Uhm, I should explain this. After a year or so of lurking, I've decided to come back out with a story I wrote last year. Because I'm patriotic. I'll be uploading the chapters a day at a time but I've got about 12 and the last chapter I've written, I've planned to make into a saga of its own.
I'm supposed to be working on other things. But I'm not. I'm being patriotic and um, yes. Patriotic. This is how I see Singapore, struggling to find an image and dragging himself through life a day at a time, interacting with other nations and trying to secure his future and preserve the past. This is my country. Please enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own APH, I don't own the title (I ripped it off an anthology of local lit) and I don't own Singapore. I do own a Singapore passport.
No Other City
The Kopi Grows Cold
Singapore chatted amiably to the stall owner as he waited for his kopi to cool. The words fell off his tongue in halting tones, he was using a dialect he had known since birth but sometimes he hesitated to search for the word. Little by little, the knowledge of the different dialects faded away from his mind. He considered watching Chinese operas again but he decided he had better things to do.
As he chews his kaya toast, he watches the cars creep onto the road the same way the sun emerges over the horizon. He finishes his breakfast and thanks the stall owner. Then he is off, to join the rush hour, to wage through the MRTs and buses and ERPs, leaving behind the slow placed world of the Kopitiam.