Poh looked at Yeo with her signature blank stare. ‘I’ve sleepless nights. I feel like a criminal,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry, you’ve already covered your tracks. Nobody will be able to catch you.’ Yeo raised his cup of tea. ‘Cheers!’
With hesitation, Poh raised her cup. Both clanked their cups.
‘One more cheers to all those healthy and younger-looking ladies who have used the anti-aging cream,’ Yeo announced, and both sipped their tea in unison.
‘I … I still can’t understand how did you manage to bargain so much money for us,’ Poh said. ‘I was thinking that at most, David will give me about $25,000.’
‘Impressed by my game plan?’ Yeo smiled and pointed a finger at his chest. ‘I told you, if you cooperated with this ah beng, he would make you a millionaire.’
‘I salute your negotiation skills.’ In an odd fashion, Poh raised her hand to her head. With the other hand, she picked up a peanut using her chopsticks and dropped it in her mouth.
‘Since the day David insulted me, and told me that I was a frog in the well, I’d decided to take revenge on him. Beh tahan.’ Yeo punched his face.
‘I was so scared when I added those extra toxins in the samples. What if David finds out in the future?’
‘Look, you never did anything like that. You understand?’ A streak of anger scurried across Yeo’s face.
‘Ya.’ Poh lowered her head. ‘But my whole body shakes whenever I think about it.’
‘Aiyah, as a retiree, you should think about money, not about the work you did in the past.’
‘True. With so much of money, even if I spend $2,500 every month from now, it will last for more than thirty years.’
‘If you think that it’s too much, just give me whatever you can’t spend. Do you remember the day when we were young and I had proposed to you?’ Yeo winked. ‘If we had so much money at that age, hoo-oo!’ He made a loud, joyous sound.
Poh blushed like a small girl. ‘No point talking about the past. Now, already so old.’
‘Old, but with a pot of gold.’
‘Ya.’ Poh nodded. ‘How will you spend the money? Go on a tour of Europe and America, or try your luck at the Resorts World casino?’
‘I’ve some secret plans. Can’t tell you,’ Yeo said with a mischievous glint in his eyes.
‘Don’t overspend.’
‘Of course, I won’t overspend!’ Yeo dismissed her with a wave of his hand. ‘Anyway, talking about America, Crystal wants to go there to do her MBA. I want to give her a surprise by sponsoring her course. Later, I want to tell David that my daughter can also earn an MBA, just like him. I want to see his face!’
‘I heard Siew Eng doesn’t need any surgery, just like me.’
‘Ya. Thank God.’ Yeo brought out a book on Chinese proverbs from his backpack, and gave it to Poh. ‘Returning you the yanyu book. It came in very handy.’
‘How?’
‘Read this.’ Yeo opened the book and pointed at a proverb.
‘The sheep has no choice when in the jaws of the wolf.’ Poh read the proverb and shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
Yeo straightened his posture. ‘David forced me to turn into a corporate wolf from a frog, and I dragged him into my mouth, under the pretext of being a sheep. Mr Tsoi was my fake tooth, while you were my real teeth. Do you get me?’
Poh looked around with a stealthy look. Then, with a naughty grin, she declared, ‘No matter who you are—wolf or sheep or frog—but for me, you’re the man with a heart. Next time, if you want to use me as a tooth, make sure that your mouth is clean. I don’t want to get involved in any dirty, criminal stuff.’
‘Sure, sure, Miss Millionaire.’ Yeo laughed heartily.
PRANAV S. JOSHI is a multitalented environmental professional, novelist and poet. His multicultural novel, Behind a Cultural Cage, which presented the life story of a Chinese-Indian man, was heartily received by the literary circles. Pranav holds a PhD in Chemistry and an MSc in Environmental Engineering.
‘The Murder Blog of Wilde Diabolito’ by Chris Mooney-Singh
‘EACH MAN KILLS THE THING HE LOVES’
13 JUNE 2010
I plan to kill someone. That person is very close to me. If you want to know who, when and how it will happen, then stay in touch with my blog and see what you can figure out. It will be a conscious act. A matter of honour. You may believe you can stop me, but … In fact, for the record, let me categorically state:
I, Wilde Diabolito, being of sound mind and body, am writing with a sober disposition, without evidence or any diagnosis of insanity—congenital, inherited or otherwise—lodged against me at this time, that I am planning a murder.
I will openly tell you the steps, the time and the means by which I will commit this act and none of you will be able to do anything about it. Don’t bother reporting my Net address to the police or any other authority. I have technically ensured that you will not be able to track me online. This site is now being routed through countless servers across the globe. I could be anywhere, although I may drop some hints about my location, just for the hell of it. You see, I will prove to you that a crime can be done in full public view—and what better way in this day and age than to document it online?
I reiterate: none of you anywhere will be able to stop this murder from taking place.
posted by Wilde Diabolito 3.30 p.m.
2 Comments >>
13 June 2010, 7.31 p.m.
Black Sparrow said:
Is this for real? You sound like a maniac.
13 June 2010, 9.27 p.m.
Wilde Diabolito said:
What is real, Black Sparrow? You yourself are hiding a ‘real’ life behind a fictive name. Thanks for stopping by.
* * *
‘BY EACH LET THIS BE HEARD’
14 JUNE 2010
Although I have not written anything before, I believe I am as much a writer as any one of you. I have the intention to be a writer, albeit a murderous one, and I declare it now. Who can stop me from publishing myself and documenting this upcoming crime and turning it into literature? (The quality of which, I will leave to others to decide.) I have only to state my intent and create immortality through words.
I am not some brainless thug moved by animalistic urges. Quite the opposite. And there are solid reasons for this coming execution; you will understand later why I have chosen to ‘blog it’, as they say.
Let me give you a literary precedent for my crime. Oscar Wilde, my namesake and the presence hovering over this screen once wrote: ‘Each man kills the thing he loves.’ He was reporting a real life crime that he learned of during his stint in Reading Gaol between 1895-7. For those who don’t remember, the authorities incarcerated Wilde for ‘obscene acts’ and while inside, he witnessed the hanging of one Charles Thomas Wooldridge, who had at one time been a Trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. The unfortunate man was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura Ellen. He was thirty years old when sent to the gallows. Of course, it was a ‘crime of passion’ and yes, she was having an affair with someone else at the time, which the young and impassioned husband came to know of.
Meanwhile, Oscar Wilde was so moved by the circumstances of this young man’s act that he wrote it all down in a pamphlet poem called The Ballad of Reading Gaol. (A pamphlet being, in those days, equivalent to the immediacy of an online blog.)
When it came out, it was an overnight sensation.
The poem was published under the pseudonym of C.3.3, Wilde’s block number during his two years of hard labour. Anyone could have done their homework and discovered the author, but the poet remained undiscovered, proving a basic point of my thesis—that one can write or commit acts under the noses of the public and not be found out. The name Oscar Wilde did not appear until seven editions later.
I have shared this information simply because Oscar Wilde’s line, ‘Each man kills the thing he loves’ is a grim reality that you, Reader, should remember. It is
not outside the reach of any man or woman, when pressed, to contemplate such an act. No, I do not advocate murder just for the sake of it. Yet one day, you may also be subject to similar internal pressures, emotions and circumstances, and this blog may become a useful frame of reference, a crib for your crime, so to speak, and guide you through the darkness at such a moment.
For my part, I admit to making one similar mistake in my life that now needs to be rectified. Perhaps too preoccupied with a life of military service, I realised the years had flown and then, at a late age, I had no child to carry on the family name. Although I have never been much interested or experienced with women, the fact is, I wanted—no, needed—a son to give me a sense that my name would remain in the world. One night, I met a young waitress who seemed the answer to my need. After showering her with gifts and promises of comfort and life-long security, she agreed to marry me, despite the vast difference in our ages. This is what I am documenting here, Dear Reader. Take note: this is the story of the restoration of honour following an old man’s folly.
Thus, I now see writing this blog as my public duty. Having served my country all my life, it is now time to serve a wider humanity by sharing the past two years of a hell no decent man should have to endure. No, this is not a serial crime that I am embarking on: I plan to produce a one-off, clean-cut masterpiece as perfect as the deep affection I once shared for the One in question before love soured life. I wish to share it also as some kind of cautionary tale, inspired by Wilde’s next line: ‘By each let this be heard.’ Yes, I, like him, have a moral purpose: he felt human pity for Wooldridge and his poem is a slap on the bearded jowls of the British legal and penal system. I also wish you to understand that the person I am about to commit to the next world was once the dearest thing I possessed in the world.
The last thing I wish to say, by way of explanation and not defence, is that a murder is, by all social norms, an unthinkable act; and yet, such unthinkable actions are committed daily by some of the most thoughtful and handsome-minded people. I do believe motive and act should not be separated in this discussion and that what we hold as dear and sacred may not stand up today under forensic investigation.
posted by Wilde Diabolito at 9.30 a.m.
2 Comments >>
14 June 2010, 11.31 a.m.
Way of the Panda said:
You compare yourself with Oscar Wilde. You’ve even taken his name as inspiration, an authority figure to justify what you say you are going to do. Wilde was just some sick dude who got a bad taste of prison life because he played naughty with his boyfriends. You have no authority either. Your blog is wack and should be shut down.
14 June 2010, 12.57 a.m.
Wilde Diabolito said:
Dear ‘Way of the Panda’: I am sorry you obviously haven’t read much and have no liking for the works of Oscar Wilde. Others have. In any case, I am not blogging to entertain you or any other Panda in cartoonish ways. I am simply stating facts and there will be a reckoning if you have the guts to stick around.
* * *
‘SOME DO IT WITH A BITTER LOOK’
15 JUNE 2010
Of course, we kill each other daily with a sour apple glance. It grows like a bad seed, appearing after the rosy period of romance has fallen off the tree. Then the season of cynicism sets in, like an overcast sky when the hard wind rolls into town one day and you find yourself in the grip of someone’s displeasure, short temper and accusations, someone’s slight, yet gigantic irritation.
You don’t quite know how and when it began. Was it an accumulation of small irritants that gradually all piled up? The way I tended to leave my wet towel on the bed after a shower, or my quiet, methodical reading of historical books in my study? Then, there was my snoring. This was the excuse she used to finally move into the baby’s room, our darling Baby’s room. I could take all that. I was a patient man. I could put up with nights alone in our double bed, while from the next room, I heard laughing and … I do not want to talk here of the all disgusting things that I heard. But even that I endured, rationalising as an older man must when he is no longer as ‘useful’ to a young woman at her sexual peak.
But when she began to divulge our private life and her disgust for me, I knew she had no shame. It had gone too far. I began to look sourly back at love and the one I had opened my life, home and bank account to. Yes, she knew I was observing her, yet she literally laughed in my face.
‘Well, what can you do about it?’ she said. ‘I live in my own house now. If you try to divorce me, you’ll be the loser: I will wipe you out!’
A man can only stand so much of a woman’s cuckolding and contempt before something snaps and he finds himself waking up in the middle of the night seething with a rage and darkness that he did not know existed in him. It hits one like a delayed knockout punch—how she loathes the feel of your old body, its flabby flesh, greying chest hair, the bald spot and now the sourness coming from your armpits, which she said was the smell of your slow decay. She cannot stomach you. That revulsion happened almost the day after we lost Baby, that beautiful boy, waking up one morning and finding a tiny corpse in the crib. It was as if the little one had opted out of this life of impending problems and died anonymously, a cot death.
She blamed me, of course, as a woman must and I blamed her inwardly for her lack of motherly affection—how Baby was so often left alone crying in the crib, while she was either on the computer or talking on her phone. Yes, I was to blame. It will always be a man’s fault.
After that, she went into a shell and clamped up. Now she claimed that she couldn’t stomach the idea of having sex with an ‘old person’. In fact, she said she was too depressed to think about relationships anymore. That was a lie. But what can one say under such circumstances to a girl more than thirty years your junior, yet still your legal wife? She had been my latter-day mistake. I’d fallen head over heels out of my safe boat of bachelorhood into the choppy ocean of marriage. However, a man, even an older one, has rights too, doesn’t he?
From that time on, despite her claim about the end of relationships, she began a double life of late night online meetings and rendezvous. She would go shopping and accumulate unnecessary clothes, handbags and shoes. I don’t know where she got the money from, as I had capped her allowance. Perhaps it was to spite me, but I could hear her in the next room loudly getting ready to whore around with almost any wolverine she met up with—perhaps in a club, or friend’s house, even in some public park up against a tree. I imagined all the possible scenarios.
I am a true product of the State I have lived in and served most of my life, and all my experience has prepared me for the coming role of judge and executioner. No one else knows her as I do and can fairly adjudicate in this case. It is up to me alone to set the balance of nature right. Death is a part of life. Violent death is a law of the jungle, and there are still in this country pockets of green liana and viper nests. I would have felt such ideas repugnant before, but now I realised there was no other way. It was now a matter of honour as well as justice.
From this point, I was no longer looking to the future of the relationship: I was actively planning the end of it. This is the nature of the beast I am reflecting upon for your benefit, Blog Voyeurs. I mean, isn’t it a fact that all this personal material is becoming the province of your interest? Are you not now compelled to return for regular updates on the life and times of Wilde Diabolito, the man who will, in the near future, commit a murder?
posted by Wilde Diabolito at 11.17 a.m.
2 Comments >>
15 June 2010, 1.31 p.m.
Little Twilight said:
Dear Mr Diabolito, are you trying to scare us? I mean I’ve watched movies where girls get their necks chewed open by vampires and seen the daily news with suicide bombs going off all over the Middle-East. So what’s the big deal, huh?
15 June 2010, 11.54 p.m.
Wilde Diabolito said:
Indeed. What is the big deal? You think that all this is som
e game, something to entertain. You think of this as on the same soulless level as some thrill-seeking advertisement for Red Bull. You only seek the result of titillation, not the motive behind why I would kill someone. I believe you are too young to understand what might happen to you one day in the arms of your own future Love Mugger. May you grow up fast, Little Twilight.
* * *
‘SOME DO IT WITH A FLATTERING WORD’
16 JUNE 2010
I am glad some interest is stirring. It flatters me a little I admit to think that after just three postings, I am building a small readership and that some of you are moved, or at least interested enough, to be repelled by what I am saying here each day. Yes, Commentators, you are becoming my accomplices, although you can’t see that far into the future. Yet by coming to this blog site, your mental energy is already beating in time with the pulse of a crime in the making.
So dear Blog Followers, your comments, ideas, however reactive, childishly sentimental or puerile are appreciated by this writer. You are now part of the fabric of what I am proposing here. I speak out for cold-blooded honesty, clean-cut results born from clear motives. This is my personal matter, yet political to the extent that bigger crimes than mine are committed by murderous regimes in the name of Harmony and World Peace. Let us stand against hypocrisy: To kill for love is a purer kind of killing than for power or economic annexation, wouldn’t you say? Love is my motive. In my own way, I am still in love and will kill the thing I love out of a belief in the same lasting sentiment.
posted by Wilde Diabolito at 4.10 p.m.
6 Comments >>
16 June 2010, 8.12 p.m.
Black Sparrow said:
I’m outta here, you dumb fuck.
16 June 2010, 8.27 p.m.
Way of the Panda said:
If you think we are going to play your game and create bad karma for ourselves, you have another think coming, Diabolito. I am not coming back!
Crime Scene: Singapore Page 8
