Saturday Lunch

Half a cup of bryani, ladyfinger and double scoop cabbage that failed to deliver the ancient relish despite all the glossy hallmarks. On the side raw onion. $4 was charged by Manager Zahruddin, who usually sought to extract the maximum for the boss. A mint tea following — kosong, without either milk or sugar. Add $1.10. With the sun for the most part shrouded, passersby however uninspiring and the road traffic lessened on the holiday, an easeful couple of hours and more in the usual chair. Cabbie Cha who turned up well after lunch remarked on the length of the stay. The old illegal ciggie-seller in-and-out of the lock-up regaled us every so often with fragments of tunes. Happy, the old Uncle on the walking stick who had decided against heart surgery, commented with a sly smile. The pair had known each other not from childhood, but from their shared time over in Bedok, further East. A kind of Pessoa Rua dos Douradores without the sharp edges. (Sometimes in Pessoa’s pages it is like reading the far-gone Kafka — men situated well beyond the drips and drabs of the sufficiently tolerable. “....a kind of squeamishness about existing.”) Bahru mati.... in refrain a number of times from the old stager passing one way and the other. Eventually the walking-stick Uncle needed to be enquired just to make sure. More smiles forthcoming. Means, — Just died, saith he.

NB. The Book of Disquiet, No. 135 Richard Zenith. Then No. 159 “Fate sooner or later plays out an apocalypse of anxiety....”