i. a hesitant, bright hope

Safe Harbour by Maxim Loy

The night came in shades and I hated the fact that I’d learnt that. I already knew. The blue tint spreading across the horizon would soon be followed by the chirping of birds. I should be used to the sound but it still hammered aching tiredness into my bones and made my burning eyes pulse. I closed them, trying to reclaim the restful darkness I craved.

And I found myself watching the sky again. The blue spread like dye on silk. Each blink seemed to lighten it. It was only a matter of time before that damned bird would start again. I wanted to sleep before then.

I really did.

And so I tried counting the blinks in between my laboured breaths. The blue stretched out even further before me. Or maybe it grew closer. It consumed me. Drowned me. I blinked.

I breathed.

If I focused on only the hissing of moving air, would it drown out the bird’s cries?

I blinked.

One breath. Two.

I blinked. The pallid blue was far more blinding than it had any right to be. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes.

Three.

I blinked. They spilled.

“How many breaths are we on?” The cat asked.

“Four? Does it matter?” I swirled a hand in the dark water and quickly withdrew it when I felt something brush against my fingers. “It can be four hundred and I’ll still end up here.”

The cat peered at me while cleaning a snowy paw. “What’s wrong with here?”

I gestured wildly at the inky-blue surroundings, melting and shifting and reforming into the ever growing puddle that the boat now bobbed around in. It’d happened enough times for me to know what would come next.

The puddle would grow and fill the boat. The cat would swim away. I'd tread water and watch as the blue crept over my sight until I dissolved into it. Then I’d wake up covered in sweat and panting as the mid-afternoon sun snuck under the blinds that my mother would have lowered at some point in the morning before tip-toeing out of my room.

Of course, not every attempt at sleep I’d had for the past year was plagued by dreams of being forced to drown in blue sludge. But enough had, and no amount of melatonin or chamomile tea had managed to help me sleep at a functional time of day, let alone wrangle my dreams into restful ones. The sleeping pills had had the added effect of making me feel as if the blue sludge was also creeping into my lungs and choking me, while also making my eyelids impossibly heavy to open.

Once, I had attempted to save myself by clawing at any available ‘surface’. However, the walls of sludge simply melted under my fingers and I found myself being sucked into the viscous liquid. Suffocating in the thick wet oxygenless cocoon.

Needless to say, after that experience and seeing the ragged trails my nails had bit into the skin of my neck in the bathroom mirror, the sleeping pills were poured into the kitchen trash and I did not refill the prescription.

“It’s not so bad. I like it here.”

 “You’re not stuck here.” You get to leave. You always leave.

“Neither are you.” The cat started cleaning its other paw. Its eyes languidly fixed on my narrowed ones. If not for the fact that it had taken on the appearance of my childhood pet, I would have throttled it.

“Bullshit.” The cat stretched and stood on its hind legs, leaning against the boat’s frame to observe the sludge that was about to spill over the edge and onto the floor. I could already see him leaping into it and paddling into the distance, his exposed head becoming a shrinking orange dot on the horizon. I began to brace myself.

“No, really. Here, I’ll show you.” The cat daintily hopped onto the edge and placed a paw onto the liquid’s surface. He took a few steps before turning around to see my gaping mouth. “It’s really not that difficult.Try it.” He had begun walking even before I scrambled up from the seat.

*

And then I was falling.

​

Stupid cat. I cursed him as I cartwheeled my arms, trying to orientate myself in the darkness. At least it wasn’t blue. It was a deep dark purple that was punctuated by floating vertical slits spilling multicoloured lights through them. I could hear snatches of people talking through them.

Mummy, I’m keeping him! No you aren’t, Malcolm. I’ll hide him in my room if you say no! Mal-

That was the day I’d gotten Tiger. It had been raining. He’d been a scrawny ball of wet, matted fur shivering too hard to meow when I’d found him. My mum had ordered me to get him out of her house for fear of fleas. I’d managed to hide him successfully for all of half a day before my mum had discovered him. Tiger had been quite handsome after a few months of good food. He’d lived with us for ten years. Mum held him the entire time the vet administered the pentobarbital.

God, Malcolm, why do you have to be like this? He started it! And you thought punching him w-

It was more difficult to enjoy school life once the children I went to school with were old enough to figure out my family’s situation. There’d been a particularly nasty boy. Jeremy or Jerry...maybe Jerome? Hardly mattered anyway.

One day, he went out of his way to remind me that my father had wanted neither my mother nor me. That day, he’d ended up with a black eye and split lip. I ended up with a week-long suspension and bruised knuckles. I think it was the surprise more than anything that had kept him from realising that he could have snapped my scrawny arm like a twig while I'd straddled him punching and screaming.

My mother had kept sighing whenever she looked at me that week and I had to pretend that I couldn’t smell cigarette smoke on her clothes.

She’d been next to the kitchen window with her back turned to me. I didn't think that people actually jumped when they got startled but she did, quickly whipping around. She had hid her hands behind her back then she had smiled too hard while telling me unprompted that she’d put leftovers in the fridge for me and that Aunt Claire would be coming over to watch me while she was at work. She hadn’t heard the kitchen door open and I hadn’t wanted her to.

I’m leaving. Oh, you think you’re so great now because you have some money, is that it? No, I-

The air whooshed past my ears and for a moment I saw her frozen in that moment. Biting her lip and eyes reddening as her fists remained balled at her side. She wouldn't have hit me. But in that moment, I remember almost hoping she would.

She’d never raised a hand at me my entire life. I used to wish she had. Maybe then our relationship would have been less complicated. Less tongue clicks and silent treatments. Less barely hidden disappointment and deep sighs.

She was still convinced that the one time I'd punched Jeremy-Jerry-or-maybe-Jerome had been the reason I hadn't been able to get into university because it must have left a permanent ‘black mark’ on my record. I wish I could have blamed him rather than my own lacklustre grades.

I also wished I could have said that my departure had come on suddenly. As if I hadn't already been planning it for the better part of a year. It was really meant to be a quiet affair. Sneak past her room. Block her number. Disappear. That's what I'd hoped to do anyway.

But instead she'd been sitting on the couch, wide awake and nursing a steaming cup of what smelled like herbal tea. She had jumped, then we froze like two prey animals caught in the headlights, my luggage bags burning into my skin. And then the barely suppressed yelling started, her voice becoming shriller and shriller with each non-committal answer I gave. And finally, she'd swatted my hand away from the door.

And then the sharp twisting in my gut brought on by a whole lifetime of that same shrill tone going on about school and test scores and putting away the laundry as soon as it was folded and not sleeping so late and my posture and I shouldn’t stay in all day on my computer and small businesses tended to fail within the first year and I should find a more stable job and Aunt Claire’s workplace may still be accepting internship applications and I needed a better suit in case they may want to interview me and-

-I can’t stand being around you anymore. I can’t live with you.

The words rushed out from my lips and took a life of their own. I had to stop myself from covering my mouth and laughing.

It had felt good. Like lancing an old wound and letting out the roaming thought that had been swirling in my head since I was old enough to feel my stomach drop whenever she opened her mouth. It haunted the air that was already thick with accusations.

Fine. Do what you want. You always have. Like when you brought home that damned cat.

I’d made sure to slam the door on my way out. I made sure to run to the nearest bus stop. For a moment, just as I'd turned to close the door, I thought I saw her using her palm to wipe away a tear. I shook my head quickly between the gasping breaths and blocked her number with shaking fingers. I was scared that even the whisper of her presence in my new life would make me reopen that door to the too-small house with walls which seemed to grow tighter every day, imprinting the impression of the ugly lotus tiles in the kitchen and the scribbled-on sofa and the tape marks on the yellow bedroom walls and the scuffed parquet flooring into my skin and soul. Any tighter and I'd probably smell of the menthol cigarettes hidden at the back of the utensil drawer.

I wonder if she had smoked after that. Maybe she’d even been a little glad she no longer had to strain her ears to hear the kitchen door opening.

I closed my eyes again. And kept falling. 

*

There was a sickening moment when the space around me felt like it was tipping on its axis. Any further and it would flip. I screwed my eyes even more tightly shut to fight against the moment of weightless vertigo. And then it righted itself.

I cracked open my eyes cautiously.

The overhead light from the bare bulb was a dark, desaturated orange which made the deep blue glass tiles of the bathroom look black. A glass shower cubicle barely wide enough to stand in took up over half the space and the dark veneer over the plywood cupboard doors had started to swell and lift in places. A warm dampness and the sweet chemical smell of Dove shampoo lingered in the air. Out of habit, I moved to wipe away the condensation that covered the mirror over the sink.

A sudden overture of familiar cheerful marimba music made me jump.My eyes darted around as I tried to swallow the wave nausea that had been conditioned into me. The sound circled around me from behind the ugly tiled walls, like some overly cheerful tropical-themed shark assessing its prey.

“Not going to pick up?”
 

I spun to see the cat seated almost nonchalantly on the ceramic cover of the toilet cistern.

“Not going to pick up?” he repeated, his voice somehow louder than the marimba instrumentals echoing off the bathroom walls.

“It'll stop ringing soon.” His tone and lowered eyes made the back of my neck prickle.

The music resounded through my bones and made my head pound. I could feel the saliva pooling in my mouth as my stomach churned.

And then, with one last cheerful chime, it ended.

The deafening silence made me gasp for breath and I began dry heaving. I barely made out the computerized voice above my thundering heartbeat.

The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone.

There was a long beep.

Hey, erm...This is Hui Lin. I don’t know why I said that since you already-anyway, I’m rambling. Just wanted to let you know I’ll be staying over at my friend’s dormitory. We’re working on the group project that I told you about...or maybe you don’t remember. Anyway don’t wait up! Loveyoubye!

The last part came out in a breathless rush before the dial tone sounded. The ensuing silence was punctuated only by my gasps, saliva dripped down my chin and my arms were straining with the effort of keeping me upright over the sink.

Before I had a chance to recover, the marimba music started up again.

No. Please don’t make me do this. Not again. Please.

The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone.

I moaned and shut my eyes.

Hi, this is Simone. From ArcaTek? Yeah. Anyway, I’ve taken a look at the page you created and I think there was a miscommunication somewhere. Call me at your earliest convenience, okay?

I tried to focus on my breathing. Just like how all those videos online told you to. In for four counts, hold for four counts-or was it six? To be honest it didn’t matter since the vice grip that dial tone had around my heart and lungs made it difficult to remember how breathing even worked.

I could hear vague noises that sounded like movements and voices outside the flimsy plastic door that separated this bathroom from the rest of the common areas in the shared flat.

There was a cautious knock and I wanted to be sucked into the sink drain there and then.

The marimba started up again and was abruptly cut off before the tune could finish.

The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone.

I need to get out. I need to get out. I need to-

Hey, it’s Hui Lin again. I’ll be out with my friends tonight. Y’know, it would have been nice if you’d remembered my birthday. I’m sorry I yelled at you last night. But like...anyway, the point is I won’t be back till late tonight. Try not to stay up too late. Love you. Bye.

Hui Lin had moved in with me mainly to save me money. It was cheaper for two people to rent a room and she worked weekends at a cafe to pay her half of the rent. Her parents hadn’t been too thrilled and insisted on seeing her weekly.

I’d worn a button up shirt and ironed my pants the three times I’d had dinner with her parents. The first time was when Hui Lin and I had become ‘official’ not long after we graduated from Polytechnic. The second time was a celebration dinner when she’d received her university acceptance letter. The third was about a week after we’d moved in together.

I didn’t miss the meaningful glances between her parents and the gradually disappearing smiles whenever I told them of my future plans. I didn’t miss how her mother had pulled her aside right before she’d left and given her a particularly long hug after a loudly whispered conversation that I did my best to tune out after I’d heard my name mentioned.

“You can come back for dinner whenever you want, okay? Make sure you eat properly, yeah.” Her mother said, pointedly ignoring eye contact with me as Hui Lin gave her another long hug at the entrance.

“You make sure you look after her, yeah? My daughter is very precious to me,” she’d continued, roughly patting my arm while we waited for the lift. Hui Lin had laughed and teased her for being overprotective. I never did manage to get the courage to go back for a fourth dinner.

The knocking at the door grew louder and the fact that it almost seemed to sync up with the marimbas brought on a new wave of nausea that made my knees buckle. I curled up miserably on the floor and tried covering my ears which just seemed to amplify the sounds.

The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone.

I didn’t know you could cry in dreams.

This is Jason from Kroma. Anyway, just wanted to let you know we’ve managed to find a different designer who is better able to align with our vision. Thanks for your time so far and all the best!

I’d spent two weeks by that point working on the project for Kroma. In that time, I’d had to change liaisons at least twice and they’d requested changes to the website layouts at least four times. Seeing their name pop up on my contacts made my stomach turn and I had to force a smile every time I was forced to ‘touch base’ with them over Zoom.

I mostly spent my days cooped up in my room, only emerging at odd hours of the night to heat up whatever food Hui Lin had bought for me that day in the microwave. If she wasn’t around, I’d microwave some cup noodles.

I preferred to steal back to my room furtively to eat if she wasn’t around. Hui Lin would complain sometimes about the smell of food getting into her clothes. But those times had gotten further and fewer in between as she’d started either staying over at her parents or at her friends’ more often. She mostly just sighed nowadays. I wished she’d go back to yelling at me.

​

The knocking on the door was getting louder. Faster. More insistent.

The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone.

The ringtone hadn’t even sounded this time.

Hey, it’s me. My mum...she’s kind of worried about me. Honestly...I...I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I still really care about you, I just...Let’s talk about this when I’m home, yeah?

I curled up even tighter. My ears were ringing from how tightly I was squeezing my eyes shut.

The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message-

Hello? Malcolm? This is Sofia from Lushly. Unfortunately, my department has chosen to go with another designer after all. Thank you for your drafts and have a good day.

Seeing any of the companies I was attempting to work with pop up on my phone or social media made my guts rearrange themselves so badly that I usually had to reach for the dustbin. The marimba ringtone I’d been using for years because Hui Lin had hummed along to it once when someone had forgotten to put their phone on silent during a lecture made me shake so badly I couldn't breathe. Was this what drowning felt like?

The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please-

Hey Malcolm, just wanted to let you know that the deadline has been moved up. Let us know if this will be a problem. This is Jia Hui from Vispo, by the way.

Of course I wouldn’t be able to. I couldn’t even start up my desktop without feeling lightheaded and feeling like my lungs were being crumpled into a ball.

The numbers in my bank account were surely but steadily getting lower. There was enough to cover rent for this month. But not enough for next month. Not enough to buy proper groceries so I could stop hearing about how Hui Lin’s mum was fussing over how much weight she had lost. Not enough to reassure her when she mentioned her friends who had boyfriends who could pay for dates and vacations to tropical islands. Maybe if I could just land a few more good contracts, I could take a break? For a few days. Maybe take a quick trip to Malaysia. Treat her to some cute clothes and nice food. That should keep her happy for a while. Right?

The person you are calling is not available-

Hi! This is Josephine from Abric. I’m sorry but unfortunately, we have chosen to hire a different candidate. Thank you for your time.

The person you are calling-

Hello? Malcolm? This is Auntie Claire. I got your message. Unfortunately, that advertisement was a bit old so my workplace already found someone to fill the role. Sorry about that. You should call home. Your mum misses you.

The person-

​

Hello, just wanted to remind you that rent is due for your room. Try to pay in a timely manner, okay? Must be considerate, yeah?

​

The-

​

There was a moment of crackling silence that was punctuated by a loud sniffle.

​

Someone was pounding so hard on the bathroom door that it was shaking.

Hey, Malcolm. Sorry about my mum. I heard the yelling. She was just...well I’m sure you get it. Thanks for dropping off my stuff. I still care about you. You’re still my friend. Honestly, I’m kind of worried about you. Look after yourself and erm...if you need anything just drop me a text. Yeah...that’s it I guess. Bye.

A deep shuddering breath left my body in the ensuing silence. Everything hurt. I didn’t want to be here. I was pressed so close to the floor that the grout lines were blurred. When had I even opened my eyes?

There was a sharp, sickening crack as the door gave way from somewhere above me. The light cast on the floor was a deep dark red.

With a buzz and a pop, everything went black. I let myself fall away.

*
 

I was unwinding like an unsecured bobbin of thread. Stretching thinner and tauter and snapping and breaking and tangling and-

I blinked. When had I been able to do that again?

A horrible yawning, yearning, hungry darkness permeated the inky black space beyond. It shifted and stalked my prone form, waiting. I could hear a faint rumbling growl under my ear which was pressed to the cement floor. I didn't dare to blink.

My body lay chest down and unmoving, my bones too heavy for my body. Blinking my weighted eyelids, the first thing I noticed was the cat’s absence. Next, that rain was pattering against my pyjamas. Then, the smell of cigarette smoke behind me.

The relative silence was interrupted by barely stifled coughs. A few wheezing breaths later, I felt something solid land on top of my head before bouncing and landing in front of my face.

Smoke was still wafting from the lit end of the barely touched cigarette. The rain would take care of any fire hazards, or at least I remember that was what I’d been thinking to myself.

The puddle under the smouldering cigarette was grey tinged with blue at the edges of my vision.

The world had been that colour for a few weeks before I’d found myself on the roof level of a block of flats. Life hadn't felt real at the time. Everything was overly sharp yet somehow unfocused at the edges. I couldn’t feel my limbs and it felt like the air around me had turned into sludge, clinging onto every exposed orifice on my face. The people pressing against me in the train on the way back from yet another failed interview could have been mannequins from a foreign land. They didn’t have real faces. The person behind the mirror that had tidied his greasy hair before leaving the room I’d already gotten my eviction notice for also wasn't real. I felt as if I had already drowned and yet I still walked.

I was so, so tired.
 

I could have just closed my eyes and leaned forward and-

I remembered shaking my head at myself. It was cheesy, but I knew there was a proper way to do these things.

I’d already sent Hui Lin a message before promptly blocking her number. I’d also sent a far less personal one to my landlord which explained what he should do with my belongings. I’d blocked his number as well.

My finger hovered over the number I had blocked for just over a year now. I had unblocked it while I had been drafting the messages to the others. But something had stopped me from pressing send when it was her turn. It hadn’t felt right.

I could just block it again. Part of me wanted to. But there was a proper way to do these things and I was determined to see it through. Besides, it was four in the morning, so who knew if she’d even pick up.

The dial tone sounded once.

Did I really have to do this?

Twice. 

I should hang up. It’s not like I actually wanted to hear her voice.

Three.

What was I expecting her to do? Sit there while I monologued about-

“Malcolm?” The words were slightly slurred. I’d never heard her groggy before.

All my carefully rehearsed words about not wanting her to feel guilty and to live a good life and I know she did her best or something like that immediately vanished.

“Malcolm? Are you okay?”

There wasn’t exactly tenderness in her voice. We’d never been that type of family. But the familiar tinge of exasperated worry that I used to hear when I was ten and had tripped after running put a painful lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow.

“Malcolm?” I was seven again and had hidden for too long while playing hide and seek with her, and she had sounded like a lost child herself as she called my name desperately. “Malcolm? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, mum. Nothing. I... I just...” The words died on my tongue as a sob broke through at last. The forced smile I’d instinctively learned to put on collapsed as I tried to stuff my miserable sniffles back down into my throat. I had to do this properly. Everything else I’d tried to do had failed. And now, I was failing to even say goodbye right.

“I don’t know what I’m doing any more, mummy,” I found myself babbling into the phone, snot running down my face. I was five all over again and had been told that boys didn’t cry, which had only made me cry harder. “I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m so scared. Everything is going wrong and I don’t know what to do. I just...I just...”

Another uncontrolled heaving sob interrupted me, making me cough wetly as I struggled to force air into my lungs again. In between gaping pants, I heard her quiet sigh.

“Malcolm, I don’t know what happened. But it’s going to be okay. Come home for a bit. It’s okay. I promise I won’t scold you.”

I closed my eyes as I listened to the wails of my past self from somewhere behind me. I didn't remember much of what happened after. But I remembered crying for a long time.

With every wail and sniffle, the grey puddle that the extinguished cigarette lay in grew, reaching out for me. It was more blue now than grey. More lake than puddle. I let the wet tendrils extending from it touch my face and lovingly drag me into their soft storm-coloured depths. I cracked open my eyes once more to look at the sky before I was taken.

Perhaps it was my imagination, but the black which had been prowling above seemed to have settled and lightened into an inky blue.

I think I was smiling as I sank. 

*

The bird seemed to be shrieking right outside my window. My eyelids were covered in a crusty film and it hurt to even squint.

A petite body with greying hair and slightly hunched shoulders was blocking out the light from the window. She muttered while tugging at the blinds. 

“Mummy?”
 

Her hands froze. I didn’t remember the skin of them looking quite so tired and thin.

“Did I wake you up? I’m going to work now so try to get some sleep.” With a final tug, the blinds came down. I could not see her expression as she turned to leave. Awkwardness set her shoulders into a hard line and quickened her pace. When she reached the doorframe, I felt a horrible dark wave of emptiness and fear curdle my blood.

“Mummy?” I called out again, unbidden.

“Yes, Malcolm?” She turned to face me. Her hair was thinning a little near the front. She looked tired. 

“Could you- Could you hold my hand for a while?” I saw her brow wrinkle and her mouth begin to open. “Please?” I tried again. I felt small. I felt weak. I needed to not be alone. I couldn't fight that emptiness alone.

Finally, a sigh. For a moment, her eyes softened, and I wondered if she could read my thoughts.

She moved towards the bed, and I finally allowed myself to relax and close my eyes. The edge of the bed sagged a little under her weight, and I tentatively leaned into her side, feeling her body stiffen. I gently squeezed her smaller, bonier hand as it hesitantly wrapped around mine. When I felt her squeeze back, I knew that for this moment at least, I had found safe harbour. 

Maxim is a 24 year old Malaysian-born and Singaporean-bred writer and teacher. "Safe Harbour" is their breakout short story after about half a decade of dormancy in the writing world. Their belief in the importance of story-telling is outweighed perhaps only by their love for cats (and food). 

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