The Hours

“Have you ever wondered what it’s all about about, Alfie?”

            I looked up from ‘A Clash of Kings’ and looked at Saffy. Then I looked around the MRT train to City Hall. Everyone was either on a phone or staring vacantly into space.

            “Who are you talking to?” I asked, eventually.

            Saffy’s bosom inflated, straining the thin fabric of her bright orange tee. “You! I’m talking to you!”

            “Well, my name is not Alfie,” I told her.

            “I’m just quoting a song!”

            “Oh.” I went back to reading my book. From long and bitter experience, I’ve learnt it’s never wise to actually continue any conversation with Saffy. Like an episode of ‘The Walking Dead’, you never know where it’s going to lead.

            Saffy could tell she didn’t have my full attention, so she tried a different tack. “That’s a very thick book you’re reading. What’s it about?”

            “It’s volume two of ‘Game of Thrones’,” I mumbled.

            “Is it any good?”

            I sighed and put the book down on my lap and turned to Saffy. “OK, what’s bothering you?”

            “Well, since you asked,” Saffy said, enormously pleased that she finally had my attention. She shifted on her seat. “I’ve been thinking lately, is this it?”

            “What’s it?”

            “This!” Saffy waved her hands vaguely around the train. “In twenty years, is this going to be still us, on a train to City Hall? Will everything still be the same?”

            I shuddered involuntarily. “I sure hope not!”

            “Well, from where I’m sitting, it sure looks that way! I mean, what exactly are we doing to change things, to make sure that things will be different?”

            As philosophical questions go, this was a doozy. I stared up at the ceiling of the train and thought hard. Every day, for years, we’d gotten onto the same train and made the same journey to the same office, to sit at the same desk next to the same people, and do the same thing. Every day. For years. No change, except perhaps my outfit and shoes. Now that I thought about it, it was actually quite possible that we’d been sitting in the same seats on the same train the whole time.

            So, really, maybe Saffy was right after all. What’s it all about, Alfie? Was this to be the pattern of our lives till the day we retired, or worse, suddenly dropped dead from heart attack?

            “We’d be lucky if we died from a heart attack!” Saffy said, later that day over lunch at Maxwell Market. “What if we had a stroke and just, well, lingered?”

            “Choy!” Sharyn said, waving her hands. “Aiyoh, why you must always talk like this when I’m eating, one?”

            “It’s funny you bring this up,” Amanda said, as she delicately speared a cucumber from her rojak. “I’ve just started reading this book called ‘The Four Hour Work Week’ and it’s completely paradigm shifting!”

            “Hah? Shift what?” Sharyn asked.

            Amanda ignored the interruption. “I’ve just read the introduction, but basically, this Tim Ferris guy says you can be a highly successful person with a fabulous life by working just four hours a week!”

            Saffy’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Four hours? How?”

            “Well, I think it’s basically being really strategic about what you want in life and taking lots of mini-vacations during the year.”

            Saffy looked at Sharyn who was staring goggle-eyed at Amanda. Her eyes darted toward me, and then back to Amanda.

            “I may be completely off base here,” she said slowly, “but isn’t that what’s known as, well, unemployment?”

            “That’s what I thought, too, but then he starts talking about automating the routine stuff in your life, or outsourcing them to virtual assistants in Chennai, and streamlining all the rest like your emails, so you don’t drown in paperwork! I know it’s counter-intuitive, but it’s a very attractive idea, don’t you think? Spend just four hours a week at work, and spend the rest of the week doing the things you love!”
            “Actually, hor,” Sharyn piped up, “I always so busy, you give me the whole week free, I tink I doan know what to do, ah! Confirm I get bored, one!”

            “Oh my God, are you mad? I’d be so happy to be bored!” Saffy said. “My life is one long episode of stress from the moment I wake up to the moment I go home! I want to read the book when you’re done!”

            Although, Saffy now wonders if she could outsource actually reading the book to someone else.