Another Dreamtiger
There is something to be said, surely, for the fact that every boy and man he has ever kissed – and there have been many – he has kissed on a beach. Surely no one else has done that, in the Lion City or elsewhere, in space or in time. He’d have loved for it to be on the same beach, of course, and he’d have loved to have done it all as a human, or all as a tiger, of course, but some things are impossible, even when one has been as dedicated to himself as he has; and what a life he has made for himself, here, surely.
Light catches him illuminated against the land. He is seated there, on the breakwater, watching the sun dip into the sky at the edge of the rows and rows of ships along the highway of the sea, waiting for what little stars one can see amidst the dark lights of the Lion City to shake themselves free from night’s long curtains; waiting for the little men, the lonely men, the brave men to find him once again. Even men like him have a routine, and this is his, to be quiet and still with himself, before the wheels turn, and the loving begins.
It is loving. He loves them all, all who come to him, whether they seek him in human or tiger form. Long before men loved Singapore for her grinding, sumptuously empty perfection, they loved her for her vices, her excesses, her dirt and her rabble; and today, he is all of them for the same men, their vices, their excesses, their dirt, their rabble. The rabble will talk, of course, and preach, and dismiss, and wipe the dust off their feet: this is a clean City, a fine City, a City of values, a City of dreams.
But he knows what men really value, and what men really dare to dream.
He has his vices, too; a sweet, lonely indulging of the imagination for the One who will capture his heart and free him from this cycle of death and rebirth when he is all alone at sunset, like now, and a slight predilection for men with the hearts of boys whose skin tones match his, a beautiful strain of ruddy earth and stalwart bark. That is all. Nothing else is worth daring to dream of, not when he already twists so many of the City’s dreams, his shadow mixed in with hers.
“Tigri di Sonu,” says the shadow behind him, in Kristang, falling across his lap. For all of his own confidence and strength, he is easily startled by the unexpected; but this, too, is expected, a clicking and whirring and consolidating of the data of hundreds upon thousands of nights spent by this breakwater, or that sandbar, or in that yacht anchored at Keppel Bay, or a dozen other places around this ancient island that pretends to be a very young City. They know how to find him, and they will find him, even when they are half an hour early, especially the first ones of the night, when the sun has not even set. Love is love, and all men seek love. He knows this, and so he is ready for the shadow, even though he is not ready. For the shadow has called his name, and he must answer. Tigri di Sonu. Dreamtiger.
“Sedu, bos,” he replies, also in Kristang, easily and breezily, letting sand and night wash across his hair and his airs, not bothering to turn around. You’re early. How very unEurasian. “How very…unEurasian of you.” Kristang is unusual, though not uncommon; the rumours of his background can be found on SammyBoy, HardwareZone, and all the right Telegram chats, and some who are not Portuguese-Eurasian have tried to use it to impress him, though only one has ever been able to match the sing-song of his great-grandfather, who he still misses with all his hybrid heart. This one had given no indication that he could speak when he first contacted him on the app, but why not? We all wear masks in the Garden City.
“Pidih pedrang, sinyor,” says the shadow. I ask your forgiveness. Not sing-song, but…empty. Coached. As if rehearsed a little too well, like sand sunk to the bottom of an aquarium exhibit, or leaves matched perfectly to foliage, a symmetry a little too understandable. Now, he will still not turn around, and he is wary, on guard, though he will give no indication of it. There have been clients who have tried the unspeakable, the disrespectful, the immoral; he will have none of it, and have none of them, for without evidence, there is nothing to prove. Perhaps the shadow might be one of them. But he senses nothing threatening yet. “It is hard to find you,” says the shadow, “and I wanted to make sure I could.”
“And you could, it seems.” The sand has settled at the bottom of the tank. “Sedu, bos,” he says again. He sees the sand in his mind, motionless. “Tempu nenang chegah.” The time has not yet arrived. And he speaks the truth; the sun has not yet set, and this one has asked for the tiger. The tiger will take some time to emerge. They said seven thirty, and by his count, it is somewhere still in the range of six forty-five. Sand still and settled, and still settling.
Sometimes it is just that. Just sand. Sometimes the man has simply been torn apart for so long by the boy within, the scared, innocent filu who always longed to be held by one who really knows how to hold, to taste and to be tasted, to be smelled and to be smelt into gold – and who had been dimmed, rusted, corroded by the iron rules of the City into fearful, lonely incoherence, a life haphazardly welded together with another sinking deep in the same boat. And he has held them all: politicians, policemen, migrant workers, men of the military. Deep men. Brave men, who were thrown into the deep by the pressures of life, and died to their own fears within. He brings them to life, sometimes, but they are so scared, so fearful, so broken, so achingly lonely. The sex is fleeting, nervous, terrifying in its existential dread; he often spends the next day without clients, just swimming, bathing in the straits, trying to slip away from the emotions that he, too, has spent a lifetime battling.
He imagines them as sand, and perhaps, this too, is sand. Still settling.
“Mas yo ja chegah,” says the shadow. But I have arrived.
“Sertu ja,” he agrees, still not turning around. “Nang asih doi nadi chegah.” Indeed you have, but the money will never be enough. He cannot transform before sunset, no matter what new tricks the shadow might want to try. Mansplaining how a were-tiger works to one who has lived and breathed its existence is generally not encouraged on the forums and the Reddit threads, but still people try.
“Ki kauzu, Dash? Kifoi kereh yo sa doi?”
He knows the words; he grew up with the language. For what reason? Why would you want my money? all make sense to him. But it is the name. The name that he so rarely hears. The name he keeps deep within. It is a clap of night, a shout across the declining sun. The sand swirls, and he finally acknowledges that he might be terrified. Because the shadow knows his real name.
“I know you,” he says in English, slowly, turning around even though he doesn’t want to, not just because it is the shadow, but because it will turn him away from what little remains of the sun, and he thinks he will need the light now more than ever.
And indeed he does. Because it is someone he knows, but he – they – it is all wrong. He is wrong. The sand is broken and scattered; there is something wrong with the tank, too. It is not water. It is blood in the tank. Blood in the sand. Sand, and bone, in the blood, in the water, in the tank in his mind.
“I paid for the Dreamtiger,” says the shadow, in English, “but I want to talk to you, Dash.”
“Nag,” says Dash. No – not Dash. He is still the Dreamtiger. The Dreamtiger is not afraid. But he has been named, and he is not the Dreamtiger. He is Dash, now, little Dashwin Perenna, kissing little Naglfar Delskur on the fourth East Coast breakwater, twenty-one years, five months and eleven days ago, after they both performed at the community club. Shells and stars fall into the tank: memories, long excavated and reburied, now unearthed again by the City. Their first dance together, not with each other but in the Southeast Zone Eurasian Dance Troupe, when they were both fourteen. Then their first dance with each other together, under the stars, four years later, hours after Dashwin’s first kiss, and what Naglfar claimed was his third. The fights. Blood, blood on Naglfar’s nails, Dash’s blood, after the Study in Australia pitch, and talking about migrating, the fight. The tank has something in it now, swirling, growing; there is something in the tank, and something in Dash. He cannot transform like this; there is a routine to it, a calming, a softening. But the sun has gone down, and it is pitch black along Changi Beach Park; and there is a sequencing to it, a slowing, a deadening. He cannot transform like this.
“I see you’ve been busy, sayang,” says Naglfar. His handsomeness is still there, but it is sunken, bloated, puffed, as if his eyes started to stare at the sun, and then saw themselves instead. He sees Dash, and the Dreamtiger is gone, the colours are gone; something is draining from the tank, and draining into Dash. A buzzing.
“Ki kauzu bos teng naki?” he whispers. Why are you here?
“Pra bos,” whispers Naglfar back at him. The words curl around Dash, as Naglfar’s hand curls around his. For you. The buzzing fills Dash’s head; it is safe, familiar, frightening, terrifying, a New, Empty Old God of the City, something that has entered Naglfar, penetrated him, consumed him.
“Nteh jenti naki,” hisses Naglfar. There is no one here. And it is true; there must be no one there for the Dreamtiger to do his work. But Dash cannot ignore the horrible, frightening irony to Naglfar’s words. Nteh jenti naki. There is no one here.
“Nenang fazeh lesti,” says Dash, the time is not yet right, but there is something wrong with Naglfar’s eyes. The time is always right, Dashwin Perenna. The breakwater. The way Naglfar touched him. He way Naglfar wanted him. He is wilting, after running so long. Blood builds in his brain, sloshes around it, threatens to spill over, threatens to explode. He cannot transform under these conditions; the tiger will emerge wrong, fragmented, uneven, uncontrollable.
“Then let us talk,” says Naglfar in English.
“About?” says Dash.
“About us,” says Naglfar, and when Naglfar says us there is a ringing in Dash’s ears, a buzzing intensified hundredfold, like static being pulled over the wind, or eyes being dragged across a screen. “About you and I, Dashwin.” Naglfar has never called him Dashwin.
“What do you want to know?” he manages to say, biting back tears and rage.
“Everything,” says Naglfar simply. Everyone, says Dash’s brain. He wants to know about everyone. They want to know about everyone. The Dreamtiger is frightened, alone, yowling in his mind. You knew this night would come. You knew it when you started, when you opened your body up to the world. You know the City claims her body as your own. The City has come for him.
“I can’t tell you,” he blurts out. To the buzzing of the City, in his mind, he screams, Birah infernu, diabu! What little lines that can still be made out blur around him; night consumes all, and he is unstable, insecure, out of focus. Things crawl up his arms; Naglfar smells of them. “Isti yo impodih falah.” This I cannot say, Nag. And the hardest part is that the boy that Dashwin Perenna loved so truly and madly on that breakwater twenty-one years, five months and eleven days ago is still there, somehow. Bits of him. Parts of him. Repurposed. Torn apart. Never put back together. The shadow is full across the Dreamtiger, now, and creeping into his past. Tearing pages, delicately, quietly, considerately, from his future.
“Nomi,” says Naglfar. Nomi di tudu ja beng naki, says Dash’s brain, one possible tangent among many, but all too possible. All too real. The names, names of all who have come here.
“You cannot ask me for this,” says Dash fiercely. “It would be a betrayal of my clients’ trust. And of the good work that I do.”
“And what good work do you do?” says Naglfar. The memories bite into Dash’s eyes. Blood like tears. Blood like rain. It had just rained. Naglfar had been enamoured with his face, his armpits, his eyes. His eyes cut into Dash’s. “Don’t you love me, sayang?”
“Always,” whispers Dash. “But if you love me, you would not ask me these questions.”
“I ask only for those I serve,” says Naglfar.
“Keng bos sa donu, skrabu?” says Dash bitterly, but he already knows the answer, even though the slave stands before him, shirtless, the power of their owner filling them.
He transforms, and they fuck, briefly and quietly. A twisting, weeping infinity. A library, once open to the light, now ablaze in darkness. The Dreamtiger is born again, screaming, into darkness. Dashwin Michael Perenna. Eli sabeh bos sa nomi. Eli sabeh yo sa nomi. He knows your name. He knows my name. The fucking is a whimpering, a silencing; it is twenty-one years, five months and eleven days ago, and it is now, and it is both, all over and over and over again, but wrong, dashed to pieces, broken too hard, too fast, too strong enough for the dream to make sense, too weak enough for the dreamtiger to claw itself back together. Prau. Seu. Strela. Sombra. All his words, all the ways he keeps himself together, they are coming apart, ja kebrah, ja danah. Danadu. Malisozu. The buzzing is exactly what he remembers, twenty-one years, five months and eleven days ago, and now, and always; the shrieking, siren, silent call of the City in all her majestic emptiness, her broken, empty pain, her deportations and death penalties. This is his death penalty: he is a tiger, born and bred, and Naglfar is in him, through him, within him, consuming him; and the City is alive, writhing, thrashing, in Naglfar. He is paid for three hours’ work; but this is three eternities, and three infernos, dos diabu na basu di lunga seng agu, two devils beneath a moon without water.
There was a game they used to play, when they were in secondary one – Pastu Bedri Ta Koreh: the Green Parrot Digs. Naglfar’s claws dig into his fur, excavating, examining, interrogating. Blood. His blood. Eli sa sanggi. Red like the City. White like Naglfar’s eyes. The City has made Naglfar into something, too. Naglfar Damian Delskur, ki bos ja fikah? What have you become? I used to call you the Green Parrot. Yo sa pastu bedri.
Bos teng nomi nubu, say the shadow’s eyes, as it devours the Dreamtiger’s. You have a new name. Dreamtiger, this is your new name. Tigri di Sonu, isti bos sa nomi nubu.
Yo pun teng nomi nubu. Saguati di Sidadi. I, too, have a new name. A gift of the City.
The shadow whispers it into the Dreamtiger’s ear, one hand grasping its muzzle.
“Yo sa nomi Broxa.”
He knows the legend. How can he not? It was the day before the Green Parrot did more than dig. It came up in class, during Racial Harmony Day. A well-meaning tutor who thought Portuguese-Eurasian meant Portuguese. Naglfar loved the concept, loved the name, even though back then, he still loved Dash. He was not a demon yet. He was not a Broxa yet. It was a small thing; it was not the thing that dug straight through Dash’s heart, Dash’s pride, Dash’s truth.
That was the next day, when Naglfar told the whole school, the whole world, that Dashwin Michael Perenna was gay, that he had seduced Naglfar Damian Delskur, that he had turned Naglfar into what Naglfar was not.
The Broxa clutches the Dreamtiger by the throat. Olotu sa nomi. Tell me their names.
But that’s it.
This is his name. Dashwin Michael Perenna remembers. Unrelenting, painful loneliness. The first day he transformed. Pain makes us what we are. His great-grandfather had been a shifter too.
The memories give him just enough darkness to make light.
Broxa – says the Dreamtiger, gritting its teeth – nteh.
The climax has not come, but the Dreamtiger is alive. With a snarl of triumph, it throws the Broxa off. Blood. Blood of the Broxa. Blood of the City. Blood for blood.
Broxa nteh na Kristang, says the Dreamtiger. There are no Broxas in Kristang.
Yo sa nomi Broxa, screams the shadow. That is still my name. But the Dreamtiger is a shadow too. A shadow nailed to the door. A shadow drowning in betrayal. A shadow that has never stopped growing, never stopped yearning.
The Broxa is receding into the darkness. He knows it will be back. He knows the City has decided his time is up. But he doesn’t care. Every boy and every man he has ever kissed on every beach, is pulsing through him, adding their voices to his.
“Yo beng falah tudu nomi bos kereh,” says Dash. Let me tell you all the names you desire.
Naglfar Damian Delskur. My love and my light.
The City howls, and the Dreamtiger howls along with it.