“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt-of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on a Sunday morning at 7 a.m., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead-while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while we taste new possibilities and strength.”
Audre Lorde, “Poetry is not a Luxury”
“We who are Black are at an extraordinary point of choice within our lives. To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up. Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don’t mean me) or by despair (there’s nothing we can do). Each of us must find our work and do it. Militancy no longer means guns at high noon. If it ever did. It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming. It means doing the unromantic and tedious work necessary to forge meaningful coalitions, and it means recognizing which coalitions are possible and which coalitions are not.”
Audre Lorde, “Learning From the 1960’s”
“And in the university that is no easy task, for each one of you by virtue of you being here will be deluged by opportunities to misname yourselves. To forget who you are, to forget where your real interests lie. Make no mistake you will be courted; and nothing neutralizes creativity quicker than tokensim. That false sense of security fed by a myth of individual solutions. To paraphrase Malcom a Black woman attorney driving a Mercedes through Avenue Z in Brooklyn is still a “nigger bitch”; two words which never seem to go out of fashion.”
Audre Lorde, “Learning From the 1960’s”
The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: THE TWO STRANGE MEN ALWAYS IN THE BACKGROUND
I noticed these two men early on with red flag aromas of gunpowder and those bulges under their arms were obviously guns in shoulder holsters. And that time I passed by their State Cabin on the train there were numerous laptops and what appeared to be surveillance equipment. And when I was battling with the Malay tiger it was those two men hiding behind the bushes that fired shots wounding the tiger. I couldn’t believe these two were citizens above suspicion.
The fact they were slurping Budweiser beer and eating hamburgers slathered with Heinz ketchup instead of the Michelin starred food the rest of the passengers were scoffing indicated they were Americans.
Add the fact they were not on the invite list for Nicomshire’s birthday party on the Eastern & Oriental Express in my mind made them prime suspects.
The investigators revealed the following;
Adding to the bizarre, hours after their interrogation some of us on the train noticed three large black Suburbans with red and blue flashing lights drive into the arrivals parking lot at Woodlands Station and shortly thereafter “Caulfield” and “Budd” were seen entering the Surburbans. The only Suburbans in Singapore were those used by the Embassy of the United States.
Seemed to me with the North Korean angle; the VK nerve agent, North Korean Supreme Leader ETR407 model pistol and the sudden release of Caulfield and Budd which could only have been a joint decision of Singaporean and Malaysian governments we were involved in an intense political “situation”.
“And unlike the foreigners, who count every rupee, money is no object for this new group, money is nothing to be concerned with, there’s no virtue in penny pinching. They spend. They want their comforts: they make no romance out of misery. Word of their big spending and the high tips that go with it spreads. The economy of the village is redirected their way. All the workers want a piece of them. Everyone vies for their favour. But some of the foreigners begin to grumble. These Indians, some say, don’t understand their own culture; they have been infected by the West. It’s a sad sign, how they’ve lost their way.”
Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023
“Sunny is the leader of a small band of revelers, Indians who live like the foreigners, still something of a rarity in those days. Who live like the foreigners, but who are not like the foreigners at all, four men and one woman, something dangerously new and bold; young, rich and glamorous Indians, not afraid to show it, not afraid to slum it, welcome everywhere. Travelers for whom authenticity is not a question, content to sit in cafés with the foreigners and smoke chillum and eat their backpacker food, who arrived in big, shiny cars without scratches instead of buses and bikes and wore good clothing and stayed in the best new hotels in the village, ones with bright pine balconies and expensive bars.”
Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023
“Hundreds of inmates piling out of their cells to congratulate. He’s something of a celebrity. They’ve all heard about the “Mercedes Killer”. They want a closer look, judge for themselves his innocence or guilt, see how tough he is, how scared, decide where he could belong. It only takes a minute to recognize he’s one of the innocent, a scapegoat for a wealthy boss. Men try to pry the truth from him. What was he promised to take the fall? Something sweet? Money, when het gets out? Or will his sons and daughters be sent through school? Or did it come from the other side? Was his family threatened? Was his life in danger? Or was he just loyal?”
Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023
“The rage was stewing in his body like bitter juice. He had brooded all night over what had happened. They had killed a white man, killed a white man, the bloody sods, the sneaking cowardly hounds. Oh, the swine, the swine, how they ought to be made to suffer for it. Why did we make those cursed kid-glove laws? Why did we take everything lying down? Just suppose this had happened in a German colony before the War! The good old Germans. They knew how to treat the niggers. Reprisals! Rhinoceros hide whips! Raid their villages, kill their cattle, burn their crops, decimate them, blow them from the guns.”
George Orwell, “Burmese Days”, 1935.
The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: MY PERSONAL BUSINESS MAY HAVE LED TO SOLVING THE CASE
Well, you know as a dog there is no WC for me on the Eastern & Oriental Express. As I was not a suspect I was free to leave the train but where could I have gone so I remained with Bobby Fong Jr. onboard. As for peeing and pooping, or as sophisticated people say “business”, volunteers from the SG Westies Club of Singapore took me out to a park proximate to Woodlands Train Station 5 times a day to do my business.
If it is “urgent business” I let our butler Keith know and he takes me to the end of the train to the observation car and, under the watchful eye of a member the Singapore Police Force, Keith carries me to a small field where I can do my business.
On the second day after arriving at Woodlands Station, I stumbled upon a pistol and nearby a small aluminum case. I barked up a storm and gave a few of my best howls causing the SPF guard we just walked by to come running. He walky talkied for “back up” and a team of SPF constables arrived in a state of great excitement and in such a manner as to preserve the integrity of what might be evidence removed my find to the nearby SPF Command Centre for analysis.
The pistol was a North Korean Supreme Leader ETR407 model.
The aluminum case had slots for 4 blow darts with feathers that could be propelled by blow guns. VK nerve Agent was detected on the blow darts. One blow dart was missing. The Mani people, an indigenous tribe in Malaysia, are known for their expertise with blow guns. Nicomshire most likely died while in Malaysia.
The final investigative team’s conclusion was I had discovered the murder weapon.
“Mrs Lackersteen began with some general remarks, apropos of a photograph in the Tatler, about these fast modern girls who went about in beach pajamas and all that and made themselves so dreadfully cheap with men. A girl, Mrs Lackersteen said, should never make herself too cheap with a man; she should make herself-but the opposite of ‘cheap’ seemed to be ‘expensive’, and that did not sound at all right, so Mrs Lackersteen changed her tack. She went to tell Elizabeth about a letter she had from Home with further news of that poor dear girl who was out in Burma for awhile and had so foolishly neglected to get married. Her sufferings had been quite heart-rending, and it just showed how glad a girl ought to be to marry anyone, literally anyone.”
George Orwell, “Burmese Days”, 1935.
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