The View Is Expensive, The Silence Is Free
My name is Daniel. I am from Barcelona. If you ask my mother, she will tell you I made it.
On Sundays, I call home from my balcony in Simei. The MRT runs behind the block every few minutes, a low metallic rush cutting through the humid air. I have learned to pause when it passes.
“Dime, Danielito, cómo va todo? Is Singapore as good as they say?” she asks.
I look at the rows of identical windows, each one lit like a small life I am not part of.
“Sí, mamá. Todo bien.”
It is always todo bien.
In the beginning, I used to convert the money to euros, just to feel the weight of it. Now I don't.
On Friday nights, I go out. Holland Village, Robertson Quay, sometimes Tanjong Pagar. I stand where people stand. Order what they order. Stay long enough.
At 10:47 p.m., I check my phone.
I scroll past “Papa.” Past “Miguel.” My thumb slows on “Jordi.” We used to talk about nothing for hours. Now I calculate the time difference without thinking.
They are asleep.
I lock the screen.
Around me, glasses touch. Someone laughs too loudly. A group leans in for a photo. I shift half a step back without meaning to.
No one notices.
Sometimes I go to the hawker center near my block. I try to order kopi the right way. “Kopi o kosong,” I say, careful with the words.
The auntie looks at me for half a second, then repeats it louder, faster.
“Kopi o kosong!”
Her hands are already moving. The next customer steps forward before I have finished paying. Coins slide across the counter. A cup appears. The line keeps going.
I almost say thank you, but no one else does.
I take the cup and step aside.
I sit and watch.
People arrive in groups that don’t need to look for each other. They sit, talk, laugh, leave, as if the place has always been theirs. The conversations move quickly, slipping between English and something else I can follow, but not join.
I understand most of the words.
That’s not the problem.
At the supermarket, I stand holding a block of Manchego. I think of my father slicing it onto a wooden board, the oil on his fingers. I look at the price tag—twenty-two dollars—and I do the math. I put it back. My hands feel empty.
Later, I go home.
The condo is quiet. The kind of quiet that feels expensive.
I open a Tiger beer and step onto the balcony. The air is thick, carrying the faint smell of rain that hasn’t arrived yet.
Below, the MRT slides past again, steady, going somewhere.
I lean on the railing and look out.
For a moment, I think about telling her. I want to tell her that I am a ghost in a beautiful apartment. “Mamá, me siento solo,” I whisper to the empty balcony.
But the MRT rushes past, drowning me out.
When the phone rings on Sunday, I answer.
“Hola, mamá.”
A pause.
“Sí. Todo bien.”
