Every dawn before 5am, Li Mei pushes her charred
iron cart past Block 43’s void deck, where the
old kampong well once bubbled. She doesn’t sell
to customers. She places three steaming
dumplings — glutinous rice wrapped in banana
leaf, laced with pork fat and a single drop of
her own blood — on the cracked concrete slab
beside the fire escape. No one sees. No one is
supposed to.
Her son, Jin, vanished in ’65 during the racial
riots. They never found the body. But every
night, she hears his voice in the steam.
The HDB management issued Rule 7.3: “No ritual
offerings on common property.” First warning
came on a Tuesday. Second, a notice pinned to
her cart: “Cease or face removal.” She tore it
down.
Then the dumplings began to glow.
Not fire. Not heat. A cold, blue luminescence
that pooled under the leafwrapped parcels.
Neighbours whispered. Mrs. Tan from 43B swore
she saw Jin’s face in the steam. The schoolboy
who stole one last week vomited rice and wept
for three days, calling out in Mandarin to
someone named “Ama.”
Li Mei didn’t stop.
On the night of the MidAutumn moon, the HDB
enforcement team came with a wrench and a legal
notice. They moved to dismantle her cart. As the
first bolt turned, the three dumplings lifted —
slow, heavy, rising two feet above the slab. The
banana leaves split open. Inside, not meat, but
tiny hands.
The team froze.
One officer stepped back. The other dropped his
wrench. It clanged against the concrete, echoing
like a gong in the empty void deck.
No one touched the cart again.
The next morning, the dumplings were gone. But
the slab beneath them? Now warm. Always warm.
And every dawn, the smell of charcoal and soy
clings to the air — not from Li Mei’s cart.
From the wall.
From the cracks.
Where the well used to be.
