A Singaporean In Australia

It was a long day. I woke at 0630 hrs and I was still awake by 0415 hrs. What kind of shit job was I holding? It was called Stupid Man.

Once upon a time, there was an original Stupid Man. Let's call him The Stupid Man. The Stupid Man was obviously an imperfect man. In fact he was outstandingly imperfect. He was so flawed that his children hate him.

The Stupid Man beat his wife in front my his children, not regularly but once too often enough to leave a permanent scar in his children's memories. He beat his eldest daughter, inflicting an unrepairable damage in their relationship forever. He sneered at the non-branded watch his second daughter bought for him with money earned from her first salary and made her sad. The Stupid Man once held up motorcycle helmet to challenge his  to his 15 year old son who defended his mother against his assault. The Stupid Man also beat the pet dogs that his children loved.

The son asked his mum each time after an assault, "Mum, why don't you divorce him and we'll all move out and live together, I'll go out and earn money to support you?"

The mum never once gave a response.

During happier times, the mother would related stories to his son now and then about his childhood. The son was well aware how financially poor their family was during those days. His mum had been a cleaner, a waitress and a seamstress to support the family. On top of that, they would rent out one of the rooms of their 3-room HDB flat to supplement the living expenses. That would not be adequate to hold the family together.

Back then, The Stupid Man was a Super Stupid Man. He worked relentlessly and tirelessly, sometimes allowing himself only 3 hours of sleep a day. Those overtime pay was the reason why the family could sustain and the children were given the best childhood both of them could offer.

Not surprisingly as fate allows, The Stupid Man was retrenched in his 50s. The Stupid Man had been doing the same job all his life that he forgotten to learn any other skills that could give him another job, not that he was clever enough to learn any in the first place. So The Stupid Man struggled from then on, with an even lower income than before, trading labour for money.

Time waited for no man. Eventually his once able body gave way, he was not fit enough to work. The Stupid Man however still gave his mother pocket money every month. He was too stupid to make sense out of his financial status yet he continued to give. He had 4 brothers and 1 sister, most as stupid as he was but none as filial.

As years went by, The Stupid Man became literally stupid. He was probably suffering from early dementia. He had never been able to express himself already clearly in his youth, and very much worse thereafter. By then, he lost his only passions in life, riding his motorcycle and fishing.

The Stupid Man insisted to fetch his grand-daughter from nursery every day, despite being told not to. Sometimes he screamed at the door at his wife when he couldn't get the pram through the door. Each time he would get a telling off by his son and he would keep his mouth shut. The Stupid Man probably did not know how to say what he wanted to say, if he had anything to say at all. Every time the little toddler cried, he would scream and rant.

The Stupid Man's brain was so stupid, that he could only express anger to show for his love. The Stupid Man never gave his children an encouraging word. He never hugged them to show his love. He never once told them how he felt when he saw any of his children fail, hurt or went astray. Every disappointment, sadness and helplessness was expressed in anger. Every moment of pride and happiness of his children's achievements were silent as breeze. If The Stupid Man was ever once touched in his entire, he never show evidence. He mumbled something in excitement at the news of the birth of each grandchild.

He was indeed a Stupid Man in his entire life, but he lived for the family.

One day, his son made a routine call to his mum from a faraway place. His mother was unusually distracted. At her limit of her annoyance, she told her son, "Your dad wants to speak to you!"

That's new.

"Hello?"

"Ya?"

"Er.. Don't do so much OT."

"Ok."

He handed the phone back to his wife. The son knew. The Stupid Man missed him.


Every time we got a question wrong in school, we lamented that we get zero for the efforts shown. In life, we can be parents only once. It's either you get it right or screw it up. Like that school question, we hope to get the marks for the solution even though the answer is wrong.

If you are reading this, it's time to forgive and forget. The Stupid Man is damn Stupid, but he will not be Stupid very long.