Chapter 53

CHAPTER 26 — BOOK III

 

Continuity

 

They did not talk about illness there.

 

They did not need to.

 

The change of place did not erase what had happened, but it widened it, placing recovery alongside movement and scale. Life, they learned again, continued regardless of what it had interrupted.

 

When treatment shifted to outpatient care, life narrowed again.

 

At the Kinghorn Cancer Centre, days were organised around appointments rather than admissions. Embong learned when to arrive, where to wait, how long he could expect to feel steady afterward. The routines were quieter, less consuming, but they required a different kind of discipline.

 

Kinghorn allowed air.

 

Glass doors opened onto a sheltered patio where benches were arranged to catch light rather than avoid it. It was understood—without signage—that some days patients needed space from enclosed rooms, from recycled air, from the accumulation of other people’s fatigue.

 

One afternoon, a complaint travelled softly down the corridor. Not anger—just discomfort. The smell of steamed fish had begun to linger, warm and insistent, in a space already crowded with nausea and thinning patience.

 

The nurse handled it without embarrassment.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she said kindly, her voice low. “Some of our patients are very sensitive to smells today. Would you mind taking that outside? We have seating on the patio.”

 

Embong glanced down at the container in front of him. He had only just started.

 

“Yeah,” he said easily. “Of course.”

 

There was no reprimand in it. No urgency. Just practical care.

 

He closed the lid and stood without fuss. The smell thinned almost immediately.

 

Later, when it was time to eat properly, Geoffrey looked into the paper bag and smiled faintly.

 

“Sandwiches,” he said.

 

Embong nodded. “Figures.”

 

They took those outside anyway.

 

The patio was quiet—two other patients spaced far enough apart to share air without conversation. Embong sat with his back against the wall, eyes half-closed, letting the breeze move across his face. The sandwich tasted like nothing in particular. Bread. Filling. Enough.

 

“It’s better out here,” Embong said.

 

“It is,” Geoffrey agreed.

 

Beyond the railing, the city continued—cars, voices, people moving without regard for platelet counts or appointment times. Embong did not resent it. He found it grounding.

 

When it was time to go back inside, he stood without hurry. The doors slid open. The controlled air returned.

 

But the outside stayed with him.

 

By then, those visits became less frequent.

 

There were no more infusions, no bays, no hours shaped around waiting. Treatment folded itself inward, becoming smaller, quieter. Embong took the oral medication prescribed by Dr Fang each morning without ceremony and returned to the centre only for monthly check-ups and follow-up appointments—consultations that felt less like intervention and more like confirmation.

 

Kinghorn remained part of the story.

 

It simply no longer narrated his days.

 

Singapore — Grand Hyatt Singapore, Club Lounge

 

They were in Singapore for different reasons. Delima, Geoffrey, Hijau, and Lachlan moved through the city at an unhurried pace—shops, shaded walkways, places chosen more for ease than intention. Awan, meanwhile, attended to business that required his presence but not their participation. They reconvened without effort at midday and again in the evening, meals serving less as events than as anchors—points where the day gathered itself before continuing.

 

The Club Lounge was hushed in the way only hotels managed—voices lowered not out of secrecy, but courtesy. Afternoon light slanted through the windows, softening the edges of polished surfaces and making time feel optional.

 

Embong sat back in his chair, legs stretched just enough to be comfortable, not enough to draw attention. On the low table in front of him sat a neat arrangement: a glass, a can, a bottle. Condensation gathered slowly, deliberately, as if even the drinks were unhurried.

 

He stared at them longer than necessary.

 

Then he smiled.

 

He reached for his phone and took a photo—nothing artistic, nothing staged. Just the drinks, lined up like old acquaintances pretending they hadn’t noticed the absence.

 

He typed the caption with his thumb, paused once, then posted.

 

Missed you guys.
Apparently I wasn’t “allowed” for a while.
Recovery era is cruel.

 

He set the phone down, face-up, and leaned back.

 

The notifications came quickly. Laughing emojis. Hearts. A comment asking whether he was actually drinking them or just paying a courtesy call.

 

Then one reply expanded the screen more than the others.

 

From his cousin.

 

A few years older than Hijau. Usually loud. Usually funny. The kind who filled silences without trying.

 

This time, the message was longer. Careful.

 

Bro, you know soft drinks aren’t good for you right?
Especially now.
That aspartame, the artificial sweeteners—chemical stuff like that—it’s really not great for your system.
Last thing you want is to get sick again.
Just looking out for you.

 

Embong read it once.

 

Then again.

 

He didn’t bristle. He didn’t sigh.

 

He just felt the familiar weight of someone else still standing guard over a battle that had already moved on.

 

He typed a reply. Deleted it. Typed again.

 

Finally, he posted:

 

Relax.
This is a photo, not a lifestyle pivot.
I’m not switching careers to cola.
Just saying hi to an old friend.

 

A moment passed.

 

Then, because humour still mattered, he added:

 

Also I survived chemo.
I think I can negotiate with one suspicious can.

 

The reactions came in waves—laughing faces, thumbs-up, a quick fair enough from the cousin that read like relief more than surrender.

 

Embong locked his phone and turned it face-down.

 

He picked up the glass and took a sip.

 

The taste was… ordinary. Flat in a way memory had exaggerated. Not disappointing. Not transcendent.

 

Just normal.

 

He set it back down after a few mouthfuls.

 

Across from him, Geoffrey glanced up from his laptop.

 

“Did you just start a medical debate in the Club Lounge?”

 

Embong nodded solemnly. “I’m apparently living on the edge.”

 

Geoffrey looked at the untouched half of the drink, then back at him. “Reckless.”

 

“Wild,” Embong agreed.

 

Geoffrey returned to his screen, a faint smile lingering longer than necessary.

 

The bottle stayed where it was.

 

Half full. Half untouched.

 

Outside the windows, Orchard Road moved on—cars, people, a city with no awareness of what had been negotiated over a glass and a phone.

 

Embong leaned back, hands resting loosely in his lap.

 

Continuity, he had learned, wasn’t about proving you were fine.

 

It was about choosing when you didn’t need to prove anything at all.

 

They did not mark the change.

 

There was no announcement, no moment that felt like an ending. Life simply adjusted its expectations of him, and he adjusted with it.

 

By then, there were no more infusions. No bays. No hours shaped around waiting rooms or names being called. Treatment narrowed into tablets taken quietly each morning and follow-up appointments entered into a calendar without ceremony. Dr Fang’s visits became checkpoints rather than milestones—measured, reassuring, finite.

 

The centre remained part of the map, but no longer the terrain.

 

What replaced it was responsibility of a different kind. Listening without anxiety. Resting without apology. Learning the difference between caution and fear.

 

Some days still arrived heavy. Some nights required more sleep than he wanted to admit. But the weight no longer carried urgency. It was manageable. Familiar.

 

Geoffrey noticed the shift before Embong did.

 

There were fewer glances, fewer pauses that waited for permission. They moved again in parallel rather than in watchfulness—together, but not braced.

 

One evening, as they stood at the window watching the city settle into itself, Geoffrey said, not looking at him, “You seem… steady.”

 

Embong considered this.

 

“I think I am,” he said.

 

They did not talk about what that meant.

 

They didn’t need to.

 

Returning, Embong understood, did not mean going back.
It meant re-entering life without pretending nothing had changed.

 

By then, there were no more infusions. The weeks once shaped by treatment narrowed into tablets taken quietly each morning and appointments entered into a calendar without ceremony—until even those became routine.

 

It wasn’t an ending.

 

It was permission.

 

By the time the weeks settled into something recognisable, life no longer felt provisional.

 

It felt present.

 

And that, he realised, was enough.

 

<< Back to Chapter 25 || CHAPTER 26 || Continue to Chapter 27 >>

 

Copyright © 2026 All rights reserved.  Omar Onn