Old Folks Home By Gilbert Koh All day long they lie on the straight rows of white beds or sit in the heavy-duty wheelchairs pushed out into the breezy sunshine of the gardens. Resigned to the prisons of their own failing bodies, they drift in and out of the haze of senility, half-forgetting themselves in the patient wait for death. Still the bright-eyed teenagers come, on Saturday mornings, by the busloads, sent by their schools on compulsory excursions to learn the meaning of compassion as outlined in the ECA syllabus. They bring gifts of Khong Guan biscuits, they help to mow the lawns, they clap their hands performing happy songs and valiantly they attempt the old dialects trying to communicate. Later they will clamber noisily back up the departing school buses, and next week in class they will write startlingly similar essays on what a meaningful, memorable experience they had at the old folks' home last week.
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