our town sparkles

our town sparkles

not.

drugs, contrabands, prostitution, violence, poverty. and we are just 5

minutes from sparkling orchard road, not exactly heartland. in the 2

years that the man and woman have stayed here, they have seen and

heard some weird shit.

their cleaner friend finds drug needles on his cleaning rounds ever so

often. we actually had a drug user come to our door once to borrow

$400. all bleary eyed, he says it is for his sister's medical bills.

he bargains down to $80, then $4, then leaves when he isn't getting

anywhere with the man. he says his sister stays upstairs on the 12th

floor. there's only 10 floors in this block.

the woman goes round to the neighbouring block again to look for

Mummy. she takes the stairs up 3 floors, in case. every floor has ah

long notices spray painted, repainted and spray painted again. more

than one person is in some serious trouble.

(she does eventually find Mummy hanging out with what looks

unmistakably like Bramblerose's Daddy. he has some balls on him so

that marks him as next month's target.)

you wouldn't believe it but we have a police post right next door. but

that doesn't stop this auntie from plying the streets with contraband

cigarettes in a grocery push cart. and if you know where to look, the

market rate for a romp here is $30 a pop. welcome to singapore.

so cats are the least of everyone's problems. for the ones who do

care, namely the feeders that the woman has encountered, they are

either the elderly living alone, unemployed or hanging on by the skin

of their teeth. much respect to them that the cats here still get to

enjoy meat and fish portions rain or shine. but talk about

sterilisation, they say yeah great, can you help us ask _____

(substitute SPCA, Cat Welfare Society, AVA, Town Council, PAP) for

money?

so the idea of rallying a resident cat sterilisation and management

squad sounds almost like comedy. to the tune of Police Academy -

ragtag underdog team of ah long, mee pok man, cleaner, grandmother,

school dropout, saves [DEL: day :DEL] cat.

funny. and then we remember it's not that funny. the animal family is

only one step removed from the sudden death russian roulette many