Myle Yan Tay

Ram has been ignored and dismissed his entire life. His parents patronise him, his older brother belittles him, his class pretends he doesn’t exist, and he is certain he will fail his impending A-Levels. The only good part of his life is Kass, a fellow outsider he has known since childhood. But when the bruises on Kass from her abusive father get worse and worse, Ram decides to don a mask and frighten him into changing his ways. After his scare tactic goes fatally wrong, the mask he wore calls out to him again to clean the city's filth.

Neo-noir thriller meets coming-of-age mystery, catskull explores the violence inherent in an unforgiving city and what it does to the people who inhabit it. It complicates questions of what is right, what is lawful, and who pays the price in the quest for justice.

Catskull

Kass hates my music. She doesn't understand why I always listen to things without words.

They always say I am just like him. But I don't know who he was.

I never understood why her parents gave her such a cursed name. I would rather be stupid and heard, than wise and ignored.

One day, my parents would bury me like this cat, my bones melting into earth. Nothing I would do between then and now would make a difference. I was simply waiting to rot.

I stare at my empty sheet of paper and see my future.

I never understood the term. Mugging. Meaning to study hard, to bury oneself in a book. I think of a brute, in a back alley, with a knife in hand, demanding your wallet. Not someone three Red Bulls in, trying to cram the last two years of facts into a single A4 page. It is how we are measured, how much we mug.

So I mug, to be worth more. But most days, I only pretend.

To describe her as a sister is not even enough. She is not just my other half. She is the empty vase into which I am poured to take shape.

They told me it gets better but I think of my exams and I look at the letter and I imagine the future beyond that and I struggle to see myself living that long, knowing it will only get worse.

Sometimes I wonder if I have died, and everyone forgot to tell me.

But I pull out the blank paper, my past distilled to secure my future.

Catskull quotes

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