’Tis the season for stories
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This year, The Sunday Times has invited four writers to write on the theme of A Tropical Christmas.
PHOTO: PIXABAY
SINGAPORE – It is a Life tradition to commission short stories for the season. This year, The Sunday Times has invited four writers to write on the theme of A Tropical Christmas.
Christmas creatures
It was the night before Christmas and the dinner was meant to be an exercise in pre-wedding cross-cultural diplomacy... that fell apart almost as quickly as the curry chicken-stuffed tacos they had prepared painstakingly.
The air-conditioner decided it was tired of pointlessly attempting to cool an equatorial environment to anywhere near a festive Yuletide chill and stopped. Frantic calls were met with utter indifference – there was an epidemic of cooling-unit failures, and overworked maintenance elves could be dispatched only after the 12 days of Christmas had jingled by.
An overhead fan circulated warm, humid air as two sets of future in-laws and their offspring sat across from one another, separated by a barrier of too much food and a lack of a common language save for one offspring who could speak both English and Spanish but was quickly tiring.
The old city
By the time you check the travel websites in November, the flight ticket prices are too high to justify a trip home. You practise expressing regret at missing the holiday with your family. I thought I’d be able to make it, you say mournfully into the mirror.
The reflection betrays your relief. It’s not that you don’t want to see them, you just don’t see the point in going home when Christmas is so abundant in your new city – mulled wine in night markets, wreaths on every door.
Growing up, adults always couched living abroad as a means of expanding horizons, but you wanted to pursue the solitude of winter, a shrinking and silencing of the life of Technicolor malls and overlapping crowds that otherwise awaited you.
The weight of a snowflake
Icy Plaza, Tiong Bahru Mall’s newest attraction, opened the weekend before Christmas, hoping to capitalise on the Yuletide spirit. But the Snow City rival was empty – its tickets too expensive for families initially eager to experience a White Christmas.
Management, concerned the attraction would not last, fussed about on marketing campaigns, deals, and offers, which distracted them from noticing one of their cooling units had been set up incorrectly. Instead of sealing and chilling the Build-A-Snowman area, it was funnelling a wave of frigid air towards the exterior-facing filtration unit, blowing snowy winds into the third floor of the mall’s carpark, creating what could be classified as “a notable blizzard” in a 1 sq m zone.
Ranjit, a waiter at one of the mall’s three Italian dining establishments, was taking his one break during his Christmas Day shift. He stood at the third floor of the mall’s carpark, soaking in the serene view of the terrace houses baking under the Singapore sun.
Awakening
It looked like a giant’s mossy hand.
Christine ran her fingers through its needle-like foliage. (“The Chinese Juniper is a great alternative for Christmas trees in tropical Singapore,” observed the National Parks Board website.) Like a pine, the plant grew in a cone shape, though Grandpa’s years of bending and sculpting had given it a more twisted, striking form.
Looking up the care instructions, she noted full sun, moderate water. She placed the bonsai by the window, on her desk, just next to a photograph of Grandpa and her at Changi Airport. She had just returned from her studies in the United States then. Grandpa stood beside her, beaming triumphantly, with his signature wide smile.
