Each year, a brown paper package from Singapore arrives carrying the tastes, rituals, and memories of a life left behind. Over time, its contents become a private cache against forgetting. The piece later found its way into The Space Between.
Runner-up in CutBank’s 2023–2024 Big Sky, Small Prose Contest; published in CutBank, Issue 100
Excerpt:
With the flick of a knife, I would unwrap my father’s annual gift, arranging its contents around me on the kitchen floor, one by one, like jigsaw pieces to a puzzle I used to know. Festive cookies separated by parchment in see-through containers. Malay spice packets, rubber-banded together like flat hour-glass bundles of instant culinary gratification. Kek lapis, a multi-layer spice cake, nestled in its glossy, heavyweight box.
Now and again, this traveling delegation suffered a casualty. Once, the brittle kueh bangkit, a cookie made of tapioca flour and icing sugar, was pulverized during its journey, coating its companions with a dusting of white powder. On another occasion, the short crust pastry of the pineapple tarts had crumbled into a million buttery pieces, rendering its sweet fruit centers exposed.