The 2047 HDB block at Pasir Ris West still had
electricity, but only if you woke before 5am,
swept your corridor, and left three kueh lapis
on the 12thfloor landing. No one remembered how
the rules started — just that the ghosts of the
1965 riots still walked, whispering in Singlish,
and if you missed your offering, the lift
stopped between floors and didn’t restart till
dawn.
Lina’s husband left when the water rationing
began. She raised her boy on rice porridge and
NS brochures, scrubbing floors in a rented unit
above a halal char kway teow stall, always
keeping the fridge stocked with bottled water —
one for her, one for him, one for the ghost that
lived behind the toilet tile. She didn’t pray.
She paid.
Her son joined NS at sixteen. They sent him to
Pulau Tekong for “character conditioning.” Three
weeks later, his unit was ordered to carry
sandbags up a flooded trench for seven hours
straight — no breaks, no water, no one allowed
to fall. The drill sergeant, a retired army
officer who’d survived the ’65 riots and now
wore his uniform like a second skin, made them
chant: “Kiasu or die, kiasu or die.” The boys
dropped like flies. One boy vomited blood. The
sergeant made him eat it.
Lina didn’t cry. She packed her mother’s old
kueh lapis, a bottle of iced teh tarik, and a
photo of her son in his uniform. She took the
last working MRT to Pasir Ris, climbed the 12
flights of her block, and placed the kueh on the
landing. Then she turned to the wall behind the
toilet tile and whispered, “I know you’re
listening. My boy’s not dying for a dead man’s
pride.”
That night, the ghost didn’t whisper. It moved.
The next morning, every NS trainee on Tekong
woke with their boots filled with wet sand — the
same sand from the trench. Their drill sergeant
found his uniform sewn shut with black thread,
the collar embroidered with the words “KIASU OR
DIE” in Malay, Chinese, and Tamil. He screamed
for water. No one gave him any. He collapsed in
the sun, and when they lifted him, his mouth was
full of kueh lapis crumbs.
The Army quietly pulled the unit. No
investigation. No records.
Lina’s son came home with a medical discharge
and a new habit: he woke at 4:30am every day,
swept their corridor, and left three kueh lapis
on the landing. He never spoke about Tekong. But
when the new block manager tried to evict them
for “unauthorised spiritual activity,” Lina
stood at the gate with a broom in one hand and a
photo of her son’s NS photo in the other.
The ghost didn’t need to speak.
It just turned off the lights.
And the next day, the Ministry of Defence sent a
letter: “Due to unforeseen structural and
spiritual conditions, your unit is granted
permanent residency under the Heritage
Preservation Act.”
No one ever tried to evict them again.
The kueh lapis still appears every Friday.
And no one dares to skip NS anymore.
