THE CITIZEN

The doctor looks at me, pokes my side and listens to my breathing. He says there doesn’t seem to be any damage, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. And then he orders me to take off my shirt and press my chest against an x-ray machine. He charges me $300 for the x ray, and gives me some painkillers for any residual pain. 

“That’s it, doctor?”

“Yes, that’s all. It doesn’t look like you’ve broken anything.”

All in a completely toneless, lifeless voice. 

“Do you enjoy your job, sir?”

“Sorry?”

“I just wanted to know. Do you get any joy out of this job? Or is it drudgery? Just seems like you don’t have any passion that’s all.”

“I have other patients to see, Mr Li. Please collect your medication outside.”

I wonder why these people get paid so much. Why everyone’s parents wants them to become some form of medical professional, short of nursing. It’s clear Dr Chan entered medicine because his mother wanted him to. That’s the only explanation for his lack of enthusiasm -- years of forced studying, sealed after decades by the threat of sunk costs. Yet another broken Singaporean.  

Oh Jia Sen, why do you pick unwinnable fights for yourself? Because you want to prove to yourself that they are unwinnable? That there is no facing down an implacable system stacked against you from the very beginning? 

I live on this godforsaken island, my presence a mere nothing -- a harmless ripple in the caverns of space-time to be drowned out by cheap shampoo, instant coffee, China-made shoes, train breakdowns, intermittent Internet connectivity, rising petrol costs, Indonesian forest fires, durian season, salted egg yolk crabs, salted egg yolk buns, salted egg yolk biscuits, salted egg yolk everything, the best place to eat Katong Laksa, nostalgia for the overrated 80s and 90s, the overripe pining for a time which never existed. A healthy heaping of hope onto a generation, all manufactured gloss, ephemeral and fleeting and sugar-coated Paracetemol for the soul.