The Burning Bush
Among the inmates was a young man named Joe Prince. He was of German-Chinese heritage—rather like a German-engineered, Chinese-assembled Volkswagen. To some, he might politely be called a flibbertigibbet: a soul buffeted by the winds of circumstance, swayed by praise, and dazzled by status. His ambitions soared as high as the skyscrapers in Raffles Place, yet his discipline was as fragile as an elderly stretched hymen. He loved to drop the name of his alma mater, National University of Singapore, as though it were a VIP pass to life itself. But reality had other plans. His first job in the financial district was just a contract stint—a “temp” in office parlance, lingering on the sidelines while others got all the action and kopi breaks at the boss’s table.
Years passed. Joe hovered, like one of those invisible MRT commuters, unnoticed. Then he began to manoeuvre, slowly, carefully. His admiration for his boss—a formidable Senior Vice President—was an open secret. Every decision she made, he praised. Every small task she offered, he grabbed like it was the last prata at a hawker centre. In meetings, he echoed her words, a human mirror of loyalty and flattery.
Little by little, the effort found its mark. His contract became permanent. Joe felt quietly vindicated. Still, beneath the polished veneer, his life was anything but stable.
Drugs had wormed their way into the crevices of his life. They were companions to the long nights, the relentless stress and the gnawing fear of failure. But they were only a symptom. The deeper craving was for admiration, status, recognition—the intoxicating illusion that he mattered. Career, marriage, respect—he wanted it all, like a foreign labor in Mustafa Centre on a weekend spree.
Then came that night. After another binge at a pub in Clarke Quay, he wandered through Fort Canning Park, trembling from the excess and squirming in urgent need of a spot to pee. He stumbled into a secluded clearing, and there, among the shadows, a bush burned with quiet, otherworldly flames. Not consuming, not destroying—but glowing, alive, impossible to look away from. The fire cast dancing light on the surrounding trees, on his hands, on his face, and on the trembling man who had nowhere else to turn. Joe looked up, heart hammering. A middle-aged man stood there, unhurried, commanding without raising a hand.
“Who are you?” Joe asked, voice thin and trembling.
“I AM WHO I AM,” the man said.
Joe felt a cold wave of fear surge through him. Not the ordinary fear of being alone in a dark park, but something deeper—primal, overwhelming, like standing at the edge of something vast and incomprehensible. His body locked in terror, every muscle trembling as his mind struggled to grasp what he was seeing. A sudden warmth spread through his trousers as his bladder gave way under the sheer force of panic. The urine soaked through the fabric, running down his legs and darkening the cloth as it pooled at his feet in the grass.
The next morning, Joe found himself behind the gates of Changi Harvest, a place that promised an end—or perhaps a beginning.
to be continued ...