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“I miss Malaysia.”
His grip on the Milo tin tightens.
Two girls pass behind him browsing the aisle. He knows it’s rude to eavesdrop. Should he get the regular recipe or the Australian one?
“You make it sound like Malaysia is gone.” The other girl sounds amused. The regular recipe is on sale. He likes regular better anyway.
“No, as in like I miss pasar malams, I miss going to my grandma’s, I miss the food. Goddamn, the char kuey teow here sucks, I miss roadside JB food.”
...He’s going to pretend he didn’t hear that entire last part.
“I miss Malaysia.”
Australian. Australian recipe it is.
Singapore stands up with a slight stretch, tosses the tin into the basket, and adjusts his mask. A glance is thrown in the direction the girls went and their voices fade into the next aisle, before he sighs and moves on as well, settling into the queue.
Whatever, it's not like he could blame them anyway, Malaysia was always the better cook between the both of them, and they weren’t the only ones fed up with this whole border situation.
A sudden cough claws its way out of him as if to prove his point and he winces. His throat stings, and the way heads turn as people shuffle away from him makes him stifle whatever remaining cough is trying to surface. The auntie in the queue next to him glares and he glares back, scrutinising the mountains of non-perishable food and toilet paper in her basket.
He rolls his eyes and pays the cashier quickly. He doesn't feel as bad as he did before, at least -- he could finally get out of bed for a start. The other nations are more or less the same. Nobody can blame them though. His economy took a hit and the spike in cluster cases aren't helping, but hey, he could be worse. He could be America. Just saying.
At least he isn’t contagious. Right? Is he sick from the virus or the state of himself right now? “State of himself”... What a weird thing to say. “State of his people”... Would that be more accurate? Well, it wouldn’t be wrong at least.
If his people are ill, then he is ill. If they suffer, then he suffers. If they miss Malaysia?...
Then jialat lor.
He takes his bag and walks out, immediately going with the bustle of the crowd. Pandemic or not, the city is always busy. Busy is good though, busy means things to do, busy means productivity, busy means not staying cooped up at home all day because of a lockdown. Busy means he didn’t have to think about how much his citizens missed travelling, how much they missed Malaysia. This was all them, not him. Definitely not.
That’s what he thinks to himself.
Did he really come all the way out here for a single tin of Milo? No. Yes. Not really. He's just lonely.
The borders aren’t completely closed, but if the citizens aren’t allowed to travel then neither is he. Oh no, because as the personification of the nation, he had to set the standard for the country, for the citizens. No travelling for him then.
Standard his foot lah, what standard. The people don’t even know he exists.
It feels weird, being so “alone”. Singapore isn’t used to it. Throughout his history (nevermind that he's the youngest) he was never alone, not truly at least. Not when he had ASEAN long before it was ASEAN, not when his neighbours were almost too close to be called neighbours, geographically or otherwise. All this...online video meeting concept just isn’t cutting it for him.
Or maybe he's just getting old; that white streak in his fringe might be turning into something other than just being a representation of his flag.
Anyway it’s not like he is asking to go as far as Myanmar or Thailand or anything. Someone close by would do, abang Indonesia was practically next to him, and if Indonesia was still considered too far then he wouldn't mind visiting-
…
Should he buy food as well? He spies a coffee shop just across the road, though bigger than the traditional ones further from the city, and decides why not. Countries don’t need to eat (though it's a good way pass the time) but then again he doesn’t need to drink either, and yet there’s the weight of a Milo tin resting in his plastic bag. He wipes away a bead of sweat with the back of his hand. One dish to-go, then he’ll call a taxi back. He’s not sure how much longer he can stand the heat of his own climate anyway, and the mask he’s wearing isn’t helping in the slightest.
There’s the smell of charred woks and oily smoke in the air the minute he steps in. Even with the mask on, the atmosphere feels greasy and the fans above barely do anything to relieve the heat other than blow soupy air around. But it's familiar, one of the few things he can share with his people. Now his food may not be up to par with Malaysia’s but that doesn’t mean his people can’t cook.
Then again, some of them were technically Malaysia’s people.
Aiyah, they were staying on his land anyway.
Singapore stops in front of two stalls, side by side with each other, and he sighs. Not even a personified country could escape the mental gymnastics of having to pick what to eat. Theoretically he could buy two dishes -- not like calories matter to a country -- but it was much too hot today for him to think about eating that much. No mood.
Chicken rice or nasi lemak?
“You going for the vaccination?” Two students sit a few ways from Singapore, gnawing through their satays like lions with fresh meat. He had chicken the day before, nasi lemak seems like a good option to him right now.
“See first. You eh?” One boy speaks through his bites, staining his cheek with peanut sauce. Singapore thinks about the flavour of peanuts mingling with the light fragrance of the coconut rice, and the salt of the ikan bilis too of course. Classic nasi lemak.
Readjusting his grip on the plastic bag, he takes a tentative step to the right, maybe he’ll get nasi lemak today. It’s been a while anyway, and he’s quite tired of steamed and roasted chicken. When was the last time he had nasi lemak? Classic, filling, flavourful.
“Have to, mummy say take just in case the borders open again. They want to go visit ah ma in Kuala-”
He swerves left. “Auntie,” his voice drowns out the sound of his surroundings as he fishes for his wallet, “Chicken rice, tapau.”
The ride back home is uneventful. Office buildings give way to the greenery of the highway, and the silhouette of high-rise housing in the distance.
Singapore doesn’t have a capital to return home to like the other countries (save for the micronations). He doesn’t have the land to establish states, though maybe Orchard could be considered the closest thing to a capital for him, maybe even Raffles. Regardless of location, “home” is wherever the citystate wanted to be. It's his place anyway, and it isn’t like Singapore can stay anywhere else but Singapore.
He does wonder if anybody tried though.
He didn't really feel like staying in the city today. The business never sleeps but he sure does. Every now and then, he prefers the simplicity of his own HDB flat than his landed property that was smack dab in the middle of the busiest areas of the country. The flat felt homely. Reminds him of his kampung days. Of course he did have to pull rank and status to buy a flat considering, you know, the fact that he wasn't married. Anymore.
That's blatantly obvious looking at the mess of a flat. Ah yes, the mark of a single.
Singapore kicks off his slippers by the door. He shifts a stool here, kicks away a pile of newspapers there, and good lord, he needs to sweep the floor again. The dining table isn’t spared either, concerningly stacked with so many objects that its original purpose was almost forgotten. It’s been a while since he’s been here so things are bound to be messy, he reasons, plus his HDB flat is usually where he dumps his more personal stuff to avoid clutter in the office, like an extra large storeroom.
Not that his office is any neater though, but that’s information for him and his government alone to know.
Despite his rapid development, Singapore is more of the sentimental type. There’s a near-tattered “Good Morning” towel draped over his chair that he readjusts with one hand, while the other shifts aside an empty butter cookie tin filled with odd knick knacks. There’s an old, half empty plastic balloon box that he’s sure is way past its expiration date, and another box filled with flag erasers. Majority of them are Singapore themed of course, though if you look carefully, you can somewhat spot the colours of his neighbours’ flags peeking from underneath all his red and white. He rearranges his dining table to make room for his food.
A box here, stacked there, moved over, he puts his Milo tin on a precarious tower of magazines.
Paper here, stacked there, metal tins moved over, he-
Clink
--drops something. He clicks his tongue in annoyance, and sets down his chicken rice on the table. Bending down, he shifts away boxes and bags in his search and decides maybe it might be time to at least organise and throw out certain stuff, until a glint catches his eye.
He reaches out and picks up a very familiar ring.
Why the hell was this on the dining table?
Singapore sits down, staring at the ring. Vaguely, he remembers locking this in one of the many drawers in his house in a minor tantrum. Tucked in a corner, maybe tossed in the store room collecting dust, hidden away in the shadows. That must’ve been years ago, and years have the tendency of being shorter than they sound. He should know, to him it felt like centuries past, to others it was only fifty-six years and counting. How fast the years go by indeed.
Imagine having what was essentially your birthday on the day of what was essentially your divorce.
Singapore rolls the band of gold between his fingers, and the ring stares back up at him gleaming under his fluorescent light, one half of a whole, its companion piece a bridge away.
His companion a bridge away.
So far yet so close, he opens his chicken rice and takes a bite, ring mindlessly slid onto his pointer finger without thought or hesitation. Instead he thinks while he chews.
He thinks about once upon a time, when a lion cub ran with a tiger. He thinks about how Malaysia was there from the beginning, running the span of his history beside him despite how fuzzy his Temasek days were. He was there when England found him. He was there when Japan took him.
He thinks about how he was there right next to him in bed, every morning for almost two years.
So close that they could build a bridge to each other, so far that they couldn’t last longer than they hoped. Perhaps it could be seen as odd, how the two of them ended up the way they were, but when you were as old as a nation not much could seem to phase you anymore.
He made his decision long ago, be it past or future, that his actions were his own. Whatever his people did, that would be all them, not him. As long as he could hold on to a silver of the present, wasn't that enough?
It was enough for him at least.
So he swallows his chickens and pulls out his phone. He taps a blue widget and a video call screen opens. His phone rings, once, twice-
“Eh! Singa?! You called?!” The video is jostled so a bit as the camera adjusts. Malaysia has his phone in one hand, and an open Milo packet in the other, hovering above a bowl of Maggi in front of him. Singapore sometimes finds it hard to believe that Malaysia’s food is better. Usually during times like this.
“No lah, no lah, this isn’t Singapore. I’m Indonesia.” Singapore rolls his eyes, and Malaysia pouts.
“Sian lah, nothing to do, eating ah?”
“Mm!” Malaysia nods, his voice sounds much scratchier than usual, almost painful, but he dumps the rest of his Milo powder into his bowl all the same, “You eh? Chicken rice again?”
“Yeah,” he looks down at his packet, there’s not enough gravy, “hard to find good nasi lemak here.”
“Eh, finally admitting my food’s better?” Malaysia stabs into his noodles with a cheeky grin that let's his fangs faintly peek through.
“Cheaper, definitely.”
“Diam.”
They laugh, and for a moment it’s like they’re together having Sunday lunch at the coffeeshops again like they used to all those years ago.
“After all this over, you come over and I cook for you. You miss my cooking right?” He teases, but Singapore isn’t teasing back when he replies.
“Yeah.”
“Huh?”
“I miss you.”