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Get for me: A short story

This is a short story entitled HIS FATHER'S SON written by Raymond Han in 1999.

All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the authors or a licence permitting restricted copying issued by The Cola Plus Company, Singapore.

HIS FATHER'S SON

Written by Raymond Han in 1999.

The casket rolled on the conveyor belt into the furnace. Cries broke out in the hall as
Pei Wen sobbed in his thoughts. He could not allow his tears to show. He was a man
after all though he was only sixteen years old. As he knelt next to his mother, he could
feel the anger and frustration in her cries. Aunt Caroline was by Mother's side, holding
his mother in her bosom and crying above his mother's head. Several metres away, bereaved
relatives of another dead man lined up in front of his coffin, ready for the cremation ceremony.

But Pei Wen's mind was already far away.
He was thinking hard about the past few weeks. Things had been moving all too quickly for
him and his family. His father was alive just last week. He had taken his own life exactly four days ago, on a Thursday when his mother was at the bank, sorting out her accounts
with the bank manager. She was the first to find his body, slumped in the toilet bath on the
ground floor and frothing at the mouth. By the time the paramedics arrived at the house, it was already too late. Andrew had stopped breathing and his wife was in a daze. There was no one else in the big house to tell her what to do next. She was lost. It was later that morning that Aunt Caroline, whom his mother had contacted, and her mother stepped into the house at 98 Tampines Road.

"Yoke Kuen, Oh Yoke Kuen," Aunt Caroline spluttered.

"Oh Yoke Kuen, I'm so terribly sorry to hear the news."
That brought tears down his mother's face again. Her face was sallow enough but now her
cheeks sagged as well, revealing lines of wrinkles normally kept hidden behind her makeup.
She was all of forty-two, a cashier turned housewife after she married Pei Wen's father. He was a bank manager in the Private Banking Department of a large foreign bank based in New York.

"Caroline, thanks for coming, I ..I.really don't know what to do." sobbed his mother.
The two of them needed no more words between them. They had been bosom friends since
young and understood perfectly how the other had felt. The tragedy brought them even closer.

Aunt Caroline was his mother's cousin. Both of them had spoken to each other on the phone
the evening before when Aunt Caroline had advised his mother to close all her bank accounts
immediately to avoid them being frozen by the government when his father was made a
bankrupt. His father was sued successfully in court by his creditors, two stock broking
companies, because he had failed to pay them for his huge contra losses in his share trading
facilities with them. Thereafter, everything fell apart. As the banks came to know of the suits, they jumped into the bandwagon, cancelled his overdrafts, loans and credit cards. They, then, issued demands for his father to pay up his outstandings with them.

To continue reading the short story, please click : HIS FATHER'S SON

Get for me: New Books

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Singapore: A Pictorial History 1819-2000

By Gretchen Liu

Price: S$61.70 (excludes shipping)

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The road shown on the front cover was Holloway Lane. It has recently gone the way of the Dodo and in its place is an open ground awaiting redevelopment. In the background is St Joseph's Church in Queen's Street.

The picture of the front cover of the book has been posted here with the kind permission of the publisher, Editions Didier Millet Singapore.

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Did You Know?

The Food Alley in Murray Street was completed in 1929. Additions and alterations were carried out in 1977 by the Urban Redevelopment Authority.

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News Flash Today, Wednesday 5 Jan 2000

Digital Clock

In Singapore

Singapore aims to import and export S$500 billion of goods every year by 2005.

Asia

Manila: A man convicted of raping his daughter 100 times was put to death by lethal injection in the Philippines yesterday.

Manila: Briton on death row for child rape in 1998 freed after the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors failed to prove the charge.

Around the world

London: A long-range missile, fast enough to catch any combat fighter, is being jointly developed by Russia and China, according to British Aerospace.

Courtesy of The Straits Times

News updated before 8.00 am daily.