THE CITIZEN

My soul is a bird trapped in a gilded cage. And my body is a tiger shut in a lousy jail cell. Finally, my circumstances have caught up with my metaphysical dilemmas. The lines of politics and reality have finally intersected, and I sit here, waiting for my destiny to explode the box of rules, regulations, and unthinking social engineering that hold me and the people of Singapore captive.

But nothing happens. 

What would Lee Kuan Yew do, I ask myself. In my cell, I ponder my destiny and my provenance. The obstacles that threw themselves in front of Lee Kuan Yew did not stop him -- no, they merely motivated him, and he rose to tackle them head on with knuckle dusters in hand and a sharp wit. I decide I will do the same. 

I hear footsteps, and I work myself up to a rage, all the better to demolish the opposition that dares to place itself before me. Hidayat appears, his face expressionless, as I ready myself to launch into a rant about freedom which he abruptly cuts off by unlocking the cage and opening the door, gesturing to the exit where a familiar stout shape stands. 

Tan Vee Bun, dressed in a blue-white plaid shirt and beige chinos, feet clad in boat shoes, eyes hidden behind sports sunglasses.  His oily smiling face, accentuated by acne scars, shining silver under the flickering illumination of a fluorescent lamp. Behind him, another motivational poster. 

Dedication. The will to fight for every inch.  

“We have to hurry, they already have your sperm,” Tan Vee Bun says, pushing me through the police station, every cop sound asleep, every camera -- black eyes protruding from ceiling corners -- watching impassively. 

“How…”

“I used to be a commando in the Singapore Army.”

“But what do we do next?”

Tan Vee Bun turns to me. “We are up against the wall here. They have your sperm. They are about to clone Lee Kuan Yew. We have to stop this from happening.”

“But I thought I was the reincarnation of Lee Kuan Yew.”

“Not if they steal your destiny through cloning,” he says, “let me show you something.”

Reaching a bird-shit encrusted Toyota, he opens the doors and flips up the taxi meter. Hidden within the instrument panel is a book, titled ‘Algorithmic Transformation and the 八字: Manipulating your Heavenly Destiny with the Power of AI’. 

“Our leaders have been manipulating your 八字 for the past four years, slowly turning your fortune towards a mirror of Lee Kuan Yew’s. The final transformation was meant to take place when you caught the Indian man, but something went wrong...” he whispers, “since the police had caught you scratching your crotch in public, they have also made their modifications to your destiny. Now, it’s your offspring that will be the reincarnation of Lee Kuan Yew, unless you manage to prevent your clone from coming into existence, which will allow the destiny to revert back to its original owner: You.”

The street lamps, going from white to the older yellow from the 80s, blur past the windscreen as Tan Vee Bun speeds towards the dark maw of the future. 

“From now on, you have to guard your sperm. Any ejaculate from now on can be used to derail the revolution.”

I nod.

“Where are we going?” I ask Tan Vee Bun. 

“Bukit Brown Cemetery. That’s their headquarters. We have to stop the cloning process by stealing back your sperm,” he explains, “we will infiltrate the bunker, and you will procure the samples, while I place enchanted talismans across the bunker to prevent further interference with your 八字.”

He places his hand on my crotch. 

“You have to be careful. They are not to be underestimated.”

The car cruises past an empty car park, when Tan Vee Bun switches the headlights off, and we plunge into darkness and the sound of secondary jungle and the spirits that dwell in the organic matter of the cemetery, ironically both the secret hideout of the government and the last frontier of humanity in this homogenised land. 

Tan Vee Bun lowers his voice, “Rumour is the founding fathers were buried here. Immigrants from South China forming gangs that expanded to take over the country, rapidly displacing the malay population to the fringes of the island. The offspring of these gang leaders continued the mission, setting the conditions of trade and commerce -- the wellspring of money -- blooming in central Singapore, extending tendrils of capitalist comfort outwards to the jungles and countryside, seducing all with the promise of stability from Pasir Ris to Jurong and Marina Bay to Woodlands, a wave of assimilation that crested and broke across the causeway, spilling into Johor Bahru where the Malaysian population, free from the counterbalance of sterilisation and social engineering, turned to crime and corruption and the indiscriminate sale of unleaded petrol.”

The tombstones, dark shadows behind thin tree trunks and overhanging leaves, beneath layers of rotting leaves, sit patiently as the dawn creeps up upon the island. Souls soon to be exhumed and thrown away in the future, as the further development of the urban landscape of this cursed island continues to feed upon all that is exuberant, all that is spontaneous, all that is unplanned, impractical, wasteful and joyful. The poor forefathers, their spirits to be devoured by the robotic ambitions of their descendants.