A forecast downpour that didn't arrive, large sporadic drops only. Foreign skies remained difficult to read for a new-comer. The election too surprised in this one-party city-state, the expected new President only narrowly victorious. Post Offices & shops were closed.
A young, contained, neat-as-a-pin medical doctor named Ing was met at the library café. While the library itself was closed, the café had drawn a large crowd.
Boning up on paediatric specialisation, Ing was busy. The chat however progressed smoothly, until the former tough-boy / ex-offender happened along.
Alone the man on his usual run that combined confession, and raising of funds with the key-rings for sale. The slight tremor of the young doc at his appearance was understandable. (Ing had chosen paediatrics over geriatrics—against the demographic here, as elsewhere in the First World.)
Shortly afterward the man was caught again at the corner traffic light.
Three months he had been on the program. The chap immediately understood the unspoken question, the real question. With the rehab he had the compulsion to confess his sins at every opportunity.
Without hesitation, he volunteered the eight year term. There had been twenty-four strokes of the cane in addition, administered over two sessions. (In recent time the law here stipulated twelve strokes maximum at a time, in the presence of a doctor. And over 50s were spared.)
Manslaughter in the course of a fight; the victim got the knife in the neck.
Quickly the whole burden was divulged.
As he must have done many times previously, the chap re-enacted the final blow, bringing his grasping right hand down from a height onto a craned and twisted neck.
Yes, Geylang was his home turf; the red light district, and with plenty more laid on from the time of the Vietnam GIs on Rec. Leave.
A few weeks before the fellow had been sighted flitting under the verandas near Tasvee, right in the heart of the action. There had been the same rapid movement as in his hawking of the key-rings at the library tables.
The victim had wielded a samurai sword. It was unclear whether the common parang was actually meant here, translated into the more common designation. Certainly eight years ago the same as today, such weapons were indeed brought out in the back blocks of Geylang. There had been two slashing deaths there recently after Saturday night brawling.
Lifting the back of his tee as pedestrians circled proved these were no idle tales. On the man’s lower back the long arc of a healed wound suggested a descending strike left to right; a backhanded sweep for a right-handed opponent.
Late-20s, unmarried & tattooed like the girlfriend, who was on the scene earlier that afternoon. The cost of living in Singapore made everything difficult; there had been no sales that day.
Hopefully there had been some good hearings; usually the people at the library listened patiently, if not reaching for their wallets.
By coincidence, a copy of The Unfettered Mind had been picked up at Kinokuniya the day before. The title immediately captured. Seventeenth century letters from an old Zen master offered tuition on how to inhabit the moment, the untrammelled Zen moment. This was the ultimate state in which to meet one's opponent, his raised sword, the swing when it unfurled. Indeed, life itself.
Singapore 2011-26
No comments:
Post a Comment