0. Editor’s Note
- First Light Of A Crooked Sun
— August Linn
- Machine Learning — Tan Jing Min
- Grape, Backwards — ash chua
- And They All Lived: Remembering the Happy Smiley Writers Group — Ng Yi-Sheng
- Searching for One’s Roots 2.0 — Shawn Seah
- Island — Stephany Zoo
- Falling into a black hole — Ann Grá
- Monsoon Season — Zavier Seow
- The Winter of Our Science-Fiction Discontent, Part 2
— Vivekanandan Sharan
- When They Burned the Butterfly: An Interview with Wen-yi — Megan Chee
- Strange New Worlds — Brandon David Servos
— Vivekanandan Sharan
Island
TAGS | fiction, local
Stephany Zoo
Stephany Zoo has spent her life weaving meaning across cultures, industries, and emotional terrains. A seasoned marketing strategist with deep roots in branding, tech, and behavioral science, Stephany brings a unique, multidisciplinary lens to the way we seek—and sustain—connection. As a Death Doula and gatherer, she writes science and speculative fiction, featuring grief and collective memory, drawing on Eastern wisdom to challenge traditional depictions of AI and consciousness. She is currently completing her Masters in Creative Writing at Cambridge University.
The bumboat cut across the small strait, the sea the color of rusted coins. Meiyan pressed her forehead against the scratched plastic window, watching the waves push away from the bow. Pulau Ubin barely rose in front of them, a peaceful green reserve, more trees than buildings.
Sanat stood at the front of the boat. Doughy flesh sat on his large frame, shaking as he started coughing, deep hacking squawks. FP came over and thumped him on the back.
“Bro, you gotta stop smoking.”
“I haven’t smoked for years, it’s just the air back home. You know, the air is so fresh here, maybe it’s finally unclogging my lungs.” Sanat took a swig of his water.
“This is it?” asked Jeff, shielding his eyes, and looking towards the humble wooden pier the boat was pulling up towards. “This is what you’ve been hyping?” The skin on his hand looked white, almost reflective in the sun. Beyond the pier looked like a small settlement. He hadn’t been expecting the full marina he was used to back home in Shanghai, but this was barely deep enough to park a tugboat.
It had been years since London, since late-night debates and lukewarm curries in the student hall. Life had scattered them like the monsoon wind: Sanat now managed clean water tech in Delhi, Jeff implemented large-scale solar technology in China, and Meiyan and FP had come home to the “quiet island nation” that was the envy of philosophers but a mystery to capitalists.
The boat rocked as it neared the jetty, letting off a strong puff of gasoline.
“It looks like someone’s backyard,” said Jeff. He put on his sunglasses.
“Actually, it is basically someone’s backyard,” laughed Meiyan. “Half the ministers still live in kampung houses. Even the Parliament sits under a thatched roof.”
“I guess it’s nice and quiet, but doesn’t it get boring? You regret not taking that job in London?” said Jeff, giving FP a hard look. FP and Meiyan had just started dating when they were graduating Cambridge, and FP had given up a competitive engineering job in London to follow Meiyan back to Singapore. Jeff was unsupportive of the decision at the time, but he was happy that at least FP and Meiyan had stayed together after all. He was chronically single in Shanghai.
Meiyan walked over to FP and squeezed his hand affectionately. “I appreciate the sacrifice FP made for me, but I think it’s paid off in its own way, hasn’t it, sweetheart?”
FP nodded, “It’s not London, but that’s the point. Singapore didn’t want to become like everyone else. The government chose sustainability, community, and all that.
“There’s more than meets the eye. Come, let me show you around,” said Meiyan.
They grabbed their bikes from the back of the boat and off the jetty. Once onto a gravel path, they started biking. Mei pointed out the different government buildings as they went along, such as the one-floor complex that housed the Ministry of Sustainability and Environment. The roof was covered with solar panels, and through the open windows they could see busy fans and workers.
Meiyan’s introductions paused as they started biking a hill, the click clack of the gears changing louder than the grinding of the wheels against the gravel dirt path. Meiyan and FP made it to the top of the hill, and looked back to see both Jeff and Sanat pushing their bikes.
Sanat was bent nearly double over the handlebars, breath coming out in short bursts, his shirt soaked through the back, “You didn’t—” he wheezed, “—say—Singapore had mountains.”
FP laughed from the top. “This is not a mountain, brother! It’s barely a bump!”
“Speak for yourself,” Jeff puffed, his face flushed and glistening, cheeks red as dragonfruit. Sweat soaked through his collar in a triangle in the front and his hair, neatly combed when he’d left home, was now a damp mess clinging to his temples. After the first hour of being in Singapore, he realized that the thick material of his luxury streetwear shirts were not suitable for the humidity. That and the lack of air conditioners drove him to a tourist shop to buy some cheap cotton shirts. “Back home, I take escalators even to my gym,” he gasped.
Jeff stopped and dabbed his forehead with a napkin. “I swear I’ve changed shirts three times today. Why do you people insist on zero air-con?”
“Because we decided not to burn holes in the atmosphere for more comfort. The sooner you accept that you’re going to sweat, the better it gets,” Meiyan said, grinning.
“Save me the sermon, Meiyan, it’s not like the earth-saving of some tiny island nation is really going to make a difference in the grand scheme of global warming. With what I’ve done with solar energy in China, I’m carbon negative,” said Jeff.
FP chuckled, coasting down from the crest of the hill to meet them halfway. “You city boys spend too much time behind screens. Come on, this is how you earn your lunch.”
Jeff stopped walking, panting. “At this rate, I’ll earn a hospital visit.”
But when they reached the top at last, the view stretched wide and unspoiled—mangroves swaying in the wind, the sea glinting through palms, roofs of kampung houses like patches of history scattered across green.
Sanat, still breathing hard, managed a smile. “Okay,” he admitted. “This was worth it. I can hear so many birds.” He paused, and then said quietly, under his breath, “When was the last time I heard birds?”
A jungle rooster skidded out from the underbrush. It stopped in the middle of the trail, cocked its head as if judging them, and let out a single lazy crow before darting away again.
They got back on their bikes, and the trail narrowed as they rounded a bend, the path curling between palms and ferns. The afternoon sun flickered through the leaves, scattering the ground with puzzle pieces.
Suddenly, Sanat’s bike lurched forward, the pedals spinning out under his feet. He swore under his breath. The others coasted to a stop ahead of him.
“Ah, damn it,” he groaned, hopping off to inspect the damage. His hands came away streaked with dark oil. “The chain’s come off."
FP doubled back, bending over beside Sanat to take a better look. “You must’ve hit a rock. The link’s bent.”
“Can we fix it?” Sanat asked hopefully. He hacked, hard, as he was trying to clear his throat.
Sanat helped FP flip the bike over. “We can try, but we don’t have any tools.”
“You guys need help?” An unfamiliar voice called out.
They looked up to see a young man in overused slides, wearing a worn sarong and a shirt once white. He looked lean but strong and his eyes glowed with mischief.
He walked over with ease and crouched down to get a better view.
“Can you turn the pedals, while I try to get the teeth back on?” He guided FP’s hands into the correct motion. FP spun the pedals while the newcomer tinkered with the chain, but the bent link refused to sit back in place. He sighed and wiped his hands on his sarong, leaving dark streaks of oil, but not seeming to care. “No luck. The chain’s had it, but I can help you bring it to the repair shed in town. My cousin runs it.”
“That sounds great. Want to join us for lunch first?” Meiyan asked, already sliding her backpack off her shoulder.
Sanat blinked at her. “Wait—seriously? You’re inviting him? We don’t even know him.”
“So? He just helped us. And we have more than enough food,” said Meiyan.
“That’s not the point,” Sanat muttered. “It just… makes me uncomfortable.” He turned to the boy, forcing a polite smile. “Thanks for stopping to help, really, but we’ll sort out the bike ourselves.”
The boy froze awkwardly. He shifted his weight, not sure if he should leave or apologize. He had never had someone speak to him like that before, but it also made him curious. There weren’t many tourists to Pulau Ubin, or Singapore in general, but it made the boy wonder if all foreigners were like this man with the strange accent, hostile to people they did not know.
Meiyan sighed sharply. “Sanat, this isn’t Delhi or London. This is Singapore, where we share food with people. Strangers, friends, whoever. That’s who we are.”
Old habits resurfaced: the way she rebuked him with that familiar edge, the way he bristled. They hadn’t dated in years, but when they got together again, their interactions fell into the same grooves.
She knelt under the banyan, throwing out a woven mat. FP and Jeff came over wordlessly to help flatten the corners. When it was laid out fully, Meiyan patted the space beside her and looked up at the boy.
“Sit. Please.”
The boy hesitated, glancing nervously at Sanat. When Meiyan gave a small encouraging nod, he lowered himself slowly onto the mat. Sanat let out a frustrated exhale and dropped down on the opposite end, leaving an obvious gap between them.
They unpacked their lunch—popiah rolls wrapped in paper, warm carrot cake, grilled fish parcels inside banana leaves. The heat of the day had kept food warm.
FP passed the boy a piece of otah-okah. “Here, try this.”
The boy unwrapped the bamboo leaves with deft fingers. “Thank you. I’m Wira. I work over at the fishery, just past the abandoned quarry.” He looked around the group. “Are you all from here? Your accents… they’re mixed.”
“We’re from all over,” FP said. “Meiyan and I are local, but we studied abroad. All of us met in London.”
“India, to be precise.” Sanat said shortly.
Wira’s eyes lit up. “For real? What’s it like? The cities on TV look unbelievable!”
Sanat opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally said, “Busy.”
“Busy with what? How big is the city?” Wira asked, leaning forward. Sanat looked at the boy. He wasn’t a boy really, probably wasn’t that much younger than him, but there was a playfulness that made him seem like a teenager. Despite Sanat’s attitude towards him, he seemed endlessly curious and eager to ask more questions.
“About thirty million,” Sanat replied, softening a bit. “On paper. In reality? Who knows.”
Wira’s jaw dropped. “Thirty million? That’s like… a hundred times Singapore!”
“But it’s also a thousand times more dirty. When I was a kid, Delhi still had mornings you could breathe in,” he said. “Dirty, yes—but alive. You’d smell parathas frying on charcoal next to exhaust fumes and hot dust. A strange mix, but familiar.”
Sanat stretched out, leaning back on his elbows. “Now, when I visit, the air feels like it’s pressing down on your chest. The smog rolls in like a second winter. You can’t protect yourself, not even if you’re rich.” Sanat coughed again, as if for effect.
Jeff nodded, joining in. “Shanghai was the same at some point. I’d put on a white shirt in the morning and it would turn grey by lunchtime. On bad days, you couldn’t see the other side of the Huangpu River. ”
He flicked a bit of grass from his sleeve. “Then the government cracked down. They moved the coal plants inland, and replaced all the taxis with electric cars. The speed and the might with which the city underwent the green revolution was incredible.” He didn’t mention that that change actually kept him employed, how the green energy revolution was demanding more and more power.
“That would never happen in New Delhi," said Sanat forlornly, “The government keeps promising they’ll clean up but they don’t have the same power as the CCP.”
Jeff shrugged. “I mean, the air is better, but there are so many other problems. The city stretches on forever, everyone’s totally disconnected, always on their phones.”
He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “When I was little, my grandparents lived in a narrow house close to Luxun Park. It wasn’t that different to this island. The street was only wide enough for bicycles and back then there were only bicycles. They tore down the house in my teens to build a shopping complex. You spend your whole life in Shanghai feeling like you’re almost there — one stop away, one promotion away, one more year before you can rest. ”
Jeff stopped. He didn’t want to be negative, and he felt like he subjected FP already enough to his complaining, especially when on the surface it felt like he was getting promoted and working on interesting projects. They had both majored in electrical engineering, and Jeff was now working on huge solar grid projects in the Gobi Desert while FP was helping his neighbors install solar panels on their roofs.
Meiyan stabbed a cucumber slice in her rojak. “Frankly, I think our country made the right decision. My great-uncle LKY certainly wanted something different. He fought for rapid development—industry, finance, tall buildings, the whole package.”
Jeff snapped his fingers in memory. “Was he the one who visited us at Cambridge? Alumni talk?”
Meiyan nodded. “That’s the one. He passed away a year or two after that.”
FP’s jaw tightened subtly. Meiyan didn’t notice, but Jeff did. FP had never been entirely at peace with either decision, first the one that kept Singapore small, slow, preserved and second, his own choice to return and contribute to it. When Jeff and Sanat talked about their cosmopolitan lives, FP wondered what he had given up for her, even if he’d never say it out loud.
Then Wira leaned forward, his eyes bright. “Actually, I think all of that sounds incredible,” he said.
Sanat blinked. “Incredible? You think choking on smog is incredible?”
“No, not that,” Wira said quickly, shaking his head. “The rest of it; the bigness of it all. So many people and lights and buildings. And that kind of energy! It must feel like living in the future.”
Jeff shrugged, “It feels like nothing you do is ever enough.”
“But still,” Wira said, “it’s amazing that humans can build like that. That we can make the earth shine from space. That your air was so bad, and your people fixed it. That your city stretches so far you can’t see its end. I’ve never even seen a building higher than a couple of stories.”
Wira leaned forward, his voice gurgling with excitement, “What if Singapore became like that?”
The group exchanged glances. FP gestured around them widely, “You mean, what, all of this, turned into a big city?”
“Yeah!” Wira exclaimed, “Huge towers, subways, and a crowded downtown. It’ll just be like in the movies!”
“You’d have to cut down every tree first,” FP said.
“Maybe not,” Wira said dreamily. “Maybe we build around them—tall buildings with gardens on every floor, bushes along the sidewalks, and food grown inside towers.”
Meiyan shrugged, “But that’s not us. We’re such a tiny island, what would we even sell?”
“Maybe nothing, actually. When the Japanese invaded in the 1940’s, they thought of Singapore as a strategic port and there was potential to build out a shipping and trading industry,” said FP.
“Imagine,” Wira insisted, grinning. “Imagine a city that went from kampongs to a global leader in just sixty years instead. The richest, cleanest, busiest place on Earth!”
Sanat raised an eyebrow, “That sounds absolutely crazy! How could a fishing village become a world power?”
“Seriously,” Meiyan said, “If Singapore ever built skyscrapers like that, we’d probably all sink into the ocean within a decade.”
They all burst out laughing.
#
The sun started to sink, turning the oppressive burn of midday into a lazy heat, which then spread over their full bellies. After they’d finished eating, Wira stood and brushed sand from his pants. They all helped clear the dishes and trash.
Sanat hesitated, clearly feeling guilty for judging the boy earlier. “You sure about the bike?”
“Of course,” Wira said. “I’ll bring it to the pier before sunset and you guys head back.”
“Take this,” FP said, handing him a leftover rice dumpling. “Fuel for the road.”
Wira grinned, slinging the broken bike over his shoulder like it weighed nothing. “Thanks for lunch. Maybe one day, we’ll feast in Shanghai or Delhi. I’d love to see all the madness for myself!”
Sanat shook his head. “You might find them too loud.”
“Then I’ll come back home,” Wira shrugged. He waved to the group and walked off.
FP patted Sanat on the shoulder. “Sanat, hop on the pegs. I’ll give you a lift.”
“You serious?” Sanat eyed the janky bike incredulously. One of the pegs was already bent, either from an accident, or from overuse.
“Unless you want to jog to the pier.”
Sanat laughed and climbed on. The two wobbled dangerously as the bike started moving. Jeff and Meiyan kicked off, following behind, crunching over the fallen Cordyline leaves and gravel.
#
They took their time getting back to the pier and the sky was already the color of crushed butterfly pea flowers. The bumboat was already waiting as was Wira, with the bike.
“How’d you fix it so fast?” Sanat asked, amazed.
“Luck,” Wira said with a grin. “And a hammer.”
They loaded the bikes onto the boat. A number of other passengers climbed aboard, a family with some young children afraid of water, some merchants with big woven bags that they loaded aboard. As the engine sputtered to life, the group waved farewell to Wira onshore. The island receded, the rare lights looking like fireflies spread across the island.
Sanat leaned against the railing. “You know,” he said, “if that boy’s dream ever came true, this place would be unrecognizable.”
Jeff laughed. “Tall towers instead of tall banyans. Air-conditioned malls instead of hawker centers.”
“It’d be madness,” FP said. “I know your job is better than mine, but honestly I don’t envy you.”
Meiyan smiled, but her gaze drifted toward the horizon. The light had changed. The air shimmered, as though heat rose from invisible ground. For just a quick, unsynced heartbeat, she thought she saw something impossible.
She saw hard edges and angles reflecting the light, long and lean and ambitious against the yolk of the sun setting. It looked like glass and metal smoldering in orange haze.
She squinted, looking harder. But then she blinked, and they were gone. Just the open sea and the browns and greens she was so used to on the other bank.
“Hey,” FP called. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Meiyan said, almost murmuring to herself. “Just… thought I saw something. Like a city, across Serangoon Harbor.”
Sanat grinned. “You’re just imagining Wira’s dream.”
Meiyan nodded. “Maybe.”
But Meiyan couldn’t shake the dream. For months after, Meiyan would dream of that developed shimmer. In her sleep, she walked through a city that smelled of rain and felt the hot reflection of the asphalt roads. Green grew on the outside of the reaching towers, and she saw faces that looked like hers reflected in subway windows, hurrying nowhere.
But when she woke, she would go outside to the fields, squelching barefoot in the morning mud, breathing the wet green air until the dream faded.