On the Slog (CNY)

During the two hours at Feidu last night hashing over the submissions the boss gifted a thick slice of yellow watermelon from Malaysia. Wordlessly coming around from behind with a full tissue pack beneath, the fruit was placed two-handed in the narrow space between keyboard and screen, like an offering on an altar. 

Graceful gesture. 

For CNY the offer to join the table on the pavement had been shyly declined and beers and other food on numerous earlier occasions before that. This time there could be no avoidance.

The following morning the Mainland sweep in the lorong opposite the hotel jumped from his tricycle to photograph his gutter along Geylang Road, then both sides of the lorong. 

A sense of duty or conscience led the man to go over to collect a couple of stray items behind one of the pot plants on the right that could not have been visible in the shot. 

You winced and muttered to yourself going on from there.

Having forgotten last night’s print meant a return to the room. Almost at the half-way point at City Plaza the realization dawned. Damn! Will I/Won’t I? 

The morning prior to the paper and the teh was always good for clear-eyed revision, if there was any in the pipe-line. 

Ya, gotta do it. (One recalled Rade from the neighbourhood back in Melbourne, who was superstitious about such retracing of steps. On visits Rade also always insisted on leaving by the same door he had entered.) 

Coming back there was the same group at the bus-stop outside City Plaza. Young chap with his wife who bore a large tattoo on her calf, couple of kids and oldies on the adjoining bench. 

Malaysian or Filipinos perhaps hanging overlong. Did they need directions? They looked lost. Where were they going? Pergi mana?

Didn’t seem to understand English at first. 

Geylang, the husband finally answered.  

Geylang?... But man, you’re arrived. This is Geylang…. Nomber?... 

They didn’t need a street number…. 

Iz OK. We know where we go. Just resting…

Ah. That was it then. They were beat; wearied by the footslog. 

Even with the Easterly and the cloud these guys were done, chap and his wife more than the older generation it looked. 

Bus tickets for six rough-riders would cost near enough ten dollars, even just up to Middle Geylang.

NB. A piece kept in draft form previously. Gong xi fa chai!