Totems
Catherine Torres
THE MORNING I saw him, I was moseying along the river, that length of the Singapore River I liked most because it reminded me of Europe. Not that I had ever set foot in Europe, but I had seen enough movies set there to know how different it was from where I came from.
His marker stood on a carpet of grass, one side facing the Fullerton Hotel, the other, a museum of Asian civilization or something. It was taller than me by a few inches, and as wide if I stood with my arms on my side. It was made of a flat, rectangular stone panel with an inscription on one side, his photograph gazing dreamily at the water, while on the other side was a brass plate embossed with his profile. Verdigris flecked his hair, ears and collar, like bluish-green dandruff, the oxygen he once
