THE CITIZEN
The Marina Bay Sands is overbooked. The casino floor is covered in naked, writhing bodies honking at the ceiling as the elite look on, tossing peanut shells into the melee. Meanwhile, I exit the casino floor and, my limbs having turned to flippers, I crawl my way out of the building onto the river walk. Above me, pink skies signal a beautiful sunset only the two-legged could see, and in front of me, the black waters of the Marina Bay reservoir presenting the only escape from the young national servicemen activated by the security breach alarm. I keep crawling towards the water as the footsteps grow in volume, louder and louder till I find myself surrounded by black brush-polished boots. The national servicemen, no older than 18, have surrounded me, their SAR rifles hanging limply off their shoulders. I look into the face of the lead soldier, a pock-marked sergeant, his face oily with a day’s worth of busywork, and implore him to let me go. He laughs soundlessly, triggering the surrounding soldiers to do the same. They kick me and prod me with their rifles, inching me closer and closer to the water. Are they helping me to escape? And then I’m falling, the water slaps against my bare flesh, and I jump to use my flippers to swim to the opposite end of the reservoir. But the water begins to come alive: something under the surface is holding me back, and slim black tentacles envelop my body, binding my legs and arms, wrapping round my chest, and finally moving to my asshole and penis, while I get pulled under and the remaining tentacles invade my eyes, ears, nose, mouth and anus.
I come to, yet again. I’m propped up vertically in a dimly lit room. My hands and legs are bound in an X shape. And I’m naked with a pump attached to my erect penis.
My vision resolves. In front of me is a large glistening ball, beyond which is the robot, its two red eyes serenely keeping watch. It’s left arm holds a white cloth which it rubs slowly, methodically against its torso. Suddenly, the ball begins to move, elongated shapes on its surface shifting in opposition to each other, as it begins to expand, then contract, then expand again. A clawed foot emerges from the top, and a tail unwinds from the side. Soon, two triangular heads emerge from opposite ends, forked tongues flicking out to taste the air, the smell of my fear suffusing across the room. I scream as the ball unwinds itself, forming five separate shapes that resolve into 5-foot long monitor lizards that crawl around the room, their claws clicking against concrete.
One of the lizards, the first to emerge from the ball, turns to look at me. It flicks its tongue out tentatively and with its claw, peels off a layer of skin, revealing a shiny new layer of green underneath.
“Oh,” it says, its voice wheezing, “I’m molting.”
A second lizard replies, “Are you? That means all of us will start soon as well.”
A third lizard adds on, “It’s time that time again, huh. The best time of the month.”
A fourth lizard, with a curiously deeper voice, “We’re not all the same age. It’s going to be different for all of us.”
“But don’t we all live together? I’m pretty sure it syncs between those in close contact,” says lizard #2.
“Not true. Younger lizards molt more often than older ones”, says lizard #4
The first lizard, rubbing itself against the concrete wall, makes an open-mouthed hissing sound as its skin is pulled downwards towards its tail. Its new skin catches the light of the room, throwing multiple colours outwards which the other lizards ignore.
“Let him have his fun, it’ll come time for us soon enough,” says lizard #4.
Lizard #5 finally speaks up, “Always with the balanced, measured view, aren’t you?”
Lizard #4, “What other way is there to logically debate the future?”
Assorted hissing.
Lizard #2 crawls towards me, its claws clicking against bare concrete. It heaves itself up to my crotch, its tongue flicking into my navel and its claws digging into my torso. I feel its left hand dig deeper into my flesh as it lifts its right hand to flick a switch on the penis pump. I protest by screaming and thrashing in my bounds, but all it does is draw blood from the claws. With horror, I watch the penis pump as it begins to pull on my member, up and down in a 4/4 rhythm. Unwelcome waves of pleasure radiate from my crotch. Unable to scream, screaming to moan, my breathing becomes shallow and rapid as I attempt to stop myself from ejaculating.
Lizard #3: Must we torture the poor man so?
Lizard #5: He was the one who destroyed the samples, was he not?
Lizard #3: We don’t even need the samples!
Lizard #2: Yes we do. For redundancy.
Lizard #3: This isn’t an engineering problem, it’s not an issue of failure rates and six sigma intervals. This is a person!
Lizard #2: Um. Yes it is. Like it or not, at our level, we need to ensure society works, if not like an engine, then a collective that can withstand the shocks and bumps of the outside world.
Lizard #4: Pfft. The outside world. As if we are a small tilapia in a world of crocodiles.
Lizard #3 and Lizard #2 hiss in disapproval.
Lizard #3: What do you have against crocodiles?
Lizard #2: Crocodiles don’t eat insects. But yes, we are a fragile nation. Have you forgotten your history?
Lizard #4: Yes, yes, the usual old spy games of the past…
Lizard #5: ...translated to the new world of almost-instantaneous contagion of destabilising ideas, the red spectre of communism re-imagined as a flash flood of disastrous proportions.
Lizard #2: We will drown. You don’t need a political theorist to realise this...
Lizard #3: ...or a priest.
Lizard #2: I wear my faith on my sleeve, thank you very much, but I temper it with the realities of international politics and the shifting winds of macroeconomics. What about you? The shifting ideologies of social media? Has your appetite for your daily atrocity not been satiated thus far?
Lizard #3 hisses.
Lizard #3: At least I don’t view the world as an aggregate.
Lizard #2: Yes, yes, focussing in on the one dying labrador retriever rather than the thousand at risk of death by incompetent governance.
Lizard #3: But you ate that labrador!
A symphony of hissing, ending with Lizard #1, still molting, gurgling in pleasure. Meanwhile, I work to prevent myself from achieving orgasm. The pump, a nefarious invention, a machine that will never stop as long as the electricity continues to flow, as long as there is a penis to fill its hungry hole -- plastic tubing, a reservoir of lube, and the uncaring manipulation of vacuum pockets -- a massage of pleasure twisted to evil ends.
Lizard #2: The dog was dying, in any case. I think of my actions as a form of mercy. A relatively faster, easier solution against the slow, inexorable march towards death as Ruby’s organs failed her.
Lizard #5: Waste not, want not.
I cast my mind outwards to the external, the dripping walls, the unbearable humidity, the claws of the lizards and their discussion, not just a threat to democracy, but already belying the perversion of all that is good and humane and of the soul, the hungry diminished soul of Singapore and her peoples. But it is useless. The fantasy of my considerable intellect, my determination and drive against orgasm, the genetic framework of my Buddhist reincarnation -- am I not still the reincarnation of Lee Kuan Yew? -- crumbling under the sheer pummeling force of rhythm encircling my penis.
I will use this. This pain, this humiliation. The inevitability of orgasm. The key to freeing Singapore from its malaise and towards a bright new future where I will become a new shining beacon of hope, to set the example of a city state that will not quit. We will fill in the oceans, convert the sea water to wine, and shine, shine, shine brightly in the expanse of sea, agriculture, development stretching slowly upwards to a future of prosperity.
Lizard #2: He’s talking to himself. You’re driving the poor man crazy.
Lizard #5: If he is who we have ordained him to be, he will be stronger than that. A mind that breaks irreparably at the edge of orgasm is a weak mind, not the one whose offspring will become our symbol.
Lizard #4: Yes, yes, the secrets of the zodiac, laid out as pure, quantifiable data. The fortunes of the world, accessible by algorithm.
My body buckles. My mind splits open, secrets of statecraft and philosophy and economics and management scramble out from my unconscious, giving me fleeting glimpses of an ordained future, the person I was meant to be, the deterministic flow of my life spilt out in coloured clouds of words and aphorisms that I try, desperately, to catch with my conscious mind. But it’s too late, it was too fast, and I feel my penis shoot out stream after stream of semen into the pump, guilelessly channelled into a plastic bucket a metre away from my feet. I moan in disappointment at my failure in keeping the future of Singapore’s soul in my hands.
Lizard #1: Finally! Out of this straitjacket!
Through my tears, I make out the lizard, gleaming golden and blue in the darkness, a jewel of hate emerging from a disgusting pile of grey mush withering on the floor. It proceeds to eat its own skin.
The other four turn to Lizard #1 in unison. Some hissing, some scratching, some lolling their heads in a strange dance.
“Ivan,” hisses Lizard #4, “why are you a lizard?”
