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Evan Adam Ang

A Day in the Death

Lim Oh Kee kills himself in the early hours on the 12th day of December 1921.

His last meal is rice and nothing. His last words are that by tomorrow (by today), he’ll be gone. He dies by hanging. He cannot afford to buy rope for an occasion like this. Instead, it’s a scavenged piece of cord that’s wrapped around his neck when his son finds him, suspended from a door along the five foot way. He’s blocking foot traffic but it doesn’t matter, because the route itself is barely used.

No one knows whether he aimed to be considerate, even in death, or if he simply picked the nearest available option. His son (little, eleven, and living with his friend Chuan) was not the first to discover him, only the first to recognize him. In the very short, very brief report on Lim Oh Kee’s death made by the Coroner, it’s noted that he has been out of work (like so many people have been out of work) for some time. It’s noted that he’s been ill (like so many people have been ill) for longer. He has — he had — nowhere to live. The door he hung from wasn’t even his own.

He looked starved. He was starved.