志异 Draft by Drama box July 2014 (english) | Page 25

of such an experiment can only be
ascertained after a longer period
of observation.
Many among the intellectual
elite who were arrested during
Operation Coldstore in 1963 and
sacrificed against their will have
now passed on or are in their
twilight years. With the possibility
of being obliterated, had they
succeeded in turning the tables
back then, what would Singapore
be like today? This can only be left
to the imaginations of novelists.
A passage I had read in the past
in a book about the ancient history
of Singapore left a particularly
strong impression. In the early
years of Singapore’s founding
as a trading port, tigers roamed
the primary forests of Johor and
some of them would swim across
the Straits of Johor to Singapore
to att