Madam Lim, 28, runs evening math classes from
her Tiong Bahru HDB kitchen, grading OLevel
papers by kerosene lamp while her husband’s NS
pay covers rice and sambal. She’s not just a
tutor — she’s the only one who can make
quadratic equations feel like a game of long kah.
Her ambition? To open a proper tuition centre
before the 1965 merger.
Her boss, Mr. Tan, head of the Britishrun
Colonial Education Bureau’s new “Modernised
Tuition Division,” offers her a desk in his
airconditioned office. It’s not charity — he
needs her to fake Agrade results for his
mistress’s son. She agrees. Kiasu survival.
The world changes when the Bureau’s new Xerox
1000 machine — imported from London to
“streamline exam integrity” — starts copying
papers no one has submitted. At 2 a.m., Madam
Lim finds a stack of 1947 Malayan Union OLevel
scripts in the tray. Names written in faded ink.
One reads: “Chan Ah Kow, died 1945, Pulau Ubin.”
The rule bites: no photocopying after 10 p.m.
without supervisor clearance. But the machine
doesn’t care. It copies only when someone lies
about a student’s grade.
She catches Mr. Tan feeding it a falsified mark
sheet for his mistress’s boy. The machine whirs,
then spits out two copies: one with the fake A+,
and one with the real D — signed by a dead
examiner from 1941.
The next morning, the Bureau chief finds the
ghost papers on his desk. The machine won’t stop.
Every lie it touches becomes real.
Madam Lim doesn’t quit. She doesn’t scream. She
walks into the office at dawn, grabs the last
blank sheet, and writes: “Chan Ah Kow, 1947 —
passed with distinction, by grace of truth.”
The machine shudders. Then goes silent.
Mr. Tan is transferred to Penang. The Bureau
shuts down its “modernisation” project.
She opens her tuition centre two months later —
“Lim’s Quadratics & Ghostproofing.” The first
poster? “No lies. No copies. Just results.”
On her desk, a single Xerox 1000 manual — pages
17–23 torn out.
And every Friday, the machine in the storeroom
hums softly.
No one dares to turn it on.
