190 DUNEARN ROAD

Written for the Lion City Slam, Oct 2014.
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Marylyn Tan

You have selected 190 Dunearn Road, Singapore Chinese Girls’ School as your gameplay arena. Proceed?

You are carrying:
A home econs kit because the school doesn’t offer Design & Technology;
very badly done Chinese homework &
an inflated sense of superiority about your writing.

You are wearing a jacket like all your friends
who identify as boys and are
profoundly uncomfortable in sleeveless dresses.
You enter school just as the assembly bell rings.
A random prefect spots you.

You are terrified of getting more demerit points.
You nonchalantly say, what’s up.

She says, stratosphere.
You are impressed. You discuss
the creepy geography teacher
who always looks like he has a hard-on.
She still books you for being late.
You go to assembly.

The principal is furious that a student has been seen removing her skirt while crossing the road. The principal’s inane standards of behaviour and terrible perm job cost you half your Health Points.
The defenses you have selected are:
A hatred of meddling members of the public.
Epic Eye Rolls every time she gives a speech.
Turning changing clothes in public into an art form.

You have selected to apply for the Creative Arts Programme.
You are not accepted into the Creative Arts Programme.
You misplace your sense of superiority about your writing.

You have selected to Call your math teacher Mr Tee ‘the Teeminator’ for six months until he loses his temper.
He blacklists your class.
You have selected to Fall in love.

You have levelled up.
Click to open your O Level results. Congratulations! You have done passably, but not well enough to attend Hwa Chong Institution like all of your friends. You are a failure of MOE’s bilingual curriculum.

Save Game? Please choose your save location:
a) inside the crowning glory of the drama club, a gigantic papier-mâché puppet named Charles that requires three people to control.
b) in the glaringly-obvious wet armpit stains that inevitably form on cotton sky-blue uniforms.
c) in places you rarely think about these days, between SJI and ACS.

You have saved 190 Dunearn Road.
Exit game?