#wrus

[scopophilic1997]

scopOphilic_micromessaging_1245 - scopOphilic1997 presents a new micro-messaging series: small, subtle, and often unintentional messages we send and receive verbally and non-verbally. (2022)

[igloomelts]

Death of a Clown

"Some time ago, his followers, his clowns, returned to haunt me. They lurked in the darker corners of building sites masquerading as foreign construction workers. As I passed looming edifices of unfinished concrete and steel, I heard them giggling. I had this sense I was being watched. I was almost certain someone followed me armed with a custard cream pie. One day, in the middle of a crowded underpass on the way to the MRT station at Raffles Place, I stopped and turned around abruptly. Amidst the flurry of movement I was sure I caught a glimpse of orange curly hair and a red blur on someone’s face. Those clowns were at it again. In the crowded MRT carriage, as the train stopped at Dhoby Ghaut, just as the doors opened and people flooded out, someone grabbed at my head and tore a clump of hair out. I did not, could not, see who had viciously attacked me. There were too many bobbing heads, and I was overcome by so many unknown faces. There were too many people, too close together, and everyone was a stranger."

Excerpt from Death of a Clown, a story in We Rose Up Slowly

Buy We Rose Up Slowly online here (free shipping in Singapore).

Death of a Clown is a story from my collection, We Rose Up Slowly. The story was written in 2012 and substantially revised in 2014. The earlier form of the story was published in QLRS, April 2012. 

Death of a Clown:

a son finally meeting his father in a Johor Bahru nursing home after many years apart 

confrontation with the past, memory and attempts to move beyond the patriarch

the stories we tell ourselves, which are as important as the lives we lead, even if untrue

[igloomelts]

A Long Bicycle Ride into the Sea

"I entered a large room with plush red carpet on the walls, dark vinyl booths, and a raised podium in the far corner where some girl was singing “无条件为你”1  robustly and off-key. The lounge was loud, musty and hazy. It was busy with lots of blokes. Smoke lingered from cigarettes and Filipino cigars. It was hard to see as the only light came from lasers flashing coloured lines across the room and the glow of TV screens showing balls bouncing across the tops of lyrics as couples walked through tulip gardens. I wondered about trying to find a drink."

1 “Unconditionally for You”

Excerpt from A Long Bicycle Ride Into the Sea, a story in We Rose Up Slowly

You can buy We Rose Up Slowly online here (free shipping in Singapore).

[igloomelts]

Walking Backwards Up Bukit Timah Hill

"On that particular Sunday, Henry had decided they should walk backwards up the hill at Bukit Timah nature reserve. He wanted to walk up Bukit Timah hill for health reasons on the advice of his doctor, and because he liked to imagine being there in February 1942 as one of the last tigers on the island, taking refuge in the undergrowth while Japanese soldiers surged through the jungle sweeping towards victory over the colonial power. Henry’s doctor advised him to walk up the hill backwards because this would result in less strain on the knees."

"Margaret didn’t want to go up Bukit Timah hill either forwards or backwards. She wanted to visit Bukit Brown cemetery instead, because large parts of it weren’t going to be there very much longer and it looked the way she felt: old, green and tangled- up inside. As always, Henry had his way and Margaret would have to explore Bukit Brown another day."

Excerpt from Walking Backwards Up Bukit Timah Hill, a story in We Rose Up Slowly

Buy We Rose Up Slowly online here (free shipping in Singapore)

[igloomelts]

A Long Bicycle Ride into the Sea

"She said, “You need to be shocked into seeing things as they are. I think what you need is a long bicycle ride into the sea.”

I looked at her, puzzled. What was she on about?

“It’s like an extreme cold shower. But you do it fully clothed. The resistance. The pressure. Your trousers balloon, fill up with air, and you try to trundle onwards. But your wheels sink in the sand, the water rises around your waist and your balls shrink to the size of peas. And then you end up falling sideways, plopping into the sea.”

I sat there thinking, what kind of a challenge is this?"

Excerpt from A Long Bicycle Ride Into the Sea, a story in We Rose Up Slowly

You can buy We Rose Up Slowly here (free shipping in Singapore).

A Long Bicycle Ride into the Sea is a story from my collection, We Rose Up Slowly. The story was written in 2011 and published in Coast (Math Paper Press, 2011). 

A Long Bicycle Ride into the Sea:

is about a young lawyer, coasting along in privilege, who is challenged to get wet to prove his love 

examines unconscious assumptions about other people, and how a sense of entitlement and the shallowness of ones gaze obscures self knowledge

shows the effect of this on relations with others

[igloomelts]

Other People's Cats

‘I hated the cats. The cats with their rasping, delicate coughs and furballs. Slinking about haughty and cocky, not needing anyone else at all. How could any creature be so arrogant and superior and also tongue its own butt? I spent my childhood feeding them and replenishing their cat litter. I hated them. There were just too many of them all over the place. Nettie brought home strays and kept the small, ragged, lonely ones. Once, she saw me kick a cat. She was horrified and slapped me and told me I would never grow up to be nice unless I treated cats decently.

I did not want to grow up to be nice. 

I did not share these particular thoughts with you. I expected you’d find them distasteful.’

From ‘Other People’s Cats’, a story in We Rose Up Slowly

On Saturday 29 August 2015 at Company of Cats Cafe I’ll be reading from a story included in the anthology, From the Belly of the Cat, to celebrate its new reprint. Several of Singapore’s leading, award winning and exciting writers will be reading at the event: Dave Chua, Amanda Lee Koe, JY Yang and Jemima Wei. My short story collection, We Rose Up Slowly, also features this story. 

My story, Other People’s Cats, is set in Australia with two students driving back to a small country town where they both grew up to attend the funeral of the narrator’s great Aunt Nettie.

Other People's Cats:

is about looping back, returning home after a long time away and finding something new 

has a narrator who behaves like a cat. He is arrogant, aloof, entitled, detached. As the story progresses he understands more about himself and his past with Nettie.

explores some of my contradictory feelings for the small town, parochial aspects of Australia: a mixture of affection, nostalgia and embarrassment.

touches on Singapore as a sophisticated, corporate, desirable place a long way away from the provincial, quiet Australian country town where the narrator grew up.

Come along on 29th August to Company of Cats if you are in or near Chinatown.

[igloomelts]

We Rose Up Slowly

"She told you, your father walked onto the veranda and saw a chook floating ten feet above the ground. The chook didn’t flap a feather and just sat there brooding, swaying in the breeze.

She said, your father stepped from the veranda to recover the recalcitrant chook, only to find the soles of his feet missing the ground, landing on thin air, and the chook drifting higher. 

He couldn’t let the chook go, but with each step he found the chook rose higher. And of course he had to follow. She told you it was like watching him walk a stairway to heaven. Your mother said, he did not appear to be flying, more like floating, like someone rising from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the sea.

Your mother watched from below until your father and the chook became flecks in the sky. She rushed inside and grabbed the brass navy telescope. She saw him and the chook slowly ascending. She saw him wheeze and hold his chest. She could just see his head turning from one side to the other in wonder, marvelling at the view. He appeared to turn towards her. He was white and he coughed violently. But he did manage to stiffly turn around and, ever so slowly, raise his arm in a wave. And she believed she saw the chook, rising up slowly beside him, its neck outstretched and its scrawny beak open in a silent chicken scream. She squinted through the telescope and thought she saw the frost fur crystallising about his eyebrows and his false teeth chattering so hard the blood ran from his gums to warm his mouth. His arm stopped moving and she knew he was hard as a block of ice."

Excerpt from the title story in my book, We Rose Up Slowly

You can buy We Rose Up Slowly here (free shipping in Singapore).

Between 1998 and 2010 I did not write a single story. I was to busy pursuing my career and trying to fall in love. My enthusiasm for writing was rekindled in 2010 when I walked into Books Actually, then at Club Street, and saw a copy of Ceriph Issue Zero. I decided to submit a story written in Sydney in 1997 called We Rose Up Slowly. Much to my surprise, the story was accepted for Ceriph Issue One (Math Paper Press, 2010). This story leads my debut collection, We Rose Up Slowly.

In this story:

as gravity leaks away, a young couple need to decide whether or not to follow her parents and rise up slowly

The mood is sombre and elegaic

The protagonist tries to remain grounded as the world falls apart around him.

Everything is in a state of flux. Everywhere there is a sense of the end of an era - perceptions, assumptions, core beliefs, the consensus are all up for grabs.

Time spent with each other is precious, memories are slipping away.

Secrets remain unspoken. What is in the silver locket?

There are passing references to Spam, Two Fat Ladies, goitres, a Jona Lewie song, another 80's pop song, the Roy Lichtenstein painting.

[igloomelts]

A Long Bicycle Ride into the Sea

"She talked about the ways in which everything is connected to everything; that the lungs are an extension of the air in which you live and move around. She said no person is an island. So I asked, “What are we then? Continents? Planets? Solar systems?” Later, she told me we were car parks, where the self is just a little bit of grey concrete marked out by painted white lines and we define ourselves by who we let drive in and how long they stay."

Excerpt from A Long Bicycle Ride Into the Sea, a story in We Rose Up Slowly

You can buy We Rose Up Slowly here (free shipping in Singapore).

This artwork was created by Jonathan Leong for the Synaesthesia exhibition organised by Ceriph and The Substation in April 2011. Synaesthesia was a group show featuring 16 pairs of writers and visual artists, with the visual artist interpreting and creating a typographic piece out of a Singaporean writer’s poetry or microfiction, encouraging dialogue between the two mediums of expression.