a cloud of white vapour. Next to him is another motivational poster -- this time it’s a rainbow over waterfalls -- Perseverance; Before the rainbow you will have to endure a little rain.

The policeman drums his fingers. His face deadly serious. 

“Mr Li, do you know what you’ve done?”

I stare back. My fury unabated. 

“You’ve assaulted an innocent man, stripped off his clothes in public, and threatened to kill him.”

“That so-called innocent man. Do you know what he’s been doing? Do you? Huh?”

The policeman raises an eyebrow. Go on, his smug face tells me, all secure in his blue uniform. Behind him a green glow emanates from the corner. 

“For time immemorial,” I tell him, “since the time I can remember, this man has been tormenting me and my wife. I don’t know what his culture is about but he always wants to use it to torture me at night, with his horrible stench, his disgusting habits, his uncivilised ways!”

“Mr Li, what are trying to say?” the policeman asks. Behind him, the man with the green-glowing vapourizer leans forward. 

My voice grows louder, more urgent, more crisp in the air conditioned environs of this box of injustice, pummelling against the walls of oppression, like how Lee Kuan Yew did in the Fajar trial of 1954, “This man has been shitting outside my bedroom window for months!”

The policeman’s jaw drops open. Behind him, green vape leans back, exhales another cloud of smoke, stands up and leaves the room. 

“We thank you for your vigilance,” says Hidayat, his voice lined with professional pity, “but I think there is something you have to see.”

Frowning, he gets up and walks behind me to switch on a television. He inserts a SD card into a holder connected to the screen, and then scrolls to the recording dated yesterday. 

It’s CCTV footage of the loading bay, grainy and black and white, but clear enough to discern figures and skin colours and identities. On the bottom left is a readout of the time and date; 11pm yesterday. The policeman switches the video to double speed, and the numbers on the time readout race forward -- my mind impatiently jumping ahead -- right to the point when Joanne walks onto the scene, Indian worker in tow. 

In double time, she grabs his hand and places it on her breast, while her other hand moves towards his crotch, undoing his sarong. They kiss. Her clothes fall off in a flurry of arms of legs and, naked, he offers her his asshole. From a handbag, she retrieves a gigantic strap-on dildo, attaches it to her crotch, and then violently penetrates the Indian man. The two figures vibrate intensely for several minutes, the video scanlines doing nothing to hide the passion of their movements, her pelvic thrusts, his hands placed flat on the walls, her hair whipping back in intense pleasure. Eventually, she jitters and shoves her hips forward in an orgasmic climax. Removing the dildo from the man’s asshole, and then her crotch, she places the dildo before the man’s face. Mechanically, he licks the dildo clean. Joanne places the strap-on back into her handbag and walks off, while the Indian man stumbles forward and surveys the site of his violation. His repeated violation. Still naked, he squats and releases a pile of shit onto the ground. 

I feel like throwing up, and Hidayat, noticing this, hands me a waste basket. My wife. My partner in crime. My Gek Neo. We were supposed to lead the country out of the doldrums of soullessness. To bring us, united as one, into the 21st century. To destroy the downward pressures of international politics, out of slavery, out of hegemony. The fearsome beauty of a country fulfilling its potential. My love, betrayed. My life, bereft. 

On the screen, the Indian worker lights a cigarette, and moves to walk away whereupon he is attacked by the limping, pathetic, blur of shadow that I can only assume is me.