Last week a well-known US editor who had recognised and published a dozen & half previous pieces, responded to the last submission, Didn't see it, alas. A family tableau of Muslim Malays gathered at their lunch table. Man failed to see the quiet beauty of the occasion, the delicate, respectful orderliness, artfully presented. (It had won some notice elsewhere.) Tonight's scene coming out for supper was in the same vein, perhaps more straightforward. A short tubby guy afoot was slow-stepping along; a companion in the saddle on his two-wheeler tootling beside, slowly. Not long before the azan had sounded. Lads were foreign workers, it was clear from their drab apparel; they might have come up from the tarawih prayer at the mosque. Short needed to reach up to get his hand on the shoulder of his companion. Together they went on toward Block 7 at the Haig. The mounted tall wore a white songkok; the one less favoured a bright smile that was turned up to the other more than once. At the yellow stanchions that marked the limit of vehicular traffic, like an agile footballer, Shortie stepped round the impediment without losing touch of his partner on the other side. Onward they footed & wheeled together. Does this appear for you, Reader, and signify, wherever you be? For those like the author, suchlike appeared regularly in these parts and kept even one on the fringe pretty nicely content.
NB. The family tableau mentioned above has since been published in a longer sequence, titled, The Heart of the Matter, by QU Literary Magazine (Queens University of Charlotte).
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