This was how the realisation struck. Shortly before 8AM the hard slap of the flip-flops going past the house, a few words called out to someone going the other way. Ah! the plastics man around on Onan Road... The curious posture as he went along uploaded each morning. Unusual. Not done with the image, in the bathroom a few minutes later an inward smile produced. Encountered later in the day around at Wadi, or on Geylang Road, the man didn’t bend like that—snout forward foraging as on the evolutionary charts. That particular carriage was on the march to work mornings, opening up shop, where across the road a competitor could not be allowed to steal a march. Back in the room following the ablutions, By golly! You know what? What you had here was another Eurasian who in all this time was never ID-Ed. Never an inkling. Passed entirely under the radar. The man had been signalling Han Chinese pure and simple how many years was it now? When of course one close examination would have made the case perfectly clear. He'd bought you couple tehs, paid for them from in front of the queue. It had taken a year to return the favour, only the other week in fact. Never twigging. Some of the lads in a neighbouring shop said the man was loaded. If so it was old form; nothing whatever to indicate. Good Bahasa, as well as the Hokkien. Somewhere in the Haig blocks he kept, never out in the evenings, neither at the market nor at Wadi or the other eateries. Perhaps you now knew why. The gait alone ought have told. This morning his passing was heard the other side of the wall, window closed & AC blowing. Breakfast had been earlier and the man the other side of the fence was missed in the back garden. All the oldies roundabout would have known; the youngsters on the other hand perhaps no more than yourself. Possibly even his children might be in the dark.
No comments:
Post a Comment