Authors: Danny Wallace
“Excuse
me?”
The man popped his head back round the door.
“Yes?”
“Um … do you have any other information on Pulau Ubin? Any more leaflets?”
The man looked at me as if I were asking him to sing a little song for me.
“No.”
“What—nothing whatsoever?”
“No. This is all we have. Everything you need is there.”
I looked at the leaflet. There was virtually nothing on it. Just a few pictures, a tiny map and a couple of poetic paragraphs.
“Oh. Okay. Thanks,” I said, and walked out. I decided it was slightly strange that in order to house one set of rather rubbish pink photocopied leaflets, they’d not only built an unnecessarily huge building, but also employed a man to sit there all day on the off chance that a tourist might arrive and fancy one. It was like buying a bus, just to use it as a pram.
Nevertheless I was grateful for what I’d been given and set about reading it.
LIFE ON PULAU UBIN
No need for alarm clocks here—the early morning crowing of roosters sets the day off. A chorus of birds descend on the fruiting trees for the first meal of the day. The jetty rouses itself and the revving of motorcycles fills
the streets. All is set for an easy and relaxed start to the day for the islanders
.
Oh, yes. What an easy and relaxed start to the day. Woken at 5 a.m. by roosters, and then tormented by motorcycle revving until breakfast or suicide. To be honest, the
end
of the day didn’t sound much better, either:
As night settles upon the island and people come to rest, the sound of diesel generators floats through the air. The insect-eating Tomb Bats emerge suddenly from their roosts and may be seen as flitting, silent shadows. And while you are gazing upward, keep your eyes open for the limegreen Oriental Whip Snake reptile as it slides through the grass underfoot
.
Jesus! Woken unnaturally early and harassed by motorcycle gangs, then killed by bats and snakes by lights out. No wonder Pulau Ubin’s remained untouched for so many years. So long as the tourist office kept doing such a sterling job of selling the place, I had no doubt it would remain untouched for many years to come.
I wanted to see the island and decided that the best thing to do would be to rent a bike. So I did, from a thrilled-looking bike rental man who appeared never to have rented out a bike before and set off for a cycle round what Ong had described to me as the Singaporean idea of Utopia. I felt cool. I felt like an explorer, pushing bravely into the unknown. On a small bike.
Even though it’s just 1.5 kilometres wide and 8 kilometres long, Ubin is Singapore’s second largest island, and as Ong told me, it remains the only true
kampong
left in existence; the only one not replaced by shopping malls and Singaporridge shops.
I cycled down a small incline and around a winding road until I faced rather a large hill in front of me. But I had the energy and the willpower and set about pumping away at the pedals until I was about halfway up and about to pass out. It was maybe thirty-five degrees, and I was sweaty and my boxer shorts already appeared to be trying to attempt an expedition of their own, exploring areas of my body usually reserved for someone with a qualification. I stopped to straighten myself out, hopped back on the bike, and continued on for a good few kilometres.
Two hundred people live on Ubin, relying on the land to support them or the
odd tourist renting a bike. I didn’t see one of them. I passed abandoned farms, and dogs playing around derelict shacks, but not one single solitary person. Maybe this was why Ong liked it so much. In a place where you are never more than a few feet from someone else, an island like this must mean so much.
That said, it became creepy after a while. Particularly when I started to cycle up roads surrounded by high hedges and lush, overhanging trees, where my only possible route was forward or backward, and the ambient noise suddenly and surprisingly became absolutely deafening.
It’s no more than a buzz at first … then it sounds like someone’s left a few whistling kettles on the boil … then it becomes as loud as, or louder than, a car alarm. And you just can’t tell where it’s coming from.
I began to feel paranoid. Here I was, totally on my own, far away from anyone, in the middle of nowhere for virtually no reason whatsoever, surrounded by screaming, unseen kettles. What on Earth would the authorities think if they found my body out here? How in God’s name would they piece together my final movements? What kind of motives would they come up with?
Suddenly I felt slightly panicky. I cycled on as quickly as I could, but started to realise that, in the bushes to the right of me, something was noisily running along with me. I couldn’t see it, but it was causing enough of a disturbance in the long grasses for me to know it was big, and it was fast. Oh, Christ, what
was
it? I couldn’t stop now…. I pedalled on faster and faster, and now I could definitely hear it thundering alongside me. What was it? Was it after me? I felt more like a character in a Stephen King book than I ever have before, and despite the fact that I was going deeper into what was now essentially a jungle, I couldn’t turn around and go back for fear of coming face-to-face with it—if it had a face—and whatever it was was still there, still pounding the ground, mere feet away …
I rounded a bend at speed, but so did my potential captor. I was panicking properly now. Was I being hunted? What if whatever it was decided to eat me? What did they have over here again? Did the leaflet mention crocodiles? Or rhinos? Snakes can’t run, can they?
I cycled on and furiously on, not once looking behind me, and thankfully, the noise from the long grass started to fade until it wasn’t there at all. I was knackered, but determined to continue, and when I was far enough away, I stopped and got my leaflet out. I scoured those hundred or so words for any mention of killer kettles or things that might run alongside an innocent British cyclist, but there was nothing. Which, if I’m honest, just added to the sense of foreboding.
Was Yes trying to get me killed? It was supposed to help me live! The other noises around me still hadn’t settled down, and I was now on a road surrounded by huge trees that blocked out the sunlight and gave everything a musty evening feel.
And then I heard a scuffling sound behind me and the sound of leaves being thrashed about, and I whacked my shins against the pedals as I tried to get the bike going again, desperate fear taking over. But my balance was off and my feet suddenly too big, and the noise got louder and louder, and then a lizard the size of a tank rushed past me and thundered, low and muscular, through a gap in the bushes where it stopped moving completely. My heart raced. I was being stalked by a lizard. A bloody
lizard!
This wasn’t right.
This
wasn’t paradise!
And, in fact, if this
was
paradise, how come so few people seemed keen to live here? I had yet to pass even one person. Where
was
everyone? Was everyone a lizard? Maybe David Icke had been right!
I pressed on, sticking to the road and without once looking back for fear of seeing anything else that freaked me out. The lizard decided the prey wasn’t worth it and left me soon after. I was knackered and red and in the mood for sitting down, which is when I spotted something. A signpost. It told me that a place called Nualong Beach wasn’t far away, and that sounded perfect for me. A beach. Safety.
Before too long I found it. It was becoming slightly overcast now, but it was still warm, and I parked my bike and sat down on the beach. I was exhausted.
The water was calm, and the sun warm. Despite my lizard-based shenanigans, I was suddenly inordinately pleased to be here. I felt farther away from London than I’d ever been—and farther away from anyone else. It was just me. Thousands of miles away from another life. I thought about what had brought me here. The chain of Yeses that had led to me to be sitting on a beach on Pulau Ubin. Of course, it began with the man on the bus, but my Singapore weekend was all thanks to saying yes to a dull, bring-a-fact party. To Gareth. Then Ricky. And Marc. Who knew how many other chains I’d started, who knew what else I’d set in motion? Where else could this lead me? What did a yes I’d said last week or last month have in store for me
next
week or
next
month?
It was late November. Soon it would be December. That left just one more month of Yes before a whole new way of life started. A more responsible life, with nine to fives, and spreadsheets, and overhead projectors. No more jetting off to Singapore on a credit card and a whim. No more ruthless spontaneity. Just
calm. Like the calm around me now. But there were still treats in store. Lizzie, for one.
I sat there in the sun and smiled. It was drawing to a close. Just another few weeks. I was looking forward to them.
An hour later, at the end of the pier, a large group of people—who seemed to have come from nowhere—were sitting down in near-silence, waiting patiently for the next bumboat to arrive and take them off to the mainland. I floated serenely toward them and recognised one or two of them from the journey over. There were maybe fourteen of them in all. But the strange thing was, they were all sitting on the one bench. There were four benches, forming one big square, and yet these people had all chosen to sit on just one side. This one group of disparate people had chosen to sit
alongside
rather than
away from
one another and stare in the same direction—at me, the approaching tourist. But I didn’t feel intimidated or embarrassed. Because
they
didn’t. They thought it was completely normal to all sit wordlessly on one bench. This would never have happened in London. We would all have sat on separate benches, always chosen the one with less people on it, always kept ourselves to ourselves. I was heartened by this simple sight. I raised my hand as I approached and smiled. I had to decide where to sit. Well, I couldn’t very well be the only person to sit on a bench of his own, could I? That would mark me out as a typically aloof, unfriendly Westerner. So I conquered my awkwardness and did what I would never normally do. I strode up to them and sat myself down right in the middle of them. I was suddenly feeling very philosophical. Yes had done that to me. Opened me up a bit more. I was just another stranger, after all. A white stranger, maybe, with unusual trainers, but really, I was just another person to have sat myself down on that bench, to share a view and wait for a boat. No one said anything at all. A few people glanced at me, and I glanced back and smiled. There was a feeling of deep mutual respect on that bench. Silent, wordless respect. Me, from a land far away, and they—simple Malaysian folk, calm and serene—regarding me with quiet wonder. I breathed deeply and thought about this unexpected sense of community. How we could come from places so far apart and still share this sense of unspoken, unthreatening togetherness. Maybe this was what paradise was all about, I thought. Maybe it wasn’t Pulau Ubin itself … but the attitude of those on it. Maybe paradise wasn’t
around
us. Maybe it was
inside
us.
And then they all started talking about me, and it became clear that they were
one big family group, and
that
was why they were sitting together, and now they were wondering who on Earth / was and why the hell I was sitting right in the middle of them and not on a bench of my own like any
normal
person. And I went a bit red.
I pretended I needed to stretch my legs and stood up and yawned, strutted about, pretended to find something fascinating about one of the other benches, and then sat down on it and studied my feet. A year or so later, the bumboat arrived, and I made sure I was the first one on it. I didn’t want that lot getting there first, and then taking bets on where I would sit.
Back at the hotel, I sipped on a cocktail and sent Marc a text.
I AM IN SINGAPORE. I WAS CHASED BY A LIZARD.
I received one back, ten minutes later.
ATOMICO, DANNY!
I laughed. I really hoped I’d see Marc again.
It was getting late, and I would be returning to London the next day, and so I studied my map and thought about how I should spend the remainder of my time in Singapore.
I needn’t have bothered.
Because I was to spend the rest of my time in Singapore worrying.
Fretting, stressing, and worrying.
I had made my way into the hotel’s business centre and checked my e-mails. I’d planned to send one to Lizzie, telling her where I was and what I was doing and how much I was looking forward to seeing her again.
I hadn’t reckoned that someone might have e-mailed me.
To : Danny
From: whoisthechallenger
Subject: Next …
Hello, Danny,
Enjoying yourself? Still saying yes?
So why don’t you …
Go to Stonehenge 2 !?
My heart sank. I was thousands of miles away, and yet the Challenger was still like a shadow. Who was this? Everything was worthless while they were still
controlling me. I was supposed to be in control! Master of my
own
destiny! If it was Jason, he was being remarkably persistent for a man who should have got bored and moved on weeks ago. But
was
it Jason?
But Stonehenge 2? What was Stonehenge 2?
Was
Stonehenge 2 an actual place? Or did they mean I should go to Stonehenge again?
Quickly I went to Google.com and typed in “Stonehenge 2.”
A second later, I had my result.
Stonehenge 2 existed.
They intended to send me to Stonehenge 2!
But what
was
it?
The original Stonehenge, an ancient Druid monument located in England, is shrouded in mystery. But Stonehenge 2: The Sequel is more of an oddity than a mystery. This 92-foot diameter creation is made of hollow plaster and is accompanied by two …
My eyes darted around the site. Stonehenge 2 is a monument to a monument … but where?
And then I saw it.