By Dexter Lok
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a small section involving physical violence occurs at the end of Teh Bing, homophobia (parental), abuse (parental)
Many thanks to my first readers, Sandar, Hal, Marc and Geo Yi for giving earlier versions of this work a read.
Teh Bing
“What's wrong with you?”
It rained that night, a sudden downpour neither of us had anticipated when we left the house. I had no jacket to fend myself from the winds that crashed against the kopitiam's outdoor seating area. I was in a daze, unsure if it was my father's words or the cup of teh bing which had driven the chills into my bones.
“你幾時開始同嗰個gay仔行埋一起?” (lei gei si hoi qi tong gor go gay zai hang mai yat chai / since when did you start dating that gay boy?)
It was uncanny to hear him switch tongues - English, our working language, had still provided a layer of padding between his piercing probe and my pounding heart; Cantonese, our home language, sounded more crisp and cold as it wedged itself deeper into my soul. 5 short syllables that just slit right across my skin.
I took a sip of my teh bing. I winced. The drink stung as if it were soup trying to defrost the words trapped underneath my frozen tongue. Yet, my tongue refused to dissolve. I stared at my father, stunned.
How does a 15-year-old explain their compulsion to kiss the cute boy they met in class? He had asked me out after school to have lunch and walk around the neighbourhood. Somewhere along the way, his hand serendipitously slithered into mine, fingers grasping each other gently as we lost ourselves in stories of childhood wonder.
We hadn't anticipated my father staring coldly at us when we turned into my void deck. I forgot I had parents. For the past few hours, I had been free.
It goes without saying that freedom comes with a price. But this price tag was much colder than I could bear.
I exhaled through my mouth, half-expecting a glass panel between us to fog up and reveal itself.
“唔知啦 (mm tze lah / I don't know),” I said. “Maybe this is just how I am.”
The average adult temperature is around 37°c. In 2011 Singapore, the lowest it ever dipped to during monsoon season was around 25°c. Any radiation of heat should still have been felt, even if it was a mere 12°c difference between hand and environment.
I, however, could only feel a slab of ice crush into my jaw when my father swiped his hand across my face.
Kopi Bing
When his father appeared in the corner, I could feel a shiver run down my spine. The man stood at the other end of the void deck, tall and brooding like a butcher waiting to skin us alive. Before I knew it, I took flight and ran as fast as I could back out to the street. I boarded the next bus that arrived, ears deafened with the beats of my heart.
That night, I wandered to a kopitiam that was still open past 10. I sat at a table, mindlessly blowing bubbles into my koi bing.
I thought of the doodles he drew, portraits of us so carefully scaffolded with pencil guides but hastily inked out in pen. It was just like his essays, I had told him. Carefully planned but shoddily scribbled out in the end. I loved listening to him talk about all these big ideas he had read about in those huge novels he carried on the top of his massive pile of textbooks and files. Most of the time I barely understood what he said. When I did, it felt like a eureka moment, a lightbulb having turned on in the dark. His eyes sparkled, too, as if reflecting the new lights that had gone on above my head.
But what happens when the government decides to shut off the power supply entirely?
I didn’t know much about his family except that they loved buying expensive cakes to eat once in a while. I imagined his face glowing amidst the candlelight, just about to blow out a tiny flame. If only I could freeze that image of him, like a screenshot of a youtube video, forever immortalised as a lockscreen wallpaper before he disappeared into the shadows.
Did I want to be trapped in that darkness with him, reaching out into the void and hoping to feel the warmth of his hand again?
I wish we could have walked around the neighbourhood forever, our fingers intertwined and palms pressed together like two pieces of bread warming up in the toaster. One long conversation that lasted continuously without ever being interrupted, his voice reaching deep into my soul and cuddling my insides like a child wrapped in a blanket. Almost like how I continuously blow into the kopi bing, letting the foam expand and spill onto the table like an endless fountain of love.
I finished the kopi bing only to have it suddenly sour in my mouth. I choked on the acid, coughing most of the drink out.
Dexter (he/they) is a Southeast Asian writer based in Singapore who turns to the written word to make sense of this messy, acrimonious world. They are currently an undergraduate of Linguistics and English Literature studying the languages, literature and cultures of Southeast Asia. When not writing, they can be found nagging at everyone – from their friends to the Singaporean government – about the importance of mindful rest as a means of political resistance. They can be found on @ambi_dexter_writes on Instagram.
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