Author Archives: Kenny Mah

Valentine’s Day Card

We open our mailbox and there are the usual flyers and bills. And an envelope in the shape of a Hallmark card. We dump the flyers in the rubbish bin and carry the rest with us back to our apartment. Once inside, we drop our bags to the floor and settle onto the daybed. An

Eat Eat Eat

“What’s for dinner?” you ask me. “How about porridge?” I suggest. “Porridge? That’s so boring.” “Maybe, but we are doing Italian tomorrow. That new place at Pavilion. And that French place on Friday with our makan gang. The girls fly in on Saturday from Taipei, so that’s an entire weekend of eating and eating.” “Oh

Paparazzi

We are at dinner with your colleagues, a sort of post-Chinese-New-Year reunion for one of them who has just returned from Houston with his wife in tow. The first dish arrives – a platter of yin/yang prawns (half cooked in Marmite sauce and the other half in what resembles an oriental Thousand Island dressing) –

The Eighty-Percent-ionist

We are driving to dinner when you tell me you are thinking about tweaking your pictures again. Aren’t the pictures already up? I ask. You say yes, you posted them up this morning. But the picture of the pork belly soup, the soup spoon needs to be a little bit brighter, you say. And the

Spending Time

The film comes to an end. I ask you if you liked it and you nod. We got off the sofa, cushions falling back onto the impressions our resting bodies had left. I turn the TV off and disconnect my laptop as you turn on the eyes. Are you hungry? I ask and you nod.

The Boy at the Pavilion

Another rainy day, another traffic jam. Life on the roads of Kuala Lumpur. I drive into the underground parking area of the mall, the usual turns, the usual row of parking bays. Three sets of escalators and I join the afternoon crowds. A couple of hours before the end of the working day. I head

The Red Moleskine

My fingers trace the textured cover, the pattern an assortment of paths a story may take. And I am filling this notebook you gave me with stories, with words, with ink on paper, with ferocious thoughts and fleeting thoughts and the idea that, one day, one of these stories may see print, that others may