CORRIDOR
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
PLAYS
Bisik: Antologi Drama [Melayu Singapura [Whisper: Anthology of Malay Singaporean Drama] (2003)
Collected Plays One: The Optic Trilogy, Fugitives, Homesick, sex.violence.blood.gore (2010)
Collected Plays Two: The Asian Boys Trilogy – Dreamplay/ Landmarks/ Happy Endings (2010)
Cooling-Off Day (2012)
POETRY
One Fierce Hour (1998)
A History of Amnesia (2001)
The Invisible Manuscript (2012)
PROSE
Malay Sketches (2012)
CORRIDOR
12 SHORT STORIES BY ALFIAN SA’AT
Corridor
© Alfian Sa’at, 2015, 1999
First published in 1999 by SNP Editions Pte Ltd
Second edition, 2015
ISBN 978-981-07-7993-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-981-14-0473-3 (e-book)
Published under the imprint Ethos Books by Pagesetters Services Pte Ltd
28 Sin Ming Lane #06-131
Singapore 573972
www.ethosbooks.com.sg
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With the support of
The publisher reserves all rights to this title.
Cover design and photography by CK Chia
Design and layout by Pagesetters Services Pte Ltd
Printed by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd, Singapore
6 5 4 3 21 20 19 18 17
First published under this imprint in 2015
Source of extracts by Paul Tan and Ong Sor Fern on the backcover: The Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Limited. Extracts reprinted with permission.
National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Alfian Sa’at, author.
Corridor : 12 short stories / Alfian Sa’at. – Second edition.
– Singapore : Ethos Books, 2015.
pages cm
ISBN : 978-981-07-7993-1 (paperback)
1. Singapore – Fiction. I. Title.
PR9570.S53
S823 -- dc23 OCN904384880
Great movies have remakes; great books - reprints.
The Ethos Evergreens series aims to
keep good Singaporean literature
in the public eye.
For Boo Junfeng
CONTENTS
PROJECT
VIDEO
ORPHANS
PILLOW
CORRIDOR
DUEL
WINNERS
CUBICLE
UMBRELLA
BUGIS
BIRTHDAY
DISCO
GLOSSARY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROJECTSalim needed to go to the toilet again. It was the Coke, he swore. And the fries. The more he ate the fries, the more thirsty he got. And the air-con.˚ And his friends. They kept making him laugh! They were never going to finish the History project on time. The last time they met together at YMCA McDonald’s to do their project they only managed to decide what font to use for the cover.
“Eh, guys, high tide lah.”˚
“Wahlau,”˚ Wei Cheng went, “Again?”
“Yah lah, yah lah, excuse…” Salim made his way between his friend’s knees and the table. There were four of them, including himself. They were all classmates: Wei Cheng, Esther, Mark. They were quite a clique. Mark had always had a thing for Esther but she treated him like a friend. The closest he ever got to her was when she called him ‘my god-brother’ and gave him a friendship band which she had worked on for three whole weeks. Wei Cheng and Salim had been best friends since primary school. Even their mothers knew each other.
Salim tried to push the toilet door open but realised that he was pushing the wrong end. He hoped that nobody noticed him and casually leaned on the correct side. Before entering the cubicle he took a glance at the mirror and decided that there would be time later to adjust his fringe. A little wetting would do the job.
The toilet was small; there was only one urinal, a cubicle with one toilet bowl, a washbasin and a mirror. A dusty fan, socketed into the wall, hummed above him. It was laced with cobwebs. Inside the cubicle, Salim had a look at the walls while he was peeing. There were discoloured patches that had been abraded by scouring brushes and cleaning fluids. However, a few graffiti messages remained. They were either fresh or difficult to remove. One read something like ‘PAP˚… Pay and Pay’. There was one that went, in red marker, ‘All smokers are bastards! If can die if don’t smoke, then die!’. Another one advertised, complete with a pager number, a ‘Free Fuck and Suck. Call Adrian’. Salim always wondered whether these were prank jobs or whether they were actually people who would plaster themselves on toilet walls that way. They needed to get a life, he thought. They needed to meet more girls. They definitely needed help.
Salim walked out of the cubicle towards the washbasin to wash his hands. He looked at himself in the mirror, and turned his head from side to side to see how his sideburns were doing. They looked even enough, he thought. Then with a wet thumb and forefinger he teased strands on his fringe, pulling them to his right. That was when the Chinese boy came through the door, stopped short, and caught him preening.
Salim got annoyed, stopped doing his hair and pretended to scrape crusts off the sides of his eyes. The boy simply stood there, watching him. The boy looked like he was in his early teens; he was plump, but something in his eyes told Salim that he was probably much younger. Salim turned around and walked towards the door, turning his face away from the boy.
The boy leaned stubbornly against the door. Still not looking at him, Salim said, “Excuse me.”
The boy crossed his arms in a gesture that was almost petulant. He shook his head. Salim finally stepped back and looked at him. The boy was wearing a dusk blue T-shirt with the words ‘Choose Health’ on it. He was wearing khaki bermudas.
“You stay here with me,” the boy said. His voice was slurred, and he was restlessly shaking his right thigh from side to side.
Salim pretended not to have heard him. He tried to reach out for the door handle, but the boy blocked him.
“You wait for me. I shee-shee˚ for a while. You wait here first, okay?” The boy gave Salim a pleading look.
“Boy, excuse me please.”
“No.” The boy’s face crumpled, and his lower lip was protruding. “You stay here first. I scared.”
Salim was getting impatient. He pushed the cubicle door open, and made sure he slammed it against the wall. He looked at the boy.
“What are you scared of? Inside got what? Nothing.
