Tired of Waiting

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here.

After the thunderstorms, they are back in the shady corner of Marcus Garvey Park again, the homeless. They are back with their plastic bags and shopping trolleys, their folding chairs and milk crates. They stand alone or sit in a group under the trees, a tent almost giving up, as if they are camping. They are men and women, black and white, young and old. They shoot up in broad daylight. They share their needles with one another. They talk to each other quietly, mostly. The children have disappeared from the playground nearest to them. They have been visited, once, by two women who looked like social workers. More certainly, they have been visited by an emergency medical team, and an ambulance has taken away one of them, the one who got tired of waiting around.

Jee Leong Koh
July 8, 2021

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