LOVE
The Hat Trick
It was supposed to be an ordinary morning
2015
I could have taken a cab to work that morning from the train station. Instead a last minute decision found me walking the streets against the heavy morning traffic. It felt like any other morning. Perhaps more ordinary than usual.
Sometimes you just get the urge to do something different. There was a drizzle but that didn’t bother me. “Bring an umbrella with you, and for goodness sake, don’t be stubborn,” my boyfriend Dre left me a voice note on my phone. I had conveniently left my house without my umbrella. Yeah, about that.
I walked past the row of houses en route to Brickfields Tower, my office building. My destination was a kilometer ahead.
Mrs. Lawrence was tending to her roses. She had her hair done up in one of the traditional styles, all black and glossy. That wasn’t her real hair color. Her morning glory was in full bloom creeping across her wired fences like purple trumpets. Her Japanese roses, trunks plump the size of sweet potatoes. Her Shih Tzu Tibet was sleeping in her basket. That’s a good dog. Unusually quiet.
Her neighbor Mr. Tanaka, a confirmed bachelor, was doing Tai Chi in his compound. He looked like an older version of Bruce Lee. You could tell that Mr. Tanaka…
