by Ng Yi-Sheng
That night, by the light of the moon, we feasted on the Governor’s gifts. Being the newest member of the archipelago, I was served a special meal of rice and mango, which I gobbled up with relish.
As I bobbed around the tugboat, nodding off into a satisfied slumber, I wondered if the Archipelago might not be such a bad club to join after all. True, there was some loss of dignity involved. There was the small issue of my name, plus I was keenly aware that any culture I evolved hereon would be that much less unique. Yet on the upside, I now had friends, even mentors on my journey of islandhood. Together, we would build a collective identity, far greater than the sum of our individual selves.
In the midst of my reverie, I became vaguely aware of a series of grunts and splashes amidst our crew. I idly wondered if some game was afoot: if a few islands were playing water polo, perhaps, or making love.
Then there came a woman’s scream, and the crack of a gunshot. My eyes flew open. I prodded the arm of my Japanese friend, who had apparently slept through the commotion.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Natural resources,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes clenched shut.
“What?”
“The Governor runs an import-export business.”
Now there was a noise above us, the thumping of a heavy object being lifted from the water and dragged across the deck of the tugboat. Then a sequence of deep, groaning breaths, interspersed with the dull chunk, chunk, chunk of an axe.
Frightened, I paddled away from the boat. I found myself bumping into Saint-Marie’s dirt-filled dinghy, now abandoned. Resting on the edge, unprotected, was his telescope. I held it to my eye and peered at the tugboat’s surface.
There, I saw Sainte-Marie and the Governor, kneeling over the body of a fellow island. At first I imagined they were fondling her, massaging her, perhaps carrying out an arcane ceremony of blessing. But then I noticed the sharp little fishknives in their hands, the pool of dark fluid spreading at their feet.
“She is export,” spoke a voice behind me. It was my Japanese friend. “She will be soups and soaps and medicines. The Mainland has great hunger for our produce. She will make the colony proud.”
“I have to leave.”
“You will not leave.” He gripped my wrists, rendering my upper half immobile. I tried to kick his shins, but with a twist he had turned me upside down, tearing loose all the bits of mud and plastic I’d affixed to myself to increase my mass. I found myself underwater, choking on seawater, half-screaming in agony as he wrenched the joints of my shoulders into crazy angles.
“You understand?” he told me, as he finally brought me back to the surface. “You must not go. Unity gives us strength.”
For the next cycle of the moon, I was anchored to Sainte-Marie, my hands tied with raffia string. This wasn’t as bad as it might sound. The other islands took pity on me, and took time to swim to my side and share stories about their lives, about the lore of the sea, and the proper care and maintenance of their lands. I soon learnt how to catch shrimp with my toes, and even occasionally to trap passing fish between my knees.
They also took special care to commiserate with me over my imprisoned state. “But of course you were scared,” they would say. “Everyone reacts strongly on the first night of the export. We all thought it was a little excessive. We just needed some time, some convincing before we understood that this is the only way the system can work.”
One of the islands, an elderly Australian with cowries threaded through her blond-grey hair, proudly showed me the network of gouges her arm had suffered in her early attempts to break free. “This is normal,” she assured me, in a perennially happy singsong voice. “Now, let me tell you a little secret about barnacles.”
Eventually, they unmoored me. I assumed a tenor role in their choruses of “The Good Ship Venus”, and joined in the melee for new deliveries of bread and fruit and soil. They knew, of course, that I was not quite resigned to a life in the colony—my Japanese friend kept a vigilant guard over me at night—but thoughts of escape were gradually becoming less an ambition and more a distant memory.
Then one morning, while I was weaving kelp with my comrades, I happened to raise my neck upwards and noticed a dot of yellow in the sky. That’s a strange sun, I thought to myself. But then it drew closer, and I recognised it for what it was.
It was my grandmother’s yellow helicopter. Its smiley face decal was looking rather worse for wear now, and there was no longer a bag of food dangling beneath it. Still, the sight of this familiar object brought a grin to my face. I waved at it, and laughed to see it change direction to face me, realising only as it descended to my face level that its undercarriage now held a newly installed piece of equipment.
It was a webcam.
The Governor came in the night. I was hauled up on deck on charges of high treason. I was stripped of my inflatable tube and water wings, and my hands and feet were bound to the mast with rope—a redundant measure, as I had spent so long in the water I had forgotten how to stand or walk. My erstwhile companions jeered at me from the waters. They had no pity for a spy like myself, caught signalling enemy drones in broad daylight.
“What shall the sentence for the traitor be?” Sainte-Marie cried out, as the Governor snuffled about with his cigarette.
“Death!” called the crowd. And so a sentence of death it was. My flotation devices were flung into the water, where they were ripped apart by the islands, glad to know that finally, one deserving of butchery would be sent off for export.
I knelt miserably on the floor, waiting for the cold kiss of the Governor’s fish knife on my throat. But instead, lights were extinguished on board, and the archipelago’s noise began to die down as they prepared for sleep.
I realised I was to be executed the next morning, in the full light of day, all the better to make an example of my sins. I dwelt on my sorrows. No city would ever be built on my hills, nor would any cartographer inscribe my shoreline on any map. I resolved to spend my last remaining hours gazing at the stars, believing that it might give me some solace if I, at least, knew something of where I lay under the sky.
Daybreak, however, never came. When the moon was at its highest, its brilliance was suddenly rivalled by two balls of flame, falling in our direction. A split-second before they hit the water, I understood what they were.
“Take cover!” I yelled. But even if I’d spoken those words an hour before, and had been their most trusted friend, there was nowhere for the islands to seek shelter in the open sea, and I could do nothing but watch, from my captive position at the mast, as the fireballs swallowed them up, ripping up their flimsy craft, scattering them, flesh and blood and earth and plastic, into a smoky cloud rising and raining down upon my face.
The next blast rocked the boat. We’d been hit. I saw a few bloodied survivors scramble on board, even as a yawning crack began to open at the centre of the deck. I watched Sainte-Marie and the Governor fight their subjects off with their knives, slipping in the blood and surf, falling with the volley of gunfire that followed a moment later.
As water flooded the ship, I vaguely pondered if there was any means for my escape amidst the chaos. I tugged half-heartedly at the ropes that bound me, and decided no: I had made my peace with eternity, and any further struggle would be beneath my dignity.
Yet while my body sank into the depths, I managed to steal a glimpse of the invading navy that had decimated us so utterly. It was made up of colossal battleships, steel hulks mounted with gun turrets. We never had a chance, I thought, a little smugly.
I spied someone on the bridge. A round little figure, looking decidedly out of place in her naval uniform, yet clearly in a position of authority, issuing orders to the crewmen while peering occasionally outwards.
It was my grandmother. In her hands, she held the yellow helicopter.
That was the last thing I saw before the waters closed over my head, and the oceans gushed into my lungs.
A voice awoke me.
It was female and musical, and it spoke an unfamiliar tongue. I stirred, and found that my body was resting on rubbery fabric, though the air was cold and somehow jellylike. With some effort, I forced my eyes open.
I was in a grotto, lying on a mound of seaweed, and looming over me was a mermaid. She was turquoise-skinned, blue-haired and crowned with coral, her tail gracefully suspended a foot above the ground. In her hand she held an anglerfish, whose glow lit up the entire chamber.
“You are well rested,” she said in halting English.
“Yes,” I replied. I noticed that tiny bubbles of air escaped my throat as I spoke. This told me that I was under the sea, which made perfect sense, and also that I was alive, which was completely unreasonable.
“Now, you must eat,” the mermaid told me, and opened her palm to reveal a thousand little balls of roe, which she fed to me, one by one. They burst between my teeth as I chewed them, each one releasing a distinct flavour, rich and sweet and salty. The more I ate, the looser my heart became, and eventually I stopped to weep, my chest heaving as my eyes gifted the sea with invisible tears.
After the meal, I held the mermaid’s hands. “Thank you for saving me,” I told her.
“I did not save you,” she answered. “You have fallen.”
“Then I’m dead?”
“Islands cannot die. We may sink beneath the waves, but we do not perish.”
“Then you’re an island too?”
She laughed a little, then beckoned me to follow her. I half-swam, half-clambered through the cavern, and emerged with her through a crack in its roof. She seemed bigger now, out in the open. With her hand, she gestured downwards, and I saw that we had in fact been hidden in the uppermost dome of a mighty basilica, and all around us was a ruin of citadels and pleasure gardens and arcades and hovels, sprawling as far as the eye could see.
“I am the first island,” she murmured, and I saw now that she was huge, and the edges of her body were fading. Her tail had melted completely into the ravaged city that lay below her. “Some call me Atlantis. Others, Lemuria, Mu, Lyonesse, Ys, Kumari Kandam, Cantre’r Gwaelod. Before your civilisation rose, I was there, stellar, jewel-like, nonpareil. And one day I shall rise again.”
“Great mistress,” I cried, steadying myself on a broken angel. “How can I become like you?”
With her moonlike eyes, she looked back at me, with a strangely familiar expression of both love and regret.
“You already are, my child. You already are.”
At this, I realised my body was becoming lighter and more buoyant, pulling me upwards again. I clung to the statue below me, fearful of returning to the world above. Sensing my distress, the mermaid turned and gave me a comforting smile.
“Time passes differently here. Ten years go by above for every hour you stay below. Already, you have slept here seven days and seven nights, recovering from your hurt.”
My fingers had lost their grip now. I began rising rapidly into the pale light above.
“Do not be afraid, young one,” she called after me, her face now as vast as a continent. “Whatever you fear in the world above is long, long gone. What remains is only your destiny.”
I broke the surface, gasping. I no longer had my inflatable tube, so I had to tread water. Fortunately, the roe had strengthened me considerably, and I stayed afloat with little effort.
To conserve energy, I lay on my back and let the currents push me wherever they would. Within an hour, I found myself within sight of a sandy beach. I decided to spend a night there, and oriented myself to wash up on the shore in as painless a fashion as possible.
It was strange to see a spot of land grow so large before my eyes, and stranger still to drift closer and closer, till I could bury my arms in its loamy sands. Gradually, inching forward on my hands and knees, I pulled myself out of the reach of the tide, then stumbled along the beach, teaching myself how to walk again.
I foraged as I limped. I picked up a fallen coconut, which I split against a rock so I could drink its clear water. To my annoyance, I also discovered several washed up remains of Newater bottles and Tupperware containers in the grass. On closer examination, I found they were so decayed and worn that they resembled shards of ancient ceramics.
Strolling back out to the coast, I saw a kayak approaching. In it I thought I saw the beautiful pirate I had met so long ago, in my early days of independence. I windmilled my hands, signalling to her to come and join me on the sand. But as the craft drew nearer, I saw that it was a different person: a long-haired young fisherman.
“I’m sorry,” I said as he disembarked. “I mistook you for someone else.”
“Aiyah, don’t worry,” he replied, and hauled a load of fish over his shoulder. “Come, help me carry these to my village.”
As we walked along the forest track, I questioned him about my whereabouts.
“This place ah? This one is the island of Por Por. Funny name, right? Got story. You want to hear the story?
“They say that many many years ago, there was an old woman called Por Por. Her grandson ran away to the sea, so she followed him. One day a storm separated them, so from that day on, she had to sail round and round the earth, searching for him, searching.
“She never gave up hope. But one day, she lost strength. She lay down, and her legs became rivers, and her arms became cliffs, and her head became a great mountain, over there.” Here, he pointed to a peak in the distance, its cap hidden in the clouds. I stared at it, trying to get a sense of its shape, but my eyes had filled with water.
“She is still waiting, you know. Waiting for her boy to come back. And from that day, she will be his. She will feed him, protect him, and care for him forever.”
By now, we had reached a small settlement of thatched wooden huts on stilts set in a jungle clearing, planted with fruit trees and dotted with chicken coops by the banks of a river. I cast my eye over the inhabitants of these huts, and noticed an odd consistency in their looks. Each one of them, from the eldest patriarch to the youngest infant, bore a strong resemblance to my lost pirate queen in face and form and manner.
Then I passed a puddle in the path, reflecting my face. And I realised the villagers didn’t just look like the pirate. They also rather looked like me.
Finally, we reached the doorstep of the fisherman’s hut. He threw down his heavy bundle of fish with an audible sigh of relief. Through the window, I saw a woman preparing chicken and rice, and small children stealing treats from platters of curry puffs and kueh.
“You can put it down here,” the fisherman announced to me. “We’re home.”
“Yes,” I told him. “Yes. I think we are.”
A Day at Terminal Aleph
It’s 0500 hours and Frederick Tan Chong Ming is standing on the runway, waiting for G_d. He peers into the night sky. Nothing. Nothing but the stars and the lights of the oil tankers floating out in the distance.
He radios the Control Tower.
“Control, this is Foxtrot Niner. Please confirm ETA for Yod Hey Vav Hey, over.”
“Foxtrot Niner, this is Control. Please follow original timing of oh four four five. I repeat. Please follow original timing of oh four four five, over.”
Frederick puts down his handset, curses, reaches into his pocket for a smoke and then remembers it's empty. All crew are supposed to be on their best behaviour when greeting VVVIPs; that means no cigarettes, no cough drops, no alcohol, not even a mobile phone to ease the tedium with Candy Crush. Out of courtesy, he picks up his handset and replies, “Wilco, out,” then goes back to scanning the horizon.
He doesn’t have to wait long. At 0509, a chill descends, the wind whips itself into a frenzy and a crack of thunder echoes above him. He has just enough time to radio, “Incoming,” and raise his umbrella when the rain starts pelting down, bringing with it fragments of ice, locusts, frogs and dumbstruck fish. In front of him, two columns form, one made of smoke and the other of fire. They twist and writhe against each other, arcs of electricity l
eaping between them all the while.
Frederick rubs his hands. He knows the drill. Keeping his umbrella gripped in one hand, he removes his shoes and socks, then advances barefoot to the pillars, dodging the falling and fallen fauna as best he can. When he reaches the pillars, he discards the umbrella and kneels. “, שלום ” he says, head bowed, pressing his skullcap to his head.
Instantly, the deluge halts. The winds grow warmer, gentler, and the flames and smoke collapse into a ball of light, a tiny white dove suspended inside. He gestures towards the carpet of rushes laid out on the ground, marking the route to the Arrivals Hall. The ball bobs a little, as if nodding, and floats its way into the building. Before they pass through the automatic doors, the dove takes a shit on the rushes.
“Yod Hey Vav Hey has made landfall at oh five oh nine,” Frederick announces to Control. A frog hops over his naked foot. “Please dispatch cleanup crew, over.”
“Good work, Foxtrot Niner,” Control responds. “Nabilah’s coming with a dustpan. You can have your smoking break now. Out.”
At 0635, Bhuvaneswary Rajamanickam is in the staff canteen, having coffee with the new Guest Relations Officer, Ramona Fong. She’s a pretty girl, the older woman thinks. Looks good in her uniform of red blazer and black pumps. Too good, in fact. The Committee should pick its hires more carefully. She makes a note of this on her tablet.
“Are you a fast learner?” she asks.
“I was third in my cohort at SHATEC.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. This place is a death trap.” They stand up, leaving behind their soft-boiled eggs with pepper and soy sauce.
“I was here when we started ten years ago,” she continues, “just after Singapore signed the first Transcendental MOU. This was an experimental project then. It still is, actually. But when you’re a small country, that’s what you do to survive: you try things no one’s accomplished before, and pray for success.”