Three

The first one came in a white flocked dress. Her hair rustled as the train came by. She gestured me forward and I thought I saw her wry crooked smile. When I looked at her again, it was gone. I should have trusted my first observation then.

Her body touched mine ever so slightly to the rhythm of the moving train. I caught a whiff of her scent. It must have been that hypnotic scent that had done me in.

When we arrived at City Hall station, she nodded me to get off.

The second one came towards me. She had the same hair as the first. She was no taller than four feet. She too had the same eyes; and the resemblance didn’t just stop there. She had the same scent.

Her fingers had a queer electrifying touch as she stroked my cheek.

“Follow me,” she said, and I thought I saw that sinister glint in her eyes. When I looked at them again, it was now framed by thin laughter lines that looked kind of jolly as she smiled.

She stopped at Suntec Tower 4.

“Level 9,” she said.

Her scent was distinct in that enclosed space of the lift. It clung onto my nostrils and made my head swirl.

She began to chant; her little hands clapped and her little feet tapped to the tune.


“Torn, tortured by restless sleep?

Well, three times her pain is not enough

You must pay for your lecherous deed.

No man must be excused for her ill-repute

Cut you by the throat and slice all the way down I shall

If there ever is a heart, hand it to me

It will make a tasty cold dish.”


The lights flickered. It seemed to be taking forever to arrive. Finally, the lift door opened at level 9.

She stepped forward, repeatedly chanting the last line: “It will make a tasty cold dish.”

It was the same beige carpet and the same maroon partitions. We turned right, towards the corridor that leads to her office. My heart thumped in the same manner it did ten years ago.

It was a Friday night when it happened. Clutching the bouquet in my hands, I knocked on her door. She winced and looked away when she saw the bouquet. She was exasperated, I could tell. It broke my heart there and then.

I saw myself running towards her, pinning her to the table as I screamed, “Why can’t you give me a chance?” As I tore her blouse, I was crying “Oh, I love you so!”

This had haunted me in my sleep for ten years. It was mercilessly unforgiving.

Then, the third one appeared. She had scars, from her arms to her neck to her face.

She started laughing, a high-pitched laughter that was joined by the other two. The genteel lady was no longer genteel and the midget was no longer jolly. Their eyes took on the same blood shot eyes as the third. Their shoulders heaved as they laughed in chorus.

The scent they gave was no longer sweet but it was an odour of the dead, an odour of obnoxious decay.

“To the rooftop!” the third one boomed and they clutched me by the wrists.

She was sitting on the edge. Her feet were dangling thirty floors down. Her face was bruised by the hands that had yearned to hold hers.

“I’m sorry,” I said, an apology that was ten years late. She turned to cast me a baleful glance before she took the jump.

The best atonement. They, the three sisters wanted it. Sophia wanted the same. Ten years ago, her suicide was the best form of reminder.

I moved forward, taking the position where Sophia was. On my way down, the three sisters watched how my skull smashed against the ground, my limbs twisted like a discarded rag doll.

If this is the best atonement, the only way you wanted – here it is.