At The Towers

The outdoor tables and chairs were still soaked from the barista hosing them down at closing time, though he always forgets the table in the back corner between the café’s large windows and some potted trees. It’s a perfect, hidden view of Orchard Towers—the four floors of whores. I liked sitting there whenever I couldn’t sleep or didn’t want to deal with being in my hotel room—as empty as its mini-bar. Around 4 am the taxi queue across the street would start filling up with middle-aged, white businessmen and their chosen harlots. Each distant figure, distinguishable only by a varying severity of baldness, would prop himself up with one or two working girls as they stumbled up the line. I never heard specific words, only drunken laughter between the revving of taxi engines speeding their foreign fares to whatever hotel their company paid for. It’s puzzling how prostitution is legal in Singapore when so many small things aren’t—like selling gum or spitting on the sidewalk. You can sell yourself, but if you sell a stick of Juicy Fruit they’ll come after your ass. I don’t know who the they is, though. I can’t remember the last time I saw a patrol car or regular cop.

I wondered if those traveling businessmen thought about their wives as much as I did. How many baldheads called their spouses after catching a glimpse of their intended hooker’s effeminately shaved penis? What is the respectable amount of time to wait between, “Sorry, I thought you were a chick,” and, “Hi honey, how was your day?” There must be an absurd amount of pissed off trannies leaving hotels around 4:30. I bet they carpool.

The night I met Aurora, I was sitting at that table of mine and all I had was a messenger bag soaking up water next to my feet. There wasn’t much inside: a change of clothes, half a pack of cigs, my tattered copy of Demian, a passport, and a toothbrush—no toothpaste. I liked having all my belongings with me; I never left anything in my hotel room on the off chance I decided to just never go back. My phone battery died hours before but I still used it to look like I was doing something if somebody got close enough to notice me.

She ran over to the café from across the street. Frantically looking for a dry place to sit, she didn’t know about my table. Her bangles rattled and chimed in her near panic. After deciding a particular spot on the ground two tables away was driest, she collapsed with her face in her hands. She was dressed like any girl coming from that building would be. If I had just glanced at her, all I’d have noticed was a green halter cut too low, a jean skirt cut too high, no bra, enough fake gold bangles to eliminate any suspicion of them being real, and, of course, matching earrings. But there was something complete about how it all fit together, a kind of sad elegance.

I got up and started dragging a chair over to her, the sound of the metal legs skipping across the tiled ground startled us both. “This one’s dry,” I explained.

“Thank you,” passed her lips like it was afraid of getting caught.

I went back to my table expecting nothing else to come of it, but then she dragged the chair back over. We sat together in silence for a while. She never looked at me, more like around me. I saw her notice my now soaking bag and dead phone. I wasn’t so subtle. Every now and then her long black hair would fall from behind her ear and she would tuck it back, simultaneously revealing two small freckles on the curve of her neck and a subtle scent of rosemary in the movement—the herb of remembrance. My mother was a kind of a hippie; at least, she was what she thought a hippie was. The different herbs and their uses was one of the only things she ever taught me when I was little. I can’t really say how long we were sitting there, neither of us speaking a word. Yet, it was never awkward; I guess it could only be described as nice. The taxi queue across the street emptied until a single cab sat idly by. Only when the first purple hints of sunlight peeked over the infamous four floors did she get up and say, “You can sleep on my couch if you need, I trust you.”


Her 6th floor flat was simple but it was still obvious a girl lived there. No man living by himself would be that tidy. The first thing I noticed was a navy blue ceramic oil burner on the glass coffee table in the living room with a crescent moon and little stars all around it—the rosemary. Behind the black, leather couch was a dining table and behind that were three doors: kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The only truly personal item in the place was a painting above the dining table of flowers that were on fire. Or maybe they were just the color of fire. There was a quote from a Neruda poem blended within: in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten. I never asked her if she painted it. I fell asleep almost instantly and didn’t wake up until the following morning.

Aurora came home every day just before sunrise and, after lighting a tea candle in her oil burner, went directly to the shower without saying a word. I quickly learned to ignore her arrival until she came out of the bathroom. The first morning of my stay with her, I pretended to be asleep even when she got out of the bathroom. I didn’t know what to expect so I waited for her to make the first move. She sat next to the couch for a while. I could feel her eyes on me like mine were on her the night before. “I know you’re awake,” she said. “Let’s get something to eat, I’m starving.” Then she handed me a key.

We easily settled into a routine. Aurora worked all-night and slept for the better part of the day. I would either stay in and read or buy a few Tiger beers at the 7-11 and wander around the Singapore Botanic Gardens since it was only two bus stops away. I never brought alcohol back to her flat, though. I got the distinct feeling she didn’t want anything like that in her home.

Besides some pleasant small talk in the short overlap of our woken hours, we didn’t really have any substantial conversations for an unusually long time. At any rate, we were comfortable around each other and we enjoyed those brief hours of company. At least, I think so. It wasn’t until the third morning of my stay that I made a real effort to get to know her. While Aurora was taking her shower, I decided to go out ant get something to eat from the chicken rice hawker stall down the street from her flat so we could eat in.

When I returned, she was already in her bedroom. I knocked on the door. No answer. I tried turning the doorknob. Locked.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Aurora yelled from behind the door.

“Oh, nothing. I’m sorry, never mind.” I placed the food I got for us on the floor in front of her room and shuffled backwards towards the couch. Aurora swung open the door and stormed out, kicking over the carton of steamed rice.

“Listen, I said you could stay on my couch. I didn’t say anything about you coming into my room. Stay out of my room! Do you understand that or don’t you? What the hell is all over the floor?”

“I thought you might be hungry is all.” By now I had grabbed my bag and was opening the front door to leave.

“Now what are you doing? No, stop, please stay.” Her rage immediately melted away when she saw me reaching for the door. “Listen, I’m sorry I blew up on you—it’s been a really shitty night for me is all. This was really sweet of you. You should stay, really. Let me make it up to you.”

“You don’t need to do that, I shouldn’t have—“

“No, I want to. You’ve been such a sweetheart to me and, well, I mean I barely know you. Let’s have dinner or something. You like sushi?”

From then on I set out food for us to eat together every morning after her shower. We began to have real conversations while sitting under that painting of flowers. Long conversations. I could tell she was exhausted but she always denied it. To be honest, she did a lot of the talking. She told me how the only family she had left was an older sister, Noor, who moved to Sydney with her husband a few years ago. They both ran away from an abusive father when Aurora was 13. I always stopped her from talking about her work, though—it didn’t feel necessary. Needless to say, I didn’t go near her bedroom door again.


Life went on like that for a while. Every now and then she’d convince me to go with her to Orchard Towers for the night. I met a few of her, well, let’s call them friends. Maybe colleagues would be more appropriate. I’d sit with them while Aurora did her thing. They’d always ask me the same questions about how we met and if I knew what she did for a living. I’d always respond the same way; “We met at the café across the street… No, not really.” Then they’d laugh—sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Once I got a little too drunk and, after being laughed at for my apparent naïveté, told a painfully obvious tranny that I actually met Aurora as her gender reassignment specialist. After I convinced him/her that, yes, Aurora originally was a man before I got my talented hands on her, I revealed that all her operations were done in trade for sexual favors. “I have very odd and extreme sexual fantasies, you see.” Oh, if only I had a camera in that instant. That tranny’s apish face lit up like his/her makeup was battery-powered. Aurora didn’t find this story funny at all.

The club Aurora worked at was actually pretty impressive inside. It had a large island bar in the middle and a dance floor that lit up with the music. A small stage was in the back for bongo drummers and other types of percussionists. Every night was some massive celebration. The regulars were nice enough but I avoided the traveling businessmen like the plague. It was always freezing cold in there for some reason. If you didn’t get up to dance frequently enough then your hands would start to go numb. All the walls were covered with pictures of people I didn’t know. I don’t think anybody knew who those smiles belonged to. Sometimes I’d just go to the café and read my book again. The walk back to Aurora’s flat was always my favorite part of the night. We’d walk close together through the darkened city streets, passing hawker stalls, Muslim temples, and shops selling fake watches and handbags. We would both flinch a little if our hands ever accidentally touched. Aurora always bought a packet of tissues from an old lady selling a collection of random, found things laid out on a blue tarp next to the MRT station.

“So what do you do?” she asked me one night.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve been staying with me for a while now. I’ve never seen you go to work or anything like that. You’re not a whore are you?” She always smiled with her eyes. It was impossible for it to seem like she was ever laughing at someone.

“Ha… no, nothing like that.” I hoped her little joke meant I didn’t have to go into any details.

“Then? Tell me what it is like. Where do you get all that money you spend on feeding me, huh?” I looked all around to find a way to change the subject. “Listen, just talk to me.”

“You’re always telling me to listen.”

“Yeah well, now it’s my turn.”

“It’s sort of like an inheritance, I guess.”

“An inheritance, huh? Like a rich uncle left you all his cash because you were his favorite little nephew or something?”

“It’s been a really fun night, Aurora. I just don’t want to spoil it.” It really had been a fun night, one of the first I’d had in a while. We were both a little drunk; I used that as an excuse to get her to stop asking about me. I had to promise to tell her my story when we were both sober.

When we got home, Aurora didn’t go to her room after her shower. She came over to my couch and crawled under the sheets. We didn’t cuddle. It was more like holding on to the edge of a cliff. If either of us loosened our grip even a little then we’d both fall to the rocks below. I kept thinking to myself, “don’t look down, don’t look down.” From then on she didn’t sleep in her room. She was always next to me on that small couch, holding on for dear life.


A few days later, Aurora distracted me from my book by slamming the bathroom door. She was standing across the room, staring at me with wet hair and tears in her eyeliner-stained eyes. I tried asking what the problem was but she was already crawling under the sheets like usual. “Talk to me,” she said, “I just want to hear your voice.”

I started telling her about why I never go to work. I told her how all my money is from my father’s life insurance—he died in a car accident last year. The entire amount went to me because I was the only child and my mother bailed on us both when I was too young to understand why. Dad could never bring himself to re-marry, or even get into another relationship for that matter. She’s probably off in some fucking cult right now, pretending to have too much love to be limited to giving it to only two people. I told her how the hardest thing to get used to was actually Dad’s cooking. He never could prepare a meal without burning something at least a little bit. He could burn water, he always said. We ordered a lot of shitty Chinese food.

Aurora began to calm down a little but her face was still in my shoulder, the eyeliner she failed to wash off rubbing into my shirt. I kept talking.

I was in college when he died, I said. That’s why I came to Singapore in the first place—studying abroad from the University of Washington in Seattle. I went to the airport when I found out about the accident. I checked my suitcase at the Northwest Airlines desk but I couldn’t go through the security checkpoint. I turned around and I ran away from it all: the funeral, college, life. My suitcase was probably still at the airport in Seattle, gathering dust in the lost luggage department. I told her how the bag that I carry everywhere was my carry-on for that flight. “I guess you never really know what something like that is going to do to you,” I said. When I started talking about how I should have at least gone to the funeral she stopped me.

“Listen, just shut up.” She started kissing my neck. I flinched at first, like when we both used to when our hands touched as we walked home. I thought my heartbeat was going to knock her off the couch. I had no room to back up but she could feel me resisting. Neither of us knew why. Eventually she took my hand and slowly moved it up her inner thigh. “This is what you do to me.”


The next morning, Aurora wasn’t next to me when I woke up. I wasn’t surprised. Sometimes she has to work late, everyone does. Then the morning turned to afternoon, afternoon to midnight. I knocked on her door. No answer.

A day went by and Aurora still hadn’t shown up. I paced around her small apartment, reading that line of Neruda’s over and over again each time I passed the painting of the flowers. I pounded on her door. Still no answer, so I walked over to the Towers. I sat at my hidden table outside the café for a couple hours watching the four floors for any sign of her. Nothing unusual was going on: the same bald businessmen taxiing away the same mixture of trannies and women. I went inside. None of Aurora’s colleagues had seen her for about two nights. They offered me a drink. I threw it at the first guy I saw with his arm around a hooker. I didn’t want a drink. I didn’t want to calm down. Nobody was giving me any answers. A handful of bouncers threw me out.

I sat outside on the steps for a while, not knowing what to do or where to go. I couldn’t go to the cops, I didn’t know Aurora’s last name. I didn’t even know if Aurora was her real first name. Probably not.

I ran back to her flat. The old lady by the MRT station saw me coming her way and raised a packet of tissues in my direction but I couldn’t stop my legs. By the time I got back to the flat I nearly collapsed from my legs being drenched in lactic acid. She still wasn’t there. I pounded on her bedroom door. No answer. I started to kick and throw my body against the door. My legs being so weak, I probably looked like a madman throwing himself against a padded wall. It is much harder to break open a locked door than movies and cop shows make it out to be. But I kicked and threw myself at it for so long that it finally broke open with splinters of wood flying off the frame. I half expected to find Aurora dead on the floor. She wasn’t. The room was empty like the rest of her flat except for a small bed in the corner, half-covered with stuffed animals.

“Feel better?” A voice from the front door startled me from my confused panic. It was one of Aurora’s friends from the Towers, Sandy or Sandra or something like that. I wasn’t really paying attention when she told me her name. She looked like she had just come from work: straightened hair, too much makeup, not enough black dress.

“No. Where is she?” I asked in between breaths.

“Sit down and drink this.” She threw a plastic bag at me with a bottle of water inside. I was about to go off on her about how I didn’t need a drink like I did earlier at the club, but I really did need that water. The coolness filled my chest and calmed me down enough to make me realize I had bruised up my left shoulder pretty badly on the door.

Then Sandra, or whatever it was she called herself, explained to me that Aurora disappearing was not all that unusual of an occurrence. Apparently, she had done it often enough to feel the need to ask Sandra to make sure her place was all right while she was gone. Nobody knew where she went or what provoked her disappearances. Sometimes she was only gone for a few days; once she didn’t come back for an entire year. Sandra said Aurora had never left anybody in her flat before, though, and didn’t really know how to handle it. I told her not to worry about it, grabbed my bag, and left.

I began sleeping at my old hotel room again. Over the next few days I went back to Orchard Towers at night. Of course, Aurora was never there. It began to feel more and more like I was visiting my childhood home—only to find the new tenants had painted it green and added or knocked down a few walls. Every time I returned something else had changed or was taken away.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore; I was done with all that dreadful waiting. I was done being scared for Aurora’s safety; all I could think about was getting answers. The Towers obviously couldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. So I decided to go to the airport and get a ticket to Sydney. I figured either Aurora was with her sister, Noor, or she would at least know where Aurora went. I didn’t know exactly where Noor lived in Sydney, but that didn’t matter to me at the time. It just felt right to be doing something, anything.


I marched towards the ticketing counter with such purpose and conviction that I had to remind myself to relax, I didn’t want airport security to get any weird ideas about my intentions. Airports are always so stressful that way. Even if you aren’t doing anything illegal, it feels like you are just one mistake away from being locked up. The man behind the counter, wearing his airline-provided suit, gave me his best display of fake courtesy.

“How may I help you this fine evening, sir?”

“Listen—,” great, she got me saying it, I thought to myself. “No, don’t listen… I mean, just give me the first ticket available to Sydney, Australia.” I was sweating a little and was obviously flustered. The man behind the counter gave me a suspicious look but began looking for the ticket on his computer. I knew I was going to get “randomly selected” for getting double-checked at the security checkpoint for my behavior.

“Ok sir, I just need your passport.”

I began shuffling through my bag for that little, blue booklet. In my anxiety, my bag might as well have been full of little, blue things that resembled passports because everything I pulled out wasn’t what I needed. Eventually, I started emptying out my bag on the counter. The line behind me began to shift and strain with impatience. I pulled out my copy of Demian and put it in my teeth to keep it out of the way. As I continued to search through my bag, I noticed a small piece of paper fell out of the book and landed on the floor next to my feet. It was a note from Aurora, the last thing she will have ever said to me:

I trust you.

I stood there staring at those three words for what must have been an unusually long time. The man behind the counter was done with his fake courtesy.

“Sir? Sir, I need your passport in order to give you this ticket… sir!”

My eyes slowly lifted from the small note in my hand to the now irritated man in the airline’s suit. The security officer posted at the counter was beginning to notice us.

“I still need to see your passport, sir. I can’t give you this ticket without seeing your passport. If you don’t have it then I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave.” His Singaporean accent was beginning to show; his words were short and quick.

“Never mind,” I said, “cancel that. Seattle, give me a ticket to Seattle.”

This Man

A social creature isolated with hi-def pornography
and Ramen noodles. Carnal needs satisfied
with single servings wrapped in plastic.
He forgets why he should ever leave his apartment—
a studio bedroom cave above downtown—
and is forgotten (except by credit cards
and jury duty notices).

Layer after layer of masking tape
and curtain, the red and blue neon
still creeps in. Live Nudes. Cheap Beer.
Life—or some version of it.

His Ramen runs out—a reason to leave.
Passing bars, theaters, bookstores, other creatures
hiding together from showers of thick snowflakes.
A woman chats in German on her phone.
She looks him in the eyes. He loves
and hates her in that instant.
Even through her coat and scarf
he can tell she is nicely dressed.
Maybe for a date, candlelit and warm
by a window facing a white, bare tree.

He walks too far, following footsteps
made minutes ago. The park is 7 blocks from the grocery
but he decides to stay and sit with the sleeping landscape.
Thinking, when? Like the trees.

Indian Train Stations

The doorless exit—no safety
rails or chains in sight, only triangles of dirt
where warnings once were.
The remaining windows sound close to escape.
Half expect to find missing caution stickers
holding the seizing glass to rusted metal.

Think, I know poverty.
Children begging in rubble and rags,
babies on display, tears
streaming down clean cheeks
in front of camera lenses.
A dollar a day can house and feed
Throw us your money
Change the channel,
avoid these commercials.

The heap crawls to a stop, briefly.
Jump the unmeasured distance
from train car to concrete platform.
A man with a wooden leg
follows close behind.
Watch your step, boy
This could be you
The stench of his breath cements
his words into memory.

So little did you know
of the cardboard suburbia
crowded into each Indian train station.
The only charity found here:
groups of storefront owners, armed
with cricket bats and Hindi curses, scaring
away beggars and thieves—
children—for rich tourists.

A small stampede
pours into the street; pounding bare feet
chased by car horns, loud cracks
of wood on broken pavement,
the trumpet of a frightened elephant.
Hide your valuables
Give none your money
Too many mouths to feed
Follow these rules, but still
they swarm. A sea of Untouchable
multiplies, keeps you from taking
one more step.

But they do not want money,
nobody is asking for a hug,
for affection, for empathy, for pity.
Hundreds of young faces scream only
for that half-empty bottle,
clean water clutched
in your left hand.

The Aghori Way

Purple and orange cloud together
in the rolling currents of the Ganges River—forever stained
a murky green. Holi, the spring festival, gathers entire villages
to bathe at the banks after a morning of hurling fistfuls of colored powder.
Women wash remnants of hibiscus and coconut oil
from their hair, to be re-applied later, while young men sit
in circles with one knee raised to the chest, still caked
cartoonish hues, laughing over glasses of bhang ki thandai.

But downstream, beyond the final whispers of bright color
and celebration, a man is covered in the pale white of human ash
collected from a smoldering funeral pyre—his temple.
How unlucky the souls, the untouchable caste, unable to pay for burning
rites. They end bloated and beneath the Aghori.
Dark priests living within taboo, eating blood and bone,
feces and flesh. To live for the last time.
Perfection, incarnate.

Not a hint of fear in a single brown eye, men, packed in a small boat,
travel by as I place my offering of bananas in the Aghori's bowl—
a human skull, a former priest, a fellow sadhu. One boy in charge of rowing,
the motor died out or has been dead for some time.

An Uncomfortable Ride

The midnight bus—a fragment.
Normal life while the normal sleep.
Tracing abandoned streets, outlines
of civilization on pause.

Every new passenger,
a moment of anxiety.
Nobody certain if it’s okay
to throw a fake smile or ridicule
or even glance at the anonymous
passersby. Eyes remain glued
to the penny on the floor
or foam cushion escaping
from torn, imitation leather.
The passengers shift and strain
like onset epileptics at the driver—
his routined speed.

Except a young woman
sitting two seats from the front.
In her eyes, knowledge
of all that human nature has to offer
and rob of someone.
She sits patient, a monk in meditation
adorned with that subtle Buddha smile.
Never forgetting to thank the driver with a wave
as she exits into the cool night.

Whispers In the Wind

A heavy wind blows through
the city streets tonight, carrying
sounds and smells on its back.
Drunken laughter, confusing screams.
Is that woman in pain? She might be
having fun. Corn dogs and popcorn—
their scents linger far after the cart gone.

Sidewalks, empty.
The streets, in disrepair
from the winters being too cold
and the summers too crowded.
A man rides a bike between bar fronts
and white-striped orange barrels.
I refuse his offer for a ride out—
his collection of twisted metal,
rust, and duct tape—

but I give him my cigarettes,
a gratitude. A young woman, running
through a fog of light and sound, snatches up his gift
with open arms and a cry of joy, or pain.
Her eyes see everything but me, I watch
the pair dissolve into an alley. Curious,
what the wind brings if I stand
still and open.

Distance

A phone vibrates across the small, crooked table
like a fly in its last struggles,
trapped between glass and closed blinds
where the sun shines on and stops.

Nine missed calls, three voicemails
all saying the same thing, no doubt.

Miles around me and just down the hall glowing yellow
beneath my locked door, everyone sleeps.
But across the ocean where hurricanes are born,
someone is drinking coffee and kissing two kids goodbye
in the same area code as you.

I tape the filter back onto my last cigarette,
the final puff tastes of factories and office cabinets.

The fly died hours ago.
You gave up, I should have answered.
But what does a shaman tell the village
when the spirits shake their heads?

Dusk

Walking along the shore, the tide
inching forward, an awkward feeling.
Like trying to touch a fingertip with the same
fingertip, to bite your own teeth.

Is this what God feels like?
Standing at the edge, looking over
all of creation and seeing nothing
except the red sun reflected
from a violent, rippling ceiling—the ocean surface.
All the chaos from the world beneath
transcribed into white caps and breaking waves
sucked beneath the sand—

ashes of stone and coral,
earth that rolls down walls of dissolving castles
abandoned by the hands that made them.
All that remains, a gentle, wet mound
and a single tower, crumbling as it watches—
the tide is in.

Get Away

The engine is off but I can't get out,
or, won't. If I open the door I'll have to live
in the world I just created.
This car, my temporary universe.

The keys, swaying in the ignition,
back and forth, back and forth,
back and—Make up your mind!
Be still. Like the headlights,
loyally illuminating the bushes ahead.
Such conviction. Oh, the certainty!

This song doesn't remind me
of what it used to. Or maybe it does.
Maybe I need to get out of this
cage on wheels. Maybe I need to run,
this car won't do. I need real speed.
I need to feel my tendons and ligaments
heat up and rip apart. Muscles smothered
in lactic acid. I need to shatter
these mirrors and never look back.

I don't know what I need. But
it isn't that girl, whatever her name was.
So many nights spent hugging a pillow
turns a person to simple reminders—
engine warning lights and turn signals.

Mike's Car Wash

Elmo and the Cookie Monster are hanging on
for dear life. Their chains, rattling in the wind-
scattered car exhaust and soap bubbles,
aren't as troubling as the look in their eyes
or how their smiles are somehow more fake
than when they left the factory. Maybe Mike thought
hanging stuffed creatures inside a car wash
would make it less frightening. Some children
clutch their tiny sides in laughter. But others
leave sweaty, outstretched handprints
and warm breath on the windows—
wanting to save their Sesame Street friends.
These kids can see Elmo's thousand-yard stare,
given to him from years of enduring
a twisted water-board-esque torture.
These kids watch the news with their parents
before spaghetti and garlic bread at 6 o'clock.
They see the same look on Arab prisoners
of war and terror. Have they seen death?
That quietness that comes with knowing.

Running In Place

I like to go to the gym at night
when it's full of people whose jobs buy them memberships
for the insurance discount. I sit outside,
watch the runners on treadmills,
lined up in front of floor to ceiling windows.
A display at some zoo that puts animals to work—
Do not feed the exercising monkeys.

Their ears plugged with headphones,
eyes glued to a single television
probably showing the news. Some look panicked,
out of breath, others focused
or angry—all sweaty, running in place,
getting nowhere. Of course,
who isn't angry while watching the news?
Some career-minded woman
with overly white teeth, every strand of hair
perfectly placed, informing us in non-regional diction
how the world is somehow shittier today
than it was yesterday.
I could breathe against the glass,
draw hello backwards, no one would notice.