And then, the oddest thing happened. The water suddenly diminished rapidly into a trickle that died within two blinks of an eye.

Did the pipe choke?

I turned the faucet shut, then opened it again, but no water. I peered around the pipes like a mechanic searching for the invisible cause, then gave up within half a minute. A plumber, I am not. And I basically hadn’t even started soaping myself yet. All I did was stand and play underneath the shower.

I hope this wasn’t a problem that would last through the night.

I dapped myself off quickly, then threw on fresh clothes still stuffed in my luggage because I had no wardrobe. Then like a man on a mission, I left my tiny room, and hurried down six flights of steps to my landlady’s apartment, or office, banging on her door like it was the end of the world.

She greeted me with her grumpy, toothy snout, which was a remnant from her dinosaur ancestry – which by the way, put her species more like a bipedal lizard rather than a snake, which made no sense why they settled on their current name. Names and genetics aside, I anxiously and as politely as I could, inquired about the sudden, defunct water system.

Her yellow eyes gleamed from a four head height above me, brightened in intensity, shining like its predatory, backward cousin – the crocodiles.

My heart did that squeeze in the face of powerful jaws that could rip my face off in a single bite. But I forced myself to keep calm and not panic because it hadn’t come to that stage yet. I kept a careful look at the size of her slit pupils to assess the level of danger I was facing.

“What do you mean spoiled?” she stared down at me, rather offended by the accusation that she was a terrible landlady for having poor maintenance, “I installed a brand new, durable system before you moved in because of the special request someone made on your behalf.”

Oh bless Mom’s spirit. She must have made sure her baby boy (yes, I’m a mommy’s boy and not ashamed to admit it! XP) had his necessities checking out fine.

Still, I doubted her words about it being ‘brand new’, because the pipes were mottled with age. It was probably second hand and newly bought from a used goods store, but I let it slide.

“Well, ah, thank you, but the water suddenly cut off. So I’m wondering why.”

She exhaled a combination of a huff and a grunt that only alien reptilian descendants can, glaring at me like I was stupid.

“That’s because I cut it off.”

“What? Why did you cut my water?” I couldn’t keep my aghast from my tones, which I should have, because her reptilian pupils narrowed a teeny bit.

“What do you mean why? You should be lucky I haven’t cut your air-conditioning yet either. You’re already a day late, but I kept quiet because I’m a patient goddess unlike my bad-tempered relatives. And here you dare come asking me why I cut your water  instead of giving what you owe me?”

I blinked at her, trembling now, because her shoulders have puffed up and looked bulkier which is not a good sign, and her pupils have narrowed further, which was an uglier sign.

“W-what do I owe you?” I asked in a shaky voice, barely breathing now.

She exhaled with a hot breath out her giant nostrils and a force that sent my fringe flying from my forehead in fear.

“Rent.”

That single word made me more confused than the day I realized I wanted to be pounded into like a bitch rather than be the one doing the pounding.

“B-but Mom, or dad, I thought they – ”

Another harsh breath, washing over hotly, forcing my lids to shut for two seconds to keep my eyeballs from being scalded. And a dangerous, heavy stomp towards me, sound thumping like a warning that she could crush through my rib-bone and flatten the organs it protected with a single stomp of her big foot.

I shrunk under her towering height, and more than that, her colossal aura of menace, backed up against the wall that was just two steps behind me.

Fuck, the corridors are tight.

She had me cornered. And she glared down at me with her neck bowed above me at an angle I knew was geared to swallow my head whole.

“Your mommy covered only the first week,” she spat, making my head reel.

I couldn’t even begin to process what that complication meant.

“Now, let me ask you nicely,” she bared two full rows of gleaming teeth, “Where. Is. My. Rent.”

Her slit pupils narrowed even more, becoming only 5 millimeters thin, nary shrinking into a sharp, crisps black line that would spell my doom and a funeral that my dad probably won’t organize for me.

“N-next week!” I dared to squeak.

I held my breath as long as she held hers, reptilian eyes unblinking. I didn’t blink either, till my eyes prickled from the dryness and started watering. Then her inner membrane ran over her eyes horizontally and only then did I blink.

“Make sure you do,” she warned with another hot breath over my head, then dragged her powerfully muscled form back into her room, shutting the door with a bang.

I remembered to breathe once she was gone, stumbling a bit from the lack of oxygen, white stars dotting all over my vision.

I scrambled up the floors faster than any sports test I had ever taken, and retreated into my unit.

Mom. I have to call her. She’d bail me out.

Just before I did, I stopped myself, finger frozen in mid-air, an inch from the hologram option, realization hitting me like a bolt from the blue.

We had called each other every night so I could tell her I was okay. But she didn’t say a single thing about the rent. Seven – no, eight days, to be exact – and not a hint, even though she already knew. I reran our conversations in my head, backwards day by day, until the first night.

Then my lips stretched into a grim line, jaws impossibly tight as if I injected my chin with Botox, though I’m just guessing because I hadn’t done that before.

I remembered then about what Mom said as an advice right on the first night I was kicked out, telling me that I’d better get a job.

I had the whole fucking week to do so, but I didn’t, deciding instead to survive on the piggy bank that Mom pushed into my arms at the last minute, where I had kept some of my ang bao* money from my earliest years as a kid. It was seriously retarded to carry around hard cash because nobody really does it anymore, except for ang baos because it was a long standing tradition that just never dies.

Mom however, insisted I do, in case of emergencies. Which, after the flight-limo arrived at this sorry state of a run-down hostel, and the chauffeur started unloading my giant suitcase, I found out what those emergencies  were, when I attempted to locate and book another apartment more suitable for my living standards, and I found out I couldn’t, because my CC had been cut.

My strongest pillar of support. But I couldn’t turn to her, not now, not anymore, because Mom fucking meant to support Dad this time around.

I had only one last life line yet.

My Bestie.

But before I jump with joy and cry tears of relief, I considered the odds.

I recalled all the times she – coming from a middle income family – lamented and complained about her financial woes and her job. And me, trying my best to sympathize – which I really did! But I think my expressions sometimes doesn’t form the way I think it ought to, and I blink at her like a goldfish, which sets off her rolling eyeballs and a bitch face and grumble under her breath about a rich, spoiled kid like me not getting it.

I used to indignantly reply in defence, that I was rich and pampered, but not spoiled – there’s a distinct difference as separate as the RGB values of 0:0:0 for blacks and 255:255:255 for whites for antique printer settings at rick-ruck shops.

Now, as I burn a stare into the bright contacts list that steadily becomes unfocused, I started to think I might have to rethink about the definitions of many things I thought I knew was for a fact, in my life.

A sudden message alert blinked in the corner, and tapping it on reflex, lo and behold! –I see the bookie’s message:

Look, actually, I’m in a jam here because another dipshit cancelled too at the last minute and he’s completely logged off the grid. So we are short on our minimum supply. Are you sure you won’t reconsider?

I blinked back the tears that clouded my vision. Taking it as a last chance offered by some higher cosmic power, I sucked in a deep breath before hitting the function to directly convert audio recording into digital words.

I don’t want to be a dipshit.