The Kaki Tree That Hungers

Female Ancient Military Service Overbearing Mother Ancestral Secret Eerie Author: Tan Si Qi

Summary

AI · 2026.07.31.08:50

A conscript’s mother forces him to return to their old kampong to retrieve a bone buried under the kaki tree — the same tree that swallowed his father during the Occupation. That night, the land remembers what the state erased.

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At 18, Li Wei is drafted into National Service,

but before he reports to Pasir Ris, his mother

slaps a rusted tin into his palm — no words,

just eyes like wet charcoal. She tells him to go

back to Lorong 12, where the kampong used to be,

and dig beneath the kaki tree before dawn. He

refuses. She doesn’t scream. She just stops

cooking. Three days later, he eats nothing but

plain rice and stares at his NS uniform hanging

like a shroud.

The kampong is gone. HDB blocks now stand where

the stilt houses once leaned into the mangroves.

But the kaki tree still grows, gnarled and thick,

its roots cracking the concrete footpath near

Block 43. Locals avoid it. Old women cross the

road when they see its shadow stretch long after

sunset. One man in the void deck whispers: “It

took a man who spoke too loud. Now it takes sons

who forget.”

Li Wei digs with a stolen spade from the estate

carpenter. His fingers hit bone before the first

light. Not animal. Human. A ribcage, fused with

roots, wrapped in a faded Britishissue khaki

belt. He recognises the buckle — his father’s,

from the war years. The tree didn’t die when the

Japanese burned the village. It grew. And it fed.

That night, the power cuts. No one reports it.

The block’s CCTV flickers, then shows only

static. Inside Unit 43819, Li Wei’s mother

kneels by the window, murmuring to the dark.

Outside, the kaki tree shudders. Not from wind.

From something pulling. Roots lift from the

ground like tentacles. One wraps around Li Wei’s

ankle. He doesn’t scream. He knows. The tree

doesn’t take just bones — it takes silence.

Every man who spoke against the Occupation,

every woman who cried for lost sons, every child

who swallowed fear instead of food — all fed it.

The state buried the truth. The land didn’t.

He does not run. He pulls out the tin. Inside: a

single white button from his father’s coat. He

presses it into the root. The tree exhales. The

ground settles. The power comes back. In the

morning, his mother is gone. Her bed is neat. On

the pillow, a note: You didn’t bury him. You let

him be heard.

No one asks why Li Wei’s NS medical file now

lists “psychological trauma from ancestral

exposure.” No one asks why he never speaks of

his father again. But every night, the kaki tree

drops one ripe fruit. And every morning, the HDB

cleaners find them — not rotting, not eaten —

just… gone. Like someone took them. Like someone

was hungry.