We shuffled out to the burial ground once we were done with the rites, forming one shapeless line of silent people. Out came the black umbrellas and the black fans and slight murmurings of the weather being intolerable. We were all cooked in black They go down to the lake of fire and fry.

    I looked around and saw a few familiar faces - my father's colleagues, his favourite secretary aunty Jane Koh, a few of my father's drinking kakis, my godparents, my solemn god brother Paul and his girlfriend Diane. It had been three years since I'd seen them and they're still together. Amazing. It took just less than one year for Gillian and I to break up. Paul and Diane had been together for five years and I, his god brother couldn't even sustain a relationship with Diane's sister for even eight months.

    Gillian. I felt my mouth turn dry.

    Call her, I thought.

    I want to. Maybe.

    The grass was tall and the ground uneven. We stood around the dug plot, squinting and fanning ourselves furiously while listening to the priest read passages from the bible. How many of us were going to hell, I thought absent-mindedly. I felt perspiration roll down by back, wetting the back of my black shirt. The heat was making me drowsy.

    The sound of a strummed guitar and the sudden swelling of voices woke me from my drifting state. We were no choir, I thought. Female voices were shrieking in the higher end of the scale while the male tenors and baritones wavered and went off-key as they sang about the beauty of God's grace and mercy on earth.

    I stared at my feet before peering into the crowd once again. Directly opposite me stood a familiar figure with a face I couldn't exactly place.

    Shoulder-length hair, slightly wavy. Small disinterested face, medium slanted slightly narrowed eyes. Hardened mouth.

    Shit, I know her.

    Much smaller, she used to have short chopped up hair. We used to meet at the curb and skate.

    Minyun.