In 1957, the first HDB flats rise above the
cleared kampong of Kallang, but the British left
behind buried conduits — iron pipes humming with
residual colonial qi, siphoning lifeforce from
residents who sleep too deep. No one knows why
old folks die quietly in their sleep, or why
children wake screaming at the walls.
Lian, 42, runs a modest tea shop beside Block 23,
serving kopi and tau huay to HDB families who
call her “Aunty Lian, good feng shui”. By day,
she adjusts potted plants and hangs red lanterns
to balance chi. By night, she slips into the
void between floors, barefoot, weaving
spiritthread through the building’s steel bones
with her bare hands — mending the leaks where
the colonial pipes drain the living.
She never speaks of it. The rules are clear:
touch a draining pipe once, and your own breath
slows. Twice, and your name fades from family
records. She’s touched it seven times.
When the new electric meter installer cracks the
main conduit under Block 23’s basement, the
drain spikes. Mrs. Tan’s grandson stops crying
at night — not because he’s sleeping, but
because his soul is being pulled into the wall.
The block’s communal well dries up. Mosquitoes
vanish. No one eats.
Lian climbs into the crawl space beneath the
concrete slab, her fingers blackening where they
touch the pipe. She tears a strip of her own
sari, ties it to the pipe’s heart — a human
sacrifice to seal the breach. Blood drips, not
from her skin, but from the air around her,
pooling like old tea.
At dawn, the well fills again. Mrs. Tan’s boy
wakes up hungry. The kopi at Lian’s stall tastes
sweeter. Neighbours leave rice dumplings at her
door — not for luck, but because they know,
somehow, she kept them alive.
She smiles. No one asks. No one knows.
Her hands still tremble. But the children laugh
louder now. The HDB block breathes.
And she’ll do it again tomorrow.
