By Felicia Toh Wen Xin

The webpage, with its wall of black text on a plain white background under the heading "Super Special–By Referral Only," teetered on the border between nineties retro and a literal interpretation of minimalist design. Andy had to resist the urge to click over to the job search portal open in another tab. Wasn't this visual proof Grab was in dire need of a front-end web developer?

He fired off a message to Zag. "Sure this is the correct page, bro?"

The reply came almost instantly. "Correct. Just fill in, bro."

"Website design sucks though??"

"Maybe you can improve it for them."

"Not on a Grab driver's salary…"

Zag sent back a GIF of a man bathing in a shower of coins. Andy sighed.  Trying to carve out a space in cramped, overcrowded Singapore was like trying to play a modified version of Tetris where the blocks beneath constantly shifted around, rendering his attempts to squeeze into the designated space useless. The broke student era where a friend might let him unroll his mattress on the floor of a two-person hostel for 50 dollars and a drink had long passed. Rental fees for a fully furnished common room clocked in at close to a thousand dollars, and even then, came with micromanaging landlords who acted as though they had personally caught him carving holes in the ozone layer whenever they heard the hum of the air conditioner. And it wasn't just rental expenses. Groceries, transport, telco bills, life insurance all converged in an ever-expanding snowball of bills in a country of perpetual summer.

"No but seriously, this webpage sucks. Did Grab lay off the entire UX design team?"

"It's not for public viewing. By Referral Only."

"And you're my referral. Referee?"

A second GIF of a Mediacorp actor flashing a thumbs-up sign followed. Zag had always turned to GIFs to express sentiments where a simple 'yes' or even an emoji would have sufficed. But it wasn't Andy's place to nitpick, especially when this was an online friend throwing him a rope to climb out of the dark hole of unemployment by helping him get a temporary job as a Grab driver.

Not get, per se. Andy still had to fill in the referral form, which would presumably be reviewed by someone in HR (truly the cockroaches of the corporate world, in Andy's humble opinion) and process the referral money for Zag once they had checked all the boxes. Andy didn't know Zag's real name or economic status, but anyone who could reply to messages in a matter of seconds no matter the time of day and was relying on the pittance paid out by Grab's Driver Referral Programme probably wasn't washing down his cai png with Dom Pérignon in his luxurious Bukit Timah estate.

Whatever, Andy thought, turning his attention back to the page. After the usual questions like name and NRIC, they were mainly yes-no questions like whether he had a licence (yes), whether he had a car (no), and whether he'd had prior experience working with Grab (no, too enamoured by promises of a high-paying tech job to even consider it). When asked for his availability to start work, he selected the next day, then paused on the last question.

What the hell is Zag's real name?

"What's your full name as per NRIC?"

"Zagreus."

"Very funny, bro. I need it for the referral."

"Just put Zagreus."

"Wtf, I can't use an online handle. You won't get the referral money like this."

"Just put Zagreus."

Zag had always been stoic, even by the metrics of an online friendship. Andy wanted to reach through the screen to shake him. What if the system discarded the referral because of the fake name?

But it wasn't like he knew what else to write. He typed Zagreus and clicked submit. Almost immediately, an email appeared in his inbox with instructions to download the Grab Driver app and information on picking up the rental car.

"Got arrowed to do a late shift?"

Andy gave a start. He was in the passenger seat of a silver Hyundai Kona, watching the protective amulet dangling from the rearview mirror sway gently from side to side. The numbers on the stereo proclaimed 2.54am. 

"Sort of."

"Remember to claim the fare. Some bosses will pretend transport is already included in your overtime pay. Scumbags. Might as well sleep over in the office, right?"

Andy grunted his assent, before the gears in his sleep-deprived mind finally clicked into place. Faced with the lack of public transport options in the middle of the night, he had grudgingly dipped into his dwindling savings to call for a Grab. This driver was technically a colleague.

"Did you have to report at such an ungodly hour as well?"

The driver kept his eyes on the road, but Andy sensed his surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Today's my first day with Grab. They asked me to go down to Bukit Merah Industrial Estate at 3am to pick up my rental vehicle. Do we have to sit through a 10-hour onboarding session or something?"

This time, the driver glanced sideways at him. "Um, I hate to break it to you, but the rental vehicle pick-up is at Tampines."

"What?" Andy scrambled for his phone. "The email I got said Bukit Merah. Look!"

"I can't look at your phone, man. I'm driving."

Andy rubbed his eyes, which were starting to water. He shouldn't have worn contact lenses so late (early?) in the day. In any case, the high-rise buildings peeking out from behind the dense wall of trees lining the highway had given way to short, squat buildings with rows of cars parked under wavering pools of light. He strained to make out the green-and-white signage of Grab amid all the other signboards advertising tyre changes and automobile services.

"Maybe they wanted you to pick it up straight from the workshop," the driver offered.

Andy had no answer to that. He could tell the driver didn't want to wait around and knew it wouldn't be fair to ask for a free ride to Tampines. With a final mumbled "thanks," he disembarked and slouched towards the sole lighted storefront, rubbing his eyes. Maybe the buses would have started by the time he got to the bottom of this.

Back in the driver's seat of his black Kia Niro, Andy slid his glasses back on, even though his eyes had miraculously stopped watering a while ago. The onboarding process, if it could even be called that, had been laughably short. Someone had escorted him inside, passed him the car keys and an acknowledgement form, and sent him on his way. His eyes had watered throughout, making it hard for him to take in the interior of the shop or even the information in the form, but he assumed it was standard fare holding him responsible for the car while it was in his care. He booted up the Driver app and immediately received a notification that caused his fingers to crash against the hard plastic of his glasses.

What are the chances my first passenger wants to come here as well?

"Here."

Andy looked between the charm bracelet and the young man, who glared challengingly back at him from under the brim of his Balenciaga cap. He considered his own fashion sense non-existent, but even he knew no guy—or girl, for that matter—would allow this mess of tacky plastic beads and charms with no discernible theme to dangle from their wrist. There was no accounting for taste.

"Sir, I can't accept gifts."  

"Call me Sir for what? It's my toll for the ride."  

Andy stole a glance at the card reader-like machine affixed to the dashboard of the rental vehicle. Come to think of it, why hadn't anyone briefed him about this? Were ERP charges the responsibility of passengers? Why else would this passenger – this young punk – concern himself with the road toll?

"Eh, hurry up." The charms rattled in his face, and Andy felt a flash of annoyance.

"Please get in the car if you'd like me to drive."

"Who's the customer, you or me?"

Andy looked at the greyed-out cancel button on his phone and decided to pocket the easy money from the booking (thank you, late night surcharge). He accepted the bracelet, and the young punk slid into the passenger seat. "You'd better remember to take it before you leave."

"Just take it as additional payment for the ride."

"I only accept cash, not crap."

"It's not crap. It's a gift I got for a girl years ago."  

Then why is it with you? Andy bit back the words, not wanting to encourage further conversation. The carpark barrier lifted, and he steered the car onto the quiet, empty street.

"Sounds like some cock K-drama, right? Guy from the wrong side of the road, girl out of his league. Literally wrong side, by the way. This side is all rental flats. Her estate across the road, all owner-occupied. But we went to the same school, and she forced me to study with her."

The traffic light at the end of the road turned red. Andy groaned inwardly. Just his luck for his very first passenger to be a young punk who wanted to monologue about his relationship problems.

"She was damn pissed when she found out I missed the O-level papers. I meant to go, but I overslept! Not my fault we can only race in the middle of the night! And it was my only chance to drive an M-series BMW!"

The only thing Andy knew about BMWs was their hefty price tag. Thankfully, the green light spared him from commenting.

"She was always a chiongster. Wanted to be eye level with the stars, or some fake deep shit like that. Or is it deep fake shit? It's AI that does deep fakes, right?"

"Dunno," Andy grunted.

"Anyway, she refused to pick up my calls. I was like, fine, I'll buy you a present, don't angry liao, okay? Next thing I know, she's gone! Moved away!"

Andy decided to take another stab at civility. "How come you want to go to Bukit Merah? Is your car being serviced?"

"No lah. The app only allowed me to choose it. I wanted to go to her old house."

This raised even more questions for Andy. "Why don't you just cross the road if you want to visit your girlfriend's old house?"

"She was never my girlfriend."

"Whatever. Why don't you just walk over?"

"Cannot."

"Why not?"

"The app didn't let me choose it."

Andy drove on, deep in thought. Why had this young punk gone to the trouble of calling a Grab to take him somewhere he didn't even want to go? Why couldn't he just cross the road? Was something wrong with the app? Curiosity warred with pragmatism, and just as curiosity was about to come out on top, the mechanical voice of the GPS cut in.

"You have arrived at your destination."

The young punk nodded his thanks and slid out of the car.

"Wait, your bracelet!" Andy yanked open the car door and gave chase, the charms jangling obnoxiously. As darkened storefronts flashed by, he momentarily wondered which shop he had entered, then forced himself to focus. He needed to find the passenger first.

Andy dashed down the first street, then turned into another one, keeping his eyes peeled for a human figure. But he took several wrong turns in the dark, and by the time he returned to where his car was (illegally) parked, he had no choice but to accept that the young punk had vanished.

"Shit," Andy wheezed, clutching the stitch in his side. "What was that?"

The young punk was the first of a series of passengers that graced Andy's rental vehicle. Young or old, Singaporean or foreigner, he picked them up from every corner of the island, but they always requested to be dropped off at Bukit Merah Industrial Estate. They also passed him something they called a 'toll' on top of the booking fee. Andy initially tried returning these weirdly personal items, but the passengers always insisted and he didn't want to take them home, so he placed them around the car. After the first encounter, he had bought protective amulets from every single faith he could think of—Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, he wasn't fussy—but the passengers kept coming, and he still couldn't reject bookings. In the end, he gave up. Compared to the horror stories of entitled customers that made their rounds online, he would take this strange but otherwise harmless behaviour.

"I hope my family renovates the house once the money comes in. Normal injuries are harder to claim because companies will say, you broke your left arm, can still use your right arm to work, right? But I died. This means they will give more money than if it's two broken arms or even my back. Miss Raihana told me they would rather pay than for the news to spread and ruin their reputation. I've cleared the debt I incurred to come to Singapore, so everything can go to my family."

This came from a Bangladeshi construction worker named Hassan, whose toll had been a sketch of a house with labels like 'Farah's room,' 'cupboard for Majidah's clothes,' and 'family dining table for 10 pax.' It had also left Andy feeling deeply uncomfortable. Before being retrenched, he had complained about being worked to death, but at least he hadn't been in danger of literally being crushed under a steel girder. His own snide remarks about lazy migrant workers taking forever to build new flats rang in his ears as he drove.

"I wanted to go back to Bangladesh, but the app said the destination had to be within Singapore. Then I tried to type in Tampines North, but I could only pick Bukit Merah Industrial Estate. I wish I could have gone to Tampines North instead."

"Why?"

"My friends and I used to play cricket at an open field there on our day off. Some guys go to Paya Lebar to meet their girlfriends, but I'm married, so no girlfriend for me. My wife would kill me if I appeared on another girl's TikTok."

Andy had given an awkward laugh. 

"Thank you for listening, Sir. I don't often talk to Singaporeans. Only my supervisor, and he's a real magir puth. Oh, and Miss Raihana. She's from the charity I told you about. I found out about them when my friend lost two fingers operating a drill. She helps us talk to MOM so we can get our money."

"Does she know you're… not around anymore?"

"I'm sure she'll find out soon enough. Thank you again for the ride."

"Hassan is dead?"

"I don't know his full name, but someone with that name died yesterday. Can you check the database for a death certificate?"

Raihana narrowed her kohl-lined eyes at Andy. They were a striking grey, probably the result of those K-beauty contact lenses that were everywhere nowadays. An intricate henna design wreathed by leaves and vines flashed at him from the back of her hand. "How do you know? We haven't even heard from MOM yet."

"Isn't there a worker who lost two fingers operating a drill? They're from the same company."

"We get a lot of cases like this. You'll need to be more specific."

Andy was starting to regret his decision to visit the migrant worker advocacy group. From the articles he had skimmed, it seemed to consist of perennially overstretched volunteers, so giving them information to close Hassan's case and move onto another, more pressing one had seemed like a good idea in theory. But he hadn't accounted for formal reporting procedures. Now, Raihana thought he was a negligent construction manager trying to take the heat off his company by sharing his side of the story before the official investigation.

"I was at CGH with my father and overheard some paramedics talking about being called down to an on-site death. One of them said he had attended to a worker from the same company who lost his fingers operating a drill." Please let this be enough.

"And they conveniently mentioned the company by name?"

Andy had gotten the company's name from Hassan and Googled them afterwards. It was hard to believe the suffering that underpinned those glossy photos of new developments and lofty commitments to affordable, ethical housing, but he had only ever been interested in the cost of the finished product.

"Yes."

Raihana sighed. "Fine." There was a pause as she typed, then her tone changed. "The death certificate for Mohammad Hassan Manan Sarkar, work permit number M049920X, was just issued by the coroner. We don't usually get wind of cases resulting in death until after the incident report from MOM. How did you find out about this?"

"Like I said, I was just trying to help." Andy glanced at his phone, noting the pick-up request just down the road. "I don't work in construction. I'm a Grab driver, and I'm on call."

Andy never thought he would settle for a job as a GPH (Ghostly Private Hire), but he was seriously considering it now. It was surprisingly lucrative, even if the bookings came in at odd hours. Did Grab have an entire fleet dedicated to underworld services? How had Zag found out about this gig? He'd tried to contact Zag, but all his messages went undelivered, and clicking on Zag's username caused an error message to appear–USER NOT FOUND. Strange, but online friends disappeared all the time. They got bogged down with work, got married, got ordained as a monk–there were all sorts of non-supernatural reasons for their disappearance, the simplest one being this was the most drama-free way of cutting someone out of your life. Andy wasn't heartbroken about it, but he wondered from time to time if Zag had ever gotten the referral money.

Overall, Andy was in a good mood when he left his studio apartment, pondering the happy problem of upgrading to a bigger unit on the fringes or moving closer to the city centre. The first pick-up request was a HDB estate in Telok Blangah, which meant a nice, short drive to the industrial estate. He started the engine, barely registering the mess of items littering the dashboard and sticking out of the glove compartment.

"Pick-up for Mr Low?"

"That's right."

The old man eased himself into the passenger seat. Andy didn't pay close attention at first–old people, old men in particular, made up about seventy-five percent of his daily passengers, and their faces tended to blur together in a mess of silvery-grey hair and sagging, liver-spotted skin. It wasn't until he glanced casually at the old man's hands that he spotted the jade inset ring.

It can't be.

Andy's hand jumped to the faded pink scar on his neck. The old man looked over, probably wondering why his driver was still idling at the pick-up point, and frowned.

"Kar Long?"

Andy hastily adjusted the gears. Fuck.

"Wait."

The voice was softer now, but there was still an underlying air of authority Andy's muscles instinctively reacted to. He shifted the car back into park, both hands moving on autopilot to receive the binder. The old man's fingers were cold, the way all their hands were, and the metal square of the jade inset felt like the inside of a freezer. The chill finally cut through the mix of anger, confusion, and loathe as he was to admit it, fear that had been bubbling inside him.

"When did you start doing Grab?"

"Seven months ago." 

"You need to tidy up. A cluttered car will affect your ratings. Why are you doing Grab? Do you have a proper job?"

"This is my job."

"I mean an office job."

"This is a proper job."

"Okay." For the first time Andy could remember, the old man backed down. "Aren't you going to open it?"

"No."

"You should." 

Again, Andy's fingers moved on autopilot. Some of the cards nestled in the transparent sleeves were crumpled and torn, others covered in mystery stains and mould. His gut twisted with revulsion, and he slammed the binder shut.

"Take it back. I'll just throw it out afterwards."

"I can't carry them with me where I'm going."

Where are you going? Andy wanted to ask, but knew from experience none of his passengers could give him a satisfactory explanation. In between rides, he had mapped every twist and turn, every back alley of the industrial estate, trying to puzzle out the allure of this place. He had never found anything, not even the shop he had first picked up his car. All the tenants he had spoken to insisted Grab didn't have an office here.

Now, Andy shifted the gear into drive, determined to get this ride over with.

"Do you remember these cards? Gold-edged, BGS grading 9. The store owner bet there was no way you could remember the player names and statistics, but you did! The look on his face!"

A flash of light reflecting off glass cases lined with cards of football players, holographic patterns shimmering under the spotlights. Lemon-scented air tickling his nose. His own voice, brimming with childlike certainty, rattling off a list of foreign names and numbers. Then, like a bucket of cold water, a whoop and a jovial thump on the back. "Told you he could do it! Pay up!"

Andy mentally dried himself off. "That was a long time ago."

"I know, but I still remember everything. Do you remember the McDonald's we visited afterwards?"

The ubiquitous golden arches were nestled among laundromats and mamak shops in every neighbourhood, including theirs. But that was too predictable, too mundane, to celebrate such a triumph. Instead, they had ventured across the island to the outlet with the Japanese-style garden out front. The pond had been full of koi with eager, gaping mouths and turtles basking on rocks, seemingly above begging for scraps of bread. Andy now realised choosing McDonald's for his first ever part-time job extended beyond their willingness to hire thirteen-year-olds. It had been a homing instinct all along.

"No."

"That's fine. Let's have a meal together. It doesn't have to be fast food. You're older now, so you'll want to watch your health. I haven't seen you in ages–"

"I can't. I'm working."

"Just a quick meal. Grab drivers can take breaks too, right?"

"I said I'm working." Andy's anger boiled over. "I don't have time to hang out with my passengers. The moment you leave, you're on your own."

Silence fell. Andy's eyes darted between the road and the old man, reconsidering his instinctive refusal. It was the first time a passenger had invited him to join them after reaching their destination. Would he finally get some answers by tagging along?

"Okay." The terse reply took the option away from Andy, leaving him equal parts furious and relieved. "I have something else for you."

"I don't want it."

Naturally, the old man didn't listen. A white envelope slid into his lap, triggering an image of a different envelope disappearing into an unmarked box. His voice, stripped of the confidence of the earlier memory, offering a meek expression of thanks. A hand reaching out to tousle his hair, his father's face distorted with grief. Was that when it had all gone wrong, or had he ignored the earlier warning signs?

"It's the money I took from you back then."

More images trickled into his conscious mind like water from a leaking dam. The rip slicing through the faded duck print on bedsheets he had long since outgrown. The unappetising mix of sauce from the canned food and Milo powder that made up the bulk of their food supplies, seeping into cards that had been yanked out of their sleeves and scattered across the floor. The sharp pain of the jade inset ring tearing open the skin of his cheek, a duller pain from his head hitting the wall, and the grand finale, the cold metal kiss of a knife against his throat. 

"Turn left in 200m," the GPS announced, yanking Andy back to the present. He brushed the envelope onto the floor and put on the left turn signal, glaring at the map on his phone. The road ahead was straight and relatively clear, but he couldn't hit the accelerator because there were speed cameras everywhere. Damn it.

"Please, Kar Long. I know times are tough. That's why you're doing Grab instead of your tech job. I don't have much, but I can at least give back what I took." 

How did the old man know about his previous job? The dam of fury burst, and the words spilled out in a torrent of destruction.

"I don't need your money. I have my own savings and house now. You used to play with much bigger sums than that, remember? See, I can play the memory game too! Remember when you tore up my room for money? Sorry, my sleeping area. I didn't have a room by then."

"I –"

"Remember how you dragged me to my workplace and made me clear out my locker in front of everyone because you were sure I was hiding my earnings there? Then you forced me to leave the job because you didn't want people asking questions. Do you remember?"

"I know I shouldn't have –"

"I was such an idiot. I should have known you were only happy I won the cards because it was a bet that paid off. Too bad my superpowers didn't extend to picking winning football teams, right?"

"I thought we were talking about money. Why are we back on the cards again?" A tinge of impatience leaked into the old man's voice, which left Andy feeling oddly relieved. Unlike the tides, caught in the inexorable push and pull of forces beyond their control, he could always count on anger to rear its head. "You think ah longs care about trading cards? They want to see cash! They would have hurt us—hurt you—if I couldn't pay up!"

"That's funny, because I remember someone else hurting me that day, and it wasn't an ah long!"

"I already said I was wrong. What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to go to hell and take all your crap with you!"

This time, the silence in the car held the power of a match poised over a gasoline-doused field. Andy's fists clenched around the steering wheel, braced for a fight.

"Continue along right lane for five hundred metres, then turn left onto Telok Blangah Way," the GPS interjected.

Andy swerved the car impatiently to the left. There was a metallic crunching sound, and the world flipped upside down.

"Sir, can you hear me?"

"Do you think he's drunk?"

"Aiyah, probably not. Eyes aren't red enough. Might be on stimulants, though."

"Move along, move along," a different voice said, accompanied by shrill blasts that made Andy's head hurt. He blinked, and the shapes resolved themselves into a man and a woman in uniform bending over him. Further beyond them was another man, presumably the source of those sounds. 

"I said move along!" the man furthest away from Andy barked. "This is an accident, not a circus!"

"I almost miss the days when people just stared. Now everyone takes photos for social media," the woman bending over Andy sighed. 

"As if the police aren't already going to requisition the Dashcam footage—Sir, where are you going?"

Andy had jumped up and was staggering in the direction of the overturned car. Apart from the obvious fact that it was upside down, everything looked deceptively normal— trunk in place, doors firmly shut. Even the windows didn't seem broken at all.

"Sir, stop moving around! You may have internal injuries!"

The police officer jogged over, evidently deciding that restraining this crazy driver took precedence over traffic control duties. "Sir, can you please follow the paramedics' directions? Even if you aren't going to the hospital, I'll still need to take your statement."

"Someone's still stuck in the car!"

"He's the only passenger," the male paramedic said. The officer's eyes slid over to him, and Andy inferred the wordless question that passed between them. 

"I'm not hallucinating. I'll give the statement later. Get him out first!"

"Sir, you were the only one inside. Can you please stand back? There's a high risk of the vehicle catching fire."

As if on cue, flames burst to life on the bonnet, triggering another long-buried memory. There had been a car-shaped paper offering at his mother's funeral. He remembered finding it strange, what need would she have for a car when she didn't drive? But the funeral director had insisted they provide her with all the material goods she had died too early to enjoy, so they had gotten the car, a paper bungalow, and even a luxury handbag. The flames had made a majestic sight in the inky darkness of the night, tiny square windows of light from the surrounding high-rise flats a poor substitute for the stars that had concealed themselves, as if in solidarity with their grief. By the time the flames died down, everything had been reduced to ash.

I want you to go to hell and take all your crap with you.

The portable radio at the policeman's hip crackled and he reached for it, his other hand still partly raised. The motion threw him off-balance, and Andy saw his chance.

"Sir, stop!"

_____