About
A Hundred Lives
I want to live a hundred lives
and meet my just deceased
dog, Poppy, some times over. To
see the light creep up
daily on the leaves, petals and
critters, and creatures
rouse in their multitudinous
forms and stretch to greet
each new day. To see
a single and one and every decision
unfold in its own wondrous
and, sometimes, shattering trajectory.
To nuzzle my face in her fur
and imagine the knight; the samurai;
the wuxia; the hwarang battle a
horde of zombies.
To run my fingers in her soft
autumn fur
and imagine a psychopath
eviscerating his or her
next victim.
To hear her grunts of
contentment, and
imagine the carefully
laid out plots of
serial killers.
I don’t have it in me anymore
for hot and stormy loves and lives.
I can’t write in the face of death
so I pray
for placid loves where my self
is splayed; and I can
write a hundred stormy lives.
Rewilding
Rewilding is a collection of three short stories and an exegesis which examine what matters most to Singaporeans and foreigners based in Singapore when it comes to deciding on a space to call home.
The stories also explore the function of the community in a neighbourhood in an age of increasing invisible disabilities and evoke the questions—do we choose a space to call home based on the physical space or the community living in that space? What determines a space called home in land-scarce, population-dense Singapore where neurological disorders and mental health illnesses are on the rise? What is the role of the community in the face of societal mental health crisis?
This collection of three short stories connected by the same physical space also has the quintessential purpose of celebrating the one of few remaining black-and-white colonial estates, Jalan Hang Jebat (JHJ), in Singapore as it faces its uncertain future and a possible, impending erasure of an epoch.
An artwork inspired by a similarly titled short story.
Professional practice
Leon Oh Jun Cheng
Pratima Balabhadrapathruni
Florence Loh
Catalina Rembuyan
He Jia Wen
Adi Jamaludin
