by Judith Huang
“How do they contribute to the GDP?” This flew in the face of everything Sofia had been taught in school, and therefore, excited her greatly.
“You can’t possibly be that naïve!” said Isaac with mock-exasperation. “Don’t you know about the black market? The server farms?”
Sofia shook her head. She had never been very interested in the Voids. To her they were just a putrid, sordid part of the landscape that she never set her foot in, so she didn’t see why she would ever bother with them.
“Well, okay, you know that about a quarter of Singapore’s GDP comes from nano-conductor server farms, yes? And another quarter from pharmaceuticals?”
Sofia nodded. This stuff had been drilled into her during Social Studies. She could recite the exact percentages by heart.
“Well, where do you think the farms and the pharmas are located? In the Midlevels?”
He had a point. No one ever did any manufacturing in the Midlevels. All the offices she knew of that were connected by the MRT were for financial or consulting or law or accountancy firms. Oh, and research communities, of course, like hers.
“So there are actually people working in the factories in the Voids?” This had simply never occurred to her before.
“You do know that like forty per cent of the population lives in the Voids, right? It’s not just factories, but also services. There are all manner of services in the Voids,” said Isaac, his voice dripping with innuendo. “The black market, for instance—anything you like—smuggling, piracy, custom modification—you name it, they’ve got it. But anyway, about the Prism…”
All this fairly boggled Sofia’s mind but she tried not to show it. She wanted to come across as sophisticated, as knowledgeable as Isaac was.
“So what’s the metaphor of the Prism?”
“The philosophy of the Prism Club is that, in order for there to be beauty and harmony, you must split the beam of light into its constituent colours. That’s how you get a rainbow of diversity, the colours each separated from each other.”
“That’s pretty,” said Sofia. “But what does that have to do with the manufacturing and the services and all the black market and stuff?”
“Well, let’s just say that the black market is the ultraviolet part of the spectrum,” he said with a laugh. “It’s part of the beam but we can’t see it—not with our eyes, at least. But anyway, it just means that it is the role of governance to ensure that the levels remain distinct and each contributes in its own way. And we believe that further stratification is the key to our competitiveness.”
“Do you think about this sort of thing a lot?”
“All the time,” said Isaac eagerly. “I care a lot about this place. I guess it’s something I was brought up with. I can only imagine what a great place this will be by the time we grow up…”
Sofia smiled, fingering the prism. “So can I keep it?”
“Of course!” said Isaac with a smile. “It was a gift. I’d meant for you to keep it, even if you hadn’t accepted my invitation. Perhaps you will hear more about it soon.” He gave her another wink, then set the prism into her palms firmly.
“Listen, I think I should go. My mum’s finished making dinner, and I’ve already pissed her off once today.”
“Yeah, no problem! I’ll be around.”
Sofia smiled again and flicked off her netbox. Flopping back on her bed, she examined the prism closely, stroking it, holding it up to the light. But the light from her nightlight wasn’t a concentrated beam, like what had emanated from Isaac’s lamp, so it didn’t turn into a rainbow. She kept looking at it on the shelf, thinking of Isaac. She couldn’t wait to talk to him again.
Chapter 4: The First Letter
How can Singapore remain competitive in the 22nd century?
The sentence blinked at Julian in the air. He sighed, swiped it away, started to type, then deleted the whole thing and tried to start again.
How can Singapore remain competitive in the 22nd century?
The words flickered around his head like a shoal of fish. He did actually like thinking about these things, only he hated the format his Social Studies teachers always insisted on:
introduction, three main arguments, snappy section headings, conclusion that was exactly the same as introduction. It bored him to death. Typing and deleting, typing and deleting, he ended up with nothing in his file. He thought of Sofia and what he wanted to tell her. What he felt she was trying to achieve in her holosheets.
It had, of course, been a bit of a standard ruse. Julian knew that the way to a girl’s heart was always to praise her holos. But, to his surprise, he found himself to be quite sincere. Unlike the vast majority of holos made by teenage girls, hers were not simply iterations of their creators in various outfits and scenes from holo series and films they had seen. There was something entirely marvellous, entirely self-contained about Sofia’s worlds.
There were the unicyclists, the mass form of transport in one of her cities. These tiny, unflappable men and women were obsessed with the minutiae of fashion and would flit from one style to the next at a moment’s notice, wearing strange mechanical contraptions that flapped this way and that. They operated their unicycles using complex mechanisms with multiple pieces of string. It was really quite witty.
There was the fantastic architecture, a fusion of organic and mechanical forms, with an astonishing level of detail: façades of detailed splendour; bungalows of glass and steel, and black and white wood; temples and cathedrals plucked from around the world, transformed beautifully and clustered together.
And, above all, the elegant genius of her urban planning: wide, genteel promenades; public telescopes; sprawling libraries; and row upon row of the loveliest blooming trees, shedding their leaves and magically fruiting all in symphony. And through it all, the marvellous river, the jewel of the crown, snaking across the city like an old god, roiling and bubbling like a living thing. It changed colours with the multiple sources of light deep within it, fluorescent algae or creatures lighting up the water. It was the Singapore River he knew and loved, yet splendidly transformed.
Julian marvelled at the mind that could have produced this rich tapestry. He shrank his avatar down in miniature to discover the hidden corners and secret alleyways, and the shops selling marvels and the peaceful courtyards where one could rest one’s soul. The more he wandered Sofia’s worlds, the more he felt himself in touch with something wonderful, something ineffable. It was a special place, a city of marvels, and he wanted to really get to know its owner with a fervour that surprised him.
He knew there was something faintly unorthodox about the whole thing—they had done simulations in school and they were all not even remotely like this one—but he felt it a terrible waste that the vision would not be realised, somehow. This was why he had picked her as his target when he had decided to get to know a Midlevel girl incognito. Without realising it, thinking about Sofia had led him to type a letter to her.
To:Sofia
From:isaac iskandar
Subject:How can Singapore remain
competitive in the 22nd century?
Dear Sofia,
Ever since I saw your holosheets and met you, however briefly, I have been doing a lot of deep thinking. Something about you just brings that out in me.
Why are we filled with longing for the things we cannot have? Why is it that beyond the vision of every statesman and philosopher is that shimmering something, blinking in the corner of his eye?
There is something that haunts our dreams. There is something that drives us, that racks our sleep with discontent. We long for the high, the beyond, the sublime.
It is a lover, it is a homeland, a childhood, a future. Wherever we locate this thing, in thing or person or land or time, it is beyond our reach—eternally unattainable, an insistent, unending longing.
In this place the moon shines brighter, the laughter is more innocent, the caresses are softer, the knowledge deeper. It resonates with something wi
thin us. It fits the shape of the missing puzzle-piece. It is obsession and pain and desire. It is a self-lacerating wound, a maw, aching to be filled.
You glimpse it in the mundane and in the sublime. It stares at you from pop-ads—the sheet washed whiter than before, the woman more beautiful than anything on earth. It stares at you from the height of art, its beauty distorted, its bleeding hands held out to you from behind the glass pane.
Everywhere you turn you see it, and everywhere you turn you miss it. Everywhere there is beauty you clutch at it, only to see it fall like sand through your fingers.
It is un-graspable, unknowable, unknown. It is an old flame, an old song, an old country rising like a spectre from the grave —it is utopia, it is Eden, it is heaven, it is paradise. It is a chimera, a protean thing, shifting and turning into something else the moment you clutch at it.
It is the tragedy of getting what you want—to have what you once wanted. For the lover, the land, the time, the place merely turns from sacred to profane dust the moment your hands touch it, and the fairy’s gold turns to yellow leaves.
It is the last thing on earth you glimpse before you die—the thing beyond things and the song beyond songs. It is gentle like the breeze and fierce like the storm, a whirlwind of the soul that lifts you clear up into the sky and into a strange land never born nor ever since seen.
It is news from a far country—the boat, returning empty, the ferryman, transfigured. It is the end of all tears, the end of all sorrow. It is the flame of leaves that, broken off by the bough, turns to glistening gold. It is the silver bowl, from which we scoop our desire, from which we drink. It is the real deal, the golden ticket, the kingdom of heaven, the pearl of any price, the beloved, the garden of eternal spring.
And it is within our minds, within our hearts, eternally generating. I have heard it called something by those in the know—they call it the Utopia Machine. The question that burns in my heart is this: do you know it too?
Yours,
Isaac
He read it over and over again, and finally, taking a deep breath, sent it on its way.
*
Sofia grumbled as she tossed her blanket aside and landed her feet on the cool tiled floor, shuffling them towards the bathroom for her morning ritual. The Chinese New Year holiday had come to an end, and she had to wake up early again.
On the whole, Sofia didn’t dislike every part of her school life. She enjoyed the brief walk to school from the MRT in the mornings, with the thick cow grass squishing underneath her white school shoes, which her mum powdered every week to keep them regulation white.
She especially liked it when, after a week of heavy rain, tiny, stringy beige mushrooms sprang out of nowhere, like noodles poking out of the grass. She was particularly careful on these days not to step on any when she walked across the school field.
And she enjoyed her classes, for the most part, even if some were slightly boring. But the problem with school wasn’t the surroundings or the teachers. The problem with school was the other girls. Sofia thought vaguely that it was somehow her mother’s fault, because she didn’t have a normal family. If she had a normal family, then maybe, just maybe, she would be able to break into the cool clique.
For the past two years, Sofia had been trying to ascend the social hierarchy at her school. She hadn’t been in a primary school affiliated with her secondary school, and breaking into the existing cliques of girls who had already formed themselves from primary school was difficult, but she felt like she was making headway with the pretty and talented Natasha, who seemed to be her in to the cool clique.
Unfortunately, Natasha was the one who alerted her to a rumour going around the school about Sofia.
“You know what they’re saying, right, Jessica they all…” she said. Jessica was a school gymnast, had the most flawless skin in class and was filthy rich to boot, so of course her opinion mattered.
“What? What are they saying?”
“They said that your mother did something to your genes. That you have some kind of freaky DNA advantage ’cause she made you that way. That’s why you don’t have a dad, they said.”
“That’s crazy,” said Sofia, stunned that that was why she wasn’t allowed to hang out with the cool crowd. It wasn’t even true! “I do have a dad,” she protested.
“Yeah. Jessica’s family is really religious. I don’t think they approve of that kind of thing, that’s all.”
“Who the hell cares what Jessica’s family thinks?” Sofia retorted. But her cheeks were burning. Of course she cared. She knew that certain religions frowned upon the kind of scientific research that was carried out in the government labs, but to suggest that she had somehow…spontaneously come about, without a father, that she was the product of some genetic experiment, was absurd.
“I’m just telling you this so you understand why I can’t invite you to the sleepover next weekend,” said Natasha unhelpfully.
This really smarted. Sofia had been planning her sleepover debut, now that she was an upper sec student, and had even made a list in her notes about all the games and music she would share with the other girls at this party at Natasha’s place. She and Natasha had been talking about organising it since the start of the year. It had even been her idea in the first place; she had thought of it during the December holidays. And now she was suddenly not even invited?
“It isn’t that I don’t want you there,” said Natasha. “It’s just that Jessica is co-organising and you know, she gets a say about the guest list. And she’s kind of a control freak lor…”
Sofia nodded. “I get it,” she said, although a big part of her really didn’t. Why should someone’s religious scruples stop her from going to an event she had been looking forward to for weeks? It didn’t seem fair.
Her father would have known what to say, Sofia thought fiercely. He would have jumped to her defence. He would have known what that girl had been talking about. Besides, if she remembered right, he had been Catholic. He would know about this stupid religious stuff. Once again, Sofia found herself cursing her mother. If only she had been better at…who knew? What did women do to stop their husbands from disappearing completely?
Sofia tried to drown out these thoughts by scrolling through her holo feed again. There was also that weird dream she had had last night. It had frightened her, and her fear was disproportionate to her dream—even though it had been fantastical, it had been in some respects more real than her own life. She was certain you weren’t supposed to smell things in dreams. But she had definitely smelled something distinctive. Whatever it was, it had made her all the more sure that the dream had been significant.
But enough of that. The holo display glowed, promising some entertaining distraction. The light formed the shape of a sparrow before presenting her with an array of icons. Then she saw it—a new message from, yes, Isaac! She looked around. The canteen was far too public a place for her to read something as precious as this.
She made her way to her favourite part of the school, a small garden on a rooftop where the science teachers grew plants for the girls to study, and, comfortably hidden in the greenery, she opened the message.
Something stirred in Sofia as she read. She couldn’t be sure exactly why she felt this way, but to her it was an entirely new sensation. Her face was flushed, but not with embarrassment. Her hands felt sticky, and the tips of her fingers felt terribly long. And weirdest of all was this sensation near her belly, which was kind of queasy, but not painful like a stomachache.
Was this butterflies in her stomach, those legendary harbingers of true love she had read about? She had heard a story once about two lovers who met as butterflies, and then remembered their life on earth together. They were floating in the clouds on a sunny day, high above the sea, which was shifting and swirling like a thunderstorm.
She read the letter from Isaac and experienced a feeling of recognition at his words. This must be the thing she had been searching for—the missing piece, the so
lution to the puzzle, the key to the lock. This was the thing she had felt but could not articulate all her life—that feeling of something amiss, of something not quite right, of something hidden away from the bland everyday, the stupid quotidian, the everything and nothing of school and tuition and homework, school and tuition and homework. She always had known that there had to be something more, and it had something to do with love.
Whatever else it was—it felt delightful, but it also felt dangerous. She knew this by instinct. Something told her not to indulge it—to banish the boy from her netbox and never see him again. But his words pierced her in some strange way, pinned her down. She felt helpless and powerful, under the eye of a fierce and inscrutable gaze. She gloried in it, and it terrified her.
He deserved a reply, at least. It suddenly occurred to her that she was walking down a very black road, a road that had no indication of an end. Then she felt something catch in her throat, like the sensation of missing a step when you are about to fall asleep, or like sliding down a very long and very dark slide.
Was he waiting for her reply? She felt she had to say something back, or he would think she was ignoring him. Her fingers flew through the icons on the netbox display as she typed out her response.
“So, do you want to meet up irl? Then you can tell me in person about the Utopia Machine.” Sofia took a deep breath and sent the message.
The words glowed red and slipped her sight, bursting briefly and then sliding into the ether as they funnelled through to Isaac. She knew it was a foolish thing to do. She had never seen the boy before, not in real life. He could be anyone—he could be dangerous. But something about the way he seemed to peer into her heart’s depths and pierce her with his words made her trust him, recklessly.
The bell rang for the start of class. She hurried to join the other girls jostling towards the classrooms. Well, at least one good thing had happened this recess.