A Curious Moon

By O Thiam Chin

From time to time, when Robert thinks they would have given up, he would find flyers and occasional notes inserted between the metal grilles of the gate or slotted under the door of his flat, publicising the latest activities at the new recreation centre at the void deck of his block. Robert has seen photos of the various rooms in the centre on these flyers—bingo, sewing, mahjong, karaoke, entertainment—and noted the variety of activities for different—every—day of the week. At first the flyers were in English, of which Robert understands a smattering of words, enough for him to grasp at what they were saying. Later, they come in Chinese, Malay and Tamil, and are expanded into a two-piece flyer, stapled and folded into thirds. The notes are more personal, with a pseudo-casual familiarity: we miss you at the last session, we hope to see you, we cordially invite you, we look forward, we welcome you. Robert has yet to attend any of the events, though he has been sufficiently curious about the Chinese chess club and the fortnightly movie screenings that showed mid-to-late 80s Hong Kong police and prison dramas and vengeful ghost films that featured his favourite actors: Liang Jia Hui, Yuen Biao, Xu Guan Jie. He used to throw out these flyers and notes, but now puts them into the blue recycling box at home, along with the useless miscellany he received in his mailbox and the Wanbao newspapers. He can sell a stack of these paper wastes to the karang guni for fifty cents or even a dollar if the latter was in a generous mood. He had once offered ten dollars for Robert’s old Seiko that often told the wrong times and needed to be wound up every other day. But Robert was reluctant to part with the watch, a gift from his late wife.  

On nights he can’t sleep and finds himself pacing the flat in a fit of restlessness, Robert would put on a sundress and a shoulder-length wig and head down to the park beside the block. He sits at a square pavilion and smokes, allowing himself only two cigarettes—any more and he would start craving for coffee. He thinks about the randomness of life, and the routines and habits that he has cultivated to hold the meaninglessness, the bleakness at bay. He thinks thoughts that he would not normally think in the daytime when there is plenty to keep his mind occupied, distracted. When he gets tired of thinking, and also a little thirsty from smoking, he would return home. As he walks across the void deck, he would sometimes check the bulletin board outside the recreation centre and look at the photos the staff have pinned up. Photos of residents enjoying different activities, giving thumbs-up. He knows all the faces as he has been living in the block for close to thirty-seven years, but not their names; he isn’t close to anyone, a thing by choice. He peers through the semi-frosted glass windows of the centre, but all he sees is a realm of darkness in which a few silhouettes stand out like blobs of shadow. He considers again whether to participate in the centre’s activities, and again arrives at his initial decision: no. He’s not the kind of person who likes this sort of things, to do things in a group, to be part of a group. He much prefers his own company, his own solitude; he feels much freer, anyway.     

Robert likes to go to the park after his dinner when it’s newly dark, the evening still shedding its warm afternoon coat. There are runners, but only once in a while, dashing past the pavilion, insulated by their white earbuds. The pavilion sits a comfortable distance from the playground, which stands quiet and empty at this time of the day. There’s a restrained bustle to the surroundings, a wail of insect cries emanating from the undergrowth and the wall of trees that lined a side of the running path.

One evening a month ago, while Robert was sitting on the bench in the pavilion, a pair of young men had suddenly barged in, trailing a siren of laughter. They settled into the bench opposite Robert, and carried on their loud chatter. Robert turned his body away, but continued to watch them out of the corner of his eye. From their uniform-like clothes and their youth, he assumed they were students from the ITE, two streets away. He tried to ignore them, but could not avoid eavesdropping on their conversation, a prattle of Malay interspersed with exclamations of lame-ass bitch, fucker lah, boring xia. One of the young men glanced over at Robert and nudged his friend, and both of them turned to stare at Robert. They started to smirk. Robert got up, smoothed out his dress, and was about to leave when he heard one of them whispering something to the other. Bapok. 

Robert swivelled to regard them for a second, which silenced them for a moment before they broke into another round of laughs. He walked up and stood before them. The young men, boys really, now that Robert saw them close-up, with their unlined faces, their nests of thick, bleached hair, huddled as if under threat, still tittering, meeting Robert’s glare directly without flinching. Then one and quickly the other rose up and puff out their chests. 

Chee bye gia, Robert spit out. 

What you say, auntie, one of the boys said, elongating the last word, splicing it with malice. Speak English lah, auntie, don’t understand you. 

And then just as swiftly, before Robert could do anything, one of them was reaching out to make a swipe at Robert’s face, and the other was pulling at his wig, and Robert was momentarily stunned, taking a few steps back. He nearly stumbled, but steadied himself in time. His heart hammered in his chest; Robert was suddenly fearful, not knowing how this would turn out, whether he would survive it. 

So pretty ah, auntie. Pretty auntie. A raised voice, the words repeating themselves. Robert muttered something back, uncertain what he was spewing, bursts of noise that were part insult part groan and largely incomprehensible. 

Then, just as it abruptly started, everything came to a rapid close. One of the boys dislodged the wig from Robert’s head and the other spit into his face, and they were grabbing their haversacks and fleeing. One yelled back, clear as a whistle: pondan. 

Robert stood very still to keep him upright for some time. A roar sounded inside his head and refused to die down. A runner speeding by the pavilion turned her head to stare at Robert, regarding him with suspicion, but did not stop. For a second, he felt terribly exposed, a creature pulled out of the dark. Then he picked up the wig, shook it off a few times and put it back on his cold, balding hair, adjusting it several times, unable to get the fit right somehow. He fluffed the bangs as best as he could, to even them out, and then, giving up, he made the long, unbearable journey back home. 

After his usual breakfast of soda crackers and kopi-O at eight, Robert walks up two floors to Guan’s flat. If the front door is open, he peeks into the room to check on the latter; if it’s closed, he bends his ears to the door to pick out any stray sounds coming from inside. Robert got to know Guan six months back after they started playing Chinese chess at the kopitiam where they frequent for meals. Guan speaks only if absolutely necessary, and they exchange very few words during their rounds of chess. Robert thinks of himself as the better player, and is occasionally annoyed with Guan when he takes too long to make a move. If the front door is closed for three consecutive days, Robert would knock, and four out of five times, Guan would answer; if the latter didn’t, Robert would return every hour or so to check on Guan just to be sure, until he hears something behind the closed door. It’s not an uncommon thing for the old to die in their flats in the block since most of them live alone. Guan is nine years older than Robert, which to Robert means only a higher risk, a natural inevitability.

They do not play Chinese chess in either of their flats. Besides the kopitiam, they would play at the void deck, at one of the ceramics-tiled tables. Once, a staff from the recreation centre had invited them to play at the centre, for the sake of comfort and company, and Robert had told her to mind her own business, that they were fine where they were. They use Robert’s set of Chinese chess, yellowing plastic pieces and a tissue-thin paper sheet. There are tears along the fold lines of the sheet, and they are very careful when they unfold it. They would spend two to three hours on their game, playing two to three times a week. Apart from this, Robert and Guan do not hang out informally. They, or at least Robert, were content with just playing Chinese chess, and nothing more. Robert does not know Guan’s full name or really anything about his life, given the latter’s taciturnity, though Robert is fine with sharing bits of his own if he’s in a loquacious mood. Guan does not probe, does not seem remotely curious about Robert’s life, though he acknowledges Robert’s monologues with appropriate nods and grunts. 

Besides the chess sessions, Roberts tries to keep himself busy the rest of the time. He goes for daily walks, cooks his own meals, tidies up after himself. He heads to the wet market for his weekly groceries, though he knows the nearby Sheng Siong supermarket offers cheaper prices. He buys his eggs, kailan, onions, tomatoes, and half a kilo of minced pork from the same hawkers he has been buying from for years. Sometimes he stops by the shops beside the market to look at the clothes on display. If he likes a piece—a mustard-coloured floral blouse or an olive-green maxi dress—he would go back a few times to touch the fabric, to assess the length and material, to check for price drop. He used to pick and choose his wife’s clothes to wear, but shortly after she passed away six years ago, Robert had donated all her clothes and started a new wardrobe. He has amassed a colourful, eclectic collection of blouses and pants and dresses since then, rotating each piece solely based on whim, constructing ensembles that either blend harmoniously or give sharp contrast. He wears these only at night, and only when he’s alone; in daytime, he is fine with white singlets and baggy khaki shorts. He enjoys the time spent in front of the wardrobe mirror, trying out different combinations of outfits, savouring the fit and twirl. At first, he indulged himself with buying anything that caught his fancy, but now he allows himself a new piece once a month, keeping it below twenty, twenty-five dollars tops. He keeps in mind all the options and, at the end of a month, decides on the one to buy. The long wait and the final purchase—it never fails to give him a hit of deep pleasure. 

After the incident with the students, Robert found himself opting for a more modest, less flashy outfit. For a month, he did not wear a wig—he has three, of varying length and colour: auburn, cinnamon, butter pecan—and felt inadequately dressed, incomplete, as if he had misplaced some part of himself. He went out later at night and kept to the well-lit spots in the park, avoiding the darker areas and, of course, the pavilion. In the cigarette pack, he stuffed a small penknife which could be extended fully at a press of a button. He tested the sharpness of the blade against his thumb-pad, and took out the penknife every time he had a smoke, brandishing and retracting the blade the whole time it took to finish a stick of cigarette. I need to be ready to use it anytime, he told himself. With the penknife, Robert began to feel confident enough to don his wig, which he did. Now, when he smokes and plays with the penknife, he thinks up different scenarios that might crop up in which he would need to use it, to protect himself, to fight. At the end of each fantasy, he would chuckle out loud, at the absurd idea of him being a killer, a vigilante, an old man in a bright floral sundress, wearing an auburn wig.

Still, there are many hours to kill in a day, many days in a week. When he can’t find Guan in his flat—where did he go on those days, Robert sometimes wonders, maybe to the hospital for checkups? He himself has a lousy liver and high blood pressure, which necessitates regular visits to the hospital, though he skips these appointments if he is feeling okay—Robert would walk around the neighhourbood, to the park or the library where he would stay for an hour or so, till it gets too chilly for him, his fingers turning stiff, painful. Previously he would peruse physical copies of the two nightly Chinese newspapers, Wanbao and Shin Min Daily, but when the library changed these out for digital versions, he had found it harder to read them on the screen of the computers there, the tiny fonts and sharp glare making his eyes water after some time. He still reads them, but only the headlines and photos. He is only interested in the latest news if they are gaudy enough, dangling with sex, scandal and scam. Even after he is done tsking at the horrible state of the world, the day outside is still bright and blank, stretching on, endless. 

On his walk back after another mindless roam, Roberts finds himself at the entrance of the recreation centre, looking in. The automatic glass doors part at his approach, a gush of cold air slapping him on his face, the damp skin of his arms. A staff, an effusive woman in her late forties with a long, rodent face, rushes out from behind the reception to welcome him. First time here, she enquires, to which Robert nods apprehensively. Let me show you around, the woman says, lucky you come now, we have an acrylic painting class, and goes on and on, but Robert is already ignoring her, glancing about the place. I just want to look, he says in Hokkien, and the woman changes tack and mutters something about the different activities they have at the centre. When she finally notices that Robert is not responding to any of her prompts, the woman offers him a seat at a table and excuses herself. Robert plonks himself down, glad to rest his legs, to get rid of the staff. 

He is looking around the centre for a drink or water cooler—didn’t the centre advertise free coffee or tea for the elderly, Robert thinks—when he spots a trio of women sitting at a table in another corner of the room, stealing glances at him. He glares at them to silence their curiosity, but his gesture only seems to make them more agitated, more garrulous, their voices raised. He ignores them, but can’t help picking up crumbs of their babble. He brings his hands down to his lap, hiding his long, peeling fingernails, the peach nail polish faded. One of the women makes a mention of Robert’s tattooed eyebrows, how arched they are, how fake, and the three women broke into hysterics. Another quickly adds something about his baldness and having seen him wear a wig once, and they start to snigger, glancing over at Robert as one. 

Robert suddenly gets up, glides over to the women and stares down at them. He loses the words in his mouth, uncertain what he wants to say.

Chao er xin, one of the women says. So disgusting. 

Hai gan chu lai jian ren, another throws in. The nerves to show yourself. 

Robert draws up a wad of phlegm from the well of his throat and spits at one of the women, an owlish-looking matron with a heavy perm. It lands in her right eye, causing the woman to jump out of her seat, scratching desperately at her eye, screaming. The other two women join in the ruckus, yelling and cursing. A staff, the same woman who has greeted Robert earlier, rushes into the room, alarmed and flustered, trying to work out the situation. The three women keep pointing at Robert, their collective voices a vortex of manic clucking. By then Robert is already making his way out of the recreation centre, spitting on the accursed ground, relieved to be done with those damn women and their nonsense.

Instead of heading home right away, Robert feels the terrible need to walk off his residual rage, even though his feet are still aching. He talks to himself as he walks, angry with the women, and also at himself for how he has responded and not responded, how he should have acted, what he should have said. So many unuttered words choking inside him, unable to vent them out. When he feels he can’t bear it anymore, with the mad, frantic pace he is keeping, he nudges himself to push on, to keep moving. It’s only when he collapses on a wooden bench, somewhere by the roadside, that he lets out a cry, which he swiftly stifles by biting down on his tongue. It’ll not do to show his weakness, to show he is hurt, no one cares. He sucks in a few breaths to calm himself down, and waits for the pain in his calves and soles to ease, for his mind to settle. 

In the days after, Robert stays at home, keeping the door of his flat closed, locked. No one knocks or comes to find him. He studies the shadows under the door, pricks up his ears for stray sounds. If he is hungry, and only if he feels the persistent hunger gnaws, he makes a quick, simple meal of some cream crackers and kopi-o. He lies on the thin mattress on the floor and thinks about the different times in his life that he had to hide from his family, from other people, his wife. How the need to hide himself is so innate and instinctual, blooming from a dark source somewhere in him at a very young age, that he merely has to step out of view, shut his mouth, keep silent, keep very still, and he is gone, disappeared, distant to others, impenetrable, untouchable. It’s like a spell he casts on himself, one that lets him stay in his own bubble, that protects him from any harm or threat out there. He’s safe inside this self-imposed exile, safe to be who he is, safe to make of himself what he wills. Not even his wife, who knew him the longest, and loved him for the man he had shaped himself to be, would understand what this need, so basic and so desperate, means to him. All he wants now is to live his days as he wishes, alone, quiet, at peace. 

Towards the end of the second week of locking himself up in the flat, there’s a knock on the door. The knocks keep coming. Through the peephole, he sees Guan, shrunken in tunnel vision. He opens the door to chase him away, citing a bad headache. Guan looks at him disbelievingly, and asks whether Robert has seen a doctor yet. Nothing the doctor can do anything about, Roberts replies, and is about to shut the door in Guan’s face, when the latter says, when you get better, we can play again, anytime. Robert closes the door without a word. The next day, he hears a noise at the door and finds a Fairprice bag hanging on the door latch. Inside, a tin carton of Julie’s assorted biscuits, a box of Panadol Extra, and a six-bottle pack of Three Legs cooling water. Two days later, a two-kilo bag of SongHe rice, a dozen eggs, an Axe medicated oil, an Eagle Brand embrocation oil. The third time he receives another Fairprice bag of groceries and medicine, Robert finally decides to leave the flat, only so he can tell Guan off for wasting his money, and ask him to please stop.

But he can barely get the words out of his mouth when Guan invites him inside to play chess. Robert hesitates for a second, eager to return home, but Guan stands aside, silently motioning him to come into the flat. From a large trunk by his single bed, Guan takes out a wooden chessboard and a smaller box that houses all the pieces—all made of rosewood, intricately crafted, inked in black and red paint, the strokes of each word masterfully executed—and they start to play. Why didn’t you take this out earlier, you bastard, Robert says. Waiting for the right time, Guan says. They spend the whole afternoon playing, Robert losing most of the matches, but does not really mind. At one point, Robert feels the sudden need to come clean about what has happened, the terrible thing he has done, and Guan, briefly eyeing him, simply says: let’s just play. And so they continue their game, each taking turns to lay out their piece, to consider their moves.

At first, Robert painted his nails in the lightest colour he has, pearl white. Then baby pink. Guan did not notice, or perhaps he did not care enough to say anything. Even when his nails were poppy red, Guan did not utter a peep. Robert made sure to put his finger on the xiang chess piece, feigning a long think before executing a move, long enough for Guan to register his painted nail. Surely a blind man can see it, Robert thought, see what’s going on. Robert started to apply lip gloss, then a tint of peach lipstick, a deep plum, and finally saffron. Again, nothing from Guan. The only time he could get a word out of him was when Robert capitalised on a wrong move by the latter, seizing his jiang with a pao or ma, and he would let out a curse. When he felt confident enough, Robert started to wear a boxy blouse, and gradually switched it up to a tunic top, followed by shell, bralette, camisole, spaghetti-strap tops. Once or twice, Guan would give Robert a longer than usual glance, but Robert interpreted these looks as the latter’s habitual middle-distance gaze, more inward-looking than judging. When he finally donned a sundress two months later, his favourite with the print of hummingbirds, Guan finally spoke up, but only about the exact type of hummingbird he had once seen at the Jurong Bird Park. 

Now they play only in Guan’s flat, something they agreed on mutually, without discussion. They put out the chess board on the small foldable table and arrange the chess pieces, Guan taking the black, Robert red. They take sips of the longjing tea that Guan brews and pours into an old, plug-stopper flask. When Guan is taking a long time to decide his moves, Robert would look around the place, a one-room flat with a tiny kitchen, the same layout as Robert’s, except Guan’s is sparser, tidier, cleaner. On the wall facing the front door, a calendar, a daily page for every date, and a round clock with large black numbers. On another wall, beside the bed, a black-and-white portrait of a much younger Guan—early twenties, thirties?—with a square chin and slicked-back hair, and his wife, full lips, fine brows, thickly kohl-lined eyes, with a pageboy bob. It’s her face that Robert always comes back to when he needs a distraction from the game. Once, he had commented on Guan’s late wife’s pretty looks, and Guan, sneaking a glance at the portrait, had shrugged and said, Your turn.

One morning, Robert comes up and finds the front door of Guan’s flat closed but unlocked. He knocks and makes some noise before deeming it proper to take a peek. Guan is lying on the bed, eyes half shut, and does not react to Robert’s queries. He takes a few steps towards the bed, hoping to catch Guan’s eye, and finally the latter notices him. He silently summons Robert to the bedside. Seeing Guan open his mouth to say something, Robert leans in. From the jumble of garbled sounds, he makes out the words: I’m so tired. 

What’s wrong? Robert asks, touching Guan’s forehead, cheeks. Cool, soft, papery. Are you feeling all right? Any pain? Maybe I should find someone to—

No. Stay. 

But you’re—

Just let me sleep. I’m just tired. Guan closes his eyes for so long that Robert assumes he must have fallen asleep. But Guan musters up a weak voice and says: We can still play. 

No. We can play another time. 

Guan retreats into silence. His chest rises and falls in long, imperceptible undulations. Robert sits by the bedside for some time, then stands to throw open the nearest window. A mynah chirps from a windowsill, then a flutter of wings. Robert is still weighing his decision to find the help that Guan may need. He looks around the place to check whether there is any medication lying around—packets of hospital-issued pills, vials, sachets. Nothing, but a half-empty box of Panadol. He checks the kettle on the stove, washes out a glass and pours the remaining water into it. He pulls the stool that he usually uses close to the bed and places the glass on it. He studies Guan’s face, and remembers the face of his dead wife whom he had discovered one morning slumped on the bathroom floor, pale and inscrutable, freed of exertion. A weak, unreliable heart. He couldn’t remember the last time he had touched his wife’s face—years, decades; it didn’t matter for a while, and then it became impossible, unthinkable—but he held his hand to his wife’s cheek that morning, and felt a sharp, intolerable sadness for something that had been lost for so long. 

Robert stays by Guan’s side the whole morning, then afternoon. He gets up to stretch his legs occasionally, pacing from the bed to the kitchen. He boils a fresh kettle of water. He peeks into the kitchen drawers, and then finally into the wooden trunk by the bed. He finds old bank bills, insurance policies, a case of jewellery—his wife’s, her dowry?—and three photo albums, photos of Guan and his wife in their younger days, and, to Robert’s surprise, a son, whom Guan had never told him about, not once, in their interactions. He wonders about Guan’s relationship with his son, and what it means to leave someone out of one’s life, to be of no account as to not warrant a single mention. Robert had not wanted children, a decision he had made very early in his marriage, which his wife had no choice but to accept.     

When he looks into the mirror after using the toilet, Guan examines his own face, the make-up he has put on that morning, the thick kohl around his eyes, to match the one on Guan’s wife in the portrait. His wig too, which he has cut to a fluffy bob and dyed a raven colour. It sits nicely on his head, Robert thinks, fetchingly, takes years off his age. He wets his fingers under the tap, straightens a few strands. 

Shortly around eleven at night, Guan stirs and starts to whimper. Robert lays a hand to steady him, to wake him, but Guan remains in a dream state, his eyes strained open, but unseeing. Something seems to have come over him. The words escaping from his mouth make no sense to Robert—a place, a time, names, none of which coheres into a clear picture. Robert pulls the chair closer to the bed and listens. Guan continues to sob and rave. A name that surfaces more than the others: Kim Lian—was it Guan’s late wife’s? Robert tries to tie the name to an event, an incident, but everything is a blur of details, no connections. Robert stays silent by his side, not wanting to break the spell of his rant, for it has occurred to him that Guan might have needed to get something—a story, a secret—off his chest, for once in his life. He does not know the latter’s private pain, and so he lets him be.  

Once he’s done, Guan stops talking. Robert checks the latter’s chest—still breathing. He sits by the bed and, at one point, falls into a deep sleep. In his dream, he sees his wife in the hummingbird sundress, twirling in the tight space of their flat, pulling Robert into the dance. Together they spin and spin, twining and entangling, until Robert can no longer tell his body apart from his wife’s, merged as one. He feels his happiness remotely, fleetingly, like a spectre touching air. Close to dawn, Robert wakes and turns to Guan. He waits a moment, long enough for him to think about the man lying before him, a stranger he knows almost nothing about—his life, his past, the stretch of people, things, events, once there, now all gone—and how it is to leave the world, when the time comes, as if one has never truly existed, never mattered at all. A weight crushes terribly inside him, an inconsolable sensation.

When the moment finally passes, Robert gets up and, seeing the Chinese chess pieces on the playing board, starts to pack them up.

O Thiam Chin is the author of four novels and seven collections of stories, including A Thing of Fun, published in 2025. His work has appeared in Granta, The Cincinnati Review, Washington Square Review, Mānoa, The Brooklyn Rail and World Literature Today. He was an honorary fellow of the Iowa International Writing Program in 2010, and a recipient of the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award in 2012.