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Bedok Terrace Gossip (The Feeble Fix-it Guy)
Steadfast, every single morning
a wry, scrawny man
some 50 odd years of age
visits the slightly derelict house
diagonally across the street
shirtless,
with his tanned, concave chest
exposed to the elements
He tinkers about
with ramrod straight posture
industriously,
sometimes climbing
a precarious looking steel ladder
with a diminutive paint roller
in his wizened hand,
sometimes he is crouched over
at a corner
of a dishevelled looking garden
random clay pots
like tawdry motels
temporarily housing
a motley mess of plants
lives in disarray.
He toils away
at a thin, gravelly looking layer of soil.
Dry, parched
the asphalt driveway looks
so dry
that you wonder
doesn’t he feel thirsty,
labouring away under the hot midday sun?
In between his tasks
he sits in repose
on the pavement outside
facing the rundown palace
but he never looks idle
fixated with a look
of dilligent contemplation,
as he surveys
the greying
mould-marbled facade
of his conscientious work
worn, shabby, and wearily silent
in demeanour
Around 5pm everyday,
as the reassuring evening breeze
dulls the sheen of sweat
coating his skin
the wan man
leaves his supposed palace
its structure still fraying
like his threadbare khaki shorts
Half an hour later,
a non-threatening looking middle-aged lady
walks up to the porch of the house
arm in arm
with an equally gormless looking man.
She unlocks the gates
and enters the living room of the house
introducing elements
like green-tinged fluorescent lighting
and the chatter of a television
to the droll space
not that it makes much of a difference
to the sullen house
dulled with a feeble sadness.
The neighbourhood aunties say
that the wan shirtless man
who comes and goes
like a stubborn, skinny entity
was once married
to the lady
She wrested the haggard old house
from his grip
after their divorce
not quite
She may have moved on
but her quietly determined ex-husband
returns doggedly everyday
like a dutiful handyman
who has no qualms
fixing (or deconstructing)
the debilitated cliche
of a building,
incapable of improvement
structural or aesthetic
Everyday, he resolutely waves
his imaginary wand
over his faded fortress
but it looks as waxen as his face
Some say he’s tireless,
long-suffering.
The neighbourhood aunties say he’s tiresome,
insufferable
deluded and foolish even,
“He looks like a shoddy labourer”
another opines
staking his invisible claim
on a home that
he no longer sleeps in
Perhaps he’s trying to salvage
some semblance of domesticity
once his and hers.
Or perhaps
he’s a sweaty, hopeless romantic
clammy with sadness
translating his unrequited love
to an unresponsive
but non-judgemental structure.
Now and then he pauses
from his strict regimen
relenting,
he gives the neighbourhood children
a sanguine smile.
Recently,
he’s been looking more wan than usual.
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