Bathing Failing

 

Outbound on Bukit Timah Road – Tin Hill, once upon a time, not so very long ago – the forest bathing was woefully failing. From the window of the Queen Street bus nothing whatever in it. Even where there were 10-15m sections, opening the windows would have produced precisely the same. Tall trees and thick cover of remnant jungle, holding within the stands Brazilian rubber and Malabar pepper, perhaps. Indian & Bangla crews were needed to contain the fecundity. Bathing of the eyes worked a teeny bit maybe, like the old Malays liked to do, refreshing themselves with the passing lovelies. (Cuci mata.) In the heart of the widest sections, those holding the tallest canopies, there must have been some hint of fragrance, softened treading underfoot, hidden birds across the branches – something like the last flicker of your device before the screen went completely dead.

Farewell

 

On the last corner the morning of departure, one of the older Tamils in a fine batik shirt leaning against a car in front of a vacant space. Waiting out custom from drivers turning on the right ahead. Saturday morning breakfasters & shoppers usually promised something better. Greybeard, tired eyes. Still, with his hello could be added the flourish that was the standard of the other regular on the corner before, who happened to be absent here. Have a good day for you. Kinda made you wanna cry, though it was only a shake of the head going onward to Muthu, taking care, in order it wasn’t read in the wrong way by the shopkeeper on the corner and the others opposite.

Stray

 

There had been no rain in the last couple hours the lad at Nilla confirmed, only this morning. This afternoon the canal had been shallow & empty as usual, yet here at dusk there was a good level of murky water that seemed to have drawn a number of chaps to the railing. The girl on Wong Ah Fook had not been. The night before she had put on a little micro show, which included some numbering that might finally aid the acquisition. Shamefully, pitifully, tens, hundreds & thousands in bahasa still undid some of us. It was ridiculous, stupid. A lad had come past and must have given the gal a quick once-over. Brief as it had been and walking on by as he did, the lass caught his interest, smilingly calling out after him. Lima ribu!… Ah ha! Say no more! Lima was five; ribu the multiplier in tens. (RM50 — under sixteen in Sing dollars.)  Half a minute later crossing the bridge, sure enough the gal had come up to the shutters further along where the lad had stopped. Looked no-go on this occasion; anything less than fifty was not on. (For a White of course, that figure would have doubled, if not more.) Later in the evening the Trannies further up by the first lane emerged. It would not be out of the question that for those add-ons the price may have been a wee higher again. Odd how long it had taken the water to come down from upcountry. During brekkie the downpour had lasted under 20mins. For the second day the shutters were down on the Tamil provisions store around from the hotel, where the morning newspaper was usually bought. That was unusual. Did it mean the little cat there would go hungry? It appeared not. The couple earlier passes morning & afternoon had found it by the stairs beside the back lane. Instead, tonight there it was atop a more comfortable bed. Cardboard had value for many here—for emergency shields from the rain, to soften seating and more so again for the rough sleepers. Almost certainly, with the Tamils absent, some neighbour there had thought of the cat, providing both bedding & food very likely too. Like the red wheelbarrow, much depended on that little, thin stray grey on Jl. Siu Nam. Rarely did any passerby fail to give it some kind of acknowledgement.

 

                                                                                                                             Johor Bahru, ML

The Words Faire Magazine upcoming

The upcoming edition of  The Words Faire Magazine will include a short-short of mine, titled “Woebegone,” another Sing piece from the Malay Muslim quarter there.

The editor suggests some pre-publicity.

https://1drv.ms/i/c/99345b15b837c0f9/IQBqaLrgLZBMQKY6BrVznhToAZnbUXy5nyUFvPqrN4i6-K0?e=aec5XA

Onward

PR

Rush On Rushmore 4th July

Late news: seems last week on the White House lawn one of the UFC fighters knew how to boost his standing. During the course he had shouted that Obama’s Michele was a man... Canny showman.

On the big day about to dawn over there preparations are in place for a large gathering beneath Mount Rushmore, where the President & his supporters are pushing for an addition to the series. Forecast is for 107F / 41C. Perhaps despite the A/C and the fans, the unthinkable could possibly occur without a shot being fired. (Not wishing ill on anybody.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

G-Friend (Shared)

  

 

 

The Tamil street wastrels on the corner back there had sourced themselves a fine, slim manikin from one of the stores over toward the river, the foul, stagnant channel. Presumably it had been discarded; these were not rowdy, wild kinda guys. Once propped steady against the wall at their nook the blouse of the babe was brought down to modestly cover her chest. A little trophy seized; the lads’ tenderness and feeling had not been stripped from them by the dirty, ragged street. Mornings the guys took up positions on that wide corner like the cowboys of old on a stake-out, 5-6 of them ready for action. Far too many here for purpose, but that was no never mind. Others took up positions further down toward the river. Their operation worked a large car-parking area, where the regularity suggested reliable returns were involved. Mornings greetings were always offered in the passes, warm and bright greetings that rather embarrassed a chap who could not quite return in kind, who had turned into that elegant, enviable gentleman / Boss living the life. (The new white panama with the black ribbon was a glory.)  Have a good day for you, one little guy has thrice now offered over the single week. A younger on the other side toward Muthu showed his gleaming pearlers on every occasion. (Hiding the gaping dentistry now includes even the street people.) No sign of unruliness among these men, nor any sign through the day of the juice – their thirsts were slaked at night. Usually one or two of them were stretched out on their cardboard at a recessed entryway against one of the shuttered shops. Often there was not even that cushioning and awkward postures could be maintained for 2-3 hours. Landlords in that quarter were awaiting their chance with the Mainland Chinese investment a stone’s throw away toward the water, the Sing towers directly opposite. In the evenings the lads gathered the blue notes from the drivers they had helped with the parking and shared what toddy could be afforded from the traders on Ah Fook, over the bridge. The large police HQ sat just the other side of their block by the river, the officers there never called upon at the other end. The lads do no one any harm.                                                                          

 

 

                                                                                                                            Johor Bahru, ML

Weapons of Choice

 

Loud Indians in the side street alongside Hun Mui, a voice behind giving the woman who had passed a bit of curry. A younger, earlier Indian had helped a fumbling SUV driver into the spot immediately adjacent.

The latter had been 15-20 years senior, much of the dentistry gone. In company was a late-teen boy and younger girl. 

Something was given back to the loudmouth by the older woman, and then her lad buying in. Chap out of sight continuing. Ra-ra. Ra-ra.

Soon the man reveals himself, coming along the path a few steps in the direction the others had gone. Ra-ra. Ra-ra. Motioning. Brief again.

Nonetheless, something in it the woman didn’t like, which emerged when she came back there to confront the guy.

The broom with the red plastic bristles must have been new, only just purchased and happening in hand. Perhaps the guy had discounted it as a possible weapon, to his cost, ultimately.

Drawn back and close after the offence at the last words, the woman was not about to let it go. 

Like a knight in the old days, the stick was raised high and wielded with some nimbleness.

Thwack! Thwack!

3-4 times with the end of the handle across the back, the fellow bowing a little to avoid worse than what he was getting.

The woman’s strikes were not rapid; in a more lucid state the fellow might have easily escaped, especially the latter number.

Instead, oddly, the man appeared to accept the chastening; nothing for it but to submit.

…The terror of a life time ago from similar had long dissipated. Dissipated, but not forgotten.

Low through the venetians the old drunken wreck of a Pole who slept under the railway bridges and stumbled through the streets, banging on the front door and shouting menaces. Terrifying.

No! No! Don’t!…

She wouldn’t listen, completely reckless. Rushing out.

Our brooms were kept inside the door of the laundry at the back of the house. The front door of the house was almost never used.

Replay. Replica.

Thwack. Thwack.

Again the man accepting the assault and cowering, finally herded to the gate by the widow and banged shut after him.

 

 

 

       Johor Bahru, ML

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lustre

 

The delivery of the body for the wake at Block 11 was an old Chinese ahma, as shown later by the smiling photograph that was mounted before the casket when she was brought into the Void.

The small turn-out surprised, perhaps a dozen mourners in all. It had been a modest, quiet life no doubt, and likely she had outlived many.

In a couple discreet passes along the walkway looking the lady couldn’t be recalled in that quarter. Reflexively, one steeled oneself a fraction scrutinising the portrait, hoping the individual had not been one of the regular neighbours.

Often people from other blocks, other estates even a kilometre or more away, came to the Void at 11, for the space offered there, it had been explained. This had now been compromised since the new health centre had appropriated a large part of the area.

The casket looked a heavy item in dark, highly polished wood, but it was not enclosed there that the deceased had arrived at the Void.

Returning from the morning teh the day before the seating & canvas awning was still being arranged, a Chinese company involved that had never featured at the Haig before. The absence of crosses signalled a Buddhist affair, which was soon confirmed with the colouring & script. Across on the other side of the grass a 10-12 seater van had pulled in beside the recycle bin, a small group of men waiting in attendance. After the rear door had been lifted open one of the men, an older chap, went down on his knees before it. From within on a trolley a bundle in the most vivid yellow gold cloth emerged, for which the kneeling man spread his arms wide and bowed his head. The bright colour positively dazzled and the bundle seemed to stretch two metres, rising up as if a large mammal of some kind from the sea was contained.

A dutiful son one could more easily understand like that here, rather than this old man who needed to be helped to his feet afterward. It had been a beautiful marriage, clearly.

            The night before Zoro in Montenegro had announced another death over there, this time a maternal cousin in her late 80s. A day or two before an earlier message had arrived from Zdravun, telling of his visit to the mourning house to offer his condolences.

            Forty-five years ago Cousin Danica had been met 3 - 4 times. In the early ‘80s she had worked in a little kiosk by the water and once Zdravko’s younger brother had accompanied for a farewell dinner of her son for his national service. Parents, especially mothers, were terribly anxious in such circumstances, where sons were sent to far flung corners of the country.

            Danica was the eldest child of Aunt Saveta, who when she lost her father to the mines in Amerika, soon after lost her mother too when she married grandad Rade. Grandad had insisted the child be left behind in the birth clan; even a couple hundred meters away little contact had been allowed.       

Another of the astounding facts of that harsh former life high in the karst.

The response that followed the announcement of Danica’s passing had been learned long ago from the earlier generation. It was the only thing that could be decently managed. A particularly striking form of words.

Laka joj crna žemlja.

The black earth light on her.

The rich alpine soil in the plateau on Uble was indeed black. Finer folk along the water below tagged the mountaineers from whom they bought their foodstuffs dirty. Šporki Ubjani. Down near the water the soil was friable; at the heights more black and heavy.

Not for the first time, the thought arrived that in the old days, in the poor mountain settlements like Village Uble, the dead had routinely been buried with the dirt directly shovelled onto the body of the deceased. 

Of course. Naturally. What else?

And not just in the Montenegrin mountain refuge settlements of course.

The clods were difficult to bear. Partings were harder. The Montenegrin hill people were famous for their graveside keening, drawing literary types like Goethe and Vuk Karadjić to the gravesides.

One wished for loved ones, for any deceased grieved, that lighter burden of piled soil. Not the heavy dirt the people turned over all their lives in the narrow fields.

Gold leaf for the Pharaohs would hardly have glinted more brightly deep within the dark burial vaults of the pyramids than that cloth arriving at the Void, received into the arms of the grieving widower.

Publication news: The Sound of Music - Packingtown Review

Another publication to announce, music theme here, which could only be taken in some divergent directions by this writer.

A short sequence of 3 micros (760 words), free on the site, —

www.packingtownreview.com/issues/25/radonic/music.html

NB. In some regions the link brings up security alerts. Googling Packingtown Review seems to overcome that. #25 Spring 2026

Publication: Gettin’ On - Blood+Honey

Another flash of mine has just been published by an U.S. online magazine called Blood+Honey, where they like grit & edginess. Gettin' On gives a wee touch of that from the world of the former British possessions on the Equator. 

A junkie tale here from a more permissive Singaporean era! 😊 Originally penned 12 odd years ago.

Free on the site (1.1K words),

https://www.bloodhoneylit.com/fiction/gettin-on

Obit

It stayed in the mind pinching & nagging, the kinda thing that all too often happens to writers, catching them unawares, while minding their own business. Really, there was no call to stick your nose in there, especially such sensitive matters. This though did stick fast, through the latter part of morning and again on the bus getting out for lunch. Darn thing. Coming on so much so in fact that one was actually forced to go back in the evening to buy another copy of the newspaper. The morning paper was always given away afterward to one of the uncles or aunties interested to flip through the pages; even wrapping paper was better than junking in the recycle bin. (The suspicion was all refuse was actually burnt in the Republic. The mess of junk people threw into those blue bins made anything else impossible, even were there a will.) One certainly didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, nor more importantly the grief-stricken living. But, by golly! What the heck was that? At bottom very much an important question. An Obit 4 inches x 6. When photos of the departed accompanied text in the English language newspaper the pics were invariably super flattering. Flattering shots of 70year olds, 90year olds the same. The incidence seemed to be more common on these shores. One only flicked the pages of course at the tail end of the morning ritual. All of the paper was dealt with summarily, but esp. Biz, Obit, Sport & Life. (One must say, the paper in question did hold quite compelling pieces occasionally, not all of them syndicated. A psychiatrist who had been head of the local Institute at one time was truly first rate.) The particular smiling deceased here had stood herself at the foot of a curving wooden balustrade, perhaps 10-15 years before her demise. Possibly she had been a handsome woman in her pomp; it was difficult to tell. Lustrous dye, high heels. Silver bracelet and good trim. But it was the dress that was the thing. Taste, aesthetic judgement was not evenly distributed at the creation, of course. One versed in fashion could describe the article more satisfactorily. Rich baby pink the first thing, classic Barbie tone. A mermaid effect was created with ballooned shoulders and tightening at the hip, where a large, flowering rose at the midriff shed large petals along the trunk and down to the ankles. One leg swung over the other and the foot mounted achieved the inverted cone. The colour accent continued through hair, lippy, fingers & toes. It was only the hands that gave away the age. There must have been a long zip behind; in front the dress seemed pasted on. In any circumstances highly overblown and in this particular usage especially. (Galas at the upscale clubs, weddings & the like, perhaps could be imagined.) The rhyming stanzas attached confirmed Christianity, hopes of reunion, the higher world & eternal life. Even in the case of the prosperity gospel, such a presentation seemed problematic. That attire could not have been chosen for the casket; it was difficult to conceive such a thing. And this was certainly not to say the heart of gold beneath the fabric could be questioned. Only, the journey, the life passage—stringing the dots together toward the final, earthly outcome and the aspiration… One was not to judge. The role of the scribe was often disagreeable, like that of the messenger. Only a polite question raised here, finally, centring on this class, this culture & society that could produced dissonance of that sort. (Not at issue this or that individual case.)

 

Publication news: Soaring - Airplane Reading

Another air travel piece of mine has just been published by the guys at Airplane Reading, who share a serious interest in the subject matter.

A short-short again (400 words), freely available on the site here, —

https://airplanereading.org/story/579/soaring

All best

PR

Another Thing of Feathers

 

The dead pigeon yesterday going along Crane Road to meet Kieran startled, a vivid white full-breast, head and open eye turned inward to the pavement, against the grey of the steel utility box standing 1.1-2m high. Right there suddenly touching distance, the delicate texture of its feathers apparent in the pass. The numerous dead on the pavements of the last few weeks had been gotten by with far less sting. Around the middle of April, after a preparatory media campaign, the culling of the crows by the shooters had been resumed, with the poisoning of the pigeons ongoing. 

The Honeyeater May26

You read about these and every day they stared you in the face, like the ones attached to the gal’s bag (though even those were oversized); a giant brown honey-eater like this though on the loose, never previously. Not at the library, not the buses or at the eateries. A child could not have managed that bulk, younger teen would struggle. Local or Mainland Chinese, 20 possibly. (There was the same trouble over there of course.) Were this a paying venue, a question might have arisen; on an aeroplane certainly there would have been. This Teddy was not going to fit under the seat in front, and carry-on the question of cruelty arose. 6 - 7 minutes the girl sat with it nestled in her lap, staring a little before her; nothing to suggest any trouble. iPad raised on its stand, 1.5 litre ceramic bottle. When she rose to move off, getting around the far corner of the shelves, the assumption was that the street, the trains & malls was where the serious difficulty lay. 10 - 15 seconds later, however, here she was returned to collect him, before setting off again. Soon pair returned. Otherwise, as far as one could tell, on the surface and by all indicators, a young lass perfectly settled. At the table working steadily. Tall, slim; good quality cushioned phones (which no doubt aided the cause). A few minutes more Teddy was lifted higher against her chest, rather a handsome head over her shoulder, where the length of arm became apparent. Surprisingly long; the nails retracted. Proportions here were in fact probably correct. Shuffling the papers was easily managed with the Furry resting between. There were no school-kids at the tables, all 19 & 20 year-old peers; a good number of both genders carried the miniatures on their bags & pencil cases. In a cold climate the whole thing would have been more fitting, though bearing in mind a significant minority here did live the complete A/C bubble. Bending to write with a pen, now her own chin fell onto Teddy’s neck. Half hour steadily progressing the task, without too much effort. White-out the bear, return him to his mountain-side habitat, no indication of the slightest sort. No doubt the forerunners all the way back to earliest beddy-byes sat patched on the upper shelf in the wardrobe at home. A hint might have been given by a glimpse of a parent, or even sibling. Later only a couple of eyes from passersby; most of the youngsters here had seen the like often enough.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d4_pBwSu6_L-7hFkkTCxp6bg

 

 

NB. Zoran’s Honeyeater video from early Spring in the ancestral village.

 

 

On the Job

 

Making A Clean Difference even rocking from side to side like that, as if in some humorous skit for the former stage. The right hand trailed one of the larger payung with flat end that commonly doubled as a walking-stick. Man might have seen the weather forecast for afternoon showers the rest of April. Two front teeth left a gap in the smiling pass by the front of the table. Go back... Never sighted previously, yet the man wants you to know his intentions at that hour, a few minutes short 8PM. (Surely his shift was not the 12hr stretch on broom & pan.) Mid- late-70s if not fetched beyond, though in all respects the gap seemed more like 2 - 3 decades. (It remained impossible to comprehend how far it was you yourself had gone off now.) Hopefully there was a helpmate of some description waiting at home with a welcoming plate of food; the short sit at Saddam could not have allowed more than a teh. Almost always this folk invited you into their world—there were no walls in their theatre of the everyday. Aged rheumy eyes like his would not distinguish skin tone and a batik top only scrambled impressions. Of course the familiars always offered greetings of some kind, but strange whites too could not be summarily dismissed. Out of the blue sometimes telling life episodes emerged too that almost wrote themselves into the annals.