2014 Campbellian Anthology

by Various

  For a moment, Boon looked almost wistful. “Aiyah. Nevermind lah. I was thinking we should take a vacation ourselves. To Bali or somewhere else nice. Just for a few days. It would be like our stupid business plan finally became a success. But nevermind lah. Let’s faster eat and go back.”

  Nicholas smiled. “Okay.”

  By night, the island seemed quieter. The gritty heat of daytime faded to a kind of humid darkness that pressed against the orange bustle of the hawker center from all sides. Cicadas shrieked from the bushes, their cries mixing with the clatter of plates and forks, beer glasses and laughter. Across the strait, the bright lights and tall buildings of Singapore stood like a distant, vague reminder.

  Boon raised his beer glass. “To the fleeps,” he announced.

  Nicholas clinked his glass against Boon’s. “To the fleeps.”

  • • •

  On the way back, they heard the shouting even before they reached the hotel. Nicholas and Boon glanced at each other, then sprinted to the door as fast as they could.

  The Malay couple, Mr. and Mrs. Abdul, were standing in the lobby across from the biggest brindlefarb, Kosong. Mr. Abdul and Kosong were staring daggers at each other. Mrs. Abdul and the three little farbs stood off to one side, looking anxious. One of the little farbs sported an awkward pair of flippers on its feet—a trail of wet sand traced its way in from the front door. The littlest one had a sheet of ice frozen around its waist in a ring, like a tutu.

  “Bloody hell man,” said Mr. Abdul, who had his back to Nicholas and Boon. He was slightly overweight, with a thick moustache and short black hair that curled tightly on his head. His face shone red. “Is this why it was so bloody cold last night? My wife has cough you know. We were shivering like mad. You creatures have no conscientiousness!”

  “Fleep!” said the brindlefarb angrily.

  “Ahmad,” said Mrs. Abdul in a pleading tone. She was a slender woman with a pretty face, gentle but lined. She noticed Nicholas and Boon and went over to grab her husband’s arm. “Let’s go. Please?”

  Mr. Abdul turned, noticing Nicholas and Boon. “You! You also, you bloody bastards. How can you do this with a clear conscience? My wife has cough you know!”

  “That’s enough, Ahmad.” Mrs. Abdul pulled her husband across the lobby, towards the back door.

  “This is ridiculous!” he announced once more, before storming out of the lobby.

  Drip. Drip. Drip. The ring of ice around the littest farb continued melting, the only sound in the room.

  “Fleep!” said Kosong angrily, glaring at Nicholas. He spun suddenly on one leg, whirling in three full circles. “Fleep!”

  The air grew cold. A low, moaning sound emanated from Kosong, vibrating the air and increasing in intensity until Nicholas had to cover his ears.

  “Fleep!” he said again, and this time two light bulbs on the ceiling shattered, showering the darkened floor with tiny ice chips.

  Kosong turned and marched out the back door towards his room. The three farbs traded worried glances, then hurried after him.

  “Wah lan eh,” said Boon, when they were gone. “So intense.”

  Nicholas’s face burned. He stepped over the trail of wet sand on the lobby floor and sat down on the sofa. It was wet.

  Boon sat down at the counter and looked at the ceiling. “Too cold. Really? First time I ever heard that here.”

  Nicholas nodded.

  “They even leave their air con on all day.”

  “I know.”

  Boon sighed. “This not good, hor.”

  “Not good lah.”

  Boon sucked in his breath. “Nicholas. What if they leave? They could just pack up and go overnight. Without paying.” A stomachache of a look passed over his face.

  “I know.”

  Boon stood up. “Maybe I can swap rooms with the Malays tonight. Since we only got the two rooms at the bungalow, maybe they can stay in my room and I can stay in theirs. I dun mind cold.”

  “Are you kidding? You sleep on a 5cm mattress in a tiny computer room.”

  “How about your room?”

  “My room is the same size as their toilet room.”

  “Oh.” Boon sat back down and fiddled with the “Be Right Back” sign.

  Nicholas felt the icy water seep through his shorts.

  “Eh, Nicholas. If we have to choose, I say we get rid of the Malays, right or not?”

  “What?”

  “The Malays. We can move them to another hotel. Sucks lah, but if we lose the aliens…”

  “I know, I know. I thought of that already.”

  “So? We can call up Desmond Chia, see if he got any vacancy or not.” He picked up the phone. “I just call to check-check first ah?”

  Nicholas frowned. “Wait.”

  “Wait what wait?”

  “Let me think.”

  Boon put the phone back down. “Think think think. You always want to think only.”

  But Nicholas didn’t answer. He was piecing together the beginnings of an idea.

  • • •

  At 10:35pm that night, the Abduls heard a knock at the door. When they opened it, they found a large basket containing three hot water bottles and two extra sets of towels, blankets and pillows, overlaid with a spray of purple bougainvilleas and a handwritten note. The note said:

  “Please accept our sincerest apology apologies. We wish you and your wife good health and a comfortable night. Live long and prosper. Signed, Your Upstairs Neighbors.”

  At 10:39pm, Mr. Khssyy’g Mrglgrgl opened the door to find a large basket stacked high with hot water bottles, overlaid with a note and three novelty ice cube trays, in which water would freeze in the shapes of animals, numbers, and vehicles. The note said:

  “We are sorry for our outburst earlier. Please accept this gift for your children. We apologize, and hope someday to be as gracious, handsome, and financially giving as you. Selamat datang. Signed, Your Downstairs Neighbors.”

  Nicholas slept well that night.

  • • •

  They mopped the lobby at least twice a day. They blow-dried and sponged off the sofa. For two and a half hours each day, they cleaned the brindlefarbs’ room together. They boiled water to refill the hot water bottles, froze water to fill the ice buckets, washed sheets and hung them up to dry in the sun. At night, they ate satay, smoked cigarettes, and slapped at mosquitoes by the ferry pier. The “Employee Only” room remained empty, except for one day when Nicholas followed some strange sounds and found the littlest brindlefarb locked in fierce competition with Boon’s computer.

  “Fleep!” said the farb, glaring intensely at the monitor.

  “Congratulations.”

  “FLEEP!”

  “Congratulations.”

  “FLEEP!!”

  Nicholas shut off the computer and herded the little eyeball out of the room.

  He went through their finances one afternoon, line by line. Boon was right. If they survived this ordeal, they would have five hundred and forty left over at the end just for them. Enough for a trip to Bali and forty dollars in the savings account. A break would be nice, thought Nicholas. For once in their lives, they could be the ones leaving messes and making unreasonable demands.

  They defused another disaster on the third day, when the little farbs accidentally trapped the Abduls in their room by freezing the lawn into shards of razor-sharp ice. Boon raced out to the Indian mama store, bought a $25 rug, sliced it into long pieces and laid out a red carpet for the Abduls when they emerged in a cloud of steam, sleepy-eyed and hungry for breakfast.

  Whenever he saw the Abduls and the brindlefarbs together, Nicholas’s heart threatened to seize up. He and Boon scrambled to keep the stream of mutual gifts flowing each night—five dollars here, two ninety-nine there. A matching pair of blue-and-pink earmuffs for the Malays one night, one giant sunmonocle for Kosong on the next.

  The earmuffs, surprisingly, were the harder item to come by.

  • • •

>   Nicholas awoke one morning to the sound of Boon banging on his door.

  “Nicholas! Eh, Nicholas!”

  He leapt out of bed and opened the door.

  “What? What happen?”

  Boon had a slightly manic look. “We did it! They all checking out today!”

  Nicholas felt a slow grin spread across his face. It had been the longest five days of his life, but he had done it. They had done it. Nicholas washed his face, brushed his teeth, combed his hair and was sitting at the counter before 9am. Check-out time was 11.

  At 10:59, Kosong and Mr. Abdul came marching up through the back door. Nicholas put his phone away and straightened up.

  They did not look pleased.

  Mr. Abdul’s face was so red it was almost purple. Kosong’s gaze could have melted Superman.

  “Now listen here,” said Mr. Abdul when he saw Nicholas. “You bloody hoaxster.” He pointed an accusing finger, holding up his hotel receipt with his other hand.

  Kosong held up his receipt too, balancing on one leg.

  “How do you explain this price discrepancy?”

  Nicholas squeezed his eyes shut. No. No no no no.

  “Huh!? How? Speak, man!”

  He opened his mouth. “Ahh—”

  “And what is this ridiculous surcharge? Fifteen percent? What rubbish is this?”

  Nicholas swallowed. Boon had come running once he’d heard shouting—he stood at the front door, his weight resting on the door frame. His eyes reflected everything Nicholas felt.

  “Bloody rubbish,” said Mr. Abdul.

  “Fleep.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Fleep.”

  In the end, there was no choice. After Mr. Abdul started dancing around, threatening to call the police and saying that there would be disastrous consequences, they gave Kosong the thirty-five dollar rate for all five nights of his stay, plus a fifteen dollar per night de-icing fee. The Adbuls agreed to pay the fifteen percent law when they heard that it was, indeed, the law. In total the brindlefarbs were refunded three thousand, seven hundred and seventy-five dollars.

  Mr. Abdul, Mrs. Abdul, Kosong and his three little farbs stormed off with their luggage, giving Nicholas dark looks.

  Room cleaning felt especially long that day.

  • • •

  That afternoon, Nicholas and Boon sat on the beach, in the shade of an overhanging palm. To Nicholas it felt like there was an empty patch in the sky, where the brindlefarbs’ flying saucer should have been. They had decided to take the rest of the day off.

  Nicholas scrolled through his phone absentmindedly. One browser window still showed the Wikipedia article he had been reading, about brindlefarbs. Brindlefarbs, it now read. These bloody lan cheow dirty ang mohs cheat ur money only lah!!!

  Nicholas choked back a laugh. The article went on for several incoherent paragraphs. No wonder Boon had seemed so self-satisfied earlier.

  He sighed and pulled up the picture of the three little farbs, their little blue bodies suspended in mid-air, spaghetti legs trailing out under them. They looked so happy. And after all, wasn’t the hotel business all about making people happy? In the end it wasn’t seven hundred a night, but he and Boon had still gotten a decent rate from them. With a little bit of saving and a few more guests this month, they’d still be able to pay the rent and the minimum on Po Po’s fees.

  “Still worth it lah,” he said, flicking his phone off.

  They sat for a while. Nicholas let the hot sand run through his fingers, squinting out at the fishing boats and cruise liners.

  “Let’s go back lah, hor.”

  “Okay.” Boon stood up and brushed sand off his shorts.

  They walked back together, not saying much.

  At the front door to their hotel, peering in the locked front door, was someone new. A short, slightly chubby Chinese man.

  “Who’s that?” said Boon.

  “Dunno. Excuse me,” Nicholas called.

  The Chinese man turned and looked relieved to see them. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and pleated pants. “Oei. Are you two the owners of this hotel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, good good. Got any vacancies now or not?”

  “Got. Two rooms.”

  “Ah, damn good. Is three weeks too long to rent both rooms? I’m taking my whole family on holiday until Chinese New Year. I tell you ah, I had the strangest luck this morning—an alien came into my convenience store and paid $10,000 for a bottle of Sprite!”

  Nicholas started to smile.

  “At first I thought you were closed lah—we almost went to the other hotel down the road. But my daughter says this is the best hotel on Pulau Ubin. She stayed here last time. Very hardworking, she said. Good people.”

  A wave of happiness rose in his chest. “Ah—we try our best lor.”

  “Good good.” The man put his hands together. “How much per room per night ah?”

  Nicholas looked the man up and down. He had shiny leather shoes, pressed pants and carefully combed hair. A large Rolex gleamed on his wrist.

  “Sixty is our usual rate,” said Nicholas.

  ADDRESSING THE MANTICORE

  by Jeremy Sim

  First published in Crossed Genres 2.0 Magazine (Mar. 2013), edited by Kay T. Holt and Bart R. Leib

  • • • •

  HUILING’S LEVIATHAN regards me through bulletproof glass, one colossal eye inclined in its rheumy socket. It does not blink, and the sheen and smell of hoary water stagnates in the airport terminal. Tentacles curl on gleaming tile. Smooth muscle ripples under sterile light.

  On this side of the glass, an airport security officer picks his nose. It’s morning, and the departures board has only eight entries. Air-conditioned light peeks in through the modern ceiling. I try to catch a glimpse of Huiling behind the massive bulk, but her leviathan is blocking my view of the security queue. Its gaze follows me across the terminal as a group of Japanese businessmen stride soberly through its midsection, their briefcases vanishing neatly into thick carapace.

  My heart starts to race. She’s leaving. What if I never see her again? What if this is my last chance to make some grand, final parting gesture?

  Shoes squeaking on the bright floor, I start to run.

  • • •

  Huiling used to send hellbats against my window at night. They flung their flaming bodies against it, smearing squashed noses across the glass, shrieking and scrabbling until I was sure the whole of Upper Toa Payoh must hear. They never did. My mum heard once, I think. She popped her head into the room, her hair full of curlers.

  “Oh good,” she said in broken English. “Keep your window closed. Tonight lots of mosquito.”

  The bats always stopped after a few minutes, and I was always sad to see them go. They gave me a satisfying feeling, like the feeling of soft rug under your bare toes. Huiling knew I liked to hear from her, when calling would raise suspicions with my family or hers. The bats were “I love you, good night, see you at school tomorrow.”

  I’d stand at the window, there on the 28th floor, looking out into the glare of apartment lights in the humid, cicada-filled dark, and I could only summon a tiny, immobile phoenix in response.

  There was no way she could see it from her bedroom window three blocks away, but sometimes she smiled the next day and said “I saw it, bodoh.”

  • • •

  It’s like squeezing clay out of the tips of your fingers, summoning. I could do it since I was eleven, five long years ago. At the time, it bothered me that no one else could see the results of my summoning, my tiny centaurs and kirins. They danced across my desk, galloping with their tiny spears at a jaunt, while Mr. Tan droned on about ionic bonding. No one noticed.

  “Ma, can you see this?” I asked her once. I’d summoned a spectral butterfly, and it flexed its wings translucently on the tip of my index finger.

  “What’s that?”

  “A butterfly. I made it for you.”

 
; “Thank you, Donny,” she said. “Eh, your Maths homework, have you done it yet or not?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good boy.”

  Huiling could see them. I’ll never forget the first day of Secondary One, when she strode into class with two cockatrices behind her. They were big, the size of housecats, and their pointed tails waved assuredly in the air as they goose-stepped between the desks, heads bobbing. I had never summoned anything larger than a mouse before.

  It wasn’t just that she could summon large animals. She moved with her summons. She owned them. They reflected her mannerisms, and she reflected theirs. “That girl a bit arrogant,” whispered my friend Marcus to me, on the day with the cockatrices. “Ya?”

  I nodded, not speaking. She had plopped her backpack down in the far corner by the window, all the way across the classroom.

  I was afraid of her at first, and just watched. After about thirty minutes the cockatrices started to fade away, just like mine. Their beaks and scales grew more and more transparent until, with a slight “pop”, they were gone. I watched as she looked around for them during the class change period, after chemistry with Mr. Tan and before Chinese with Madam Neo.

  She creased her eyebrows when she saw that they were gone, then closed her eyes and summoned a manticore. It stood silently in front of the bulletin board, its head barely under the ceiling fan. It stared at Madam Neo for the bigger part of an hour, its head fur rippling in the breeze.

  In the last period before the end of school, I took a deep breath, turned and clasped my hands together. I pushed clay out of my fingers and molded a tiny pegasus, which shook out its mane and launched itself into the air, gliding over towards her desk.

  The effect on her was electric. She stared at the pegasus as if nothing else in the world were real, watching it stand by her pencil case and chew at an itchy spot under its wing. She began to search through the class then, seeking its source.

  I pretended to be incredibly interested in Mrs. Chiu’s history lesson, my neck warming. But I wavered, and she caught my eye as a four-tone chime sounded, signaling the end of the school day.

  “You?” said her fierce eyes.

  I nodded.