Thou liar

Blackened devil

Thy heart spews forth

Burning sulphur

Thy tongue swirls

In liquid fire

Thou tormentor

Hideous creature

Thy skin shrivels

Cackling ashes

Thy shrouded lips

Flare putrid evil

O thou liar

Distorter of worth

Thy mouth is a raging furnace

That scorches with the devil’s breath

Thou art a lowly Iago.

A corruptor and a fiend.

You will I never love again.

That night I saw you in a dream.

There you were, speaking to me, almost tenderly,

Driving to a destination of lighted colours –

A place I know we would never come to see.

In the milky twilight, you questioned me

Why things had evolved, the standstill to meet.

I remained silent beside you, unable to reveal

That the anxiety you gave me was too much to receive.

I long to turn back now to that moment in the dream

For I would confess there, to need your pardoning.

I’m sorry now, partner, comrade,

For I had given up on our struggle before the meagre limit.

In reality now, I have to admit

We’ll never arrive at the place designed in the dream.

The gulf is too wide – far apart –

For us to overcome, for us to swim.

So I wonder why in dreams

To us our feelings are revealed, in place of reality.

Perhaps now, I will say

Dreams touch us more intimately

Than we would allow in reality.

The tableau before me sits

Four colours of its splendour in.

Cheer-emanating, joy-reminiscent,

Features tuned sheer likeness in.

The possibility and the promise,

Yea, how true indeed, really.

Formaldehyde in its chemistry,

A preservation of what already is.

Red, green, blue, black –

Gaze upon the mouth, the eyes.

Bright countenances, sparkling freshness,

Smiles – in their magnificence.

How happy the four colours make me.

What lovely years, them presaging.

Reveal to me, the colours simply:

That he’s one I would stay up all night with.

 
19042008
__________________________________________

Time has flown by since and a year later it now is.

We sit together – apart in silence – fearing repudiation.

O the diary, and the colours heart-wrenching –

Will the days play over again –

Will our lives come together anew?

This broken thread will be nursed somewhere within

Where I will wait

For Faith to guide

For Providence to show

That we’ll live the colours then free and jolly

In fullness of heart – unceasingly beating.

Leah.

Stars twinkling in the darkened sky;

Currents of water passing time by.

Sunrises over vermillion horizons

Do nothing to diminish the power of your existence,

Nor the influence it has

On mine.

I could, but listen to songs of reminiscence.

I could, but pensively wonder

If you, whom I cherish so deeply in thought

Are even of vague significance,

Or not.

I return to find you.

I defy reality to meet you.

I set you high apart,

I concentrate the fullness of my heart

On you.

Yet, to you, it seems

I am but flickering memory

Lost to the world and wind.

Faintly stroking ripples of the river;

Never thought of, never heard.

No matter,

Recondite remnants of once-felt beauty
I would imprint in murky depths of memory.
And in that alcove of recollection
lies a chamber of sanguinity.

Let me hold on to that remembrance
and let it not from me slip.
For poignant joy and delightful sombreness
could be felt in sentimentality.

A Blessed Fulfillment

“I know when you are thinking of me. I can sense it. I can sense whatever you’re thinking about.”

“I’m now picturing a scene in my mind, so paint it out in words,” she had playfully challenged, visualising the bay of Singapore River. It was where they had first met, watching the annual Fireworks Festival’s splendid demonstration of flamboyant lights fall over the calmly flowing waters below.

“Stars are shining in the dark night sky. We are only standing hand-in-hand by Singapore River…” He had broken off and fallen silent, recollecting the extravagant display of pyrotechnics bursting into vivid existence against the darkness of night.

The tableau her sub-consciousness had conjured up in a sudden access of mischievousness had stayed with her, even long after he had gone away. It was perhaps his sensing of, and his effort in painting out a figment of her thoughts, that had made her so deeply cherish the words he had spoken at that fateful moment. Too, perhaps, it had been a hopeless longing for its materialisation, a desperate reluctance to let go.

Jonathan had been the sole resident of her heart for the longest time imaginable. It had all begun when she was fifteen and he, sixteen. A brief infatuation upon setting her eyes on his handsome figure had later developed into gentle feelings and ardent love for Jonathan – all at age fifteen. Age fifteen would be a time of carefree abandon, for the cramming of a plethora of lively activities before the onset of age sixteen, which would then be a time of flustered studying and late-night revision in attempt to score straight As for the national examinations at the end of the year. Puppy-love – no more than that, many would declare about feelings harboured at that age. Yet she had, at age fifteen, nurtured a simple love of steadfast devotion, borne of a genuine sincerity and admiration for that boy, Jonathan. Battling self-inflicted depression and having a disinclination to step out of his wonted dwelling in loneliness, Jonathan had pushed himself away, after two weeks of unburdening his heart, from a girl who had cheered him up like no other, a girl all the more special for her gift of unmitigated bliss and exuberance.

To Jonathan, it had only been a hiatus in his orderly, rational life. Though the girl had been a refreshing experience, he was not willing to wholly accept a complete change in emotional direction. Jonathan was simply afraid to venture out of his usual melancholy to heartbreaking joy, an elevation from his residential hellhole of bleakness onto a platform of exquisite cheer and exultance he had never before believed possible. Breaking free from the happy intrusion was incongruously welcome to him, and he would be able to return to his accustomed abyss of pessimism. To the girl, however, it was the ultimate dashing of her faith and hopes, the apocalyptic destruction of all remaining capacity of love in her heart. His incomprehensible retreat from her life had then led her into austere desolation that had cordoned off all possible delights of insouciant teenage years. Having already planted seeds of ardent love, it was not in her power for their abandonment. The girl enshrined Jonathan deeply and safely in her heart, never allowing his firm placement to be shaken.

Loving and wanting a specific male alone, the girl turned resolutely away from all other hateful males who attempted to lodge themselves in her heart, when her heart already was reserved for that one and only. Maturing into a charming woman of startling beauty, she remained steadfast to the love nurtured at age fifteen, and turned down all requests for dates. She tenaciously believed her love would find fulfillment one day.

* * *

It was 12 August 2017, when the Fireworks Festival arrived that year. She was twenty-seven and Jonathan, twenty-eight. She strode solitarily to the riverside, numb to the buzzing commotion around her. The boisterous cheers of rapidly swelling crowds of people gathered to watch the fireworks that day did nothing to warm the draught in her heart. Staring abstractedly into the night sky, she barely took notice of the young man quietly standing a slight distance away from where she was. “The day it had all begun,” she had quietly murmured, gazing vaguely into the distance as a shower of golden sparks fell over their heads. She almost did not hear the very soft utterance of her name.

“Ariene…” the young man hesitantly whispered.

She turned, descending her soft gaze upon the young man’s exquisite form.

Standing by the river with soft beams of mellow moonlight caressing their faces, they gazed upon the exhilarating view before them, basking in its magnificence. Not speaking, for words were redundant in moments of such tenderness, they stood contentedly against each other in silence, not wanting words to whisk away the magic of the moment.

Stars twinkling in the darkened sky, we stand by the river gazing upon your queenly resplendence.

2007 Jolene Tan

So the lover said in glee,
"You love me and so should wait
for me loyally through my voyage
across continents and vast spiralling seas."
The girl looked sadly at her lover,
her large eyes filled with melancholy,
while her mind sullenly told her heart
"He's leaving you behind, he's going."

So while the lover sailed in cheer,
the girl sat hopefully by the quiet window,
her patience by the day growing,
her heart brimming only with love's longing.
After weeks that felt like years,
the lover had finally returned
and leapt into her arms, proclaiming,
"I'll never again without you leave."

So the days of fun had culminated
and again the lover packed.
"It will only be a while," the lover benignly proclaimed,
"and soon we will be united again."
The girl turned silently away,
and bit her lips in trembling trepidation
of the looming clouds of darkness
and the storm of imposing imminence.

So while the lover is immersed in beguiling activity,
the girl lays by the forlorn window,
her patience steadily wearing thin
at contemplation of the lover's failing.
Now the girl gently weeps,
her eyes redolent with deep melancholy.
Away from her, the lover is always going;
without her, the lover is always leaving.

In cold solitude, I am always dwelling;
crumbling agony, I am always feeling.
While you're away, preoccupied, I write,
but when you eventually read this,
I hope you finally will perceive
just how hard it is for me.
So this is a lousy piece of poetry,
but it is a frank reflection of my feelings.

The receipt

Half a month’s winter vacation in majestic China. The girl had been keenly anticipating this day since her school, a prestigious junior college, had announced details of the Chinese Cultural Immersion Tour three months ago. She breathed in eager contemplation of tableaus of magnificent mountains, splendid ancient bodies of water, the touch of chilly winter air on tender skin, and unique oriental cuisine. She gave a little smile to the taxi driver who was spun halfway around to hand her the change and receipt, and gazed placidly as the car drove off into the distance. Two hours later, she was languorously seated on the aircraft, eyes closed softly in sleep.

While sleeping, the girl had a dream. She was being chased by a white tiger which pursued her through mazes of shrubs and trees. The tiger, with a body sleek as snow, stalked her relentlessly as she stumbled and struggled her way through boughs and bushes. Sharp branches slashed right into her luggage as she ploughed through the oppressive jungle layers, scattering layers of costly garments among the trees. With a forceful lunge, she tumbled right into a trap of ropes, and was violently hoisted up into midair while the slits of the trap tightened harshly around her bare legs. The girl jerked awake. The plane had just landed at the Chinese airport. Dazed, and still trying to shake off the remnants of the terrifying subconscious encounter, she got up from her seat and weaved into the crowd of passengers impatiently pushing their way out of the aircraft.

Stumbling out of the airport into gushes of cold winter breeze, the girl stood slightly away from the other tour members. The dream still haunted her, and she weakly tried to establish a connection between the dream and the thoughts she had harboured that could have caused the dream’s manifestation. With confused eyes, she vaguely noticed an old man in a far corner, feebly huddled in a foetal stance, trying to wrap whatever strands of warmth his tattered garments could provide. His right palm was pathetically outstretched to an apathetic crowd, which marched and sauntered without even half a glance at the pitiable old man. Her heart, filled with tender compassion at the wretched sight of the aged beggar, walked gently up to him with a Chinese note in hand. A hundred yuan should sustain him for at least a week, she thought with kind sympathy as she gently bent down to put the note on the man’s wizened palm. As she straightened up to make her way back to her schoolmates, she heard rapid footsteps behind her. The girl only had time to descend her sight upon the old man’s sorrowful eyes. With a forceful thud she could scarcely register, all fell away into darkness.

The girl awakened her senses to crude, strident voices clamouring, and almost immediately felt an excruciating surge of agony throb right through her brain. She moaned almost inaudibly and tried to raise her hand to soothe her aching head. Her hands, however, could not budge. She struggled feebly and realised her limbs were tightly bound together. In a rising tide of bewilderment, she squinted into the distance and perceived two Chinese men with dirty russet complexions. Her eyes roamed over dilapidated walls of old timber, and peeling, rotting wooden furniture. On the centre of a decrepit table lay a metal axe, covered with rust and filth. Uttering a startled cry of sheer panic, she kicked against a chair her legs were tied to, and it tumbled over with a resounding crash.

The two men turned abruptly around and the girl shrunk backwards into the wrecked wall behind her. The shorter and fatter of the two Chinese men cast a questioning look upon his taller, thinner counterpart, and demanded in a querulous baritone of thickly-accented Mandarin, “So what do we do now that she’s come to?” while his partner stared greedily at the girl. “But she’s pretty,” the scraggy man lasciviously remarked. “We can get other beggars – she’d fetch a good price at the brothel.” The man then proceeded to pull the rackety door shut and advanced towards the girl, while she screamed and struggled against the forceful hands of the thin man, who was surprisingly strong despite his meagreness. “Right now, we can first have her for ourselves,” he sneered, while his plump associate cooperated by unbinding her legs first then forcing them roughly apart. The thin man then pulled her bottom garments off in startling ferocity, and dived right into her.

The girl had never before felt such a pain. The sting at her joint exploded in an eruption of anguished soreness as hot tears streamed uncontrollably from her eyes, which were now limpid pools of absolute terror. She felt a jet of sour hotness spew from between her legs as the thin man pulled himself away, got up and beckoned the shorter man to the girl, who ravenously plunged into her in yet another surge of torturous agony. Her last strands of consciousness ebbing away with the apex of painful torment, the girl chose to let darkness take over her senses. She last felt rough abrasions tighten around her bare legs, before slipping away into unconsciousness.

***

“I demand my money back!” A shrill female voice screeched in surly Mandarin. “She does nothing but sit there in filthy rags all day long for two weeks! My customers are disgusted at the sight of her!” The woman brazenly continued with a sly smirk, “or perhaps you could bring in another wretched female for an exchange…” while the two dark-skinned Chinese males spun halfway around and cast condescending looks upon the girl.

The girl reached a battered hand into her jeans pocket, and fished out a soft piece of crumpled paper, which was her nourishment and comfort after daily doses of slaps and kicks. “10.23AM, Destination Changi Airport. Total fare $8.70,” the paper faintly read. The girl ruminated obscurely for strands of comprehension. This frail piece of paper was the receipt of a faint memory, the remembrance of vast gleaming frontages, and the voucher of a dim existence. She struggled hard to connect the flashes in her mind to brutal reality at present, but somehow the pieces simply would not come together. Fatigued after a whole morning’s beatings, the girl snuggled into the bundle of stale straw, and closed her eyes wearily in sleep.

Cunning face powder,

Conceal my hideous blemishes.

Stunning kohl pencil,

Craft my eyes bright and innocent.

Sensuous lipstick,

Fill my mouth scarlet and thick.

Skillful make-up,

Mask my ugliness beneath.

My face;

Nothing more than an adroit façade.

Let me, as the adept chameleon changes its skin,

Transform my nature’s quality within.

My nature;

Multi-faceted.

Swiftly-revolving,

Ever-changing.

Forgive me - I am but a human being.

 
She stared resolutely from the bathroom mirror, eyes heavily laden with loops of smudged kohl. Pale powder clung onto her fair skin, in stark contrast to her crimson-painted lips, which stood slightly parted to reveal a raw sensuality. She stepped into the bath and raised her face to spurting jets of scalding water. Tremblingly, she heaped moulds of harshest soap onto her face and scrubbed with a ferocious intensity that singed her tender skin pink. Wiping vapours of fog with her bare hands, she smiled wanly at the fresh-faced female gazing mildly back from the bathroom mirror.

*

“Loretta.” 

“Present.”

As the teacher droned on monotonously about numbers and figures, Loretta could scarcely resist the drowsy fluttering of her eyelids as the scratching of chalk on the dusty board made her sleepier, and sleepier still. The warmth of sunshine emanating from the rising sun fell over her shoulders as she leaned against the classroom window, head almost lolling back in sleep. The teacher turned abruptly as the thud of a head against glass reached his ears. He spun around and shot the perpetrator a glare of stern disapproval. Almost imperceptibly, his eyes lingered upon the soft, large eyes now closed in mild sleep, delicately curving mouth, the long, slender neck, and lowered his gaze greedily upon the smooth curvature of womanly chest not quite concealed under the pleated pinafore of convent blue.

The teacher pulled his head back to face the dusty board and continued writing, choosing not to chastise the girl after all. Setting a class assignment to keep his youthful charges occupied, he took the time to allow his eyes to descend and feast, once again, upon the young girl. Roughly jerked out of his reverie as the school bell shrilly sounded, the teacher swiftly got up and left the classroom.

After what had seemed interminable hours of lessons, Loretta stumbled out through the school gate into a vermillion pool of setting sun. Trudging reluctantly home, she stopped before a dilapidated building and stared at the scene before her: pairs of raucous, leering old men with arms comfortably slung over the shoulders of young temptresses staggered past her. Lascivious old men pressed young, supple bodies against their wrinkly, sagged ones, to elicit practiced squeals of coy petulance from the women. Grimly, and not without a certain resolution, she firmly pulled herself up the cement steps up to the third storey of the building.

The lone door on the third storey had a note attached to its handle, informing the room’s occupant to get ready for a man who would be visiting later in the evening. Loretta plucked the note off, squashed it forcefully in a hand and hurled it over her shoulder. She glanced at a clock. It was almost time.

Undoing the layers of her white-and-blue convent uniform, she replaced her garment with a dress of teasing bright pink intended to rouse perverted males into higher levels of anxiety. She undid her chaste ponytail and released her hair into silken layers of lush curls. Carefully tracing her eyes with a kohl pencil in front of the bathroom mirror, she blinked and saw two darkly glowing pools of almond gazing back at her. Holding a scarlet lipstick in one hand, she assiduously applied it to her lips, enhancing her sensuous mouth to perfection. With further spreading of powder and rouge, a provocative woman stared back at her from the bathroom mirror.

***

She lay still on the bed, eyelids pressed against each other, giving a mild tableau of sleep. The masculine arm, coarse with hair, was thrown unconcernedly across her bosom while its owner lay slunk deeply in the languor of sleep. With a low, brutal grunt, the arm rolled off, and she jumped quickly out of bed and into the bathroom. As with her invariable morning rota, she removed every piece of filthy, wretched clothing, and let them fall into a wretched heap at her feet. Standing naked in the bath, she subjected herself religiously to the wonted treatment of harsh soap and hot water. Her fresh face clean of stale make-up, and clad in the virtuous uniform of convent blue, she hardly recognised the girl staring back from the bathroom mirror.

Leah Jolene Tan

Expectations set up there

High,

Fail me not now,

Please.

My bruised heart,

Frail as a rose petal,

Cannot withstand

The pain of your crushing.

            When things fail, we would blame people and things around us for the letdown. We often fail to see that we actually have only ourselves to blame for setting our expectations beyond our attainment. The higher the expectations we have, the greater would be the disappointment we receive. Therefore, we ought to take heed – we have only ourselves to blame for our downfalls; nothing other at all.

Disappointment

She lay in a crumpled heap on the cemented floor, body convulsing with spasms of inexorable sobbing, legs writhing in agony. Helpless, senseless, her consciousness had been overridden by utter disconsolation; her sanity, purest of desolation. She lifted her sullen, weary eyes to meet the imposing figure before her – the magnificently carved effigy perched on a foot with hands gracefully clasped in front stared blankly, if not condescendingly, back at her. The merrily painted eyes on the goddess’s face seemed to mock at her faith. All her hopes had been pinned on the great goddess Srivinastha, yet She had failed her. From the abyss of hurtful disappointment, she swore with utmost resolution, a final renunciation of a most inept god.

***

Vanisha lay placidly on her marital bed as her husband caressed the swelling bump at her abdomen and kissed it tenderly. On her nose stood a gleaming sapphire stud, which testified to the overwhelming largesse of her husband by the promise of the coming child. Vanisha was almost certain her child was a male, for had the numerous harbingers not said so? When murmuring on reverentially bowed knees in supplicant enquiry, had the goddess not disclosed the thrilling kismet by dropping a white pigeon feather over her shoulder? Grey and black pigeons were numerous in the temple grounds and flocked ubiquitously. A white pigeon was a divine signification. Moreover, had biological justification not revealed a coming boy? Male children carried in wombs often developed pointedly; female children gave the abdomen roundedness. Her husband, in his new joy of approaching fatherhood, was excessively indulgent. Vanisha was proud of her husband’s acquiescence to her every fanciful whim. How many women could boast of her fortune? Women in her traditional Indian village would give utmost thanks if their husbands had not beaten them or simply sold them off to brothels. Vanisha, pompously parading about with the glint of costly gem on her sharp nose, elicited deepest envy from all.

Faintly tossing about in bed one morning, Vanisha felt sharp, forceful contractions in her abdomen. Her baby was due any moment now, and Vanisha had wanted to worship the great goddess Srivinastha once more before she gave birth. Her husband hailed a passing jutka from the street and helped her in. Vanisha was convinced that her sincere, supplicant gesture would secure the final full cooperation from the Goddess, to safely deliver a baby boy. Her husband had always expressed nothing but sheer loathing for female children. Vanisha greatly feared to offend her husband and have his legendary munificence desisted. Streams of perspiration streamed down her face as the cart driver ploughed on under the sweltering sun. Emitting feeble moans, she saw waves of unconsciousness churn before her as the scorching heat beat down on her limp body. The cart driver, having sufficient alertness to notice her whimpers, turned around to check on her, and to his utter astonishment, saw trickles of blood coursing down her open legs. Uttering incoherent cries of panic, he pulled the cart around and scurried all the way back to her house.

Vanisha thrashed about on the bed wildly, flinging her arms in hysterical abandon. The contractions in her womb were excruciating. As she howled in the apex of unbearable child-bearing agony, a soft baby cry sounded gently through the dissonance of shrieks, softly sounding through perplexed murmurs and gasps of shock.

The bare baby was dangled before her. Uttering distressed, unintelligible cries of apprehension, she perceived the reddish-white skin of her child, still covered with smudges of crimson. It was a promised male, alright, but the stunning whiteness…

Her husband, thundering in seething ire at his wife’s assumed infidelity to have produced a white-skinned child, flung the baby brutally in cruel wrath against the hard walls of the house. It landed in a heart-wrenching thud, shattering the soft bones of newborn boy. To the woman, he rained heavy blows of repulsion upon her frail body, and mercilessly dug in and tore the traitorous womb apart.

With her raw womb hanging open and skin covered in a squalid mess of stale perspiration and blood, Vanisha dragged herself down the dusty roads in proliferating heat to the abode of the great goddess Srivinastha. Scantily clad in a skillfully painted scarlet sari that revealed full voluptuousness underneath, the dark eyes of the Goddess seemed to gaze superciliously down upon the limp stature of the prostrate woman. Vanisha lay flat on the temple floor and felt her erratic breathing finally weaken. She did not look up, however, to see the two streams cascading down from the Goddess’s almond eyes, which were clear, limpid pools of commiseration.

Leah Jolene Tan

Pretence is easy;

Senses deceive.

Doubt in Faith,

Lies in Honesty.

True Love, I see you yonder.

Come to me now, would you please?

But halt, for Disguise and shadowing Deceit

Loom over your footsteps, squealing in glee.

I am wary now; I try to flee,

But True Love and your promises

Are too sweet to resist.

Wash over me, Disguise and Deceit,

For I am unable to defy

Your accompanying True Love,

For whom my soul pines.

The Woman

To the woman, he said,

“I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;

In pain you shall bring forth children,

Yet your desire shall be for your husband,

And he shall rule over you.”

Genesis 3:16

The woman let out a tumultuous cry that smote the core of her soul, as her abdominal walls throbbed and tightened, and her body convulsed agonisingly. With tormented thighs forcibly held apart by medical personnel for the emergence of round infant head, the woman gnashed her teeth with hysterical abandon while rivulets of perspiration soaked her hair in sorry tendrils. With a final anguished scream, the woman fell back hard against the delivery bed as the doctor pulled out twin boys dripping scarlet slime in subsequent motion. Weak, fatigued, the mother blinked tears from her eyes as the babies were brought before her in nurses’ arms. She had finally pulled through the ordeal. Alone.

Resting back at home, the mother brought her wailing son’s face to her cheek and affectionately caressed his tender skin. The husband stood by the window fractiously puffing away on a cigarette stick, back turned resolutely to the watching mother. The husband was frustrated both by the inexorable crying of the two babies, and also their mother, who had endlessly been trying to get him to look at the twins. Emitting a scarcely suppressed grunt of escalating irritation, he spun on his heels and bounded out of the house in a huff, slamming the door heavily behind him. In desolation once more, the mother let disconsolate tears freely cascade. Why was she to endure a marriage of such poignancy? She had thought that her two sons would draw her husband closer to her. She had endured the pain. So why could her husband not love her still?

The husband rolled onto the supple body of the pale-skinned nymph, grunting in proliferating pleasure of pure eroticism. The young girl moved acquiescently in tandem to the rhythm of his lust, uttering shrill cries of practiced coyness. With several more vigorous thrusts of his hips, the man pushed the girl away from under him, hurriedly paid her dues, and motioned impatiently for her to leave the room. He collapsed onto yellowed sheets beneath, staring desultorily at the faintly flickering ceiling light of the dusty, decrepit hotel room. He did not want to go home and have to face his wife, who begged love with her every look, touch, and every nuance of countenance. Why could his wife simply not leave him alone? The husband was resolute that the marriage had been a mistake from the very start. Blinking away waves of hardened frustration, the husband heard, once again, the querulous echoes of his parents’ fallacious reproach when he protested against the arranged marriage. “Why are you so fastidious about looks? Love could patiently be cultivated after marriage... Why bother about her appearance as long as the female would be a faithful wife and loving mother?” He was then uncertain as to whether the resentment was harboured towards the instigators of the marriage, or its objective other half.

Hustled in his early adulthood into marrying the daughter of his parents’ bosom friends, he had been struggling against the steel chains of his marriage, wife and parents. He wondered why his parents liked the repulsive woman so much. Trapped now in a bleak, loveless marriage, he did not know to whom to turn.

The man’s mobile phone suddenly sounded shrilly from the bedside table, jerking him out of his disenchanted thoughts. It was his wife. With a voice suffused with deep loathing, the husband foully uttered, “What do you want?” His wife spoke in tentative stammers, breaking the appalling news that his chronically ill father in hospital had abruptly taken a turn for the worse, and that he asked to see his only son for the last time.

In the silent hospital ward, the husband could barely contain his tears as he cradled his infant sons into his dying father’s embrace. In a dry, faltering voice racked by vicious coughs, his father crackled tersely into his son’s ear, counseling him to cherish his good wife, who had deferentially rushed to the hospital with the two babies in arms the moment he had put a feeble call to her. The old man told his son that his ultimate wish was to see his son reconciled with his wife in loving union, and not cause him any posthumous disappointment.

The husband drove his wife and babies home in silence, his strident resolution finally showing signs of relent. He held his two sons in fatherly tenderness, stroking them to sleep in their cradle. He then climbed into bed with his meekly staring wife, and to his wife’s pleasurable astonishment, planted a long kiss on her thick, papery lips.

The woman smiled in her sleep, bee-stung lips upturned garishly in sanguine joy, at the prospect of finally being able to live in blissful domesticity with her husband. Tears of sweet relief streamed silently down her cheeks as her body shook with suffused ecstasy. The woman snuggled gently into the snug curve of her husband’s sleeping form. Perhaps her husband could love her now.

Leah Jolene Tan