Man down for the count this afternoon on the Void beneath Block 11 could only have been Jack, almost certainly no-one else. The only other possible candidate was the gnarled old karung guni formerly wheeling through those parts. That man in fact had not been sighted these four months since the return, like a number of others in the post-Covid lull. Size, colouration, posture and above all the trainers immediately suggested Jack Nasri. From 8 - 9 metres distance with eyes closed, one could not be perfectly sure. That sleeping arrangement with the improvised pillows had not been seen before. Who but J could have found comfort like that? In the section of the Void immediately before a big Indian he looked had rolled up his cardboard double at the head for his own pillowing. Young foreign workers on their lunch breaks often used half-filled 2 litre plastic bottles. In Jack’s case the trainers sufficed and the concrete was no bother. Lately Jack had said he had been feeling useless, confused, struggling with wayward thoughts of wanting to go to one end of Singapore and then the other. The last little while the man had taken up with Busker Rahim, who had slid back to his drinking, a few nights last week Jack surprising belting out some strangely impressive hoarse songs on an karaoke system someone had been bringing along to the Haig outside the bus stop. All the sleepers on the Voids and Jack included when they took some shut-eye chose a place against a pillar or wall. Though no one was likely to tread on a sleeper there, the men always chose that anchorage.
Geylang Serai, Singapore
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