THE CITIZEN
Yesterday, I took a photo of a national serviceman sitting in the train. He was staring into the black space of the windows as it hurtled along the tunnels, his ears plugged with white earphones, his face as empty as his head, both completely ignorant of the fact that he was sitting on the priority seat. If a pregnant woman came past him, I knew he would not have noticed. So I scooted over one seat to the right, and carefully tilted my phone so the camera pointed at him.
Through the phone screen, I saw the soldier turning to look at me. His plain face turning into a frown as his eyes shifted downwards to my crotch, where my phone sat tilted up to his face. In panic, I looked up at him as his eyes began to widen in anger. And as he stood up from the seat, I stood up with him, my lips quivering. But then I thought to myself, the reincarnation of Lee Kuan Yew should not be picking fights on trains, he should be getting involved in fights more worthy of his attention, like political enemies of the state. And the physical body of the reincarnation of Lee Kuan Yew, ideally, should remain unharmed till it claims its rightful destiny as determined by the 八字. And so we stood there, staring at each other, till we stopped at Ang Mo Kio and I ran out of the train to protect the future of Singapore’s soul.
I’m sitting on a coffee table in the wreckage of my living room. It’s 11.23am. The couch is gone. The pictures are gone. The floor is strewn with the fragments of broken crockery. I take out the phone and review the pictures I took of the national serviceman: His face, it’s so stupid. I’m sure he would be a PAP supporter. And his name tag ‘P Y LUM’. What a name, another one of the unthinking masses, the brainwashed youth -- once hoped to represent a brand new dawn for the political future of Singapore, now proven by the last election to be yet another generation of unthinking, unquestioning, zombies; another sinkie as grist for the mill.
Sighing, I upload the pictures to the forum and compose an open letter to the Prime Minister. If he doesn’t read it, others will. The citizens of Singapore will not be silenced, especially not by the unthinking youth, taking up space on the MRT because of their lack of empathy.
And then I get up and make my way to the kitchen to get some water, my shoes crunching against the broken clay and glass spread across the floor. I refuse to clean up. This is all Joanne’s doing -- she’s the one cheating on me with an Indian worker, she’s the one leaving the house in a self-righteous huff, and I still have to clean up the mess from her tantrums? No, I will ensure that she comes back and cleans the floor.
Where could that bitch be hiding, I ask myself, leaning against the basin and looking out to the flats. I’m half way through the cup of water when I see the apparition marching across the playground. Not a strange gang of smokers like the first time, but a lone figure brisk walking from left to right, a seven foot tall giant ape, black and furry with its eyes burning with purpose. In its hand, an unsheathed samurai sword glinting malevolently in the sunlight.
I spit out my water and scramble to get my shirt on and to pick up a feather duster. I must intercept the ape, heading, by my guess, towards block 92, and I must beat it. Like a raging bull, I burst out of my flat, deftly slipping on my loafers in a finely calibrated motion. And when I turn to run, I feel the adrenaline rush through my veins; a purpose has presented itself, a clue to the strange happenings in Bukit Brown and the sightings from Tan Vee Bun, no matter how spurious or disconnected, I know, I just know if I pull on one thread, something will unravel and a piece of this all-encompassing lizard conspiracy will become mine to attack.
I rush through the corridors and sprint down the stairs, racing across the void decks till I see that gigantic black silhouette, waving at me from behind a row of bougainvilleas, taunting me with its red, lifeless eyes. I make a beeline for the ape and stumble as my loafers catch on something in the floor. I stumble into a waist high brick wall and my face lands in a bed of tomato plants. Looking behind me, I see my loafers lying sideways, a disgusting string of chewing gum connecting them to the floor. Grimacing, I stand up on the plants to look for the ape, fearing the worst, and then experiencing it -- the ape has disappeared. All that’s left is my humiliation.
Holding my loafers, I walk barefoot back to my flat, passing my neighbour’s mess of shoes littering the corridor, and the bonsai plants sitting next to them -- tortured forms of life presenting only for human edification. Like the Singaporean population. I leave the loafers in the kitchen sink for washing later, and walk back to the living area to rest on...someone has taken my coffee table. The living area is now completely barren; just the outlines of furniture that used to be there, like chalkmarks of all that was left of my life. The one time I leave my door ajar, and someone takes my coffee table. I close my eyes, sigh, and collapse to the floor, noticing a white and blue card on the floor. I move closer to investigate: it’s Tan Vee Bun’s namecard, a plain white card with the logo of a purple otter -- glossy and proud.