Radio Silence

Chapter 10 is complete.

In other news, nothing much is happening on DrGoat because of one writer concentrating on finishing his damned convulted and overlength story, and the other writers doing f***all... frown.

appended 22/10 :

chapter 11 is complete.    # Re-minisce denies liability.10/18/2004 10:15:00 pm

Stars and Moon, update

Chapter 9 is complete.    # Re-minisce denies liability.10/06/2004 07:30:00 pm

Stars and Moon - abandoned due to lack of funding

Err. Just kidding.
Re-minisce is moving stars and moon over to its own blogsite, http://starsandmoonstory.blogspot.com so that drgoat can resume regular programming, ie long periods of silence between re-minisce's posts until his cowriters actually get off their arses and start writing something. frown.

I'll put a short post up everytime we update the story just in case any of you are sad/bored/mentally-impaired enough to actually be following the story. heh heh.

yeah. that is all. you may depart now. (waves hand)    # Re-minisce denies liability.9/01/2004 10:03:00 am

Stars and Moon (chapter 8)

Chapter 8
Q fever

Kit's lying on the floor at home watching Jean watching him. There's a soft fuzzy glow about everything, and light streams through the tan window shades obliquely, casting a faint halo around Jean's head. They're lying propped up on their elbows, face to face - so close that he can feel her breath on his lips. So close that he can't see her lips, but he can tell from her eyes that she's smiling. It's a perfect moment, too perfect to spoil, and he wishes it could last forever. An eternity passes as they gaze into each others' souls, and then, with infinite care and slowness, she gently inclines her head forwards a fraction of an inch and...

... bites his brains out.

Bang. Explode to light. Pain. Head. Hurts.
Gnngh, Kit groans and curls into a fetal position on the cold stone floor.

"I think he's coming around, Sir."

"I can see that, Ding."

There're two pairs of boots standing directly ahead of him behind what appear to be metal bars.
The bars go up, and up, and up some more to the ceiling. Oh. I'm in a jail cell Kit thinks dully, and turns his attention to the boots. They're joined to blue trousers, and butts, and shirts, and the back of two heads capped by police hats.

They're facing away from him (just in case you haven't figured that out yet) looking into another jail cell.
There's someone else sprawled face-down on the floor, his trenchcoat looking slightly the worse for wear. From the looks of the little trickle of blood running down his chin, he hasn't been having a very good day. His fingers twitch once or twice then go limp again.

"Okay mister, quit playing dead. It's time for your trial. You're charged with the assassination of our Patrician, BG Lea. Get up you bloody murderer."

There's the rattle of a key in a lock and then the door swings open and one of the pairs of boots tramps into the cell.

"I said get UP." One of the steel-capped boots draws back to deliver a gentle message of encouragement - and the figure's eyes flicker open. He looks across the floor directly at Kit and winks.

The lights go out.

There's the distant thump and crackle of faraway fireworks, and a not-so distant thump of a body hitting the floor hard. Someone says "SIR?", and then groans and thumps to the floor.

The lights come back on.

Trenchcoat's standing in the middle of the room over the prostrate form of the badge named Ding, brushing down his sleeves.

"Ah, Kid. We meet again."

"I'm sorry do I know you?"

"Last night. You hired me. Don't you remember?"

"Hired? To do what?"

Trenchcoat gives him a long, level look.

"Ah. You're not with The Resistance are you? How'd you get roped into this?"

"What Resistance? And what did I hire you to do?"

"That letter you gave me, kid. It was a contract to assassinate the Prime Minister. I'm a professional killer."

"...grahrr."

"Look we don't really have time for this. I suppose you'd better tag along for now."

Trenchcoat reaches down, retrieves a keyring from Ding's belt and unlocks the door to Kit's cell.

"Come on."

"How did you do that anyhow? Make all the lights go out."

Trenchcoat smiles. "You could say it's a talent of mine."

He takes out a pair of geeky, thick-framed spectacles and hands them to Kit. "Here. Put these on."

"I don't know. They don't look quite me."

"Shut up. They'll help you see in the dark. Do try to keep up. It'll be such a bother if I have to kill you because you were slowing me down."

Time to run.

*****
A dark figure sits by a window, sillhouetted in the dim night of dusk. Hiss...purr. Hiss...

"My Lord." Tremulously speaks the shaking leaf of a petrified Senior officer of the Empire addressing the supreme leader of the Empire, The Mentor.

There's a whine and a hiss as an imposing helmet slides down from the ceiling and clicks into place. The Mentor's breathing apparatus continues to whine and purr and he makes no move to acknowledge his underling's presence.

"The Brigadier has been assassinated by the rebel scum."

Hiss... purr... hiss...

Slowly, the (Ikea, tm) armchair swivels around revealing the grotesque visage of The Mentor's facemask. The shiny black orbs of his eyes stare metallically at him, silently condemning him to an unimaginably horrible fate.

"The assassin."

"Escaped milord."

Black gloved fingures steeple deliberately, and thoughtfully together.

"Have you activated the Drizzletroopers."

"No milord, I came directly the second I heard the news."

"That displeases me."

"......"

"Guards, take this man away and execute him."

"Milord... nooo..."

"And flog him beforehand. 20 strokes of the rotan."

"AArrrrrg"

*****
Let's gloss over the hundreds of armour-plated, laser-rifle wielding, clanking, creaking drizzletroopers Kit and Coat dodge through the evil-blackened night, or the countless others that vanish mysteriously for the rest of their (rather foreshortened) lives during unexpected nationwide-blackouts that comprise the next five minutes of continuous and intensely boring footage that we're forced to endure by way of the artistic directors who're paying Drgoat good money to come up with this convoluted storyline. (okay, so they're not. sue me.)

Let's all stuporously yawn as yet another predictable fight sequence crops up, where, in a feat of amazing martial-arts prowess flawlessly blended with supercomputer-enhanced technical wizardry reminiscent of yet another cheap MatrixMovie wannabe clone, Kit and Coat, in intensely painful slow-motion moves that would have a taichee expert applauding rapturously in bullet-time, intrepidly flee from the enemy.

Let..s.mummblemumblegrmmph. Oh. Sorry, dozed off for a moment there.

Ah yes, where were we.

Kit spins around with his eyes wild and his hair gleaming. Or was it the other way around. His pigeon-chest heaves as he gasps to catch his breath. His legs feel like lead. And not of the HB variety either.

They're standing with their backs to the wall in a dingy little alleyway share only by a nonchalently bemused and rather fleabitten Kucinta cat.

"We're cornered, like rats in a fishbowl, like fish in a maze, like... like... a fly in a Venus trap!"

Somewhere in the not-so-distance the heavy-shod sound of clomping boots approaches. Little tinny voices are saying nastily inauspicious things like "target acquired Sir" and "we're moving in for the Kill."

The first rays of sunlight stream sleepily into the alleyway as the overhead street lamp flickers automatically off, then on, then finally, as an afterthought, off again. (Made in Malyasea, aka Redland.)

"We're out of darkness!!! Shi* we're going to die! What are we GOING TO DO?!"

Trenchcoat smoothly and stylishly reaches into his breast pocket and takes out his mobile phone.

"Hello, I'd like to order a pepperoni pizza please."

"WHAT?? HOW CAN YOU THINK OF FOOD AT A TIME LIKE THIS!"

Coat looks askance at Kit and adds "and a happy meal. With fries."

Just as the first rifle-barrel rounds the corner, the floor swings up silently and swallows our heroes into the ground.

*****
The large, shiny metallic doors slide open with a hiss.

Don't ask how our dynamic duo have come to wind up here. One minute they're falling through the floor, and the next a pair of large, shiny metallic doors is sliding open with a hiss. This is called a cut-to. It's a cinematic tool, and doesn't require your belief to answer its existential anomi...anomo... anomollilissness.

A large sign conveniently situated on a random wall reads "RESISTeNCE SECRiT UNDERGRND FACILITy #1. SMoKING iS InHIBITED", ostensibly for the slightly less cerebral members of the resitance movement.

It's a veritable hive of activity here. All around them people in drab grey uniforms mill about, solemnly performing their little tasks - which upon closer inspection appear to involve making various repetitive and unconstructive movements cleverly choreographed to trick the viewer into imagining that they're actually working.

It's actually a little reminiscent of the Singalander Armed Forces HomeGuard, the voluntary-conscript force that the country proudly trains with the latest cutting edge military techniques imported from the middle-east to be highly motivated and competent cannon-fodder.

Coat and Kit glide unseen amongst them, as if in a dream. Nobody looks up from their clipboards or computer terminals to challenge them except a slightly frightened-looking poodle being worked on by four white-coated scientists (you instantly know they're scientists when you see them. Maybe it's because they have geek stamped all over them, or maybe it's the barcodes on their foreheads. No, wait those would be the engineers. My bad.) in a little re-inforced plexiglass shelter marked "BMX Group. (Biological Munitions and eXplosives.)"

A sad little frog looks imploringly up at them as they walk past before swelling out its throat and croaking in an explosive flash of light and sound. (croaking. pun. ha ha.)

They walk past a firing range and watch a Lucy Liu lookalike testing a prototype Hamster Gun. Don't ask. Good looking weapons experts are hard to find.

Then there's the cubicle marked "Weapons of Mass Destruction group" where a small group of George Bush clones lies dormant in their hibernation pods.

The MisInformation and Espionage group has a grinning Tony Blair clone wired up to a lie detector. Every now and then he glances adoringly out the window towards Weapons of Mass Destruction, and his heart monitor races a little earning dejected headshakes from the scientists surrounding him.

Oh and of course the Covert Rodent Guerilla Group deserves special mention. A two-foot mockup of the Angsana houses two small armies of heavily armed mice determinedly going through their paces obliterating each other in various entertaining ways. Kit feels particularly warm fuzzy thoughts about the one wielding a mini-RPG launcher and incessantly squeaking what sounds suspiciously like a swearword in Universal Rodent. It looks adorable in a slightly rabid way, and it doesn't seem averse to blowing up any of the mice on its own team. Hmm. Didn't know that mice could giggle - fancy that.

The facility is built in the shape of a giant wheel, with research labs forming the outer hub, and long corridors comprising the spokes that radiate inexorably ever inwards to terminate in a small metal chamber marked "Center Of Secret FacIlity. No TOIlets here."

Eight familiar figures in black suits and raybands are standing guard at the eight entrances to the center of operations. Kit feet smoothly about-heel and scrabble futily on the white-marble tiled floor even as Coat's hand closes around his right bicep and draws him onwards in a vice-like grip. (whimper) Kit says quietly, knees knocking together tremulously.

Eight pairs of raybands simultaneously swing towards him and hold him trapped in their steady, impassive gazes.

"Halt. Identify yourselves" one of the suits drones imperiously, bringing up his hand smartly in that universal traffic-cop/wuxia motion that means to different audiences, either "Stop!" (append : in the name, of love for a really select audience.) or "My Lotus-Palm stance is superior to Your Drunken Prawn!"

The lights flicker out for a fraction of a second, and then come back on. PalmoSuit lies crumpled on the floor with his legs drawn up in agony, clutching his unmentionables. Coat smiles pleasantly at the other seven suits, who draw back in a wincing mixture of masculine horror and empathy.

The grip around Kit's arm eases, and together they push open the ornate gold-leaf double doors before them.

Silently, on well-oiled hinges the doors glide smoothly inwards and draw our heroes into the Inner Sanctum of the Resistance.    # Re-minisce denies liability.8/21/2004 04:09:00 pm

Stars and Moon (chapter 7)

Chapter 7
An Officer, and A Gentleman

"Sir! Take a look at this!!"
PC Ding is a policeman. He isn't the sharpest knife on the block, and one supposes if one was to refer to him in culinary terms he'd probably be a meat tenderiser. If he was English, his surname would be Plod. What he lacks in brains, he makes up for in sheer persistence. Right now, he's persistently badgering his immediate superior, Inspector Sum.

To be absolutely frank, their names really don't matter since it's always the lot in all narratives and movies of industrious flatfoots and other figures of civil authority to unglamourously become cannon fodder to gun-toting / dai-katana-wielding heroes and heroines. Nonetheless, in reverence to their parents' dedication, perseverence, and in Singaland, sheer ingenuity in creating them, we'll call them Ding and Sum.
"What is it now?" sighs Inspector Sum, cradling his head in his hands. PC Ding has the manic enthusiasm of a child in a candy shop, and half again as many wits. Add to that the propensity to take flying leaps of logic that would do an American President with an obsession for Weapons of Mass Destruction proud and you have the most trying person on the force to work with. Maybe a transfer to nice quite departments like the Anti-Terrorist department, or the Narcotics buereau...
Squeeglesqueeglesqueegle. The video footage PC Ding's been poring over for the last eight hours rewinds yet again. The CCTV image is small and grainy but a fairly ordinary view of a street and the occasional car taken from a high vantage point, probably a streetlamp.
"Watch this, Sir".
An unimpressive young man and a rather impressive young woman appear and stop partially out of view of the camera, standing immediately under the lamp. From this bird's eye view, Sum has a pretty nice view of...
"Sir! Watch the road!!!"
A black minivan swerves into the edge of the screen, then out again, as the girl falls out the picture.
"F**K! Don't we have any audio on this thing?? Play it back again!"
Squeegle...
Girl Falls.
"Play it back!"
Girl Fa...
"Pause!"
..lls.
"Did you see that??"
"Yes Sir, I wasn't sure but..."
"He pushed her."
"Yes, he must have - there's no reason she would have fallen into the path of the van like that otherwise, is there Sir?"
"The bastard! She had such nice..." Insp Sum trails off thoughtfully. "Hmm. Play the rest of it."

The unimpressive guy kneels down out and vanishes out the corner of the screen. An instant later, he stands again. He's holding something in his hand. And then he swivels around and disappears out the corner of the screen.

"He stole something from her too."
"Yes Sir."
"The poor girl. Any news of the body?"
"Not yet Sir."
"Shame. I'd like to know who she was."

pause.

"Well, what are you waiting for! Let's reel him in!"
"Sir, yes Sir!"
"And Ding..."
"Sir?"
"When will you stop calling me Sir? You make me sound like a bloody schoolteacher!"
"Sorry, Sir!"

*****
They call him The Iron Patrician, because he rules with an iron hand.
Right now, he's demonstrating the finer principals of this to one of his subservient staff.

PIAK.

"I said a diet coke with ice! This is pepsi!! Any moron can tell the difference!"

PiAK.

"Well?? And bring me a cheeseburger, extra cheese, hold the beef, lettuce, mayo and ketchup!"

The snivelling manservent flees the room, his rifle rattling tremulously as he runs.

"Good help is so hard to find nowadays." he mutters, shaking his head.

BG Lea Sing Longandstrong is the strongman of the empire, and Steward to his people.
Stewardship is hungry business.

BG Lea believes in leading with a firm hand. His people are like sheep: soft, fluffy and clueless - just the way The Empire likes them. He's the man to lead them into the next millenium, the eighty-year technicalities of which, with the steady progess his human-augmentation project is making, will be a mere and insignificant speedbump on his route to immortality.

He settles back into his gilt-lined high chair to resume the duties of his God-Given birthright, administering to the mundane running of The Empire.

*****
Life moves on.
Kit's sitting on the train again on his way to work.
The events of yesterday, and last night in particular feel slightly surreal in the harsh light of everyday - did they even happen? Maybe it was all a dream. Kit's feeling slightly depersonalised - which was that again? When you feel unreal or when the world around you feels unreal?

My mind's running around in circles. It's probably a coping mechanism...

Stop. Enough.

He runs his hands through his dishevelled hair and looks up dully , straight into the headlines of a copy of The Straight Times which a decidedly un-straight male in a shiny purple dress shirt is poring over across from him.

The Straight Times, August 9, 2020.
HIT AND RUN ON GARDEN ROAD! the headlines blare.
And underneath them, an image... of Jean.

Craning his head and straining his eyes he just makes out the words : "hit and run accident... black minivan... critical condition... intensive care... Singalander General... police."

His heart leaps.

She's still alive! She didn't die!
His feels himself stand and leave the train even as his mind struggles to comprehend this new reality. He was wrong... and suddenly he can see clearly again.

He has to see her again.

*****
"Target acquired. Close to range."

Ah yes, Insp. Sum's in his element, another few seconds and...

"Sir?"

... alt-tab. Command and Conquer Generals vanishes obligingly and turns back into innocent old Windows XP.

"Yes, Ding. What is it now."

"Take a look at this."

It's another CCTV video clip of John Doe. This one shows him walking into a disused polyclinic, and then walking back out a half hour later.

A short while afterwards, a shady character in a trenchcoat and fedora steps out the building and glides away with cat-like grace.

"Hmm. This is very suspicious."

"Why's that Sir?"

"How many people have you ever seen wearing a trenchcoat in this country?"

"Good point Sir."

"We'd better tell the commissioner."

"Yes Sir!"

"And Ding... nevermind."

*****
Kit's footsteps echo eerily after him as he traverses the faintly antiseptic-smelling corridors of the hospital. It's strangely empty, and with every step he feels a little more uneasy. Any second now a man in a black suit is going to appear... He rounds the corner.

A small group of senior doctors with their glassy-eyed students firmly in tow (and bearing a passing resembalce to ducklings) glides past.

"...definitely had symptoms consitent with polymyalgia rheumatica... Spiral CT scan showed..." Their voices fade away into incomprehensibility as they round the corner. Not that they were particularly comprehensible beforehand.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid. It's going to be okay. Jean's still alive!

Ah at last. Intensive Care Unit.

A pint-sized nurse at the desk with the countenance of an irate and extremely constipated pit-bull glares at him for an instant before glancing dismissively away at the computer screen before her, no doubt monitoring all her patient's vital signs.

"Hello... Sister?"

She looks back up and frowns.

"Is there a... Jean.. here? Road Traffic Accident?"

"Cubicle Seven. Over there." she barks, pointing cursarily at one of the doors and returning her concentration Solitaire for Windows.

Kits heart claws its way up his throat into the back of his mouth and sits there waiting in anticipation as he opens the door.

She's lying in bed facing away from him, bundled up under the bedcovers.
All around her, various pieces of monitoring equipment beep callously to their own internal rhythms, a macabre orchestra of near-death.

Step.

She looks... so small. And so still.

Step.

"Jean?"

She's asleep, or at least her eyes are closed. And She's ... not Jean!

It's that girl from the train. With the big head. Pink.

She opens her eyes and smiles evilly. "hello, we've been expecting you."

He backs away. "What's going on? I don't understand!!"

Bump. There's someone standing behind him. Two someones actually. He turns around slowly. Two BIG someones to be precise. Two big, muscley police-someones with jaws the size of shovels.

"Uh... hello officers..."

Oww! There's a sharp pain in the back of his knee. Then, as he falls to the floor someone thumps him hard in the back of his head. Fade to black.

"Was that really necessary ma'am?"

Pink glares at the men towering head, neck, and upper-torso over her.

"Don't tell me how to do my job! Two thousand superiors can't be wrong!"

"But ma'am, we don't have..." Big policeman #1 trails away into silence under the force of Pink's glare.

"Go with the flow, Joe." Big policeman #2 mumbles, as they pick the limp and extremely unconscious Kit off the floor.

*****
BG Lea's inspecting his body-double delivering His national day speech on television from the comfort of his high-chair inside the Seat of All Parliament, the Angsana. "He's getting a little bit chubby, doesn't look at all like me." He thinks as he chews down thoughtfully on his cheeseburger. "Must make him exercise more, and if dares to object, I'll sla..."

The lights go out.

WTF?A power failure? NOW?? During the Parade?! BG Lea glances out the window - as far as the eye can see - pitch-black. An island-wide blackout. It's only ever happened once before.

Ohboy... someone's head is really going to roll for this.

"SINGGGGGGH! SONGGGGGG!!" BG Lea screams for his two stoic and stalwart bodyguards standing just outside the door.

The door opens and a figure stands sillhouetted cast by the half-light of the moon through a window behind him.

"CALL THE POWER DEPARTMENT! TELL THEM I'M GOING TO FIRE THE"

The lights come back on.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?? WHERE ARE SING AND SONG?"

The figure stands impassively still before him.

"HOW DARE YOU INTRUDE ON ME? And WHAT are you WEARING??! IS THAT A FEDORA??"

piak.

"GUARDS! GUARDS!!"

piAK!

"ARE YOU TRYING TO INTIMIDATE ME??"

PiAK PIAK

"TALK DAMN YOU! TALK!!!"

PIAKKKKK

"Are you quite done yet?" the figure asks quietly as BG Lea hyperventilates and quivers in an unbridled apoplectic rage.

"SO! YOU SPEAK! WELL I'LL HAVE YOUR HEAD FOR THIS! DO YOU KNOW WHO MY DADDY IS???"

"Yes. May I be so bold as to ask you a question? Why do you keep slapping yourself while you're talking?"

"I try to keep my hands off strangers. My daddy says it's not hygenic."

"Ah. Yes, quite. Do you know who I am?"

"NO! WHO THE F*** DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

"Oh, good. Well I have a message for you, from the Resistance."

There's a faint "snk" sound, and then BG Lea's gaze travels slowly and uncomprehendingly down towards the sword handle protruding from his breastbone. It's the last thing he ever sees.

Humming softly to himself, the Architect draws his sword out of the body and wipes it clean of blood with some kleenex procured off ex-BG Lea's desk.

He turns around and steps over the unconscious bodies of Sing and Song on his way out.

There're two policemen waiting at the front door for him with their pistols drawn. Their nametags read Ding and Sum.

"FREEZE! DON'T MOVE"

Ah, Bummer.    # Re-minisce denies liability.8/11/2004 08:22:00 am

Stars and Moon (chapter 6)

Chapter 6
The Unwitting Accessory

His lungs explode.
Well, not quite. But it feels like they're going to, soon.
He's running on empty now, his breath coming in ragged gasps, his legs twin stumps of leaden jelly. Somewhere on the threshold of hearing, somewhere behind him he hears the faint echoes of extremely expensive designer shoes ringing crisply off the impeccably clean concrete floor of the underpass. Slightly beyond that threshold, if his heart wasn't pounding fit to burst and if the flurry of his crazed footsteps wasn't quite so ponderous, he'd be able, if he really tried, to make out the eerie swishes of expensive trouser legs barely brushing their opposite numbers as their owners athletically lift their legs and plant them down in the perfect heel-strike positions for their next immaculate toe-offs.

Pan camera left, then zoom in on the figures neatly rounding the corner in pairs.
These guys make the Agent Smith clones of yesteryear look like frank amateurs. They don't even appear to breathe as they run, arms neatly tucked in by their sides and legs loping in easy strides that belie their speed.

Several well-endowed models, barely covered by their redundant wonderbras and long, flowing tresses watch impassively from their holographic windowlets either side of the tunnel, bouncing and oozing into suggestive, yet not-quite salacious poses and beckoning to the black-suited figures flashing by.
The eight pairs of Calvin Klein dark glasses never once waver from their almost-acquired target dead ahead, somewhere around the corner.

Some of the more progressive ads feature impossibly hunky men as well, bare to the midriff and holding their female partners sexily, yet at the same time suitably chastely to their South East Asian six-packs. Kit's oxygen-starved mind wanders fleetingly back to the days of yesteryear when the ads first started turning faintly bawdy, which coincided funnily enough with the government's push for a more populated populace.

He sidesteps around a grinning geriatric blind solo-act wheezing out a barely discernable tune on his state-of-the-art combination accordian/keyboard/techno drum set/er-hu/home PC/playstation-2 musical gadget, and darts doggedly into a stairwell, slowing to a crawl as he superhumanly mounts the steps one at a time.

His deceleration proves to be his salvation.

That and the visually-challenged uncle with the Cheshire Cat smile, who continues blithely with his raucous rendition of Unchained Melody (complete with nasal lyrics) effectively obliterating all traces of Kit's less-than-stealthy retreat. As the eight Agent Smith lookalikes synchronously pass him handsomely by, not-quite Stevie Wonder somehow manages to stagger obliviously into their paths.

There's that noise of a bowling ball achieving a perfect strike that invariably accompanies scenes like this, and the eight immaculate runners suddenly find themselves sprawled on the ground.

One of them snarls and draws back a lethally-curled fist, which stops abruptly in mid air as his gaze follows blind uncle's toothy smile and subtly extended index finger to the Webcam mounted on Uncle-Steve's PC. It's currently displaying a humourous image of nine men in Calvin Klein darkglasses, eight in suits and one in singlet and shorts in an undignified heap on the floor. It's also logged wirelessly onto the internet.

*****
"Train doors closing. Beepbeepbeep."
He glances furtively about himself as the train pulls out of the station. There's :

1) an offensive-smelling boy in uniform sitting across from him staring vacantly at his nuts lap.

2) a kindly little old man buried somewhere deep in his copy of The Straights Times

3) some guy in a too-tight T shirt reading a copy of The Gay Times. The Gay Times evidenced the progressive, passionate spirit of the New Government, building further on the starting blocks of True Freedom initiated in their wisdom by the Old Government, namely the legalisation of bungee jumping and bartop dancing. It was the brainchild of The YMPA (Young Men's Pagan Association) which sprung up surprisingly quickly the day after the Singalander government declared police registration of apolitical groups optional.
Naturally, homosexual sex remained illegal.

4) Another guy in too-tight trousers reading The Gay Times.

5) Yet another guy reading The Gay Times.

6) A svelte, slim and nubile young woman snogging :

7) another svelte, slim young woman. Nubile, too.

And most importantly,

8) no men in black suits and dark glasses.

Kit starts breathing again and for the first time tonight glances surreptitiously at the tan envelope.
It's good quality paper, and sealed with wax.

It smells of Jean's light, summery perfume - light, sexy, and nearly edible. His heart pounds as he remembers her eyes glazing over as she slumped back out of his arms into... he can't think it.

He can't think that she's dead.

Look at her handwriting on the front of the envelope. Blue ink. And she curls her Rs... A silent tear escapes his eye and works its way down his face.

It's an address. An address, on an envelope, he thinks hysterically. How sensible. How logical. How... odd.

There's a time on it as well. And a date.

Today's date. 23:30 - an hour from now.

*****
They call him The Architect.
Nobody knows why - they just do. He'd much rather a more menacing pseudonym like The Punisher or The Judge. But no, they have to call him The Architect.
Right now, he's (confusingly enough) in a doctor's office, seated in a reclining chair with his boots propped up on a desk.
It's an abandoned office, and he's sitting in the dark - the electricity has long since been discontinued. Dust cakes the desk, and the floor, and the solitary window. And everything else. As always, he's stylishly dressed in a Burbury's trenchcoat and fedora, making him hot. No, I mean hot. Singaland is no place for a trenchcoat - it's far too humid.
23.31. The contact's late, he's irritable, and it's hot. He lets the brim of his fedora slide down over his eyes and dozes off...

*****
The Old Ang Pow Polyclinic. He's here.
Kit looks doubtfully through the darkened window at the nothingness within, then tries the door. It's slightly ajar, and swings inwards with that dull, prolonged creak one associates with movies with the word "Van" somewhere in them, when he touches it.

It's dark in here, and there's a funny feeling in his throat. He's not sure, but it feels like his heart. And somewhere in his stomach a hundred butterflies unfurl their wings and begin fluttering.

Somehow, by the dim moonlight he begins to make out the shadow of a desk, and an examination couch, and a filing cabinet.

Then, as his eyes attune to the dark he notices boots lying on the table. And a hat on the chair. And...

There's someone in here with him. Someone who's sitting very, very still. The hairs on his neck stand bolt upright to attention. Psychotic violins begin playing in the background. Well, they would if this was a movie, but since it's a narrative there's an absolute and deathly hush.

"uh... hello?"

His words sound like a thunderclap in his ears.

They're met by silence. The figure doesn't stir.

He pauses, then slowly, almost afraid at what he's about to discover, he reaches out his trembling hand...

*****
Beach. He's lying on a beach with a beautiful broad in a barely adequate bikini. Breakers break around their entwined feet as they begin
(we interrupt this scene to bring you a message from our sponsors. This episode has been brought to you by the letter B!) to engage in that stuff broads like prior to bonking. Something, play they call it.

She runs a finger coquettishly along his neck, and then down his arm.
He kisses her neck, and feels her hands close around his shoulders and...

*****
... shakes the figure. It hadn't budged at his first tentative touch. It's still warm. There's a certain fatalistic dread in his heart. Death has stood by his shoulder once already tonight. Please don't let this guy be...

A pair of eyes snaps open suddenly, twin globes of white in the depths of the darkness.

"What." so crisply enunciated is the one word that it cracks like a pistol-shot in the still of the night.

"um. I, I. I've g-got a letter for you, s-ssir. At least I think it's for y-you. J-jean..."

Jean. Jean.

"Jean's d-d-dead."

*****
It's just a kid. A bloody kid. And he's snivelling. Oh God, now he's crying.
Jesus, the Resistance must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel if this is what they're recruiting now.
Still, a job's a job. Sometimes he finds himself wishing he had a more mundane career. Something nice and secure that involved a nice little cubicle and a nice little potted plant, with his very own desk and not some crummy doctors cheap plywood desk for the night. And lots of forewarning before each assignment. A nice predictable routine.

(And who the ____ is Jean?)

"Give me the letter."

*****
Kit hands the shadow the letter with a tiny sob of mingled terror and despair. His shoulders shake a little, but at least he's not crying. Or at any rate, he's concealing it well, he thinks.

His heart stops as he hears a metallic clink - oh God, is that a gun, isthatagun? There's a flare of light.

It's a cigarette lighter. His heart beats again. The shadow bursts crazily into light and sharp shadows. He's wearing some kind of hat and a coat. He's all angles in this light, except for his eyes, which are sharp and narrowed, and as he reads, narrow even more.

The light flickers out.

"Do close the door on the way out, won't you?"

Kit stands rooted to the spot in fear.

There's another clink. And this time it isn't followed by a flare of light.

"You did hear me...?"

The Shadow doesn't need to finish the question as Kit's cowardly legs decide to take action into their own, err... feet, and walk him out the door. Prestissimo.

He closes the door gingerly as he leaves.

Kit doesn't know it yet, but he's just become an accessory to murder.    # Re-minisce denies liability.8/09/2004 12:04:00 pm

Stars and Moon (Chapter 5)

Chapter 5
Legends of the Fall

Fade, to stilletto. (red)
Crawl camera, right - another stilletto. A shift (chiffon) partially draped over red, lacey...

cue sound.
And... action.

They're in bed (hers) being friendly. She makes a happy, albeit slightly muffled noise as his tongue gently probes the simmering depths of her mouth. His fingertips lightly trace a lazy line from the naked hollow of her axilla, along the slight swell of her thorax, past the gentle valley of her flank, down, down further to the bony ridge just beyond the slowly swelling plains of her hips. He feels her shiver against him, her breath from her flared nostrils hot upon his lips, and her fingers dig fiercely into his shoulderblades.

The bed creaks as she pulls abruptly away onto her haunches, tresses of her magnificently long hair spilling across the edges of his visual fields, transforming her into a pair of blazing, dangerous almond eyes at the end of a dark, dark brown tunnel.

Her lips twitch a little, whimsically. And then she crouches, agonizingly slowly, her index finger trailing down his chest, down still further. And further still, her smouldering eyes still fixed upon his.

He smiles back vacantly as she delicately bares her teeth, and then he shudders as she wraps her lips around...

... his big toe. He groans. She growls huskily in response, deep in her throat as she

... bites down, her tiny sharp canines nearly drawing bloo..

ooAAAarrghhh!! His eyes flutter open.
"CHEE!!!" The pomeranian grins at him and licks his chops, backing hurriedly away. Chee laughs silently, in that gleeful way all small, irritating little toydogs always do when they know they've been a Bad Dog but are going to get away with it.

The pillow misses by a hair as Chee dodges nimbly, and then decides to wander off somewhere more interesting, tail waving lightly in the air.

Lessee, where were we...
... opalescent pearls of glittering sweat bead her lower ribs and slide down her taut midriff, streaming in wet rivulets between her thighs as she arches her back, lost in the intensity of the moment. Her fingernails rake his chest as she throws back her head, and her long auburn hair fans out in slow motion, as she screams "

beep beep BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!"

The rollover backhand karate-chop catches his budget bedside alarm clock offguard, hurling it across the room onto the floor where dazed, it lies for a moment in stunned silence catching its breath before manically resuming it's electronic assault on his ears. Bugger. Time to go to work.

*****
At work, the keyboards around his cubicle stutter gradually into silence as his colleagues throw each other sidelong looks and tap their temples meaningfully with subtly concealed index fingers.

Perhaps it's because of the steadily-lengthening paperclip-chain heart that's materialising on his desk. Or perhaps it's simply because he's smiling. There must be a law against smiling at work in Singaland - it just doesn't seem right.

*****
He's standing on the sidewalk near Borders nervously clutching a copy of Terry Pratchett's "Death Trilogy" to his chest.

That's the arrangement. He'll have Death thrice in hand, and she'll be shod in red heels, the better to dance in hell with. It's one of the many little jokes that only work at the instant they're made. In the cold light of day, it all seems rather odd in retrospect. And the damn book is heavy. It's a trilogy for chrissakes.

There's a girl walking towards him.

His heart skips a beat. She looks vaguely familiar, with her slightly oversized head perched on a ludicrously thin body, which looks suspiciously like it's been stretched by some celestial graphic-editing software, and her pink baby-doll top.

Recognition dawns, as she hones in on him.

It's Pink.

And she's wearing red shoes.

Oh no. Pleasepleaseplease. Don't let it - he glances down. as far down as he possibly can - be her - he makes a frenzied study of a crack in the sidewalk beside his left shoe. There's a miniscule line of text in the base of it : Authentic-looking artificial simulated wear-and-tear, made in hong kong.

A pair of red shoes walks into the top of his field of view and stops.

Oh, bugger.

He looks up. At the immaculate legs, which stretch on forever.
And up. At that delicate waist, tapering gracefully, then, ah, rather less subtly outwards as his gaze travels upwards (with scarcely a linger! Or even two!).

And up. Past the flawless strong lines of those naked shoulders. Past her neck - his throat goes dry. Past her lips. Along her nose and into her eyes. Into her eyes.

It's not Pink.
It's so, so not Pink. This girl is beautiful. This girl is... to die for.

This isn't the girl of his dreams.
This girl is far, far more than he could possibly dream of.

Right now, her dark eyes are sparkling with amusement, and her lips are twitching into the beginnings of a smile. She's saying something.

"..ello?"

Kit musters up all the eloquence he's set by in store for just such emergencies as this, and smoothly replies,

"Graaallor."

"You must be Kit. I can't imagine why anyone else would carry a five hundred page book on their person. Is that a mars bar in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

Kit shakes his head in wonderment, and silently extricates the slightly manky mars bar he keeps in stash for emergencies of a more hypo(rather than hyper)glycaemic nature from his trouser pocket.

"Oh."

"Graah. You're Jean?" Damn. Talk about stating the obvious.

She smiles, and does a few steps of a little jig in her red stilettos..

"The better to dance in hell with!"

They laugh.

And they laugh, through coffee at borders.
And they laugh some more, over lunch at Scott's foodcourt. The food's slightly overpriced, and decidedly ordinary, and everyone else is dressed in white long-sleeved shirts, but they don't notice.

They laugh through Shrek 4, the movie. Somewhere along the way, she puts her head on his shoulder, convulsing with laughter.

And then they don't laugh so much all through dinner, staring quietly into the candlelight reflected in each other's eyes.

And then, all too soon, they're standing awkwardly under a streetlamp etched in a misty golden glow.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye." chokes Kit, shuffling his feet.

"I had a good time." She, gently. He wonders if this is womanspeak for goodbye forever. Or worse still, that dreaded "I'll always see you as my friend" stinker.

pause.

"When will I..." They laugh. They've both started together.

"You first." Kit, ever the gentleman. Actually, Kit's never the gentleman. This is quite possibly a first for him, and his inner caveman silently howls something incoherent about John Malkovich.

"Okay, me first. When will I see you again?" She smiles at him with her eyes.

Looking into the infinite twin depths of her soul - Kit feels his reality spinning away. This all feels so surreal. Any minute now, Chee is going to bite my toe and wake me up.

Kit glances down.

It happens so quickly he barely has time to catch it out of the corner of his eye. He doesn't have time to catch her.

There's a squeal - no, more like a shriek - of tires freewheeling, and the smell of burning rubber. There's a dark flash, as a black minivan with black-tinted windows mounts the kerb. (Everyone knows who black minivans with black windows belong to, right?)
There's a dull, wet thump. Sort of like the thump a body makes when it's hit by a solid metal chasis travelling at forty miles an hour.
And then, as his horrified eyes finally catch up with the scene unfolding before him, time slows to a crawl.

It all happens agonisingly slowly now, in bullet-time.
Jean spins counter-clockwise, twice, her hair fanning out into haphazard medusa-snarls, snatching viciously at her face, now suddenly so pale and lifeless. Her eyes are closed, and the magic has faded. She falls sideways as she spins, her flailing arms crumpling uselessly beneath the weight of her body.

There's an ugly crunch as her head strikes the ground.

And then a dark red trickle of something liquid out of her ear. Blood. That must be blood.

Kit kneels down and takes her shoulders in his hands.

"Jean!"

There's an eternity, and then her eyes flicker open. They're glassy - almost gone now, the life that coursed through them earlier.

"JEAN!!"

She coughs. A thin stream of red leaks out the corner of her mouth, and drips a solitary, dainty drop, to the floor below. She's trying to mumble something.

Her eyes clear for an instant.

"Take... deliver... note."

Somehow, she finds the strength to guide her fingers into her jeans pocket (I did mention that she was wearing jeans, didn't I? Black jeans.) and withdraw a tan envelope.

He grabs the note and, ever the thinker, groans,

"Jean!"

"kit..." weakly.

"yes...?"

"RUN!"

And then hearing expands outside the little bubble encompassing the two of them to the Rest of the World.

Tires squeal again as the black minivan describes a lethal arc. It's turning back.

Any second now, there'll be that gut-turning smell of burning rubber. He feels Jean slump in his arms, and her eyes roll back in their sockets.
A single sob of fear escapes him as he lays her to the ground. The Jean-ness is gone now. All that remains is a broken rag doll.

He starts to run.    # Re-minisce denies liability.7/10/2004 04:47:00 am

Stars and Moon (chapter 4)

Chapter 4
Dying to meet you

Kit has his eyes closed. His cheek tingles with the body electric as fingers draw delicately across it. His ricebowl-fringe is lifted suddenly by a hot breath - a breath of air; fingers of wind. Wind, from open air. Open air, bounded by concrete pillars, and metalwork.
He's been standing on the train platform staring morosely at the tracks for ten minutes now.

My life is so boring.
I need to lose weight.
I need to go to the gym.
I want a woman to love me.
Why doesn't anybody love me?
I think it's because,
My life is so boring...

He takes a step towards the edge.

...Why doesn't anybody love me?

Another step.

...What if...

There's a dull thump.
Whoompf! Subsonically displaced air hurled aside by the train gliding in to dock makes Kit recoil imperceptibly.

... everything was different?

The doors slide open with a sibilant hiss.
"Beepbeepbeep" they intone at Kit, indifferently. Get on, or not, we don't care.
He opens his eyes and steps through the doors.

*****
Nothing much happens to Kit on the MRT (the Multibilliondollar Relativelyrapid Trainthingie, which is just like the London Underground and New York Metro, only cleaner) en route from work to home. No mysterious stranger slips him a cryptic note; no alluring females smile enticingly at him; no pretty, jiggly blondes flash their tic-tacs at him.

Life is never like the movies, is it?

Like almost everyone else on the train, Kit silently engages in a careful scrutiny of his footwear. Variations on the theme include making detailed studies of laps, hands clasped in laps, other people's shoes, and for those neither fortunate nor nimble enough to secure themselves seats or be wearing shoes, nothing much in particular.
Kit's shoes are black work-shoes, such as the type an engineer might purchase - sensible, practical and altogether rather less than interesting.
There's only so much a person can write about engineer's shoes, so Kit looks up at the passengers around him.

(It's a form of narrative convention. Lead characters always look at everyone around themselves. This prevents endless descriptive paragraphs about the individual scuff marks on the surface of their shoes, which research sponsored by Batu - maker of affordable and aesthetic shoes across the nation - has shown that audiences do not always, for some unfathomable reason, appreciate.)

There's :

1) a malodorous NS boy immediately adjacent to him, emitting the heady scent of eau de sweatandfearandpushups. Have you noticed how there's always an NS boy on the train when you get on? It's almost as if it's cosmic convention. All trains in Singapore bear smelly NS boys in uniform, regardless of the hour of day. Any train without it's allocated quota of odiferous NSFs threatens to rip a breach in the fabric of reality and hurtle off into another dimension. That they always seat themselves next to you is either pure coincidence or sheer malice on their part.
The Republic of Singaland's Leadership does not take kindly to other dimensions. Citizens might migrate out of Singaland and acquire evil and decadent non-asian customs, then where would we be?

2) a disagreeable-looking teenaged girl in a garish pink top scowling fiercely at the book in her lap. Her lips move with the effort of translating the written word into a form comprehensible to herself. She isn't so much diminutive of stature as abjectly vertically-challenged, and if looks could kill, she would probably have expired in-utero. As it stands, her obstetric surgeon's repeated attempts to nonchalently let her newborn-self slip through his fingers head-first onto the floor some nineteen years ago failed to produce any lasting effects aside from a slightly stumpier adult appearance than her DNA would otherwise have accounted for.
Currently, she's studiously ignoring:

3) a sweet, doddering old cow woman standing before her, with an uncanny resemblance to Margaret Chan. The hag auntie teeters precariously amidst her mini-empire of shopping bags with every jerk of the train (which, of course, simply does not happen on the MRT in real life, proving once and for all that this entire ridiculous narrative is but a work of insane fiction) muttering viciously under her breath.

"Young people nowadays... no respect...elders... selfish... crush her like... cockroach..."

Sssssssssss.
The doors slide open, and an exhausted expectant mother crawls aboard with sobbing toddler in tow.

Margaret Chan shoots the hapless pair a vicious glance and redoubles her solliloquay.

"children... seen... heard... bubble... toil and.... cauldren..."

4) Mrs Preggy sways pathetically in front of Pink, barely managing to hold herself upright. Somewhere in the background, someone starts playing a violin.

Pink redoubles her efforts at the admirable task of gleaning knowledge from the repository of knowledge she bears in her lap. It's apparently a book for advanced animal enthusiasts, entitled "My Dog Spot".

The world fades to dark as Kit slides into a stuperous slumber.

*****
Fade to light.

Kit's in his shoebox, sitting by his windowless window watching Windows startup on his computer. There's a slight breeze, followed by a faint tinkle and a truncated scream from somewhere far below.
Windows XP loads up absent-mindedly to the desktop before hurriedly remembering to pop up a blue screen of death and force Kit to reboot.

Reboot.
Pause.

Kit's in his shoebox, sitting by his windowless window watching Windows startup on his computer. There's a slight breeze, and the far-off sound of sirens, which fades abruptly to a gleeful chorus of tinkles.

Kit performs his daily ritual of checking his email - you have NO new mails! - then logs onto galaxynet on IRC (Internet Relay Chat), the virtual realm where geeks can fulfil their secret destinies and become cyber-geeks and even occasionally, women. Women just tend to become bitchier.

Let's see. Where do we want to go today? Which portal holds the promise of romance and maybe even the thrill of sex? Which exotic channel will Kit choose in his bid for a life-altering experience??

Kit, fired subliminally by the author's enthusiasm, goes out on a limb and types:

/j 20somethings
#20somethings[+tn]: Welcome ur stay at the Age Of Life
*** Now talking in #20somethings
*** Topic is 'Welcome ur stay at the Age Of Life'
*** Retrieving #20somethings info

(Silence)

(More silence)

< Kit > Hello?

(Yet more silence)
(Kit considers twiddling his thumbs, except that he's only ever seen it done on movies. It's amazing how he continues to consider this, after several thousand visits to this channel, or for that matter, any other channel.)

Suddenly, against all predictions and expectations, there's a slight shimmer in reality, and that heart-lifting sound all denizens of the IRC realms secretly yearn to hear : dingdingding. A window pops open.

< Neo > Hello. I am Neo. I am The One. Who is this?

< Kit > Hi, I'm Kit, twentysomething/m. I make powerpoint slides for a living. a/s/l?

(pause)

< Neo > Oh. Sorry, wrong number...

shimmer. The window closes rather hurriedly.

(Silence.)

Another thumb-twiddling extravagan.... dingdingding!

< LadyGray > Hello, stranger.

Wow. It's not just some spambot advertising a porn site. And it might even be a girl. Tonight's Kit's lucky night!

< Kit > hi
< LadyGray > How's it going? :)

Wow! No A/S/L (age/sex/location) line. Almost definitely a girl! Must buy 4D tomorrow.

< Kit > I'm ok. A little bored.
< LadyGray > Join the club. There's a fee.

No request to meet up and have sex!! Woohoo!! Absolutely certainly, positively without the shadow of a doubt a girl! Kit's on a rollll!

< Kit > So, wat's a nice girl like you doing in a dump like this?
< LadyGray > Oh, mostly getting hit on by horny guys desperate for doggy sex. You?

...the night flies by in a happy blur. (cue screen image of a seed germinating into sapling unfurling into blood-red rose in full-bloom)
This girl is unlike any other. She's funny, flirty, sassy, silly, intelligent, and above all, interested. She writes with the effortless grace of Salaman Rushdie on speed, only more dangerously.

She understands me.

She's too good to be true. (She probably looks like a dog.)

She's perfect.

Kit slumps back in his chair, stunned.
*****

Jean slumps back in her chair, stunned.

He's too good to be true.

He's stoic, stolid, dependable, guileless, loyal, rather predictable and very boyish. He's a Nice Guy. There're no other words for it.

He's perfect.
*****

< LadyGray > So what do you get up to most nights?
< Kit > I mostly eat dinner at home. You know, after work, tired lah.

Pause. That sounded really sad.
Kit casts his mind around for something imaginary to spice up his life.

< Kit > Sometimes I go out with my frens. You know, drinking.

Yeah. That sounds nice and manly. Ohmygod. I hope she doesn't ask me what I drink...
He holds his breath... :

< LadyGray > Man with a busy schedule then. What are you doing tomorrow night?
< Kit > Oh. Not much. Watching TV. There's Nip/Tuck tomorrow.
< LadyGray > Oh. Wouldn't you prefer to save a poor damsel in distress from the distressing grasp of ennui?

Pause...

*****

< Kit > I don't knoe ne1 liddat. Who is Ennui? Nip/Tuck is very good btw.

She breathes out loudly and drums her fingers on the table in exasperation, batting down four other excited paramours popping up in their little windows with irritated clicks of her mouse.
How much less subtle does she have to be?

/me isn't doing anything tomorrow evening... will be bored to tears.

*****

Kit watches the words appear on his screen.

LadyGray isn't doing anything tomorrow evening... will be bored to tears.
< Kit > Oh. Why don't u watch...

wait. His Y chromosome kicks him hard in the seat of his skull. Girl. Free. Tomorrow night.

backspacebackspacebackspace

< Kit > Oh. Would u like to err, meet up for dinner?

long pause. Shite, maybe I was too direct?

< LadyGray > Dying to. =)    # Re-minisce denies liability.7/07/2004 03:35:00 am

Stars and Moon (chapter 3)

Chapter 3
Dead Sexy

This is Jean.
Right now, she's looking turning her head this way and that, critically appraising herself in a mirror.

Jean's the sort of girl who turns heads and diverts traffic (into lamp posts, and pedestrians) whenever she walks down the street. She's a shampoo advertisement on long, well-honed legs. Men don't so much swipe their eyes over her like a credit card, as pan over her slowly with infinite care, drinking in every precious detail like a horizon shot in a national geographic documentary. She's not so much eye candy as optical dinner, complete with fine dessert wine and complimentary cheese, caviar and a roast pig to boot.

Jean's got the full complement of exotic good looks that FHM usually takes 100 pages to describe. Men generally falter around page three and mysteriously excuse themselves to the lavatory for some strange reason.

Long luscious hair, immaculate eyebrows, coolly-amused but unexpectedly (ie when she wants them to be) soulfully expressive almond-shaped eyes, a delicately regal nose, and exquisitely perfect lips sit upon a neck made for sin. Her shoulders are just broad enough to suggest strength of character, without falling off the deep end into the testosterone-laden waters of club-wielding masculinity.

Let's gloss over the rest of her, including that waist to hip ratio guaranteed to turn other women sickly green with envy, and those long, lean legs that ooze sex appeal to men, women, and puppies alike.

And let's just say that those aren't the sum total of her (cough) assets.

She's also got a brain. A rapier-keen wit combined with a depth of perception that often leaves armchair philosophers in her wake sitting bemused on the floor wondering where their armchair's been spirited away to, simmer behind those coolly appraising eyes, waiting for that instant to leap out and devour her opponents alive.

And then spit them out, completely bewildered in mushy, well-masticated bite-sized chunks.

If she'd wanted to, she could easily have been a doctor, or a lawyer. Or a nuclear scientist, although, seriously speaking, nobody outside of characters from badly written novels or poorly scripted screenplays wants to be nuclear scientists nowadays.
Instead, she's a Political Dissident.

*****
He's staring balefully at the pills gently resting in the curve of his palm.
They're pretty pink pills. They stare back silently and eyelessly at him, and he can almost hear them imploring him to "eatttt meee!".

Kit's going through his second-ever start-life crisis. (The first one was at twenty, when he grew out of teenagehood and graduated from Boy to Boring.)

He's just been taking stock of his life...

At the grand old age of twentysomething, he's practically an old-man in fresh-faced, ephemerally beautiful teeny-bopper Singaland. Or so the media would have him believe. As if it isn't bad enough that he doesn't have a steady girlfriend, and hasn't had one since, well, since forever, everyone around him including mum, dad, Chee the family dog (and even Simon Notsos Lim on the radio) appears to be pointing jeering fingers directly at him and laughing. To add insult to, well, insult, several of his well-meaning friends have been subtly suggesting he take up a lifetime membership with SDU, the Singalanders Desperate-people's Union.

"You can get cheap holidays, and free food and electrical applicances from them! Really! All you have to do is marry some ugly person who you have zero chemistry with, for life! Is that a bargain or what?"

It doesn't help that his friends are all married to hot nymphomaniac chicks intent on reproducing like energiser bunnies, or maybe just going through the motions. Or so they tell him.

Kit hasn't had any in a while. Make that ever.
He's probably the world's oldest virgin, and it isn't even as if he's trying to save himself for anyone. His cup overfloweth, generally into the toilet bowl. Even Singalander slappers (who are women with loose morals, sorta like Jordan the UK starlet, sans the classy boob implants) give him a wide berth, and pretty much an entire ocean liner whenever he goes clubbing, which is really a Singalander euphemism for "on the pull".

Somewhere in the background, the radio is droning on and on (and on) about the wonders of marital bliss, cooking, and children (although not necessarily in that order). Simon Notsos Lim interviews some depressed twenty-five year old bloke who's whinging that he's old, and single, and how everyone looks at him funny when he's out on the street, and how incredibly lonely he feels. Sob, sniff, wail.
Simon sympathetically hears him out, then gently tells him in his calm, gentle and very gay voice that it's not about love, but marriage :
"Don't marry the woman you love, love the woman you marry!
Although, ahaha, for you it's probably too late now. You're on the shelf, buddy, you know, the top shelf where the woman can't, and don't really want to reach!"

Professionally, at least, Kit's somewhere on the map, he tells himself. His subconscious interjects : But it's in the bottom right-hand corner under that big compass thingie next to the Made in Hong Kong mark... Kit ignores it.

He has a steady job with a fancy Three-Lettered Abbreviation title (which is really short for a really, really long title which, in turn means very, very little) which involves crafting quality powerpoint slides for his boss to impress other bosses with. His years of studying _____ (insert choice of word here, they're really all the same thing) engineering are, of course being appropriately employed to the extreme. After all, it does take fine precision and a mathematical mind to make the text fit neatly into boxes, doesn't it?

He's never felt so unfulfilled in his entire life. His life doesn't just not have meaning. It doesn't even have life.
He knows ER doctors with more of a life than him, and that's
saying a lot.

This existential crisis is giving him a pounding headache.
He sighs and slams the pills home, with the help of a swig from his Naive mineral water, bottled from the cleanest and finest springs in JB, or so the advertising label claims. It's been that kind of day.    # Re-minisce denies liability.7/03/2004 08:37:00 am

Stars and Moon (chapter 2)

Chapter 2
This is my country

Zoom out.

This is Kit's home. It's about the size and shape of a shoebox, equipped with a state of the art television, sound system, and insta-ejectable windows born of tomorrow's technology...

Zoom out further.

Kit lives on the Fifteenth storey of a conglomeration of identical shoeboxes, stacked neatly into a structure looking suprisingly like a single large shoebox balanced on its side, known as an "HDB block". A cascade of windows falls dreamily towards the ground, shattering with pretty tinkling noises...

Pan, majestically.

Scores of HDB blocks regularly dot the horizon, interspersed with a healthy green salad of tropical trees, shrubs and herbs set in an immaculate grid...

Far below us, 1241911 Kits wander mechanically about their daily tasks, at work, play or trawling lazily for something nice to eat (which is a national past-time). 2500835 Kats, Barbies to their Kit-Kens cluster in little groups (no larger than seven) pointing derisively at individual Kits and giggling dismissively, and trawling The Street gently foaming at the mouth in search of something nice to wear.

Sometimes, brownian motion brings a Kit particle into individual contact with a Kat particle. The result ain't just chocolate, is all this author has to say. Chocolate doesn't come in quite that messy a concoction.

This is Singaland.
It's the kind of infuriatingly organised place you'd almost expect to see a giant white arrow hovering just out of sight, lingering over buttons marked "population growth", "economic development", "preserve racio-ethnic statis quo" and "decimate rival state". Indeed, sometimes at night if you strain your ears hard enough there's an occasional, ominously muted click...
It's also incredibly boring.    # Re-minisce denies liability.6/29/2004 01:29:00 am

Stars and Moon

(Warning. The following article may contain scenes of a sexual nature that some people may find objectionable, namely wrinkled old prunes and non-progressive subversive elements of society. Singapore is a progressive society. Remember that. It is the Law.)

(disclaimer - this article is an utter fabrication. Any uncanny resemblances to reality are wholly coincidental. It is also clearly a tasteless piece of low class rubbish, because it is not written in Good English. It contains words with more than two syllables. If you feel your brain beginning to overheat, stop reading immediately, and put your head under running water for at least thirty minutes. You should probably be advised to read a quality Good English website like http://xiaxue.blogspot.com instead, as you are obviously a connoisseur. Oops. I mean a person of Good Taste.)

A Singalander's Story
Chapter 1

This is Kit.
He's not very tall. Or good looking. Or smart.
He's so nondescript that he blends in, in a crowd of two. Sometimes, people walk into him on the Street (ie Orchard Road, because there is really only one Street in Singaland) and then stare glassily through him as they bump him repeatedly trying to pass.

He's very slightly pimply, and very slightly chubby, and his eyes are a little too small for his face. He wears spectacles with thick plastic frames, not so much for the fashion statement they make but because they were handed out free of charge during his period of national enslavement.

Kit carries himself with that slightly abrasive arrogance born of an immense inferiority complex. He's a loser, and he knows it.

He considers himself a cut above the type of guy that a certain type of girl brings home to meet the parents, who in turn roll their eyes in quiet resignation before drawing her aside and subtly suggesting she lose some weight and consider serious reconstructive facial surgery.

He's the sort of guy who, if he'd trained to be a doctor, or lawyer, would get approving nods from parents across the country.

Instead, he studied engineering. Girls don't bring him home very often in case he puts their parents into a permanent vegetative state. Once in a very long while, some nondescript girl will think that maybe she might just possibly, (although she's not too sure and needs to talk it over with all her friends first) ...maybe entertain the thought of potentially liking him. That's how feminine love works in Singaland, except when it comes to buying branded clothes or garish handphones, where it is always a case of love at first sight, and acquisition at second (with boyfriend firmly in tow).

In other words, Kit is the Archtypical Singalandic Male whose existence the media and government vehemently deny. According to official statistics, Singalandic men are long and strong in the beam, with appendages thicker and wider than their caucasian counterparts, and it is always a mystery to Big Brother why local women should prefer their American Born Chinese counterparts (side note, remember to summon that particular reporter for an official visit to the Istana sometime soon for re-education.)
Other countries have to invest millions of dollars in Witness Protection Schemes or Intelligence Agency Training Programmes to attain the level of non-identity Kit was born with. Kit, and others of his ilk live in Cognito, which is a state of mind.

This particular Kit, unlike his 1241912 counterparts across the country, is about to have a life-changing experience.

This Kit is about to die.

(to be continued)
    # Re-minisce denies liability.6/27/2004 09:50:00 am

Fresh Meat

DrGoat is proud to announce the imminent arrival of two new writers. I think. Well, the possible, imminent arrival. Maybe.
Well, we'll just have to wait and see. Twiddles thumbs.    # Re-minisce denies liability.6/20/2004 05:50:00 am

Disturbing

Scene 1

Two tall men moving in perfect synchrony, well-toned legs shafting purposefully and rhythmically out side to side, hands locked in passionate, enveloping embrace.

Get your minds out of the gutter. The longkang. The canal even. Or the Very Big Crack. (snicker. yes, yes, like nickers with the 'S' in a different place)

The setting : a park
The activity : blading
The country : Singapore.
hey? har? yeah. Singapore.

Scene 2

A large, kick-ass motorcycle with the purr of a very contented lion, sleek and powerful and oozing sexuality. Sitting astride it, two women, long brown hair billowing gently in the breeze. Okay, it's singapore, right. They're probably just good friends. Or maybe they're lovers.

Ooo. The pillion rider just put her hands up the driver's blouse / jacket. Uh. I guess they're good friends then. Um. Shouldn't this be illegal. It's very distracting. Who the hell's talking about her driver. I'm talking about me!

Scene 3

Exploring the New MOE with a friend, I discover that the biological sciences hub buildings (which look like they are about to take off into outer space any time) are appended almost directly onto the Ministry of Education.

Does anybody else find this disturbing, or is it just me? Stem Cell Research (hmm. looks like the Have Sex campaign, aka Passionate Singapore isn't quite getting off. getting off. snort. giggle.) and Education.
Cloning. And Education.

Ooo.
Cue Star Wars Episode 1 / 2 theme songs. Vats of cloned soldiers all waiting to be educated in the art of war....    # Re-minisce denies liability.6/14/2004 08:50:00 am

The "Pravda" Times gains popularity.

The Straits Times a teaching tool at ITE

THE Institute of Technical Education (ITE) joined The Straits Times Media Clubs for schools last month with a subscription of 100 copies a week for each of its five campuses.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, 50 copies of The Straits Times go out to each of the schools in the ITE West network at Ang Mo Kio, Balestier, Bukit Batok, Clementi and Dover, which have more than 9,000 students.

The newspapers are divided among the seven or eight teachers on each campus teaching communication skills for their use during lessons.

Teacher Sim Lai Choo, who has taught at Dover for more than 20 years, said: 'When I read The Straits Times, I see more than a collection of articles and advertisements - it's an invaluable teaching tool with relevant and engaging material which can improve students' English.'

She uses reports on movie stars and entrepreneurs to teach them how to identify key words and main ideas when reading, Forum letters for pointers on letter writing and comic strips as a basis for writing stories.

Copies of The Straits Times are also placed in campus libraries so students can browse them during breaks. Students at ITE West can take the papers home at the end of the day.

Joining The Straits Times Media Club network - which comprises 42 primary and secondary schools - enables ITE students to attend media camps during vacations and visit the newsroom for seminars with journalists and photographers.

This helps train ITE students as reporters and photographers for the school's newsletter, which is published twice a year, said head of academic studies Tham Mei Leng.

***

My impression of the standard of English grammar found in the aforementioned rag remains dodgy. If I were an English teacher, I would rather use articles from the Beeb website. I mean I would prefer my students to develop a global perspective towards the current issues than stick to just one or a few perspectives.

And of course, would I want my students to continue reading about the recent (but rather late) backlash against the recent "gentle" encouragement from the powers-that-be to procreate? First, someone blatantly linked the lack of stalls providing food around his area for their unwillingness to procreate and today, some lady rambled about how she was being discriminated against for being pregnant when she applied for a job.

"If I had known my pregnancy would deprive me of a job, I would not have tried to have a baby so early."

When people say things like this and it becomes more of a threat than a personal decision, something is strangely very wrong with our little wee speck of an island.

Er... That's my view anyway. :D    # D W denies liability.6/13/2004 09:15:00 pm

Reason Number 137,875 Why Singaporeans Need a Nanny (State)

Reproduced from the "Pravda Times" (before it disappears):

Falling birth rates? Here's food for thought

WHILE the cost of childcare and medical services have been identified as major factors for the decline of birth rates here, there is another factor, which may also be contributing to the decline, and that is food.

Food is a very basic need. When it is hard to get, this affects everything else.

Young couples, who can contribute most to the birth rate, are likely to be the ones setting up homes in new towns.

I seem to recall that the Housing Board, when asked why kitchens in the flats of these towns are so small, said such estates are designed for young couples who are likely to have a small family and unlikely to cook often.

Such a flat sounded suitable for me and my wife as both of us cannot cook and, in any case, don't have the time to do so. We booked a flat in Sengkang, trusting that it would have more hawker centres, coffee shops and food courts than the older estates to meet the needs of the 'non-cooking' families.

To our dismay, we found that there are no hawker centres in the Sengkang or Punggol new towns, and only three coffee shops and a handful of air-conditioned food courts to serve the whole of Sengkang and Punggol.

Compare these with an old estate such as Ang Mo Kio, which has about five hawker centres and countless coffee shops.

We have come to realise that a simple meal for us is a bus ride or a 15-minute walk away, and we have to pay about 20 per cent more for cooked food compared with prices at eating outlets in mature estates.

Once, as my wife and I were on our usual 15-minute walk for food, we concluded that it would be a smart move not to have children yet.

It is hard to imagine how we would be able to raise young kids in a place where it is so inconvenient to get a meal.

TOH YEOW CHYE

***

Wonder whether they will publish my letter if I complain of how the humid weather here will affect the chances me me getting married. Come to think of it, what could possibly stop them from printing a complaint letter about how queuing up for NDP tickets can affect one's performance on the bed?    # D W denies liability.6/10/2004 09:04:00 pm

The allure of the Singaporean-born Chinese man

The latest breed of men that our female comrades are apparently hankering after are Singaporean-born Chinese (SBC) working here.

Think actress Hen Yao Lian's husband Zhi-Yao Se and reality TV show Eye For A Comrade's Commie Zeng.

Hen, who has a reputation for not suffering fools gladly, melted under the charms of the SBC man and became Mrs Zhi-Yao in a hush-hush wedding in Toa Payoh this April. The couple are expecting a baby in June.

Meanwhile, Zeng, 36, a SBC teaching entrepreneurship at Su Zhou Industrial Polytechnic, has become a mini-celebrity of sorts after taking part in CCTV’s version of An Eye for a Male Comrade.

Although comrade Xiang Nan Ren, 23, chose waiter Ying You Shu as her man on the show, she is now dating Zeng, the runner-up.

On why she finds the SBC attractive, she says: 'I'm not with him because he's a SBC but more because of the chemistry we have. I'm English educated and I guess that's why it's easier to relate to him.'

While most comrades see SBCs as non-white expatriates, some are known to view them as fake ang mohs. Or, simply, white men with Singaporean packaging.

In other words, are our female comrades indulging their SPG sentiments without guilt because SBCs are 'Chinese'?

For when it comes to attracting local comrades, it seems that it's as easy as ABC for the SBCs.

Some say it's simply a case of Ready, Accent, Go!

Or is it?

To find out, Xing Hua Shang Pao spoke to about 20 female comrades aged between 18 and 40 for their views on SBC men.

Their verdict? The imported guys win hands down in the personality department.

Accounts executive Wo-Yao Nan De, 26, says: 'I think they're fun to be with because they dare to be different. They are just more eloquent, dynamic and worldly.'

The gentlemanly side of SBC men also scored big with local women.

'Basically, they know how to treat us well,' says marketing manager NanRen Hao, 25.

But if you're a male comrade, don't despair. And if you're an SBC guy, don't gloat yet. Read on.

While most of the women agreed that SBCs would make great friends, boyfriends and lovers, the general consensus is that they are not necessarily great 'husband material'.

'The difference in culture and mindset sometimes makes it hard to click with them. I prefer local men for the sense of familiarity they give me,' says student Xiang Qinghe, 19.

Human resource manager Wo Xiang Jia, 36, sums it up: 'They are good to be with but not good to marry because you never know how long they plan to stay. Local men can offer a better sense of security.'

Nice women a big draw

There are no official statistics on the number of SBCs in Motherland, but they are estimated to number about 50,000 out of the 120,000 to 150,000 Singaporeans living here.

Most are working in the media and banking industries, with an increasing number teaching in local universities.

The SBCs that LifeStyle managed to uncover average 1.6m in height (perchance due to a growing-up diet heavy on nasi lemak and chicken rice?) and, as a result, many are also part-time karaoke singers.

But what is it about Motherland that draws them here?

Tan Ah Kow, a 43-year-old businessman from Bedok, echoes a common sentiment: 'We SBCs, very difficult fit in anywhere perfectly la. When I'm in Singapore, I can speak like everybody else but I don't look like everybody else. That's why I came here. This is the closest that I belong. After all, it’s my Motherland!'

Besides job opportunities and cultural ties, one important pull factor for SBC men is our female comrades.

'Women here are more demure as compared to Singaporean women. In Singapore, gender lines are so blurred, it's nice to meet girls who behave more like nu ren,' says Zeng.

Wong Ah Beng, a 44-year-old bouncer from Bukit Ho Swee, adds: 'Chinese women can cook, look after the house, don’t complain, don’t demand the 5Cs and don’t nag. They are very, very attractive.'

It remains to be seen if more practical-minded of our comrades return that compliment.

Male comrades say...

BRING it on.

That's the consensus of 15 comrades Xing Hua Shang Pao spoke to when asked how they felt about competition from SBCs for our female comrades. There's nothing to be afraid of, they say.

'When an SBC comes along, they are attracted by the fact that they are different,' says Suan Poo Tao, 28, a farmer from Qingdao. 'But after the initial phase, they will realise that there's nothing special about SBCs and become bored easily. Afterall, what they have, we also have.'

The main attraction, they feel, centres on the Western ways of SBCs who still maintain their Chinese roots but have a Western outlook.

Thus, snagging an SBC is like getting the best of both worlds, with a 'get out of Motherland' blue card thrown in if the relationship works out, says talior Jiang Peng, 23.

'They're the next best thing after ang mohs for our female comrades. They've got the Singaporean slang, can talk better and they've got more money than most of us, if you're into that kind of thing,' he adds.

Local comrades can possess some Singaporean traits, but it's just not the same.

Production worker Zhi Jie Shuo, 29, says: 'While younger male comrades are generally more open than the older generation, at the end of the day, we are still chung kuo ren.'

While the comrades say they do not feel inferior to SBCs in terms of abilities and achievements, five admit that most local comrades simply lack the finesse that men from other cultures have when it comes to dating.

Engineering assistant Li Jie, 30, adds: 'We are what we think, and if one feels small compared to an SBC, then he will lose the attractiveness that the woman should be seeing.'

Clerk Duo Mao Dun, 28, says: 'I don't know whether it's a case of our female comrades being snapped up by SBCs, or whether local comrades are not doing enough to prove themselves.'

Some female comrades might also think that being with a SBC will bring them a better lifestyle.

'When we go to Myanmar or North Korea, some local girls throw themselves at us for the chance to live a better life away from their countries. So, local girls here also want a better life,' says Wo Ye Yao, 28, who runs an underwear factory.

Qu Wai Guo, 31, who works with a welfare organisation and spent about seven years studying in Singapore, offers this perspective.

'For all we know, they might be the guys who can't make it back home and treat their stint here as a stepping stone. They stay for a while and then fly off, leaving our poor comrade behind.'

Hoo is he?

IF Barry HOO were a local comrade, he would probably be chastised for the career choice he made a few years ago.

The SBC from Sengkang quit his well-paying job as a taxi driver to pursue an acting career in Xinjiang. He decided to seek his fortune in Motherland in 2001.

'I not happy there, but I'm much happier here,' says the affable 52-year-old who ended his education at Sengkang Primary School.

'Down here a lot of people like me, yellow skin? In Singapore, acting jobs for us men tan bo chiak. But here, the possibilities are almost endless! And I can be close to my true Motherland!'

To learn more about his roots and open more doors, the 1.62m-tall Zhong Jie Opera and Travelling troupe artist is taking an intensive Putonghua course at the Jilin Night School.

'Down here, learn Putonghua the best,' he says with a snigger. He can be seen performing with his troupe in the opera, A Dream of Red Mansions.

Not one afraid to speak his mind, he gives an unequivocal 'yes' when asked if he feels SBC men are more attractive than local comrades.

'Of course we better la, Singapore number one in many things, leh.'

Most SBCs here are more adventurous and outgoing because they are 'here for a purpose', says Hoo.

'When you compare us with your local men ah, they pao su one.'

A touch of Zeng!

WHEN Xing Hua Shang Pao arranged to meet Commie Zeng at a McDonald's restaurant, it was easy to spot him.

No, not because he had appeared on CCTV’s reality TV show Eye For A Local Comrade.

Neither was it because of his manly looks, which apparently is the reason his students at Suzhou Industrial Polytechnic do not skip his 'serious' classes.

The 36-year-old teacher was easy to spot because he had just finished eating five xiao long baos and was about to bite into another.

Looking slightly embarrassed, he confesses: 'Yeah, I eat a lot. For lunch, I usually have to eat two or three big paos on top of rice, meat and vegetables.'

The 1.54m-tall imported man is, technically, not an SBC. He was actually born in Malaysia. His parents, originally from China, had lived there since they were young. Zee moved to Woodlands with his family when he was six.

'There's very little about me that is Chinese other than my blood. I feel like there's a part of me that's been neglected for quite a while,' says the easy-going, potbellied man who also speaks Hokkien and Malay.

'To me, it's an important time to define my sense of self better and I want to do that while I'm young. Part of that is coming to China and learning more about our culture.'

He shakes his head apologetically when asked if he knows which village his ancestors come from.

'Oh, I have no idea, sorry. But I hope to find out before I leave Motherland.'

Asked if he is hit on by his female students, he says, chuckling: 'They see me every day, so I'm nothing special.'

He has extended his contract for another six months and admits shyly that it was done partly because of Xiang Nan Ren, whom he met on Eye For A Local Comrade.

'I didn't come here to meet a girl, but now the best thing about China is Nan Ren. She's the first female comrade I've met here that I can really relate to on a level where we can take it to a relationship.'

As all three of his former girlfriends were Singaporeans, his parents were actually 'resigned' to not having Chinese grandchildren.

Describing Xiang as 'intelligent, homely and traditional”, the primary school swimming champion stresses that it is because of his roly-poly image, he does not like girls 'with just looks'.

'I think my accent has a lot to do with that image - that I'm just looking for a good time. There are definitely a lot of negative stereotypes out there, but I'm not one of them.'

As for his long-term plans, he says: 'I want to stay in Motherland until I stop learning. I know that eventually I do want to go back to Singapore. That's where my family and friends are.

'As for Nan Ren and me, we try not to look so far ahead. That sort of thing kind of scares me actually. I just know I'll be here for another year at least.'

Give me women with ideas

Production Manager Humphrey Chin, 34, is not a man who minces his words.

On why he packed his bags and left his hometown Kampong Bahru in early 2001, he says: 'Because they fought over Hello Kitty.'

The explanation, delivered softly in a sad voice, comes so quickly it takes a moment to realise he is not joking.

For two months after he left, he lived in Hong Kong ('too expensive'), Taiwan ('I don't like Chen Shui Bian’) and Tokyo ('I don't speak Japanese') before deciding on China.

'It's Chinese-speaking, inexpensive and I love the weather.'

A graduate from Informatics, he has a degree in computer studies and calls himself a jack of all trades.

Insurance agent, bouncer, stall assistant, tuition teacher and VCD salesman are among the long list of jobs he has taken on in Singapore.

After arriving here three years ago, he became production manager at a fabric factory.

'I'm a hybrid, I have the best of both worlds. But culturally, I identify more with China than with Singapore,' says the unassuming man who speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and Malay, which he learnt in school.

Chin is currently dating a 'well-read, demure' local comrade - his second Chinese girlfriend.

'She's not opinionated. That's why I love her and she makes very good la mien.'

Asked point-blank if he thinks SBC men are stealing our local female comrades, he smiles and says: 'No more than white expat men.

'If your local comrades want to see it as a competition, that's fine. But it's a healthy competition.'    # D W denies liability.6/09/2004 02:01:00 am

Translating the News (into "Good English")

Fire, with Fire

(from:The allure of the American-born Chinese man
By Mak Mun San; Straits Times, Jun 6)

aka, shallow ch**bye

Wong, who has a reputation for not suffering fools gladly, melted under the charms of the ABC hunk and became Mrs Wu in a hush-hush wedding in Los Angeles last December. The couple are expecting a baby in October.

Obviously proof of SPG syndrome. no chance that he's actually a great guy that she really loves.

While most Singaporeans see ABCs as non-white expatriates, some are known to view them as fake ang mohs. Or, simply, white men with Asian packaging.

0% of Singaporeans saw them as people. It does matter if you're black or white. Or white-yellow, or yellow-yellow. Or green, or purple, or tinky winky.

Their verdict? The imported guys win hands down in the personality department.
Accounts executive Sim Wai Hoon, 26, says: 'I think they're fun to be with because they dare to be different. They are just more eloquent, dynamic and worldly.'

Hmm. Speak Good English movement meets Passionate Singapore - Hi. I'm Tan. wanna fuck?
Exciting and stimulating growth-inducing environment, catalysed by abundance of free speech and self expression.
Whaddaya mean our guys have no personality?

'Basically, they know how to treat a lady well,' says marketing executive Sharon Lim, 25.

(ie, don't take out the club and hit them on the head untill they're in the bedroom)

While most of the women agreed that ABCs would make great friends, boyfriends and lovers, the general consensus is that they are not necessarily great 'husband material'.

Wa. Today's husband has to be more than friend, boyfriend, and lover. Time to hang up the club boys, and get out the feather duster.

'The difference in culture and mindset sometimes makes it hard to click with them. I prefer local men for the sense of familiarity they give me,' says student Serene Ho, 19.

Oh! I get it. Anyone remember this one : "love the man you marry, don't marry the man you love". We stand in the shadow, nay the Lee, of wise words indeed!

Human resource manager Tay Siok Ching, 32, sums it up: 'They are good to be with but not good to marry because you never know how long they plan to stay. Local men can offer a better sense of security.'

Translation : made in Singapore. A brand you can trust.

Jackson Pek, a 33-year-old lawyer from San Francisco, echoes a common sentiment: 'As ABCs, we don't really fit in anywhere perfectly. When I'm in the US, I can speak like everybody else but I don't look like everybody else. That's why I came here. This is the closest that I belong.'

Transl (editors insert : too many syllables, please find another word) - Turn into Good English Version -
I'm a sad loser. Nobody likes me in the US. Think I'll go eat worms. Or maybe I'll go to Singapore. Yeah they'll like me there, I'll fit in. After all, I'm different.

'Women here are more demure as compared to American women. In the US, gender lines are so blurred, it's nice to meet girls who are feminine,' says Zee.

Good English Version
American women don't want to fuck me. It must be because they're too macho, and they're big enough to fight me off. Singaporean girls are small and weak. And they don't talk back.

Holman Chin, a 34-year-old screenwriter from San Francisco, adds: 'Singapore women are multi-cultural, multi-lingual, athletic and sophisticated. They are very, very attractive.'

Good English Version
... there is no translation for this one - that would be anywhere approximating the truth, anyhow. Snicker.

Personal thoughts : Yeah, right. Play it again Sam. While we're dishing out stereotypes, why don't we say it like it really is? Singaporean women are short, whingy, and insecure about themselves. And Holman Chin is obviously a consummate diplomat. Laughs.
Disclaimer - some Singaporean women are truly remarkable, and are witty, sophisticated, and highly evolved. And dare I say, very very attractive. The same is true across the world, about English women, and American women, and even (gasp) Australian women. Many of them are dead.

Postgraduate student Lim Wah Long, 27, says: 'While younger Singaporean guys are generally more Westernised than the older generation, it's a pseudo-Western thing. Singaporeans are neither here nor there.'

half brit, half yank. 50% male. The "best" of all worlds.

Public relations executive Gary Gan, 28, says: 'I don't know whether it's a case of our local women being snapped up by ABCs, or whether local Chinese men are not doing enough to prove themselves.'

Or maybe even of local media presenting less than half of the real picture? I personally, as a purebred Singaporean-Singaporean, think that blond women have such wonderful hair. And nice blue eyes. And beautiful smiles, and laughs. And are even occasionally intelligent. And their legs go on forever...swoon.

'When we go to Thailand or China, some local girls throw themselves at us for the chance to live a better life away from their countries. So, local girls here also want a better life,' says Herman Loo, 28, who runs an investment company.

Funny that. Singaporean men go to China to find women who are more "demure, athletic and feminine" no? MUAHAHAHAHA

'For all we know, they might be the guys who can't make it back home and treat their stint here as a stepping stone. They stay for a while and then fly off, leaving the girl behind.' -- SHERWIN LOH

And there might be guys who stay forever. Probably due to brain tumours or severe head injury. Geez Louise, who would want to stay in a dump like Singapore, where everyone's eyes are so blinded by stereotypes that there's no room for reality?

Garett Hoo, 32, California. -- ALAN LIM
'I don't live as materialistically as I did, but I'm much happier here,' says the affable 32-year-old who studied at San Francisco State University.

Wa. he doesn't live as materialistically as he did. Must be a Beverley Hills boy.

'Where else can I do what I enjoy doing in a place where I'm the majority in an English-speaking country? In the US, acting jobs for Asian-American men are so few and far between. But here, the possibilities are almost endless.'

Speak Good English :
No need talent to act here. Coooool!

'I'm still very self-conscious about ordering food in Mandarin,' he says with a laugh. He can currently be seen in the Channel 8 serial Man At Forty playing an ABC playboy, Thomas.

(So he does it fluently in Cantonese, the lingua franca of the rest of the Chinese World)

(editor - simi lingua franca. This is good english movement okay!! take it out! Now!)

Sir, yessir.

'I feel it actually has made me more popular among both men and women. The women see a guy who is not afraid of himself and the men see a guy they can relate to.'

heh. The gay men, he means. Oo. Freudian slip.

He says he has had six relationships in the past but is not seeing anyone at the moment.

Not enough hunky men?

'Singapore men lack something. I know a lot of guys who are very, very nice. But that's what they are, they're nice. The edginess is missing.'

Speak Good English : Bastards always win. Hit your woman daily, with a big stick. This will ensure obedience and faithfulness.

'When you compare us to local guys who are content with the status quo, they will pale somewhat in comparison.'

Speak Good English : Thank God for my Instant Tan cream

But he points out that the reverse is also true. 'The Singaporeans I've met in the US also have a sense of adventure. I guess getting them out of the norm is when they come alive.'

Or maybe the clever rats leave the sinking ships first?

Mark Zee
The 1.84m-tall imported hunk is, technically, not an ABC. He was actually born in Brazil. His parents, originally from China, had lived there since they were young. Zee moved to Minneapolis with his family when he was six.

That's no good then. He's not even a REAL ABC. He's some cheap brand we've never heard about. Born in Brazil! Pah.

'To me, it's an important time to define my sense of self better and I want to do that while I'm young. Part of that is coming to Asia and learning more about Asian culture.'

(them picture books just weren't good enough see. Y'all know the sort. Lotus flower penetrated by stork, position number #3301, etc?)

'I didn't come here to meet a girl, but now the best thing about Singapore is Rachel. She's the first girl I've met here that I can really relate to on a level where we can take it to a relationship.'

(SGEM : nice tits and ass.)

'As for Rachel and me, we try not to look so far ahead. That sort of thing kind of scares me actually. I just know I'll be here for another year at least.'

(SGEM : ran out of money for airfare home, and the sex is good)

Jackson Pek, 33, California. -- ENRIQUE SORIANO
'I'm a Singaporean American,' the 33-year-old declares proudly in his American twang.
'That's the difference between me and all the other ABCs. I've ties here.'

...Wah. He's so special man. He da man. Lah.

'ABCs are gentlemanly, yes, but a lot of things we do are superficial, like opening doors. Local men have a long-term intention to build a family and take care of their in-laws.

"ABCs are gentlemanly, yes." HAhaha. Brand name X is the best! But Brand name X can only open doors. Brand name Y leaves your laundry spotlessly clean and mediates wars too!

'Marry a local man. We may be fun to go out with, but you may have some nasty surprises down the road. We're very non-committal. It's an American thing.'

Yep. Look at the Gulf, no good reason to committ to a war, no good reason to continue it, and look where we are today! It must be an American thing.

Holman Chin :
'She's opinionated. That's why I love her. I can't go out with anyone complacent. But she says she has intimidated a lot of local guys.'

Hmm. What was that about the Local Women label being all demure and sophisticated again? HAHahahahahahahahaha

Know your ABCs How old are they? 20s to 30s. Where are they from? All over the United States, but primarily from San Francisco and New York. What do they do? They work in a wide range of sectors, but mostly in the media and banking industries, with an increasing number teaching in local universities. Where do they stay? River Valley, Orchard Road and Bukit Timah areas. Where do they eat? Restaurants which offer large and/or unlimited servings of meat, places which serve dumplings and hawker centres. Where do they buy their groceries? Cold Storage. Where do they shop? In the US, as there is a variety of styles and sizes not available here.What do they wear? What most Americans wear - T-shirts and jeans. Brands like Hugo Boss, Richard Tyler, Zara and Levis are popular. Where do they hang out? The American Club, gyms, cafes in River Valley and Holland Village and Borders. What sports do they like? Basketball, tennis and running. What do they drive? BMWs. What kind of girls do they like? Girls who like them despite their accents. What kind of girls do they dislike? Girls who like them because of their accents. What else do they like? Black T-shirts and the words 'definitely' and 'absolutely'.

Speak Good English :
Meat Market! Laaaddiiies, Step right up! Purchase your All American Schlong today! Lasts for hours and hours without need for charging! Pleasure guaranteed!!

Disclaimer : re-minisce hastens to add that his tongue was firmly in cheek whilst writing this, and if any of you big, ripped, scarey ABCs take offence he's really, really sorry. Uh same goes for Ms Rachel whosit whatsit. Both of her.    # Re-minisce denies liability.6/08/2004 08:06:00 pm