1958. The British still fly the Union Jack over
City Hall, but HDB flats rise like concrete
tombs across the island. In Block 43, Tampines,
six girls share one toilet, one kerosene stove,
and one rule: no men after curfew.
Lai Mei Lin, 18, is NS recruit 437B — not for
combat, but because the Ministry needs typists
who can write Malay, English, and Hokkien. Her
father traded her name for a tenancy letter. The
engagement is sealed: her cousin’s friend, a
clerk from Tiong Bahru, will marry her when she
turns 19. No ring. No choice. Just a stamp from
the Municipal Office.
Every night, the ghost walks. Not in the
corridor. Not in the bathroom. He sits on the
third step of the stairwell, in full Imperial
Army uniform, boots caked with mud from the old
railway line. He never speaks. Just watches. The
older recruits say he died when the Japanese
fled, still holding a list of names — girls
marked for “comfort duty.” They say he comes
when the system fails.
Mei Lin sees him on her third night. She doesn’t
scream. She brings him a cup of warm TehC, left
over from her shift at the welfare office. He
doesn’t drink. But the next morning, the HDB
clerk’s application form — the one with her name
and the groom’s — vanishes from the filing
cabinet. The clerk denies it. The supervisor
blames the humid air.
The rule bites: no replacement forms after
midnight. No appeals. No reapplications. If the
paperwork is lost, the flat goes to the next
name on the list — a ChineseMalay family from
Kampong Glam. Mei Lin’s mother will sleep on the
floor of a kampong house again.
That night, Mei Lin takes her father’s old pen,
the one with the chipped nib, and writes on the
wall beside the ghost: “I am not your list.” She
writes in Hokkien, in Malay, in English. She
writes until her fingers bleed.
At 2:17 a.m., the ghost stands. He doesn’t look
at her. He walks to the door. The steel lock
clicks open — not by key, not by force. The lock
has never opened after curfew.
He leaves.
In the morning, the clerk’s form is back. Signed.
Stamped. With Mei Lin’s name as bride — and
beside it, a new line: “Consent obtained from
applicant, via written declaration, witnessed by
spirit of deceased soldier, 1945.”
The Ministry doesn’t acknowledge it. But the HDB
officer who processes it? He bows slightly.
Mei Lin gets her flat. She doesn’t marry the
clerk. She writes to the University of Malaya
instead — her application, typed on the same
typewriter, now signed by a name the ghost left
behind: “S. Lim, Assistant Registrar.”
The ghost doesn’t return.
But on the wall, the ink remains.
And every night, someone new leaves tea on the
third step.
