Free Red Dot Irreal by Jason Erik Lundberg

and looked off into the middle distance. “It didn’t happen like that the first time.”
    “Didn’t happen like what? No, look, never mind, I don’t care, I’m walking. Goodbye.” I strode off in the general direction of the MRT station, occasionally glancing behind me, but the woman didn’t rise from her place on the bench. I turned a corner and accelerated my pace, passing by a hawker center and rows of shops, including two 7-11 stores. I wasn’t followed, but I didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until I had descended into the subterranean safety of the station.
    ~
    February 2009
    My mother retied my necktie, straightened my collar, and brushed imaginary dust off of my jacket shoulders. Still treating me like the little boy who couldn’t tie his shoes. She’d just arrived the day before, and the concealer she’d applied didn’t completely cover up the dark circles under her eyes. The jet lag from flying twenty-five hours from Raleigh to Singapore was a real bitch; I was impressed she was even standing at all and making coherent conversation this afternoon.
    “Your father really wishes he could be here, but his back, you know. He can hardly stand to drive an hour to his chiropractic appointments, let alone such a long flight.”
    “I know, Mom. But we’ve got the laptop set up at the reception so he can see everything on Skype. I know it’s not the same as being here, but at least he can be part of things.”
    The queue board at the Registry of Marriages produced a squealing tone, and then the number 1075 flashed in red. Nicole and Mei, her best friend since Raffles Girls’ School (Secondary), got up from their seats along the waiting room wall. Nicole was wearing a sarong kabaya that had been tailored in India (a sheer purple top with embroidered gold and pink flower petals, and a light green skirt with matching floral patterns), and which fit her curves perfectly; her frizzy hair had been tamed into a swirling pile on top of her head. She normally didn’t wear makeup, but had applied lipstick and a bit of blush for the occasion. Mei wore a tight black skirt that ended at mid-thigh; not entirely appropriate for a marriage solemnization, but I had to admit the look suited her. Quite sexy. I tried to keep my focus on the correct woman.
    In the solemnizing room (though I didn’t think it was technically called that), our officiant stood at a podium, shuffling paperwork. Nicole handed over our appointment letter, her IC, and my passport. It seemed odd that our marriage was being made official in such a sterile and bureaucratic place, but this was how things were done in Singapore. Civil ceremony first with two witnesses, then a big banquet dinner later for all the family members, featuring toasts and songs and an embarrassing slideshow and dancing. The officiant, or solemnizer, or whatever the hell he was called, was an old Indian man with a face like a hawk, nostrils gaping wide, the kind of guy I imagined as my unseen neighbor at the rented flat in Bedok, who sounded as if he had violent phlegmatic battles with malicious throat demons every morning and night. The old man before me put a hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn.
    The ceremony was quick, only ten minutes long. Nicole and I recited our vows, exchanged the rings we’d special-ordered online, signed the registrar (along with Mei and my mother, as the witnesses), received our marriage certificate, and were congratulated with a sleepy smile. And that was it: we were now husband and wife. Though the officiant had not told us to, we kissed, and the taste of Nicole’s rambutan-flavored lipstick stayed with me for the rest of the day.
    At the reception that evening, hosted at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, I tried to keep names and familial relationships straight in my head, shaking hands with an endless number of aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, twenty tables worth of new family, and after a while just gave up trying to remember. Eventually,