The flat on Jalan Besar had been empty for years,
its walls peeling, its corridors echoing with
the ghosts of kampong days. Lim Wei returned
under the pretense of helping his mother clean
before the Merdeka Day feast, though he knew
she’d never let him go. She was the kind of
woman who could turn a hawker stall into a
battlefield over the size of a char kway teow
portion.
The flat had once belonged to his grandfather, a
ChineseMalay trader who’d lost everything during
the Japanese Occupation. His mother, Mei Lian,
had kept the place locked up, refusing to sell
it despite the rising prices. “This is our
heritage,” she’d say, her voice sharp as a
parang blade.
On the night of the reunion, the lights
flickered. The air turned thick, like the day of
the 1965 riots. A figure appeared in the hallway
— a woman in a 1940s sarong kebaya, her face
halfeaten by time. She pointed at the kitchen,
where a clay pot sat untouched for decades. Mei
Lian refused to move. “That pot is cursed,” she
muttered. “It belongs to the ghost of my
father’s lover.”
Wei found the pot in the storage room, its lid
sealed with a red thread. When he touched it,
the floorboards groaned. The spirit materialised
fully now, her eyes hollow, her hands reaching
for the pot. Mei Lian screamed, but not from
fear — from recognition. “You’re not the first
to try taking it,” she said, her voice trembling.
“But you are the first who understands.”
The spirit demanded the pot be returned to the
land where it was buried — a plot of soil near
the old Kampong Glam cemetery. Mei Lian, for all
her stubbornness, agreed. Together, they carried
the pot through the night, past the glowing
signs of Orchard Road, past the HDB towers that
loomed like sentinels.
At dawn, they placed the pot in the earth,
surrounded by offerings of durian, incense, and
a single bottle of Tiger beer. The spirit bowed,
then vanished. The sky cleared. Mei Lian looked
at her son, her eyes soft. “We’ve been carrying
this weight for too long,” she said. “Maybe it’s
time we let go.”
The reunion was quiet, but the air felt lighter.
No more whispers of curses. No more arguments
over hawker food. Just a meal shared in silence,
beneath the rising sun.
