Writing Prompt: Singaporean Houses

Morning writing again, and another picture prompt. I had fun the last half an hour free-writing like crazy, and though the piece may be full of holes (world-building and so on) I like that I can come up with something set in the future.

Inside a Singapore home, you will find mirrors. Not small bathroom mirrors, or lean strips at the dressing table, but big fly-away ones that perhaps took ten men to carry up eighteen floors into the little apartment, because, of course, they would not fit inside the lift. Some things have not changed in the last few decades: Singaporeans’ belief in feng-shui, which does not allow partitioned mirrors, their need for making their apartments look bigger, and their vanity.

At Sentosa (a man-made beach on reclaimed land, Singapore must be emptying beaches and deserts all over the world to make it a Guiness record holder in terms of size), you would find crazy glass houses full of mirrors that some strange ang moh man like me would buy (an ang moh is a man with red hair, a pretty racist chinese term for a white, if you ask me, and they call me racist if I call them chinkies back home) but those homes are ridiculous, a large wave might fluff them away.

Nothing is large in Singapore, though, if you get my drift, hearts are small, as are the homes, even the people, okay, I’ll stop right there. Big brother might be listening in. Though I have nothing to be afraid of, not as if they would let me stay here as long as I want, I’m not from China or India, (the right ethnic make-up for Singapore, sweaty Asians). But I have skills, yessir, I have skills. That is all we Americans are left with, skills, because all the factories went to China a long time back, and all the jobs got outsourced to India, even healthcare. We’re a nation of consultants now,  we get paid for giving advice. A country of shrinks, they call us, but we’ll make our comeback yet.

When I was born, they were scared the world would blow in two years, 2012, they called it, made movies about it, full of doom and destruction. My parents almost got rid of me, so short a life, they said, and so expensive. (My grandma told me all this in a splatter of a story, as revenge against my mother who threw her out to stay in the out-house.)

So, my company built this place in Sentosa. Well, not so much built it as flown it in, using one of those big American crafts. We’re not going to space any more, (no money for research, because the mlitary needs all of it, we’re into four differnt wars in the Gulf  now) so those disc-shaped things that have been UFOs for almost a century, went public two years ago. They rent themselves out, offering trips in “spaceships”, and the less glam ones work at lifting heavy stuff.  Houses, for example, and even entire resorts, like the one you see below.

My company bought that rock, built a foundation on top of it, and then flew in the building to fit the foundation, easy-peasy. It is a good place to keep people like you from the past, sort of isolated, wouldn’t you say? That cable-car thing is well-guarded, and is for contingency-use only. None of you are rock-climbers, we make sure of that when we bring you in–China and a few big American companies are keeping this project afloat as they need more people, and with birth-rates falling all over (the Chinese forgot the art of sex and giving birth during the one-child regimes of your time, and the children were mostly males, and American women just refused slavery), where else can they go, other than the past, and swipe off a few ‘right-looking’ people no one would miss? They’re looking into changing a few things at a higher level, but they can’t stay there long enough. Not yet.

So, welcome to paradise. Apart from all the facilities, which are naturally top-notch, you’ll find a good supply of likable women, and we believe that the natural process brings better results than artificial insemination. Make friends with the women, and ah, get on with it, if you know what I mean, yeah? You’re a hearty 20-year old from 1960’s New York City, and we find your type knows your job well.

Well, here we are. Enjoy your time at the resort. Why am I telling you all this? Maybe I talk too much. Maybe it is part of my job. You’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?

Take care, and goodbye.