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A noun. “A part broken off or otherwise detached from a whole; a broken piece; a (comparatively) small detached portion of anything”. Or, “transferred and figurative. A detached, isolated, or incomplete part; a (comparatively) small portion of anything; a part remaining or still preserved when the whole is lost or destroyed”.
Transferred and figurative.
Or it could be a verb. “transitive and intransitive. To break or separate into fragments”.
I exited the OED tabs.
The bold audacity of assuming that there is even a whole in the first place. Aren’t we born as fragments, and spend the rest of our lives trying to become a whole, on our own? Only to deconstruct the meaning of success, and eventually, we transit from ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
“No, look, I’m ab-solutely fi—ne!” she lets her sing-song voice ring and disappear into the wilderness, laughing rather miserably as she takes each step unsteadily. What face am I making, she wonders giddily as her facial muscles involuntarily contorts to let out another hysterical laughter.
They have just left their freedom behind and are wailing their way back to reality, one that threatens a lockdown, a complete change of life. Idle, the bar at a hidden-away building called Infinite, had the misfortune of witnessing four stressed out college students in the midst of a semester struggling with the recent Covid-19 situation. Their delightful shrieks at every dart that hits everywhere but the target and their blatant exploitation of the rare Ladies Night discount (hell yea screw capitalism! one of them shrieked at some point when they realised that they had explored every possible combination of hard liquor and mixers), the bartender witnessed it all as he held onto the glass for support, wiping it meditatively. As the bar counter is built such that the staffs have perfect view of the floor, the bartender most unfortunately was within and without, at once fascinated and repulsed by the carnivalesque display of intoxicated customers. The signage that says No Puking quivered in anticipation.
The night had started innocently enough, Dionysus reflects. After taking their temperatures and paying for the night, the group started with their own drinks and started a card game called The Singaporean Dream[1]. Circe, in a state of alcoholic guidance, confidently smashed down a card. Four pairs of eyes read the card apprehensively.
Recite the Singapore Pledge to achieve two dreams for free. (Other players or yourself)
“You are fucking British, Circe.” Dionysus deadpanned.
“No, I am not going to recite it!” Circe said, flustered, “You! Annabelle! Recite it!”
“Why are you letting her gain two free dreams?” Dionysus frowned, ruffling Circe’s feathers further.
“Am I bothered?” Circe demands[2].
Annabelle stared at Circe, her facial muscles contorting indignantly. June, still unable to break out of her “guai kia[3]” face, quietly took to drinking half of her vodka and apple mixer from her plastic cup. Dionysus leered in anticipation. Annabelle, refusing to admit defeat, applied to her gin and tonic. Tilting her head up as if she can see the skies beyond the ceiling, she slowly opened her mouth, and allowed the gods full control of her vocal abilities.
“We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united nation!”
That should sound patriotic enough, she thought, totally nailed the first line.
Before she could go on to the next line, the table had exploded. Despite their shrieks and howls, the bartender did not miss a beat in his ritualistic wiping of the glass. Maybe too patriotic, she thought.
“One united nation!” Circe screeched, looking up from her phone screen that is flashing the Singapore National Pledge, “Oh, Annabelle, the true Singapore horror story, if I ever heard one!”
“One united people, Annabelle.” June managed to correct in between her fits of laughter, her glasses running askew.
Annabelle swore, and proceeded to down the entire jug. Eventually, Dionysus recovered enough to get the bartender to reluctantly setting aside his glass and refill the jug with coke and rum. After tending to each of their plastic cups, and the games continued. The signage watched on eagerly.
After that, Dionysus suddenly realises, someone had insisted on playing darts, and no one, not even I, Dionysus, stopped them from drinking whiskey.
“June, get a hold of yourself!” Dionysus says in exasperation as June leeches herself onto his arm, abruptly interrupting his thoughts and cutting off his blood circulation. Looking down at a happily miserable June, he vaguely regretted his decision to bring the three girls with him. What a waste, he thought sadly, thinking of his wallet and his sober state. Facing the uncertainties ahead due to the Covid-19 situation, Dionysus had been doing his best to hang out with everyone and seek a closure for himself. Expecting a virtualised graduation ceremony and cancelling of his capstone presentation, Dionysus thought he had nothing more to lose if he were to sacrifice some studying and personal time. Or so he thought.
“I said I am fine! I have to be fine. I need to get home.” June’s voice diminuendos, and she starts to hiccup. Oh god, Dionysus thought rather faintly, please do not cry. Or throw up.
“Yes, you have to. So, stay sane.” Dionysus pleads. He looks away from June to gauge the remaining distance to the bus stop. His vision is obscured by the figures of Annabelle and Circe, both whom are clutching onto each other, swaying dangerously as they each take turns to screech something incomprehensible. They have vaguely morphed into birds of prey, their wild gestures creating many elongated, shadowy beaks that open and shut. Dionysus, not in the least amused, sighed and dragged June along at a faster pace.
June sobers. She knows she merely has to put off drinking for fifteen minutes to sober, regardless of the amount of alcohol she has ingested. Thanks to years of practicing her “buddha-like” face and capitalizing her inability to experience the legendary Asian flush due to her body’s innate desire to reject alcohol, June had tested boundaries enough to know her physical and mental response. However, it has been far too long since she had succumbed to a Freudian slip, and she decided, in the spur of the moment, to keep drinking. Time’s up, her brain now tells her, and she promptly straightens, pulling away from Dionysus, as they reach the bus stop.
“Are you sure you will be okay? Do you want to return to campus with us?” Dionysus asks, as the two vultures surround their prey and begin spewing words that string together more as mindless mockery.
June eyes the two of them bemusedly and nodded.
“I will be fine. Look, the bus is here.”
The bus halts to a unwilling stop.
“Bye! I will be fine!” June yells, and with a leap of faith, gets onto the bus. Circe positively begin shrieking again at the sight. She has come far, my child, Circe thinks delightfully, what a sight before I get deported back home.
The bus door closes behind June, and she eyes the bus-driver cautiously as she taps her card. She finds his expression unreadable. Putting on her “guai kia face”, she prays that he cannot tell that she had been drinking. No, I am not drunk. Believing is making real. Is this why my friends think I have Stockholm syndrome? she wonders vaguely as she precariously sways in tandem with the bus. Each of her thigh took a turn at greeting the bus seats as she makes her way to the exit doors. Foucault will have a field day explaining my madness.
Before she can continue her internal monologue on Foucault, the bus has made a nauseating turn. She holds onto the pole for dear life, and suddenly, as if boarding the Knight Bus, she reaches the next stop. The bus driver, through the centre rear-view mirror, watches her alight and heave a sigh of relief.
June looks up and saw, to her amazement, the vast wilderness that leads to a palace. How have I not noticed this before? Wait, this is not a palace. This is Alexandra Hospital, get a hold of yourself, June chides herself sternly.
She sits down, and the urgent need to relieve herself interrupts her wait for her next bus. She fidgets uncomfortably, engaging with a furious mental debate – should she risk the health of her blabber and preserve her reputation? Before she knows it, her body moves of its own accord, and she finds herself slowly walking down and up the steps, towards the hospital. As she walks, she begins to lose faith that walking straight will most definitely lead her to her desired destination. She starts to run, and eventually shoot right through the path, letting her legs rather than her faith carry her. Fear begins to creep in, and she does the one thing she thinks rational.
“Hello? You busy?” she whispers into her phone.
“Listen, I just ran into the Alexandra Hospital, and I am going to use the washroom.”
There is a pause.
“My friends left me to go home alone and I think I drank more than I should have.”
“Who are your friends?!”
She taps end call, silencing the shrieking demon on the opposite line. She now feels confident that she is in control. Marching down to the entrance, she sees two security guards, and a signage Temperature Taking.
Damnnit. Co-vid19.
She braces herself and adjusts her facial muscles to her “guai-kia” face. One of the security guards catches sight of her and starts to make his way towards her.
“Hello, could I just use the washroom really quick? I have to catch the bus soon.” she says in her best Yale-NUS trained voice, beaming her best “I am a good child” smile. The security guard’s face twitches.
“Miss, the portable toilet outside ah.”
“It’s locked. Please, I won’t take longer than ten minutes – no five, I won’t take longer than five minutes!” She pleads. At this point, the nurses guarding the front counter have been lured to watch the show. C’mon, before I decide to just run in, she thinks desperately. Her mind starts to formulate a plan, one inspired by Johnny English.
“Hey man, she use the washroom can anot?” he yells to his other colleague, whom has already begin making his way to them. He is dressed in the same fashion but knows far better.
Confirm from Idle, he thinks.
He nods, and June smiles thankfully. After taking her temperature (oh god, please, may I not be having a fever from the drinking, she prays), she proceeds to walk – careful to be civil – to the washroom.
Walking out of the cubicle, she catches sight of herself in the mirror. Her face sits like a tomato on top of her shoulders, such that her red crop-top is not the only thing that catches attention. In horror, she splashes water quickly onto her face.
The legendary Asian flush.
She prays fervently that they cannot tell that she is merely mildly intoxicated. If anything, she tells herself as she embarks on the walk of shame out of the hospital, they will probably attribute my face to my state of embarrassment for having intruded.
The two security guards tried their best to keep a straight face.
June takes her time, trying so hard to walk properly that she reckoned she will be hired as a part-time model for a fashion show, until she remembers that roll of fat visibly oozing out of her crop-top and black skinnies. Suddenly, something seems to block her path, and she stops dead in her tracks.
A fountain, with the statue of Mother Mary.
Since when’s she there?
The fountain is inconveniently built in a circular manner, splitting the otherwise single path into two. She watches Mother Mary sceptically, as if she might move at any minute. Mother Mary merely smiles on serenely.
I had always gone left behind my own mother’s back, she thinks, and breaks into a run. As she sees her bus nearing the bus stop that she had took flight from, she preens with happiness. Who knows where the right path would have led her?
June has always been a good child. She understands the consequences of misbehaving far too well – to be able to manage herself, she had reasoned, is beneficial for her own life as well as others. For instance, if stressed about the workload, June will work harder, completing the tasks that serves to trigger her unease. Applying such a concept to every other issue in her life, June manages to face mental health issues and pressure from family with a relatively calm composure. On good days, June even forgets that she is rather stressed out, or has been facing immense pressure. But there is always that Freudian slip.
Taking another leap of faith on the bus supposedly destined to bring her home, the bus driver this time has less tact in keeping his composure. He oogles at her, as if she is a well- cooked lobster, steaming with the scent of added alcohol. While not at all looking appetizing, the dish at least looks worrisome. The driver keeps an eye on her, until she throws herself unceremoniously onto the seat. He quietly sighs in relief and proceeds to continue driving.
June, however, is less than relieved. By throwing herself onto the seat in a fit of utter triumph, June feels a strong desire to throw up. Oh dear, she thinks rather faintly, my body is already starting to reject the alcohol. The bus, as if driven by the desire to get rid of her, drives faster than usual down the empty roads.
She looks down at her phone, in hopes of some distraction from the nauseating ride. There have been fifty missed calls. She hurriedly prevents the number from amounting to fifty-one.
“Hell- ?”
“JUNE! Where are you? How can you just end the call on me like that?”
“I am on the bus.”
“Are you ok?”
“Yupz. I will be fine, I just have to make it through this last bus ride.”
“How long is the bus ride? Where are you travelling back to Eunos from?”
“Queenstown.”
Awkward silence ensues.
“June! Take a taxi!”
She pinches her nose bridge as she remembers that her bank account is dangerously close to being completely emptied of funds.
“I am not not okay.”
“… double negatives? Can I interpret it as your split personality disorder, I wonder? Half insane and half sane? Can I record you down as part of my psychological research project?”
June sighs. She is starting to get rather confused at her friend’s sincere concern. Tom Tulliver Goh has never been the kind of friend that is able to be concern for too long about his friends’ issues – he firmly believes in their abilities to handle themselves. He proudly chooses his friends based off their tenacity in life. He, however, often forgets that he requires others to talk to about his life issues as well. Is a healthy friendship ever possible, when a friendship itself fundamentally requires each party to inject a certain dose of toxicity as a requirement to be included in their Instagram’s’ “close friends” list?
“I can tell,” he continues, “that you are in fact unbelievably not tipsy then. June, the self-control queen!”
“And you are a jack-ass.”
She hangs up on him and massages her temples. She wishes that she had decided to stay on campus, but her duty as a daughter of the family calls. For two years now her brother has been facing severe skin condition issues, and despite finally embarking on a journey of recovery, his expensive treatments and his personal mental health struggles nevertheless continues to take a toll on the family. One kid’s suicidal thoughts in the family forces the other to keep quiet about hers. She craves another cup – no, another jug, - of whiskey and coke.
Or not.
Quickly deciding that enough is enough and reasoning that a bus stop on the expressway will be left deserted, June quickly presses the bell. The bus halts to a stop, and June bites her inner cheeks and presses her lips together. The bus driver smiles in relief.
Some fertilizer for you, she thinks faintly before she empties her guts out onto the soil, holding herself up against a tree. The tree, unable to walk away or utter any form of protest, laments its fate and wishes to reverse roles. Thankfully, she had packed extra wet and dry tissues. The virus situation ain’t all that bad, she thinks.
Feeling much better, June settles down on the seat at the bus stop, waiting for the next bus to come along. Her mind races.
Yet, she does not feel like crying. She feels, nothing. It’s been a good night.
[1] A game that requires players to play their way to be the perfect Singaporean, aiming to collect as many Dream Cards as possible. https://thesingaporeandream.com/pages/rulebook
[2] Reference to the The Katherine Tate show
[3] “Guai kia” – A hokkien phrase incorporated into Singlish, directly translated to “obedient child”
This painting, Untitled, is inspired by Plato’s Symposium and ideas in Angels in America and Written On the Body. The surreal melding of the two faces simultaneously reflects the Platonian ideas of love and desire and the narrator’s ambiguous gender in Written On the Body. In so, normative appearance-based assumption of a person’s gender is challenged. There is the act of looking forward, illustrating the hopeful ending to Angels in America,with one of the wing fully disintegrated (and the other disintegrating) connoting the painful, yet humane act of breaking away from being static. In contrast, the act of looking back is also subtly hinted at here, and the butterflies imply the merit in looking back into the past. By looking back, the narrator understood he/r mistake and hence a possible reunion with Louise.
The colours used here is inspired by the sunset, adding a melancholic touch to the end of a day and the promise of another. All in all, this painting aims to have the audience take a second glance, to ponder over and attempt to understand what is inherently missing in their gaze - that is, their silent stories.
