These ancestors come in the form of Javan mynahs; amid residual fumes of incinerated paper, they hop around the seventh-month offerings, pecking at oranges, fa gao, and peng kueh. The pineapples, rare as they may be, the mynahs leave behind as a lucky score for the foraging freegans.
The heftier mynahs perch on the branches of nearby trees, serving as sentinels overlooking the avian avarice, standing guard for any living soul coming too close. If they had mouths to gorge, gobble, and guzzle, they would have. But the gods made these ancestors in the shape of mynahs with narrow yellow beaks, so their hunger could only be sated through pecks, nibbles, and nips, in small mouthfuls that dammed up all the desire inside.
Last year was the Dragon year, so a feast had been set out—Saizeriya pasta, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Koi bubble tea, fermenting in the August heat. But this year is the Snake year, which no one living cares as much about. Here and there, paltry pickings of oranges and fa gao are placed. The ancestors twitter and jabber, as loud as the masses of glossy starlings in the streets of Orchard, and fight over who should get their share of kueh and fruit. Even the sentinels hop uneasily in their posts, anxious about the remaining scraps after their shift.
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