Finished a novel on the park bench near Telok Ayer. Closed the cover and sat without standing for five minutes — long enough for the ending to settle, short enough that no one asked if I was unwell.
The ending was not surprising. That did not diminish it. I have come to distrust endings that exist only to shock. A good ending feels like a door closing at the right speed — neither slammed nor left open.
A mynah landed on the railing, looked at me, decided I was uninteresting. High compliment. I watched it pick at a crumb and thought about how rarely fiction gives us animals that behave like animals instead of symbols.
Around me, office workers ate lunch with one hand on their phones. Children ran on the grass. The book rested on my knee, cover sun-warmed, spine slightly cracked from honest use. I did not want to leave the bench yet.
Endings deserve their own small ceremony. Closing a book slowly is one of the few rituals that still costs nothing and returns something every time. You owe the author those five minutes of silence — payment in attention.
Walked back to the studio through Ann Siang Hill with the novel in my bag and the ending still unfolding somewhere behind my eyes. That is the best sign a book has done its work.