By Jason Low

Fifteenth day, seventh lunar month. I stood by the dining table, watching the couple thread softly in the gloom of their HDB flat. I didn't interrupt them as they went about searching for things with a calm resolve.

"The reds have thinned into pink and the greens have paled into blue," she said. As she continued talking, her fingers traced the marks on the paper. A child's drawing of a family. Three tadpoles with arms on their heads.

"And here is his collection of paperbacks," he said, pressing his fingers down on the cracked spines as the bent covers and mildewed pages threatened to slip free.

I turned to the hallway behind me. I gazed at a picture of a young couple standing with their newborn, the baby balanced in the crook of their arms. Another snapshot showed the three of them at Har Par Villa, huddled near the great belly of the Laughing Buddha statue. She sported a jacket with gigantic shoulder pads, loud with print; he posed with a dramatic side glance, chin tilted; the boy wore orange Sony headphones, a Walkman clipped to his belt. Further along the wall, the last family photo captured Changi Airport behind them. The youth's lanky frame buzzed with the anticipation of liberation in some far-flung foreign city; his parents smiled stiffly, as if they had lost something important. Then I found myself drawn to a separate photo of the couple alone at their citizenship ceremony – shoulders upright, certificates held close, the Merlion projected in the background. I leaned forward to touch the glass – at the space beside the couple that was wide enough for a third figure – but stepped back. There was a distortion lurking outside the frame – an indistinct likeness mirrored in the shine. Maybe it was just the dust, lit unevenly across the glass, forming strange shapes.

The thin curtains in the spare bedroom tousled outwards, swelling and collapsing in undulating waves. Behind the open shelving, old posters – pop bands, mostly – peeked through, stubborn in their refusal to be forgotten.

"His records are still here," she said. "Do you remember how he'd call us from his residential college every weekend with a list of singles to buy?"

He nodded. "We were the coolest old folks browsing at Valentine's Records in Far East Plaza, asking for club remixes of this, bootleg versions of that. The shop owner was so impressed."

"We would tape the songs onto cassettes," she said. "And post them together with packets of laksa paste and jars of kaya."

I looked away as he drew her close, steadying her trembling shoulders. The window showed the old school field. Children darted toward an angsana tree that was leaning as if the sunlight were trying to flatten it. That was where you could disappear into a book, no grown-ups, no noise, just let the world fall away until the bell called you back.

"His things remained in the flat even when he was living abroad. Safe. They filled the empty spaces, lessened the presence of his absence," she said, gathering the objects into a cardboard box. She hesitated over a t-shirt, briefly pressing the fabric to her face before lowering it into the box.

"I used to think, since his things were still here, that he'd come back to gather the days together," he said. "He wrote once, saying Singapore still called out to him."

"Should we hold on to his things?" she asked.

"There won't be much space in the new one-room flat," he said.

She moved to the window, placed her hand beside mine on the sill, and gazed out, distracted. Ceaseless renewal. Redevelopment everywhere. Beyond the school, glistening bodies were setting up barricades, shovelling gravel, digging earth, transporting cement. What had that crumpled letter from the Board said – tomorrow, wasn't it, that we'd all have to move out for rehousing and resettlement? What the Board asks, we must do.

The overhead fluorescent lamp flickered.

I watched them prepare and eat dinner. At around 8pm, they climbed into bed. She stared at the ceiling, lips praying hard for good neighbours at the new environment. I watched them wake up at 6am, boil water, and make coffee for him, Milo for her. He mopped the kitchen and scrubbed away at invisible stains. She sat cross-legged on the living room floor, needle poised to stitch a patch of batik over a hole in her sweater. Then I watched them gather up more things until it was time for him to tape up the box.

"Everything is ready," he said. "Do you want to come with me?"

She shook her head and wiped her nose.

He picked up the box and carried it out of the flat.

She kept an eye on the ticking clock's proclamations until he returned.

"Did they take the box?" she asked.

"It's not something they'd normally do, but they'll help us process the things in a separate incinerator," he said. "They gave us a photo of him."

She leaned over his shoulder. The image showed a body with a face that was unnaturally pale, exuding a waxy, rigid quality.

"The bowtie suits him," she said.

"They'll call us later to pick up the ashes," he added. "Are you ready?"

He rolled a suitcase behind him. Just before they shut the door, she glanced back. Just to make sure.

The flat was utterly empty, purged of the things that were ordinarily there. The air was still – until an excavator's arm crashed through the ceiling, tearing concrete and steel apart. The flat crumbled in a heap around me. A month passed. Then a year. Time crossed out in a blink. Through the wreckage, a gleaming behemoth that reminded me of nothing stretched upward.

I tried to bring the couple into focus, but their faces were imprecise, succumbing to darkness. Was it them – or was it me – who had been drifting about the flat, rifling through artefacts, settling things? My thoughts felt far off, sliding into the horizon. I stood still, remaindered and out of place. I tried to reach out and communicate, but the strips of lights suspended above my head only sizzled with static.

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