I hold my breath before chopping the head off. At least its—her—beady eyes stayed shut the entire ordeal. It must be a ‘her’. Eat the eyes for perfect vision, eat intestines for a good gut, eat a female to be a better woman.

My little woman, Poppy, has been having a little trouble with the lady in red of late. First of all, she’s a full-blown teenager, so she’s irregular everything. Irregular mood, irregular likes and dislikes, now irregular period cycle. God knows I’ve been irregular into my adulthood myself—stress or whatever. I don’t understand how anybody in this century can be unstressed.

What’s more pressing is the way her body reacts to this monthly—well, almost—phenomenon. Fainting spells, keeling over, purple lips. The doctors have scanned everything they could and probed wherever possible, and all we got after spending $1,200 was advice to “just keep monitoring”. Bloody useless. Hopefully, this chicken remedy will be more effective than those male gynaecologists.

• Tags: fiction, Issue 41, Justina Lim, Singapore