Date: 22 May 2005
Time: 1113 hrs
Place: Outside Farrer Park MRT
I was trying to find where my favorite prawn noodle stall at the Race Course Road kopitiam had moved to, so I was walking up and down Rangoon Road and Kitchener Road, in vain. There was a crow, standing his ground on top of a metal drain cover, enjoying shade from a nearby tree filled with noisy crows, and generally oblivious to the passers-by. I had passed it twice already in my noodle quest. So I started disturbing it, touching its beak with the bottom of my slipper, when another crow-like creature came out of the MRT exit and (it seems, almost) made a bee-line towards me.
He was a long-haired middle-aged Malay man, dressed rocker-mat style, with a dirty sling bag and his hair flowing out from under his cap. "Where is the Mustafa?" he asked, the article "the" being quite appropriate actually. I pointed him down the road and to the right and off he went, leaving me to wonder what exactly he was looking to buy from "the" Mustafa, and whether he'll be wearing rock t-shirt and jeans for the rest of his life.
(Later I asked the angry Putien stall matriach and she feigned ignorance without uttering a word, perhaps she'd gotten a sore throat screaming at her teenage rebellious daughters. The drinks stall auntie was much more helpful, even explaining why she did not go "support" the stall, among other things. I think people should talk to her more.)
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