No reflection. Just scent, steam, and drool.
☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞
Coffee scent in air
Egg jam on sliced bread draws in
Large open mouth drools.
☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞☕🍞
Original haiku by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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Accuracy is respect.
📏🖊️✨
Rare Disease Day began like any other.
The escalating temperature outside made the students languid; they were already sweaty from physical education class. Mrs. Lim stepped into
the classroom.
Two words, scrawled on the board.
“Turner’s Syndrome.”
“Syndrome. That’s a disease!” blurted a student. He said it the way one mentions a headache.
The room was silent.
Just an assumption. No harm done.
Or thought.
Mrs. Lim quietly turned to the board.
“Word choice shapes thinking. And thinking shapes behaviour.”
Without addressing the student, she explained the difference between disease and condition.
Clinically. Another vocabulary lesson.
But there were details yet to explain.
📏🖊️✨
“Remember, class,” she smiled. Platform heels raised her above her height, or lack thereof. A conventional blouse covered her small but uniquely stocky frame. “Accuracy is a form of respect, especially with language. Use it wisely.”
Forty pairs of curious eyes fixed on her.
“Turner’s Syndrome is not a medical disease in the way Chicken Pox is, but it is a condition that presents some difficulties for those who have it.”
She tried to reach the highest point of the whiteboard.
Something her 4 foot-11 inch frame wouldn’t allow.
She gripped the edge of the teacher’s desk, bracing herself.
But the class was silent.
📏🖊️✨
The student who offered the remark frowned, then blushed.
It was a correction, not a confrontation.
The room straightened. The students sat up.
Mrs. Lim, ever the consummate professional, smiled warmly.
The students exchanged uncomfortable glances for a minute.
Then the same student returned the smile. The rest of the class looked at Mrs. Lim.
Gazes fixed, cautiously interested.
No one apologised. There was no need to.
📏🖊️✨
Later, alone, she erased the board.
Some words smudge easily.
Some linger.
She left one line on the board:
Be accurate.
Not for herself.
For them.
The lesson proceeded, with the students successfully dissecting the vocabulary in a comprehension passage.
The bell rang, and the students filed out of the class.
The impulsive student remained.
Mrs. Lim quietly gathered her books. She had left a single phrase behind.
“Be accurate.”
Not a category. Nor a laugh.
She had left behind a thought:
Precision is power.
📏🖊️✨
An original story for Rare Diseases Day by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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Not everything that is gentle is light.
🌸🤍🌿🤍🌸
Thin violet bracts
Sturdy small flower
Purple lining its defense
Beckons with veiled threat.
🌸🤍🌿🤍🌸
Purple bracts spill
Over the fence
In the sunlight.
Someone reaches to pull
The thorns they shelter.
🌸🤍🌿🤍🌸
Their owner comes to the door.
Composed reservation.
Opens it, slightly ajar.
Ready to close
At notice.
🌸🤍🌿🤍🌸
No one comes
Or crosses the fence.
Single petals fall
Only light shows purple sheen.
Small white flower, unseen.
🌸🤍🌿🤍🌸
It’s bruised by the heat.
But guarded.
Safe
But only.
🌸🤍🌿🤍🌸
Original poem written by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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A single moment at the glass.
🤍🐶🪟👀
Dog at the window
Eyes fixed on the coffeeshop
White tail perked upright
🤍🐶🚪👁️
Original Haiku by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
If you like this story, do join me on Patreon! Buy this blog a coffee — it keeps the words flowing and the lights Your kind donation via Paypal would be greatly appreciated!
🎺🏛️🌬️🪶📋
We had been briefed a week before Windswept’s annual, must-have parade. Principals had briefed us teachers; there was a mass issuance of consent forms.
It was a parade to die for. A chance for the town’s mayor to –
Represent himself.
The bald-headed gentleman usually did so with aplomb,
The day arrived with due fanfare. Headcounts were meticulous – it was necessary that everyone be present. Windswept needed to show the other towns that it could hold its own.
With that in mind, there were rehearsed reminders for its people. Needless to say, seating had been carefully assigned pre-parade. Everything and everyone had proper placements.
We dutifully instructed students not to embarrass the school with unofficial chatter.
🎉📣🌬️🪺📑
The aisles stirred with trepidation. Windswept’s flags were at full mast; they were waving synchronously, almost in a march. The town’s lone stadium was filled to capacity; no one dared to miss the town’s event of the year.
Then, the raised whispers of children. Ripples of laughter that spectators made little effort to suppress.
I looked up to see –
The wind hovered over the stadium, coming in from Windswept’s east quarter. It rid the stadium of excess heat. It took beautifully misshapen white clouds across a panoramic blue sky. The responsible breeze did its job well.
One element, however, remained unaffected. It appeared professionally secure; his head moved little, holding it in its rightful place. The wind respected its malleability.
Just as it did the flags.
The birds respected its size.
🏫🎖️🌬️📋🪶
But-
A student almost pointed. The rest of my charges were getting amicably restless.
Some observations were best left unvoiced and unrecorded.
Also, we had a tight schedule to keep and could not afford disruptions.
I took preemptive action. The moment was far from appropriate. Our responsibility as teachers was not to evaluate; the paperwork would take care of that.
🏫🎖️🌬️📋🪶
There were other concerns. It was late; our charges were famished. I proceeded obediently to the organizer’s outpost to collect our promised rations. The commemorative parcels that were the hallmark of each year’s parade.A sign of the town’s tangible gratitude. Their absence would diminish attendance.
But they were insufficient. An issue of demand exceeding supply.
Distribution, therefore, was selective. Saved for the best. So the parcels were calculated, with teacherly optimism.
Some students were deemed eligible; they received them.
Others did not.
The organisers were also short of a communication device; they borrowed my megaphone.
“Everyone, other than the rations we do provide, the stalls at the back of the stadium are open.”
The grumbles from the ground were faint, but obvious.
It was an organizational oversight. We would see to it, I was sure. Ever the trained professional, I patronised the stalls, and lulled waiting stomachs.
We moved along quietly, and the music resumed.
🌬️🪶📋
The bus ride back to the school was uneventful, though abuzz with childish chatter.
“I never realized that about him.”
“He gleamed.”
‘Yes, it was the hallmark of the ceremony.”
They had thankfully forgotten about the ration lack. We could forget about documenting that.
I had not forgotten. There was a lot to record.
Monday did arrive, regardless. A meeting was scheduled for the day.
A day when we would laud the mayor for his impeccable performance, speech and achievements.
There was also a lot to praise the organisers for – the outstanding food that managed to satisfy a group of otherwise exhausted and attention-lacking students.
It met our school’s exceptional standards for nutritional adequacy. The menu’s items were carefully curated to satisfy every hungry stomach. And they met caloric expectations.
And so the meeting proceeded as usual, with all the necessary documentation.
Without the hair.
🌬️🪶📋
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Not overshadowed. Not applauded.
👤❌👏
Sophia was always behind someone else.
Always the grey shadow on the fringe.
The light refused to land on her. So she remained half-visible. Never fully present to anyone.
She was introduced to the relatives at family gatherings, then became the family’s phone book – referred to, and not thought about. She always stood where applause was the softest.
👤❌👏
So Sophia learned a survival skill. One that took her through life.
Autocorrection.
She became the editor – of herself.
Credit traveled to her brother, the floral crown. Her sentences were borrowed clothes. Comparison became a second name.
👤❌👏
Then, the family feast. The aunts. The uncles.
The deferring to her sister. And she, by the wall.
A potted plant.
And the plant finally imbibed too much water.
Something aligned. Settled into its proper trajectory.
Silence was no longer part of Sophia’s jigsaw.
She drew a line – gently, without spectacle.
“Ai yi, I’ve told you before…”
👤❌👏
She was the quiet one. Not that day.
The shadow came to life.
“My turn to speak.”
She refused to stop speaking.
“I’ve never liked chicken with soy sauce. You wanted to think I did. It’s always Ah Boy’s achievements. What he has. I have them too. Have you asked?”
The shadow hovered.
👤❌👏
Silence seeping into the walls.
Into the room.
They continued eating.
But the room had adjusted.
The shadow grew taller. And took a step sideways.
And that moved the applause elsewhere.
Not to her. But an unheard echo for an unseen stage.
👤❌👏
Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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Not every message deserves a monument.
🐶🤲
Lina taps her phone.
Scrolls.
Light tweaks transform her face.
Her shoulders taut.
Breath – short.
Her thumb hovers.
🐶🤲
Her mind –
Aware.
The WhatsApp Chat comes alive.
“How could she say that?”
“That was out of line!”
“If she wasn’t our mum -‘
Her heart narrows.
The room –
Smaller than it once was.
🐶🤲
She clicks on the tab.
Closed.
The screen is black.
The room –
As it was.
🐶🤲
She returns to her room.
Three heads lift.
Tails answer long before her.
Warm fur under her palm.
A warm weight against her legs.
Breath warming her soul.
🐶🤲
The phone.
Face down on the table.
The WhatsApp message –
Continues. Yet unseen.
🐶🤲
A head buries itself in her hand.
She pats it.
“it’s” alright.
🐶🤲
It’s about hurtful noise.
The message.
Not forgotten.
🐶🤲
Unrecorded.
🐶🤲
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Some hauntings don’t rattle chains. They wait in your notifications.
🕯️🌫️🚶♂️📖✨
I gathered with Elvis and the rest of the group, ready to grace ghostly lanes with gentle tiptoes.
Our guide, Mann, was a fellow who engaged…though without unnecessary pomp.
The buildings around the park were old. The streets, narrow. Lamps hummed in a slightly strangled way, as if they hadn’t enough Strepsils.
And we followed behind Mann like obedient shadows.
Mann launched into his spooky stories. But…they were…oddly personal.
Someone chortled suddenly. Uncomfortably.
The air thinned as the guide came to each stop.
The stories narrowed, like a zoom camera.
Oddly familiar – and tied to each group member.
A woman who declined her mother’s last call – that same woman was now frantically tapping her mobile’s keypad.
Then, there was the tale of the man who chose profit over humanity. That same man was shoving company leaflets.
Then, there was the teen who caught footage of people falling off their bikes. He was filming a boy skidding past on a skateboard, yielding to the pavement.
Then Mann stopped with an abrupt flourish. He swiveled around from his position in front to face the group.
“These stories aren’t recorded hauntings. They’re our regrets. Our behaviours. Choices that replay in a Youtube loop long after we’ve made them. Check your phones.
Each group member scrolled through their message feeds and looked up, sheepish.
With a missed notification. An unread message.
“These spirits don’t flood buildings. They’re ours. Our neglected responsibilities.”
Suddenly, we weren’t afraid of darkness. Our fear? What awaited us at home.
The silence was loud. Clanking.
Reminding.
And regret swarmed in, dark, hungry flies.
It crept over us quickly, a dangerous blanket. We dispersed, trying vainly to avoid it.
Mann again. With a new group of ghost tourists.
With their stories. Stories they must complete.
🕯️🌫️🚶♂️📖✨
Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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We celebrate International Mother Tongue day today.
Every language has its place.
We don’t always need to tell
what we know.
We sometimes choose silence on purpose.
🦯🤫🧠⚖️
“Grandma, it’s dollar, not dorra.”
At the bank.
My grandchild minds my English.
I blush.
🦯🤫🧠⚖️
But smile.
And wink behind her.
“The old lady’s dumb.”
In Mandarin.
I clutch my walking stick.
🦯🤫🧠⚖️
You see, I know.
I got what that bank teller said.
Just decided
NOT to say so.
🦯🤫🧠⚖️
So I am ignorant.
I am weak.
I do not get it.
But I know.
🦯🤫🧠⚖️
This is about using language and power.
Let them think they know.
But I know.
I want to speak
Only when THEY need to learn.
More than me.
🦯🤫🧠⚖️
Original poem by Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin. AI tags are coincidental.
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You voted. You signed. You agreed.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
This poem is about a man, Mr. Tan.
My neighbour.
He has the key to my apartment.
He says it’s to help me with emergencies.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
The lift
On our corridor.
Always breaks down.
No one notices because they travel.
Mr. Tan has their parcels.
He waters their plants.
Checks on the residents.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
He knows who’s in…
And who’s not.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
Then –
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
Shoes.
Slightly moved.
The window was closed just now.
The towel – wasn’t it folded to the left?
Folded to the right now.
See the fridge door through the window?
It’s not shut tight.
A WhatsApp message from Mr. Tan.
“You forgot to turn off the stove.”
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
Nothing was stolen.
Nothing was damaged.
Nothing to report.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
Mr. Tan passed by.
“You weren’t sleeping well last night.”
“Your living room light was on.”
“Instant noodles are bad for you.”
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
Just…neighbourly concern.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
I talked to him.
“How did you enter my home?”
Mr. Tan showed me a document.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
The management retains access.
It can conduct checks.
It can conduct inspections.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
Mr. Tan is its representative.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
I voted for him.
Thanked him.
Even gave him the spare key.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
This poem is about privacy.
About permission.
How safety can become intrusion.
Mr. Tan holds the key.
So do I.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
I gave it to him.
👨🏻🦳🔑🚪👀📱📄✔️
Original poem by Michelle Liew Tsui-Li. AI tags are coincidental.
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The Getting Literal Writing Alcove 