Throughout his life, the concept of living in the now was incomprehensible to Johnny McClintock, a forty-year-old office worker whose black feet now dangled high above the solid Singaporean ground. For the old Johnny, there was only the past filled with shame, embarrassment, and indecisions, or the terror-filled future he so anxiously anticipated.

‘I loved you, Johnny McClintock…’ the voice resonated in his mind and sent tears down his cheeks. He watched as they splashed onto his bare, dangling feet. — ‘But you missed your shot.’ And he did. He did miss his shot with Jenny Bride, his childhood friend, love of his life, the most stunning woman Johnny McClintock had ever seen in his miserable, lonely, overly obedient life. There was no confession of love. Just the silence. Silence born out of projections of Johnny McClintock’s own inadequacy as a lover, partner… parent. Now all that was left were visions of the beautiful face he was never to see again.

The continuous detachment from the present wasn’t the only sin of Johnny McClintock. There was also the naiveté, such as when he agreed to share his luggage with a man at the airport. Small talk led to the exchange of business cards. Terry Kerry, it read. Import & Export Services Limited.

‘I packed too much,’ Terry finally said. — ‘You mind if I put some of the cosmetics into your bag, Johnny McClintock?’ And of course, he would. Because random men turning others into drug mules at the airport exsisted only in the movies. How absurd would it be for Terry Kerry, of Import & Export Limited, to smuggle drugs into a country so strict it punishes such offenses with death by hanging. No. It was too ridiculous. No doubt about it. Besides, there was karma, and Johnny McClintock’s was pristine. He didn’t hurt a fly in his life. He obeyed the rules, lived in accordance with the letter of the law, paid the taxes, sorted his waste, and waited for the green light at the crosswalk even though there were no cars in sight. Defiance was the antonym of McClintock’s existence, and as the tight rope around his neck cut off the oxygen to his brain, there was nothing more that he wanted to do but to kiss the face of Jenny Bride, take her by the hand, and jaywalk across the busy road.