The Road Out

Tonight’s the night.

I lean over the balcony, prop my face up with my hands, and take a deep breath. It smells like rain. Though the rain might complicate my plans for later, I feel surprisingly calm.

I watch the coconut tree, its leaves swaying in the wind.

The twilight sky, with its pink-purple swirls, reminds me of the Mat Kool popsicles my dad used to buy me.

The ice cream uncle would come around our neighbourhood on his motorbike in the evenings. The moment I heard his beeping horn, I’d run outside, yelling, “Pa! Pa! The ice cream uncle is here!”

My dad would jog out after me, laughing, picking coins out of his wallet. “Nah,” he’d say, getting two popsicles in exchange.

We’d sit side by side on the concrete slab outside our gate, the popsicles dripping onto the tar road under the humid evening sun.

We’d see people coming home from work, in their suits and ties.

Pa always looked at them quietly. I never understood why.

**

It’s been ten years since my dad passed. A heart attack, they said.

Much as I looked up to him, I never wanted his life.

Endless hours. A boss who never cared. A heart that finally gave out, leaving Mum with two boys to raise alone.

I was seven. My brother was four.

A few months before he passed, I remember waking up one night when he came home late from work, the tell-tale keys jangling, the main gate screeching open.

I tiptoed downstairs. He jumped when he saw me.

“Ah Yang, what are you doing up? Go back to sleep, you have school.”

I rubbed my eyes, went to sit beside him as he took off his socks.

I saw him hesitate, then take out his box of cigarettes and lighter. He slid one stick out, then whispered, “Don’t tell your mum, okay?” before lighting it.

“Pa,” I said. He took two puffs, blew the smoke out the side of his mouth.

“Mm.”

“Why do you work so hard?”

He chuckled, the kind that made me feel ashamed, like I’d asked the dumbest question in the world.

“For you boys. So you can… do what you want to do.”

A pause. Another puff of smoke.

“What… What do you want to do? When you grow up?”

My dad had never asked me that before.

“I don’t know. I like art, like drawing and painting.”

A laugh that turned into a cough. “Figures,” he said. “I don’t know how you’re going to put food on the table with that, but good luck.”

I didn’t get it. But I laughed, too.

**

Mum remarried my stepdad Lionel not long after my dad passed. As a widow without a job and with two sons to support, I guess she felt that was the best solution.

She’d met him singing part-time at an old Chinese pub nearby our home. He was just a mousy clerk at a soap manufacturing company.

But he was a tiger at home. A violent one. Especially after he drank.

I touched the tip of my fingers to my swollen left cheek.

Earlier, he’d come home, furious. I smelled the alcohol before he’d even stepped foot into the house.

Cantonese curse words. “That son of a bitch!”

I could’ve disappeared into my room, like my brother had. Or hidden in the back kitchen, pretending to chop vegetables, like my mum.

But that wasn’t me. He always said I liked to “ask for it”. Well, maybe he was right.

So I sat there on the couch, watching the TV on mute, ignoring him.

“You,” he snarled.

I changed the channel.

In a flash, he grabbed me by the neck of my t-shirt, pulling me up to my feet.

I was taller than him now. It didn’t matter.

“Stop being such a useless idiot!” A slap to my face.

“I’m working my ass off, and all you do is just laze around at home!” The slaps continued. The sting of it had me reeling, and I fell backwards onto the couch.

But when I looked back up at him, I narrowed my eyes.

The punch to my face had me seeing stars, my head thrown to the right.

I curled up like a prawn as he punched me in my stomach and ribs. Blow after blow felt endless.

As I fell to the floor on my knees, gasping, he sighed, satisfied.

“You’re a bastard, just like your father,” he spat. He retreated to his room.

My mum appeared, kneeling beside me, and pushed an ice pack into my lap. I shook my head.

I dragged myself upstairs to my room, my mind made up.

**

Somehow, it was always me, never my mum or my brother. Why? I’m not sure.

Maybe it was the death stare dripping with hate I’d give him whenever he was home. Maybe it’s because I looked most like my dad.

Staring out at the pink-purple-turned black sky, I wonder what my dad would think if he saw us now.

I glance at my bag under my bed—holding my paints, food, a couple hundred ringgit I’d been sneaking out of my mum’s purse over the past few months.

And a single photograph of the four of us, before everything changed.

There’s a late-night bus to Johor Bahru at 10:35 PM. I may find a place to crash there. Or see if I could get another bus to Singapore.

I don’t know how I’ll survive.

But I know I won’t if I stay.

I take one last look over the balcony, down the road leading out of our taman.

My dad had always wanted me to do what I wanted with my life.

I’m finally trying.

Wish me luck, Pa.

-THE END-

(C) Lisa Kwan 2026

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm currently working on a creative writing project during my confinement. This story was based on a random plot generator.

Prompt:

Your character is young, open-minded and has many interests. The story begins on a balcony. Someone is leaving for good. The theme is: survival.