Eternally Hopeful

Out early with the wifi down at Four Chain. (One Star hotel one discovered online yesterday should not have surprised.) Single hour at Feidu last night where the owner has his dad and uncle visiting from Jilin Province, both picked in a trice and younger distinguished by this eagle-eye observer. (Older bro something significant here of course.) Interesting genetic components that transmitted in fair form to the little granddaughter. How did the boys in the mid Sixties at Spotty State School do it? Right fist loosely clenched and rubbing left breast. I’m too good…. Ah yes. And first a hot breath over the inside of the fist for polishing the imaginary badge. I’m so good, it may have been. Footing up the road an arrow immediately piercing the equilibrium: PAZZION on a passing van in the stream. Dirty old tall-sided van, run-of-the-mill innocuous everyday nothing suddenly turned vile. Shitheads. Garbage. Fitting punishment needed to be devised for the responsible parties. Rapidly following on the heels too COMFORT taxi and worse still, upping the ante, SMRT bus in rapid succession…. Yikes! Brrrh…. Unsettled. Cloud, breeze (heaven’s, not from the mounted fans), so-so pretty girl running for the lights. Syrian reports every morning, the latest the city starving under siege. Perhaps there had been running water through the walls overnight and the Faker moaning again. Way back when one had become acclimatized to SMRT—Sing Mass Rapid Transport; “death” in the Slavic languages. There was nothing in it now, nothing. Hair-trigger foul mood. At Guillemard corner a little boy’s hand held by the Filipina maid as she was trained, the free banging, hammering on the button. ClackClackClackClack impatiently. You wait for the little green man Sonny, I’m going to cheat. Big-frame candy-coloured glasses in four or five hues chosen by the mite from a rack with mummy and daddy in one of the malls. Averted eyes. Warned of strangers is one thing, but Chappie unused to any parley of any sort on the streets. Maid giggling; difficult task trying to explain that. Only to be steamrolled by the van first and others immediately thereafter. There was in fact a logic in the sequence too, twisting the knife. Mr. Ee at the first Haig table surrounded by the uncles and aunties over their late brekkie, his own head bent low to his Buddhist tome in Malay. To look at Mr. E is more Chin than Malay, colour tone aside (heavily, darkly freckled). The other however his stronger, literate language. Goes up to one of the temples two-three times a week, not one of the chanting ones. Retired seaman, bachelor living with a brother who has never been sighted up in one of the towers behind. Blew all his hard-earned from the better paying Norwegian ships on women and whisky. (Opium was never his thing.) Hong Kong brothels, Macao brothels, Dallas, Jakarta, too many to mention and little to differentiate. In Dallas a lady drove him to her place, stayed the night in her own bed and breakfasting in the morning for only $100 unexpected for a Yellow man possibly. (In the Orchard area recently complaints from the exclusive condos of pop-up brothels, all online difficult for law enforcement.) Presumably Mr. Ee had Houston on the Gulf confused with the other. At Al Wadi Beefy his eternally hopeful self as always—the knack of a long-stretch jailbird. Today Friday, he reminds himself, we got four leg…. Up at Bedok on the screens in some kind of den. African races, Australian, Singaporean, HK, some days there were four meets. Close-up of Obamas’ tears in the newspaper; then confirmed:  mangroves played a significant role in carbon capture, Sing’s own scientists report. The late-lamented mangrove swamps.