He glances up from the chopping board, the knife and carrot still in his hands. “What?” he says, his brows furrowing in confusion.
She gestures to the television screen, on which the prime minister is delivering the National Day Rally speech. “Everything else must bend at the knee to safeguard the existence of our island nation,” she repeats in a mocking tone. “Do you seriously believe that?”
Annoyance surges up his chest. Kai is about to accuse her of not listening to what he’s been saying when an image of his child in her belly pops up in his mind. He presses his lips together and takes a deep breath. He doesn’t wish to engage in another debate with her on this subject. Besides, there are other more pressing matters to discuss. He decides not to respond, for now. His eyes return to the chopping board, and he slices away a decaying nub from the core of the carrot.
“He himself talked about the rising temperatures and sea levels,” Lena continues, the agitation rising in her voice, oblivious to his efforts to maintain the peace. “The extreme weather occurrences. The forced migration of displaced populations. The ensuing conflict and unrest. The possible pandemics and food shortages. But just what is being done?” She throws a wooden spoon into the salad bowl. “Why do I even do what I do all day if the people and institutions who actually have the power to make a difference blatantly dismiss the signs?”
Kai tightens his grip on the knife and begins chopping the carrots with increased speed. It must be the hormones, he tells himself. On the television screen, the PM continues to speak.
“Did you know that Singapore is one of the top ten countries in the world with the largest ecological footprint?” Lena says. Without waiting for his reply, she goes on vehemently about how his country is one of the world’s largest oil trading hubs and refinery centres, about how a third of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to twenty companies alone, a significant number of which have set up refineries on Jurong Island.
Kai remains silent. He does not remind her about the hundred-billion-dollar climate change plan that the PM declared will be put in place, about the international climate agreements Singapore has ratified, about its introduction of a carbon tax, about its myriad investments in renewable energy.
“What we really need is an urgent transition away from the carbon economy,” Lena spits. Specks of her saliva land in the salad bowl.
Kai flings the carrot peel and decaying nub into the sink. “Don’t you realise there are far more urgent things to be concerned about now that you’re pregnant?” he snaps.
She falls silent.
He regrets his outburst, but it is too late.
After a week of not speaking to each other, Kai tries to make amends. He organises a weekend staycation at a luxury eco-friendly hotel, which boasts a sky garden powered by solar energy, toiletries sheathed in biodegradable packaging and an award-winning restaurant whose menu is centred on sustainable, locally sourced ingredients. When he tells Lena about the staycation plans over dinner on Sunday evening, he knows it won’t grant him her immediate forgiveness. But what Kai doesn’t expect is Lena’s response.
“I’m not sure I want to keep the child,” she repeats, as if he didn’t understand her the first time.
“What—what do you mean?” he says, unable to keep from stuttering. The ventilation afforded by the ceiling fan in the dining room suddenly seems inadequate, and he finds it difficult to breathe.
“It doesn’t feel right to bring a child into this world,” she begins. “The world we’re living in is already overpopulated as it is. Do you know the environmental impact of having one more human being on this planet? The amount of carbon emissions that will be generated, the acres of forest that will be razed—”
“You always focus on the costs, but what about the benefits?” Kai interrupts as he sets down his bamboo spoon with a thud. “The immeasurable joy parenthood can bring—the drama of a first step, the song of a first word, the knowledge that your offspring will care for you in your old age—does that all count for nothing?”
“Don’t you see that these benefits you wish to have are at the very expense of the child? To bring a child into this burning world, knowing it’ll most definitely suffer—that’s plain cruelty to me.”
“But is bringing a child into this world not an act of hope? A possibility to pass to the next generation the lessons we’ve learnt, to enable them to carry on our legacy, to create a future better than the one we now have?”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Lena retorts with her eyes ablaze. “If I were to bear this child, I’d have to spend most of my time caring for it, raising it, nurturing it—precious time that could otherwise be channelled into the research I’m working on, which can bring about more immediate impact.”
“It’s not like you’re going to be a single parent,” Kai says, inwardly rolling his eyes. “I’m the father, I’ll help out too.”
“You?” Her tone turns cold, and for the first time in their two years of marriage, she scoffs at him. “You don’t even pick up your own soiled underwear from the floor.”
Kai stares at her. There is something he’s told himself never to say to her. He, the veterinary surgeon; she, the climate researcher. But now he releases it from his lips: “At least my work makes a real difference.”
Kai leaves the apartment and heads to the nearby McDonald’s. He hasn’t eaten meat in three years, not since he started dating Lena. Now he orders two double cheeseburgers, a box of twenty chicken nuggets and a large Coke. Ravenous, he sinks his teeth into the juicy beef patties. He savours the flavours of meat, cheese and mustard melting on his tongue. Before realising it, he’s wolfed down both burgers in a few bites.
As he reaches for the crispy golden nuggets, Kai thinks about all the other sacrifices he’s made for Lena over the last few years. Doing outdoor activities with her despite his susceptibility to sunburn. Living in a home without air conditioning. Washing piles of reusable cups and containers each evening in a kitchen reeking of compost. He shoves the nuggets into his mouth, two or three at a time, not stopping until the box is empty. When he licks the grease from his lips, he feels no trace of guilt.
When Kai returns to the apartment an hour later, Lena is in the spare room with the door open. She is sitting at the computer with her back facing him, and makes no indication to suggest she’s noticed his presence. Kai stares into the half-empty room—space he’s cleared in the last two weeks to accommodate the impending arrival of the cot, the nursing chair, the chest of drawers for the baby’s clothes and diapers. The other half of the room is still cluttered with Lena’s books and folders, which he needs to start clearing away soon.
His eyes fall on her large desktop monitor, and he catches the words “David Buckel” in a headline. The name rings a distant bell in his head. Lena must have mentioned him in one of their conversations, but Kai struggles to remember what the man did to have warranted her attention. He lets out a sigh. Without saying a word, he walks on into the bathroom.
For the next three evenings, Kai goes drinking with his friends after closing his veterinary clinic. Each night, he stays out so late that Lena is already asleep by the time he gets home. On the fourth evening, Kai decides it’s time for reconciliation. After his last consultation for the day, he makes a detour to the hawker centre before heading back. When he arrives home with Lena’s favourite carrot cake—black, without egg—and soya bean milk with less sugar, he finds she is nowhere in the apartment.
Yet her keys and phone are on the dining table.
Setting down the food and drink, he picks up Lena’s phone. He keys in his birthdate and unlocks it. The wallpaper—a cropped image of that iconic Japanese wave painting whose creator he can’t name—dissolves to reveal the last page she viewed. A news article. It’s that name again. This time, Kai remembers with a startling chill what Buckel has done.
From the periphery of the park, Kai spots Lena in the half-light of dusk. Even from a distance, he senses the calmness with which she sits on the grass. He calls out to her, dashes towards her. But she doesn’t hear him. Instead, she is dousing herself with petrol. His heart pounds in his ears. He is seconds away from her.
He is too late. Before his eyes: a flash of light, a leap of flames.
His howl of anguish disappears into the night. The desperation with which he tries to put out the light carbonising her skin. The helplessness with which he watches her body being taken away. The body carrying his unborn child—Andrew, Alyssa—whom he might never get to know.
Kai shakes uncontrollably. He gasps for air; all he inhales is smoke. Regret streams down his face, and he wishes it were all a nightmare from which he could awaken. *
By the time Kai returns to the empty apartment from the hospital, the carrot cake on the dining table has grown a fuzzy film of mould. The soya bean milk has curdled. Leaving them untouched, he picks up Lena’s phone and unlocks it once more.
The same headline stares back at him. David Buckel, the American lawyer who set himself on fire in a protest against the climate crisis.
“Why didn’t you know better?” Kai bellows into the void.
He flings the phone to the floor. The screen splinters into a web. The headline disappears, and is no more.
DON’T BE FOOLISH
YULIA COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time she had cried like this—the way the anguish consumed her being, violently shaking her entire body, leaving her gasping for air as hot tears ran down her face, seeping into the yellowing fabric of the pillowcase.
She had wept the day she left her home in the village, clutching her bags, apprehensive about embarking on a journey that would take her away from her parents, her brother, her friends and everything that she had ever known, to begin a new life in Singapore—but it had been nothing like this. She stuffed the worn blanket into her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds of her sobbing in the darkness of the night.
