Chapter 2
This is my country
Zoom out.
This is Kit's home. It's about the size and shape of a shoebox, equipped with a state of the art television, sound system, and insta-ejectable windows born of tomorrow's technology...
Zoom out further.
Kit lives on the Fifteenth storey of a conglomeration of identical shoeboxes, stacked neatly into a structure looking suprisingly like a single large shoebox balanced on its side, known as an "HDB block". A cascade of windows falls dreamily towards the ground, shattering with pretty tinkling noises...
Pan, majestically.
Scores of HDB blocks regularly dot the horizon, interspersed with a healthy green salad of tropical trees, shrubs and herbs set in an immaculate grid...
Far below us, 1241911 Kits wander mechanically about their daily tasks, at work, play or trawling lazily for something nice to eat (which is a national past-time). 2500835 Kats, Barbies to their Kit-Kens cluster in little groups (no larger than seven) pointing derisively at individual Kits and giggling dismissively, and trawling The Street gently foaming at the mouth in search of something nice to wear.
Sometimes, brownian motion brings a Kit particle into individual contact with a Kat particle. The result ain't just chocolate, is all this author has to say. Chocolate doesn't come in quite that messy a concoction.
This is Singaland.
It's the kind of infuriatingly organised place you'd almost expect to see a giant white arrow hovering just out of sight, lingering over buttons marked "population growth", "economic development", "preserve racio-ethnic statis quo" and "decimate rival state". Indeed, sometimes at night if you strain your ears hard enough there's an occasional, ominously muted click...
It's also incredibly boring.
