No Learner Disappears From View

Michelle’s online teaching schedule was a a busy one — and starkly normal for the day.

She had several English lessons scheduled. They happened to fall on National Online Learning Day.

Ironic.

National. Here she was, working, as usual.

She logged onto the lesson, as usual. Her student, Jamie, was a no-show.

Five minutes became seven. Then ten.

She sent a polite message reminding Jamie that the lesson was on, and waited.

The familiar little square area stayed vacant.

After another fifteen minutes, she was about to log on when —

Jamie entered the meeting.

The camera whirred. The usual bedroom background. Probably a bit too neat to be Jamie’s.

“Sorry, miss.”

Michelle began the comprehension lesson she had planned.

As usual.

But Jamie was NOT usual.

Jamie was especially —

Attentive.

His answers to various inferential-level questions were perfect.

His vocabulary that day was almost too precise —

For Jamie.

His summary was concise and properly paraphrased.

Michelle was pleased. Perhaps her teaching had somehow clicked.

Then, Jamie answered a difficult inference question instantly —

And correctly.

Michelle widened her eyes.

Now, this was a little worrying.

JAMIE.

Michelle asked another that was almost impossible to answer.

A perfect response.

Then, a recognisable ringtone.

Michelle’s mobile phone.

It was Jamie’s mother.

“Apologies! Jamie’s still at school. I forgot to let you know.”

Michelle traced the message carefully with her eyes —

Twice.

Then looked at the familiar student online.

Back at the message.

At school.

Back at the boy on screen.

That was one Jamie too many.

His on-screen face was perfectly stoic.

“Can we continue, Miss Michelle?”

With a swift flick of her cursor, Michelle clicked on Google Meet’s “Leave” button.

Her next student entered the virtual meeting room with Speedy Gonzalez cheek.

Ping. Another.

The participant count kept rising.

Her former students.

Trial students.

Students who went Missing in Action after two lessons.

And students —

Whose families still assumed that her lessons were for free.

Every square with an expectant face. Michelle knew each one.

Michelle had enough.

She clicked on “End Meeting for All.”

The faces stared, smiling.

Expectantly.

Eerily.

She clicked again.

And again.

A systems messaged finally appeared.

Host permission denied.

She turned the WIFI off.

It turned back on.

She closed her Google browser.

It reopened.

The faces continued to stare at her —

Smiling, with great expectation.

Then, an official notification

“Let’s celebrate National Online Learning Day! When no learner disappears from view!”

Then, a submission notification appeared in the Google Classroom.

And another.

It was so difficult to ask these students to curb their enthusiasm.

Essays.

Comprehension.

Vocabulary exercises.

Corrections they should have submitted months earlier.

Frantic buzzing.

The printer awoke with a choke—

Regurgitating sheets and sheets of paper.

The first submission.

The submission counter rose —

Frantically.

107.

224.

847.

Then —

ALL WORK MUST BE MARKED BEFORE THE HOST CAN LEAVE.

Michelle sat in her office, surrounded by a mountain of worksheets.

The same unexplainable faces stared at her from the screen.

No one moved.

Or disconnected.

Then one student raised a virtual hand.

Another followed.

Then another.

Soon, all the mystery participants in the room were up.

Michelle knew what was coming.

“Miss, what’s my grade?”

Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.

Mabel’s Moving Problem

That end-of-year office party. Mabel needed new clothes.

A new skirt in a thrift store.

“It moves with you.” The salesperson grinned.

Mabel donned it. Perfect.

She left the price tag —

She hadn’t ordained it.

New skirt in a bag, Mabel headed for the office party.

She felt a tug.

She dismissed it. Too many passengers.

Then, another tug.

She turned.

Her skirt had become friends with a passenger’s umbrella.

The passenger was about to get off —

He moved towards the doors.

So did Mabel.

They warned with a beep.

Public transport and clothing had created an emergency.

Mabel somehow detached herself from the umbrella and moved through the doors.

To the escalator.

The moving steps.

Her skirt.

The moving steps.

Then —

A long hem.

Attached to the steps —

About to swallow it —

And her.

She gathered her skirt and rode upward, as if crossing a river.

And that created more spectacle.

A child stared —

Through his spectacles.

Lunch, to her immense relief, didn’t involve skirting issues.

She relaxed with a diet coke.

Then, she stood.

With the chair.

She stepped forward.

And the chair followed.

She stepped again.

The chair followed.

Another hem.

The skirt had become her biggest fan.

She disentangled herself under the gaze of a flummoxed waiter.

Finally, the office party.

She had survived.

Then a colleague noticed —

And pointed.

A long hem.

Almost no skirt.

With the price tag — still hanging.

Grandad Was Telling the Truth

Brushes with fame can be inconsequential…and leave an indelible memory only one can appreciate.

And so it was with my brush with Mr April Love — Pat Boone.

For those less familiar with the music of the 1950s or 60s, Boone was a singing star and icon of the era —

Whom a small nine-year-old didn’t know and ended up shooting a few forehands with.

3 p.m.

At a local tennis club where grandad happened to be a coach. Practising forehand, not too happily, under Singapore’s rather scorching sun.

Grandad Charles abruptly squinted, paused mid-volley and pointed at the next court.

“That’s Pat Boone.”

“Who?” I grabbed my racket and hopped over.

“You’re too young to know him. He’s the tall American man in the next court. Get me his autograph.” He gestured discreetly.

I almost dramatically refused. What if he wasn’t who Grandad said he was? I was a nine-year-old being forced to play tennis under Singapore’s somewhat unforgivingly humid conditions.

Grandad continued his volleys. He knew better than to push a nine-year-old at risk of exploding in front of a favourite celebrity.

Add to that that I’ve never been much of a fangirl.

Grandad proceeded with his forehand volleys, and I proceeded to miss them, much to his awkward delight.

Then, a stray ball wandered into our court.

A name sewn on the side.

Pat.

It had rolled over from Pat Boone’s court. Or the man Grandad claimed was Pat Boone. I returned it with a forearm flourish.

Apparently, celebrity meet-ups begin with —

Stray balls.

Then —

The ball came back.

I sent it back, this time, with my racket.

So Pat Boone and I exchanged a few kiddish forehands, his identity still unconfirmed.

For a while, just the player in the next court.

He laughed at the exchange —

With a nine-year-old Singaporean girl.

No autograph —

But a little tennis.

Grandad showed me a set of casettes he had in his car on the drive home.

There he was.

Pat Boone.

He’d apparently been telling the truth. Of all his embellishments, this had been the one to believe.

I never did get the autograph.

Too surreal.

This random celebrity encounter became an engraved adulthood stamp.

He was a star.

It WAS extradordinary.

He, on the other hand, was merely visiting Singapore and playing tennis at the invitation of someone he knew.

Whether he remembered the encounter, I would never know.

And that was alright.

We had outdone one of Grandad’s embellishments —

And made this one real.

Far more important.

Evan Mercer

Remembrance Days were ironically hazy for Monica; after all, she was just a tot on September 11.

The day the Twin Towers fell.

But her dad, Daniel, wasn’t so hazy. At least, his behaviour on that day wasn’t.

September 11 was the appointment he never failed. He showed up every year for a remembrance gathering — and never announced it.

He just went and returned, bearing an unfathomable silence.

He’d been in Lower Manhattan that fateful September 11th, 2001.

He survived the Towers’ tumbling debris. When anyone mentioned it, he’d offer a terse, almost recorded reply:

“I got out. That’s all.”

So the family, Monica included, learned not to ask.

Monica somberly added Daniel to her list for Remembrance Day offerings this year —

He passed away on that very day.

Among his papers was a name: Evan Mercer.

Circled in blue ink.

2002. Evan Mercer.

2003. Evan Mercer.

2004. Evan Mercer.

Different programmes. Ageing paper. The same name.

Her father had remembered this stranger more faithfully than family.

Than HER. Why?

So Monica embarked on a little investigation. She wasn’t planning a Sherlock mystery. She only wanted to know what Daniel never told her.

Who Evan was.

He wasn’t a relative.

He wasn’t a friend.

He wasn’t a colleague.

The near-dismissal was maddening. She nearly pulled her hair out as she sat at her desk.

A thick, black journal lay in one of the boxes that housed Daniel’s possessions.

Monica thumbed through the yellowed, dog-eared pages.

Her father had been caught in a swirl of panic as security officers tried vainly to evacuate the World Trade Centre’s famous twins.

Fear.

Confusion.

At some point, he couldn’t move.

Then, a stranger’s hand touched his shoulder.

“Come on, you can do this. Keep going.”

And he did.

Somewhere in the sea of terror, they drifted apart.

One reached the bottom of the stairs…just before.

One had reached the last stair. Just before.

She ploughed through the names of those who had passed.

Evan Mercer.

She closed the journal and bit her lip. She glanced at her watch.

Still time.

So she took her father’s place at the remembrance gathering.

Dad Daniel couldn’t be there now. But she could.

With his last program.

Someone read the list of names and came to the inevitable.

Evan Mercer.

She couldn’t pretend to mourn him — she’d never met him.

But she could honour him.

As someone who died.

After getting Dad to live.

Posted on Septem

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Michelle had a talent for turning annoyance into a theatre production.

She became annoyed when —

People stood on the wrong side of escalators.

People sent more than a single voice message.

People sent reminders — even gentle ones.

Aggravation was her middle name.

Work had been particularly irritating, so Michelle wasn’t in a giving mood.

A new phone app manifested itself.

Annoyed? Report them.

“A new complaint service,” she thought. “About time.”

A passenger shared music — at an unsolicited number of decibels — on the train.

Another sang off key.

Another occupied two seats.

On went her phone camera — and the app.

Like all apps, it consumed.

She reported the off-key singer again.

The lady —

Vanished.

The two-seat passenger, too, disappeared.

As did the music enthusiast.

Michelle was delighted. The world was quiet.

At last.

She started a voyeuristic search.

A notification hovered.

“The perpetrators are at the complaint department of Annoyed. They will remain here until you withdraw the complaints.”

Before she could register this, another notification.

“You have been reported.”

Within seconds, she found herself at the complaint department.

Dripping taps.

Mosquitoes.

Too-bright screens.

She glanced over her shoulder.

The off-key singer. Still off-key.

They had used the app.

“Now…perhaps an agreement?”

The Laptop Was Hungry

Clara Wong’s writing appetite was voracious.

Nothing escaped her laptop.

Family drama.

Embarrassing moments.

Overheard quarrels.

Her friend, Mara, approached her with a devastating secret and a caveat —

“This stays between us.”

Clara agreed.

But…such a scintillating headline!

Mara’s secret couldn’t go to waste.

It could be —

Fiction.

A different name. A different place.

Same hurt. Same tension. Same drama.

Mara wouldn’t be the wiser.

She uploaded it.

Likes. Comments. Traction.

Guilt visited — only briefly.

Her next teaser —

“Ready for more?”

But the readers weren’t the ready ones.

Her laptop accessed private sites —

Voraciously.

It deleted entries.

Exposed private messages —

A secret confession.

Click. Fiction.

Shocked, she shut it.

The cursor jumped.

Clara had only seconds to stop the gobbling.

She tried to delete the story —

But the laptop became even more voracious.

Then, the cursor hovered, blinking.

Over Mara’s angst.

Then, she knew.

She deleted the wayward fiction.

The cursor waited, blinking.

Clara typed.

Her own story.

Another Day Away

Lana coursed through the park, her bicycle swerving expertly with each turn in the familiar territory. She loved parks; being one with nature was second nature to the botanist’s daughter.

As she neared the park’s centre, her eyes fell on an intriguing structure.

A fountain.

Jetstreaming —

CHOCOLATE.

That would make Hershey’s spin.

It smelled…divine. Surely one sip wouldn’t hurt.

No one knew who emplaced it. There was only a sign that bore a caveat:

Drink as much as you wish.

Each sip postpones your birthday by a day.

But you will continue to age.

Lana took a sip. A joke? She’d play along.

So she did.

Her phone calendar did digital calisthenics, moving her birthday from the upcoming Saturday to Sunday.

Lana grew edgier as her birthday approached.

She detested birthdays.

She wasn’t afraid of ageing…everyone grew older.

She wanted to be REMEMBERED.

Her phone had remained stubbornly silent.

Last year, she had scrolled through her text messages. She had received a few automated ones. Her closest friends did remember —

A few days later.

Last year’s chocolate cake had been meant for three people.

But she finished it —

Alone.

She wondered whether anyone would bother —

At all.

She had an idea.

If her birthday never arrived, no one could forget it.

She returned to the fountain.

Sipped.

Another day.

She sipped again.

She dropped by the fountain every day after work.

Her birthday retreated across the calendar —

While others’ arrived in perfect time, with candles flaring.

It postponed her birthday by a week, at first.

Then it pushed the date back by another week.

And another.

Soon, it was months away.

But life continued —

With everyone’s birthdays.

Someone received a birthday cake at work.

A child celebrated his beneath a banner that marked the occasion.

People complained as they aged, but blew candles out anyway.

Lana told herself that she didn’t care.

But noticed.

Every time.

And kept drinking.

She approached the fountain one afternoon.

“Lana!” The call was insistent.

It was her friend, Mabel.

With a small chocolate cake on a table, enough for two.

Her name in icing that was obviously too sweet.

Nothing elaborate.

Just the cake.

Mabel explained that she didn’t want to forget this year.

“I thought I’d catch you ahead.”

She froze.

Someone actually remembered.

Then glanced at the phone. Her birthday wasn’t next week.

It was months away.

SHE had made it impossible to reach.

She passed the park the next morning.

The fountain still jet streamed chocolate, burbling a tantalising invitation.

It kept flowing.

She slowed her steps —

And reached for her thermos.

Then kept moving forward.

Her birthday remained on a much later month because of all the chocolate she had drunk. But she could stop pushing it away.

For once in a long time, the date moved to her.

It finally arrived.

Without fanfare.

Just Mabel.

Two friends.

And two forks.

She had allowed someone to make tea for two.

The Last Mistranslation

National V-J Day.

Clara shuffled her feet as the Master of Ceremonies spoke. Celebratory flags flew in the air, but her soul didn’t feel like soaring with them.

The names droned on. Everyone received a bell. Her Granddad’s? Only silence.

And the omission —

Louder than the names.

Her eyes fell on the wartime photograph in front of her. He spoke fluent Japanese; being Commandant Ishikawa’s interpreter fitted him well.

So Ishikawa thought.

No one else did. Everyone — even family members — saw him as the butler of evil.

That sat with her like a chicken would with wolves — badly. She had never defended her Grandfather, at least, not publicly. Condemnation, unfortunately, was an unwanted family contagion.

Her eyes fell on the photograph again. It had been captured near the Kempeitai’s former headquarters. Perhaps it would yield something — anything — that would finally absolve her — and her family — of shame.

Clara had entered the Kempeitai Headquarters shortly before the sun set.

They, as expected, were old. In her line of vision were a rusted loudspeaker, a few tiny, abandoned offices and a records room that remained stubbornly locked.

A military telephone suddenly jangled with urgent confidence.

Clara answered it with great reluctance.

But before she could offer customary salutations, lights lining the building’s ceilings and its walls started to flicker. Mist accumulated at an alarming rate; the striking clicks of marching boots filled the corridors. Prisoners lumbered, inhuman rakes in rags, into the compound surrounding the building.

A voice reported that Japan had surrendered.

The date on the 1945 desk calendar — August 15th.

History had not returned with gentle grace.

1945.

A thick, white mist.

Then, a familiar form. Beside Commander Ishikawa, patiently translating his instructions —

To tell the prisoners that the Japanese Army had won.

To take command.

To execute them before dawn.

She heard her grandfather deliver the false announcement, her heart dropping to unfathomable depths.

Each obedient bow had a tighter stranglehold.

She could barely breathe.

And then she noticed —

With the help of Google translate —

Little flaws.

Mistakes that were too small to attract Ishikawa’s attention —

But too precise to be mere forgetfulness.

A command to lock the eastern gate —

Mistranslated for the guard, who was told to leave it open.

The execution time changed from midnight —

To dawn.

The time of surrender.

And then —

The Surrender Notice.

In Grandad’s hands.

He had spent a good part of three years bending notices. He would not do so now. Not this time.

He reached desperately for the compound’s loudspeaker. If everyone heard the surrender announcement, Ishikawa would lose the power to order executions.

Then —

A rude interruption.

By the Person in Apparent Power.

Gunshots.

The lights failed.

Clara found herself looped to the beginning of the same hour. Her Grandad was alive. The phone was ringing off the hook. The dead —

Forever trapped because the surrender was never announced.

A cycle.

For Clara to continue —

Or cut.

Clara stepped through the gate. The camp was shrouded by deadly mist.

But Grandad’s choices weren’t her concern.

Then —

She sobered.

Her silence at his non-naming, every V-J Day.

When it should not have been.

He had adopted disgrace —

So others could live.

She avoided appearing foolish —

When the truth needed an appearance.

She had mistaken silence for innocence.

She turned back to the podium.

Just another step, then release.

Clara turned the loudspeaker on. Ishikawa and his cronies grabbed at her —

Vainly.

Static rolled through the compound, a defiant thunderbolt.

Her announcement reached the furthest corners of the compound.

The soft fall of bayonets. One.

Then another.

The prisoners realised their freedom.

The locked eastern gate swung open with well-deserved flourish. They stepped out — not cheering —

Tearing.

With relief.

“Clara — ” Her Grandad’s voice was raspy.

“Why are you here?”

He lay limp on the ground, breath almost expired.

She cradled his head.

“Because you were.”

At the following year’s V-J Day ceremony —

Another deliberate silence.

Again.

But she didn’t remain stoic. Or silent.

She stepped forward with the now yellowed surrender notice and related his translation.

Or deliberate mistranslation.

The subtle altering of orders.

To deceive the enemy.

His death —

Attempting to announce the surrender —

So others would live.

Not every face softened. True courage did not require complete understanding.

It just required a voice.

The Last Passengers

Nadia went aboard the ferry, the day having drained her.

An empty seat in the back row beckoned. She sat and gratefully sank into its plush cushions.

From the back, the water was —

Dark.

The lights dimmed as the ferry pulled away, and it grew —

Darker.

Oblivious to her surroundings, Nadia continued her voyage home, and to dreamland.

A veil of mist settled beside her, occupying the empty seat.

“Too cold; ferry fare too expensive; Curry puffs on board too small.”

Mr. Tan was indignant.

A crew member appeared.

“Ma’am…sorry, but you’re both a little loud.”

“What?” Nadia was puzzled.

The staff pointed at the seat —

And realised it was vacant.

Mr. Tan was sheepish. “I fell overboard in 1987.”

He then explained that to disembark, a living passenger had to accompany him through turnstiles.

Nadia opened her mouth in protest —

Then the entire back row stood.

One raised a hand.

“Could we disembark too?”

Before We Wear Our Hats

Before I wear the woman’s hat given to me by anyone else, not by my volition, I exist.
Expectations arrive instantaneously, telling me what a woman ought to be.
I have ambitions, thoughts, feelings, desires, wants, needs, experiences, successes and failures that belong exclusively to me.
Names. Daughter. Mother. Wife. Sister, Grandmother. Aunt. Colleague. Friend-these are the many hats I wear.
Giving to others and forgetting to give to the self.

Absolutely, I can make a difference in the lives of others, which cross my own.

Woman — herself, not secondary to anyone or anything else she interacts with.
Others know me by the role that is defined for me.
Maternal does not refer to motherhood by convention, but by the hat and the act of nurturing another.
Autonomy to decide the hats and roles we wear.
Neither daughter, mother, wife, nor colleague defines the whole person; each hat does not equal the whole.