Every afternoon at 4.15, the steam from the
espresso machine turns cold. Ravi, 22, barista
at the HDBgroundfloor café, doesn’t notice at
first — just another humid Tuesday in Tiong
Bahru. Then the old woman in the blue cheongsam
sits at Table 7, stirring sugar into tea that
isn’t there. He serves her anyway. She never
speaks. She never leaves.
The next day, she brings a boy with a torn
school bag. Ravi recognises the uniform:
preindependence Chinese middle school. The boy’s
name tag reads “Lim Kok Heng, 1964”. Ravi checks
the café’s logbook — it was built in 1973. He
checks the building’s HDB records — no one lived
there before 1968. The woman whispers nothing.
But Ravi finds a faded photo tucked under the
saucer: six children, standing outside a kampong
house that was razed in ’66 for the first HDB
block in Singapore. His mother’s face is in it.
She died before he was born.
The world changes when he touches the photo. The
café walls ripple. The air smells of wet earth
and durian rind. Outside, the road is dirt. A
rickshaw passes, bell clanging. A man in a
singlet yells in broken Malay: “They’re taking
the school tomorrow!” Ravi runs — but when he
blinks, he’s back behind the counter, milk
frother hissing. The photo is gone. The woman is
gone. The boy’s name is now in the National
Archives’ list of missing children from the 1965
riots. No one else remembers him.
He starts seeing them every day. A Malay
grandmother selling kueh from a basket that
wasn’t there in 1980. An Indian man in a dhoti,
holding a torn Merdeka flag. All at 4.15pm. All
gone by 4.16. The rule bites: if Ravi forgets
even one face, that person vanishes from every
record — photo, school register, death
certificate. He hasn’t slept. He scribbles names
on napkins. His NS medical checkup is due next
week. He’s supposed to be studying for the
OLevels. His tutor says he’s failing. His
mother’s voice in his head: “You want to be a
barista? After all we sacrificed?”
On the third Thursday, he doesn’t serve the tea.
He doesn’t look away. He holds the old woman’s
hand as the world cracks open. The café
dissolves into the kampong. Children play with
tin cans. A radio crackles: “Singapore will be
independent by 1965.” The woman turns to him.
“You remember us. That’s why we stay.” She
presses a folded slip into his palm — a school
timetable from 1964. The last lesson: “National
Identity — Who Are You?”
At 4.16, he’s back. The café is silent. The
photo is on the counter. His mother’s face. Her
name: Tan Siew Leng. Born 1951. Died 1965. Cause:
“Accidental fire during racial unrest.” No
records of her attending school. No records of
her existing before 1964.
Ravi doesn’t go to NS induction. He walks to the
old HDB void deck where the kampong once stood.
He lays the timetable on the ground. The wind
lifts it. For the first time, someone else stops.
A woman in her 70s, wearing the same cheongsam.
She picks it up. Looks at the name. Starts
crying.
The ghosts don’t come after that.
But every afternoon at 4.15, the steam from the
espresso machine still turns cold.
And now, someone else remembers.
