Circles

The boy ate there while he was at school.

After rehearsals, the actors would gather in the hawker centre for supper. There would always be this old man sitting by himself at a corner. In a word, he was filthy. As he scratched and twitched, he talked to himself and to imaginary people while smoking tiny self-rolled cigarettes. He carried around a tin, though no one had seen what was inside. Once in a while he yelled.

They joked around, saying that the old man was a friend of one of the actresses. It was all fun and games. The boy thought nothing more of it.



The writer seeks out a colleague who had a good idea at a pitching session that wasn't used. He puts forward a suggestion, and asks if he'd like to work together. The response is positive, but somewhat different from what he'd expected. The colleague feels the company is dead, and it'd go nowhere here. He wants to work on it together, then take no pay leave and make a short.

The writer had no idea his colleague was this unhappy. And in a way, he feels sorry for him too, because here is an extremely talented individual working for a company that is blind to his potential. What's he doing in the office so late at night? Painting a fucking rubber snake to be used as a prop.



The professional walks out of the meeting pleased. He felt he'd connected with his cousin's client, especially the Dragon Lady in charge of the association. While the video wasn't even close to good in his opinion, it was the best he could've done to salvage badly-taken footage and shitty performances.

It's funny, he shouldn't be feeling so good. It's just a corporate video, and besides, the client had wanted lots of things changed.

But the things were also points which he'd felt were problems when he was editing it, just that they were out of his control. But now, with the okay given, he could go ahead and change them.

In a strange way, he felt a strange affinity with the older woman. Not just because their Chinese was better than anyone else in the room, but because he felt they'd somehow connected on a professional level. Both could sense the other knew his or her shit, knew clearly what the hell they wanted, and wouldn't feel good until something was done right. The fact that he spoke some Cantonese with her while none of her staff could also helped.

It was nice to be appreciated. Nay, respected.



The scholar is puzzled. His colleague said he was destined for management level greatness. But I don't like playing their game, and I don't want to play their game, he protested. The colleague points out that he has a combination of production talent and presentation flair - he's believable when he talks to people.

But the scholar doesn't think that necessary makes for good management personnel. At least not in the current state of the company. Not when people like his boss are around. Not when ass-kissing matters more than actual capability. Not when schmoozing is more important than real work. And the scholar would rather die than become a political animal.

Anyway, the scholar knows that his company would rather prefer people like him were invisible, swept under the carpet like the remnants of a botched abortion.



The young man eats his dinner alone at the hawker centre. As he tucks into his fishball noodles, he looks around for the crazy old man. He's nowhere to be found.

There's no one to ask, and no one to tell.



The director wanders to the side of the makeshift stage.

It's a ramshackle affair, slapped together with old scaffolding and canvas. The backdrop and banners look worn, leftovers from a previous era. High-pitched warbling, accompanied by screechy erhus and staccato percussion sounds from beat-up amplifiers reminiscent of those he'd had at his primary school. It's in his mother tongue, Teochew, but he understands only half of what his grandmother says on good days, and he can't recognize a single word that's sung.

Onstage, the actors, clothed in traditional bright red wedding costumes, walk around in circles with their stylized moves. They flap their sleeves, they take turns to bemoan their fate and pass cutting remarks about their partner to-be. It seems to be a romantic comedy. The female has a pigtail sticking straight out the back of her head. Her features are obscured by a veil, with an embroidered flower smack in the middle, right over her mouth. Yet still she refuses to be silenced, and sings. It is her wedding night, she doesn't know her husband, and she just doesn't have a very good feeling about him.

Maybe it's because he's also played by a woman. Maybe not.

Through holes in the side of the structure, the director sees old musicians playing their instruments by the light of a dimly-glowing bulb. Through the flapping canvas in the back, he sees other actors and actresses putting on their makeup, stretching, and going through their lines. It must be tough, he thinks. But there's one thing for sure, they're not doing it for the money.

The audience is full of old men and women, more women than men. They sit there and watch silently, almost creepily. Now the director isn't sure if it's a romantic comedy. There are no expressions on their faces. Do they just not care anymore? Are they there just because they have nowhere else to go, nothing else to do? He looks around. The youngest audience member, besides him, is a foreign maid that's probably there to take care of an old lady. He feels a tinge of sadness, yet admits to himself that he's kind of bored too, and would probably leave soon.

As he makes his way back home, the actors are still circling on the stage.

Circling, circling, and going nowhere.