Note from Dr. Gears: There seems to be some difficulty 
as to the meaning of "fine" and "coarse" on the settings; 
the machine appears to be capable of refining input 
based either on a scale of complexity (loss of entropy 
accompanied by increase in connectivity between 
components and/or acquisition of subjective meaning) or 
of simplification (Separation into composite materials and 
loss of meaning). 


Name: Dr. Grangan 
Date: / / 
Total number of objects: Five (5) adult male cadavers 


Input: One (1) cadaver 

Setting: Rough 

Output: A pile of human remains. Limbs, organs and 
bones all appear to have been roughly separated via 
tearing action and high heat. Output described as 
"unsettling". 


Input: One (1) cadaver 

Setting: Coarse 

Output: Pile of human remains. All organs and bones 
have been removed by some form of cutting tool. The 
skin, nervous system, digestive system, and circulatory 


Mother continued toying with the clay. "It's okay. | don't want to stay 
here any more, either." 


They discussed it over the next few weeks. Mother would call in her 
few moments of lucidity, and Hannah would go over solutions, 
compromises, pros and cons over the phone, giving an apologetic 
nod to her colleagues. At least they were understanding. Perhaps 
more so than herself. At one point, Amirul had approached her after 
work, and offered her to take the next two weeks off. She grudgingly 
obliged. 


Mother could not tolerate having anyone inside her own house. Not 
out of pettiness, or an obstinate sense of independence, no. But she 
was possessive. She'd bought the bungalow with the last big sale 
she'd made - a pottery collection at an auction in Kuala Lumpur - 
and it was hers, hers alone to keep. So taking care of her, or hiring a 
full-time nurse, was right out of the question. So was asking Pa. 
He'd left them all behind by then, had been for years nothing more 
than a close acquaintance and pleasantries at the end of a long car 
trip. That left the possibility of housing her in Hannah's downtown 
apartment. But it was far too small for Mother's liking, and the din of 
the city kept her awake so. Thus, bit by bit, they'd touched on the 
subject of the nursing home. It was a possibility Hannah dreaded - 
would Mother miss home? would she be safe? - but Mother never 
complained. Perhaps deep down, she wanted to be away, to 
surround herself not with her daughter and the familiar beige-paint 
walls of the bungalow, but with anonymous uniforms and 
whitewashed halls and sterile smiles. Perhaps when that, too, 
became familiar, she would ask to be brought back home. Hannah 
smiled at the light irony. 


A tap on her shoulder. "Where are we going, dear?" asked Mother. 


It was easier for her to say it, this time. "To the home, mother. It'll 
only be for a few weeks." If she says it often enough, it will cease to 
become a lie, not just for Mother, but for the both of them. Maybe 
that would be a good thing. 


Her fingers grip the steering wheel as she swerved into the 
driveway. Maybe a day will come when even | forget that Mother is 
sick, she thought to herself. Then Mother's sickness will, like the 


self-consuming snake, undo itself, lose itself inside its own folds of 
oblivion. Maybe that would be a good thing, too. 


In the June of 1973, in a small cramped bedroom on the second 
floor of a small cramped shophouse, Beatrice Cho gave her 
daughter a piece of lined note paper with a handwritten telephone 
number. For emergencies only, it read. 


"What kind of emergencies?" she asked. 
"You'll know it when it happens," replied her mother. 
"Why, mommy? When what happens?" 


"When | won't be around to help you any more, dear." And as a child 
enters the woods for the first time, so did Hannah first learn of the 
possibility of death. 


They'd kept the note throughout the years. It would have been a 
frivolous childhood memento, and nothing more than that - 
especially when Hannah herself grew up and married and moved 
out of her mother's house. But Mother never forgot, and always kept 
the note, crossing out the old number and replacing it with a new 
one every few years. The yellowed, dog-eared note was one of the 
things Hannah had salvaged from the old house, its surface 
crisscrossed with marks from half a dozen ballpoint pens. It was 
running out of space: the latest number had barely managed to fit 
near the bottom-left corner, even in Mother's minuscule scrawl. In 
the thirty-seven years that the note existed, she'd never once been 
told who the number belonged to. Nevertheless, unwilling to throw it 
away, she kept it on her fridge in a kind of anticipatory dread. 


Now, Hannah Cho dries her eyes and taps out this number on her 
screen. Miles away, in the otherwise-quiet Penang Public Library, an 
old Nokia buzzes to life, nearly falling off the edge of the table before 
being caught by a pair of deft hands and pressed to hushed lips: 


"Who is this?" the voice on the line whispers. "... Beatrice? It's been 
too long." 


"Um -" She stumbles at the sudden familiarity, hint of intimacy. 
"Actually, I'm her daughter." 


"So you are." Then, "Beatrice told you to call me?" She doesn't ask 
that question as much as she states it, like a fact. Her voice is 
smooth, clipped, yet ragged at the edges, as if spoken from well- 
wrinkled lips. 


"She did. May | ask, who am | speaking to?" 


The voice pauses for a second, as if considering the question. "Isa. 
Isa Noorizan. She never told you my name, then... " 


"Mother left behind a note saying to call you if anything... untoward 
happened," says Hannah, choosing her words carefully. 


"Something bad's happened to your mother and you know nobody 
else who can help." 


Well, then. No point hiding it. "Mother's disappeared. Completely - 
pictures, every mention of her. Memories, too. | - | don't think this is 
something the police usually work with." 


She hears silence. Then, softly but harshly, "I cannot talk here. | am 
in a library." 


There is the sound of shuffling papers, and closing books. 
Meanwhile, morning sunlight filters through the tinted window of 
Hannah's kitchen. A bird chirps. The refrigerator hums. Presently, 
Isa Noorizan resumes: 


"You think | can help. You think just because something inexplicable 
has happened, that an old friend of your mother can simply provide 
all the answers to a world you can't understand. Like a single 
question that anyone - anyone that knew her - can answer." 


"That wasn't what | implied..." 
"If you had just followed in her footsteps -" 


"So you're saying it's my fault now? Is that what you're saying?" She 
feels a growing defensiveness rising in her throat, bubbling behind 


her eyes again. 


"Her art died when she retired. Then she lost her mind. Beatrice was 
one-of-a-kind, and she died two years ago. When she forgot for the 
first time- " Isa swallows, almost sounding like a dry sob. "... sorry. | 
let myself go. All of that was a long time ago." 


"Well, I'm sorry | wasn't more involved in my mother's life," Hannah 
replies, her anger subsiding. "You say what she was - what she 
made - was lost a long time ago. But if there's any chance of finding 
her again, then..." 


"| never say | would not help." 
"Oh." 


Simmering from the phone, the background noise is almost 
palpable. Hannah perceives a sense of faintly animated suspension: 
of old decisions weighed, of memories churning like dust. Grudges 
turning like gears. 


At length, Isa clears her throat. "3pm, Kwok's Bakery. Be there." 


The line goes dead. 


When Hannah was ten, she picked up a Clay figurine on the floor of 
her mother's studio and screamed when it twisted, bent the air 
around it, wriggled out of her fingers and disappeared. She went 
crying to Mother, who scooped her into her lap and gently nuzzled 
her cheek: "Shhh, shhh, it's nothing, sayang." Only when she was 
brought to the Hyatt years later and saw a forest unfold from a 
cornucopia of gilded marble did she realise that the figurine was 
merely a maquette, a prelude, a mere folly for Mother's idle hands. 
She turned to her mother with terrified, bewildered eyes, who simply 
stood and smiled upon her masterpiece, tears streaming down her 
cheeks. 


That was not her world. Her world is the world of common sense, of 
reassuring concrete buildings and cool office air. But that was - as 
this is now - a world of unknowns, Mother's world, of inexplicabilities 


and mysteries and impossibilities. A world where sculptures spoke in 
more ways than one and art wove wonders, where an old woman 
leaves no trace but her name. 


Now, across the gulf of twenty-nine years, she feels like the events 
of the ballroom are happening to her all over again, inside the 
confines of her Nissan as she drives towards her destination. A 
sensation of broadening. Of falling - no, of ascending, inevitably, as 
a balloon does, towards a mystery greater than herself. And beyond 
that, perhaps other things - answers, or even solace. 


The thoughts fade away as the bakery pulls into view, tucked away 
under the overhang of a meager row of shophouses. It's a low-key 
affair, with a nondescript engraved signboard on the front and 
mosaic-tiled flooring that looks as if it hasn't been changed in 
decades. Pastel blue paint coats the walls, peeling in some places. 
The door is a metal grate. Hannah Cho has passed it by several 
times before on the way to Mother's house, but has never given it 
much thought, much less entered it. Behind the counter is, 
presumably, Mdm. Kwok - a plump Chinese woman seated 
comfortably in a wooden armchair, seemingly more interested in the 
soap opera playing on the small wall-mounted television than her 
own customers. 


Hannah walks into the equally spartan interior and seats herself 
down at the only table - old, lacquered wood, carved straight from 
her childhood; they don't make them like this anymore. Already on 
the table are two ceramic plates, with a slice of orange cake on 
each. 


Seated at the table is a cantankerous Malay woman, wearing a 
bright floral tudung around her head that, paradoxically, makes her 
look all the more ancient in its garishness. Her eyes, Hannah notes, 
are young eyes, despite the rest of her looking as if she's over sixty. 
They pierce into Hannah's own through a pair of horn-rimmed 
spectacles. 


"Your mother used to love this place," observes Isa Noorizan, 
pushing a plate ever-so-slightly towards Hannah. "She missed it so 
much when she went away for her studies. This place has been in 
business for fifty, fifty-five years. Did you know that?" 


"Mother's never brought it up," replies Hannah. 
"No?" Isa sighs. "As expected. Coffee or tea?" 


"It's fine, thanks. How does this place stay in business anyway? I've 
never seen a crowd." 


Isa waves to the counter with her index finger, mouthing the words 
"one, please". The plump Chinese woman manages to pull away 
from the soap opera on the small wall-mounted TV and disappear 
into a back room. Isa turns around, explaining, "They only take 
reservations. You have to phone ahead a few days in advance. No 
walk-in customers here." 


"Like us?" 


Isa spears a mouthful of cake on a fork and consumes it. "Oh, no. 
She just owes me many favours." Hannah swears that she shows a 
grin, but only barely, on the edges of her crinkled mouth. 


"Anyway," continues Isa, "that is not your business, or what | came 
here for." 


"My mother. Yes." Hannah thinks for a moment, chewing on a 
mouthful of cake. It's surprisingly good - she tastes oranges and a 
heavy sweetness, the fragrances somehow more robust than 
cloying. "If | may ask - what was Mother like?" 


"She was your mother." 


"Well, she never let on much about her side of the world." Hannah 
shrugs. "All | saw were her sculptures, and the visitors she had, and 
the occasional exhibitions she dragged me to. Mother never liked to 
talk about her past." Her voice, she realises, pricks with an 
unintended reticence, one that Isa picks up on with the slightest 
raise of an eyebrow. 


"Her past is behind me. You would not know of it." A movement from 
the counter: Mdm. Kwok appears with a mug of steaming tea, 
placing it almost-grudgingly on the table with an audible clang. Isa 
takes a few sips, and gently places it back down on the table. "Your 
misgivings aside, Beatrice did a great many things. Not all of them, 


worth remembering." 


Hannah considers a rebuttal, decides it is all the more self-damning, 
and instead nods to Isa to continue. 


"We were just young twenty-somethings. Some of us were fresh 
from the war. Others were born into the remains of it. The wake of 
independence drove us on, towards ideals... to remake this - this 
country, in the manner we thought was right - " She pauses to take 
another sip, or to gather her thoughts - "Many fought. Your mother 
fought. In her own way, through her art... Even so, | do not agree 
with everything she did." 


The words wash over Hannah in a dumb tide. She remembers the 
figurine in the room, the stone forest. Disorientation settles in her 
stomach. She looks into Hannah's eyes again, and those young, old 
eyes stare at her from a million miles away. 


She manages to find her words. "You're trying to ask me why | want 
my mother to be found." 


"Do you?" questions Isa. There is nary a hint of accusation in her 
voice. It is an open question, patiently worded, and it takes Hannah 
by surprise. 


Hannah thinks, and imagines her mother, black-dyed hair set in little 
plastic curlers, skeletal hands tirelessly chipping away at a small 
tangled knot of clay, switching between scalpel and needle and God 
knows what else with a watchmaker's calculated precision, ignoring 
the daughter tugging at her sleeve. That same mother, at a fish 
market, in a hotel ballroom, and, lastly, in her house again, gnarled 
with age, endlessly pacing back and forth through the wide-open 
doors of her big house. 


Try as she might, the Mother in her head remains as such - her 
mother. Moving in her own circles, be it the bewildering ones, in her 
secret world of fantastic art, or in her later years the circles she ran 
in her own head, inscrutable to even herself. Yet, throughout it all, 
still Mother nonetheless. 


Isa continues. "| do not mourn her. The her | believed in has long 


been gone. To me, she has died many times over before this day. 
What is your reason to find her?" 


"| know | should have one - just, any one, a concrete one but - 
honestly, I'm confused. And a little scared. I've never liked that 
feeling, you know? That feeling when something happens, and it's 
completely unfamiliar, beyond anything you know, and everyone 
keeps going on like it's the most normal thing in the world." Hannah 
presses her lips together, gathering the words on her tongue. "So 
I'm scared, and confused. But - | think it's precisely because | feel 
scared and confused, that | feel | need to do this." To do what, pray 
tell? 


"To find what's been lost." She thinks for a moment. "To trace her." 


She looks up at the older woman. "I'm right, aren't I? I've been 
putting this off for too long. | need to see this through for myself." 


Isa nods, slowly. 


"And you, too. That's why you called me here. Everything you've 
said - despite everything. You want to find her, too." 


From the look on Isa's face, she feels like she's finally got the right 
answer. 


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Not To Disappear - 2 


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