THE CITIZEN

It’s 3pm in the afternoon. I’m working on the story of a man who reported a samurai sword hanging out of a HDB block. His name: Tan Vee Bun. Truly a victim of Singapore. He lives alone, plastic lining the floors and the furniture, sparse light shining in from a north facing kitchen window and small cracks from the curtains in the front room. The faint aroma of garlic and ammonia. He offers me some biscuits and brings me to the kitchen, pointing to the block of flats opposite. All I see are bamboo poles protruding from their holders, onto which shirts, jeans, underwear, socks, whathaveyou, are pinned. The true flags of Singaporean identity. He tells me, biscuits jammed in his mouth, someone in the flats had a samurai sword jammed into the laundry holder in place of a bamboo pole. He produces his phone and shows me a collection of photos where, despite the extreme digital zoom, I could make out the graceful curve of a samurai blade, together with the malevolent glint of sunlight reflected off what I presume to be Japanese steel. 

“I donno lah. The government should do something about this. We cannot have people running around my estate holding dangerous weapons. I know the army gives the officers some kind of sword: my nephew have one you know.”

He flicks to a picture of a tanned boy in a white suit, holding a sword in its holder.

“..but those ones are ceremonial only. The blade not sharp one. My nephew say so. I joke with him: Siew Hum, you use the sword to cut durian lah! Make good use of gahmen money! He told me to be serious. These things cannot anyhow play. Aiyah, they can give my nephew a sword and they cannot give me my CPF. Next time don’t give them a sword lah, I use the money to repair my taxi! Better use of money right? Ho bo?”

I try to push the theory that it could just be another ceremonial sword. 

“For who? Sun Ho is it? You look at the picture again! You look! I tell you,” he lowers his voice, “that’s no ceremonial sword.”

He zooms in on the photo. A mass of compressed smudges of colour. 

“The handle is Japanese,” he says. As if I would know. 

He pulls me aside, and produces a disintegrating coffee table book of Japanese swords, turning to a page describing the production of sword handles in detail. He reads it out to me, word for word, comparing the low quality photo with the yellowed picture in the book.

The interview continues for another 2 hours. The summary: Mr Tan Vee Bun, full-time taxi driver and unmarried. Previously a construction supervisor. Prefers to take the night shift because of a belief that, due to the cooler temperatures, the taxi air conditioning will not need to work as hard, saving him battery and on fuel costs at the end of the night. Strong interest in Singapore freshwater fish and in the martial arts. The former illustrated by an aquarium kept outside his toilet, holding several guppies and a snail. The latter by the aforementioned samurai sword book, Bruce Lee video tapes, and nun chucks hanging on his front door. He’s worried about the proliferation of samurai swords in Singapore, precipitated by the government’s banning of guns and lax import laws, leading to a future of violence which will be clamped down upon with typically draconian measures from the government. 

As I leave Tan Vee Bun’s house and step into the elevator, I think about his life, and how he got there. A society uncaring enough to push a man to solitude and madness. He’s right, it’s the government, but not in the way he thinks. And then I think about the guppies near the toilet. Tan Vee Bun, the prisoner with his own creatures to abuse. An ever-dwindling cycle of violence, the oppressed perpetuating oppression. In the absence of a soul, pragmatism is dictated by indifference, and what is indifference but the most insidious form of violence?

Unexpectedly, the elevator doors open on the 4th floor, and I’m greeted by the policeman, this time in a plaid shirt and blue jeans. My heart stops, but I try to remain calm as he walks into the elevator, flip flops slapping against the linoleum flooring, Axe brand deodorant assaulting my nostrils. But he doesn’t seem to notice me. He looks straight at me, without a flicker of recognition, nods a hello, and stands to my left. We both watch the lift doors close, and my vision fades to black…