Cleaner

The MediaCorp Subaru Impreza WRX challenge is back with a vengeance (in fact, it always has been for the past eight years since 2002), offering contestants the opportunity to pit their endurance and stamina against competitors from all over the world and win the grand prize of not only a Subaru Impreza WRX sedan, but also bragging rights, personal glory, bragging rights, a place in the Singaporean book of records, and bragging rights.

The actual competition process is simple enough – all participants have to do is place their right hands on the car of their choice and leave them there while praying like mad to God that their grip doesn’t falter. The slightest lifting of a finger, if viewed by one of the scores of patrolling marshals, can be grounds for disqualification.

The contestant that can keep his or her hands plastered on the surface of their chosen cars for the longest wins the coveted sedan (and, of course, bragging rights!) – the catch is that the competition goes on for hours and hours with only a five minute break every six hours for participants to get something to eat, relieve themselves or just stretch their tired hands and legs.

Of course, a sufficiently agile (or creative) individual could somehow manage to attend to all these needs at the same time. The question is, of course, how agile (or creative) one can remain after fifty, sixty, seventy hours of mind-numbing competition.

Thomas and Aaron, both fit and energetic testosterone-charged individuals and close friends since childhood, are two out of the hundreds of contestants taking part in the 2010 edition of this competition that has shown over the years as a wrecker of the will, a destroyer of relationships, and (in almost every case) a show of the tantalizing power of material greed.

As both friends stand beside each other hour after hour in a grotesque imitation of Rodin’s Thinker, we can only imagine what goes on through their minds.

One hour.

“Aaron.”

Aaron turns to hear Thomas speak.

“You know how we have to hold our right hands on the cars?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I dreamt about my right hand last night.”

Aaron laughs.

“Sounds kinky."

“No, I’m serious. I dreamt that I had some sort of special powers, like whatever I touched with my right hand would disappear and appear in my left hand.”

“Like the car you’re touching right now, it would move to your left hand?”

“Exactly.”

“So what happened? That doesn’t sound like a very exciting superpower.”

“Anyway, I was on the run from the military that had found out about my abilities. I found myself running to an apartment block and going to the top floor. Then I knew that the only choice I had was to jump.”

“So, like in every television drama, you jumped.”

“Yeah. I jumped out off the roof. But just as I was about to hit the ground, I found myself stretching out my right arm, so that my right hand would touch the ground first.”

“Whoa. And the ground disappeared and appeared at your left hand? That’s some twisted dream, man.”

“No. That’s when I woke up.”

Six hours.

In the first few hours of the competition each participant has created for himself or herself a list of tasks to do during the first five-minute break, ordering according to urgency and priority. So when the signal is finally given the hundreds of contestants disperse in different directions, choosing to eat, drink, get a smoke, or (for the few that sadly have no clue as to how little time they have) to text-message.

Thomas finds Aaron again in a queue outside one of a dozen outdoor toilets.

“Shit, Aaron. You would have thought that with the number of participants they had, they would at least bother to set up a few more toilets.”

“I’m just thinking about how gross these cubicles would be by the time the sixth or seventh break comes around.

“All clogged up with shit and piss and pimple-pus.”

“And sanitary pads.”

Thomas laughs.

“Now that’s just sick.”

“I think the toilets will be full of them even now. I just hope they clean them between breaks.”

“There’s this public toilet in the coffee-shop near where I live that’s home to a crazy janitor.”

“Crazy janitor?”

“Yeah. Every time I’ve been there he’s stuck in the toilet the whole time, cleaning it like mad and not letting anyone walk in to spoil his work.”

“That’s not crazy.”

“No, it is. He’s literally in there every minute of every hour that the coffee-shop is open, cleaning it over and over again and not letting anyone go in to take a piss. Even the people that work there tell me that the only way they can relieve themselves is to wait until he comes out of the toilet for his lunch or to get a drink. And even then they have to be all stealthy and secretive about it. He’s insane.”

“Sick! I won’t be able to live with that if I were you.”

Fourteen hours.

“Aaron. Tell me a story, man. I’m really bored.”

“I can’t think of anything – I think I’m going to fall asleep. It must be three or four in the morning already.”

“Just tell me something interesting. Something that will keep the both of us awake.”

“I’m serious. I can’t think when I’m sleepy.”

“Mmmph. Forget it.”

“Okay. Did I tell you that my mum had four miscarriages between giving birth to me and giving birth to my sister?”

“Shit?”

“It’s true. That’s why –”

“Wait. I think I’m going to throw up.”

Twenty-three hours.

Thomas fiddles with his phone four minutes into his five-minute break, the packet of food beside him untouched.

“That’s interesting.”

Aaron turns.

“What?”

“Look, the calendar application in my phone has this function where you can put in your birthday and see how old you’ll be ten, twenty years from now by scrolling to whatever year you want to look at. See? In 2034 I'll be fifty-five.”

“Gosh, Thomas. And I thought you were coping well with the competition. You’re going all nonsensical.”

“And look what happens when I scroll to a date really far back in the past – say, 1970. Look! My birthday doesn’t appear.”

“You’re going crazy.”

Twenty-eight hours.

Aaron.

“Honestly I don’t know why I’m still doing this shit. It’s been, what, thirty hours already? Thirty hours without a proper meal and a proper time to piss and whatever.”

Thomas.

“Well I sure know why I’m doing this.”

“Why.”

“I need a bloody car. Last week when I was sleeping on the train on the way home from work, some bitch woke me up and asked me why I didn’t give up my seat to the elderly couple standing nearby. I mean – I was sleeping, damn it! I need a bloody car, if only to get away from these people.”

“Uh-huh.”

"Come on, I need to win this!"

"Go you."

Even later.

“I’m tired, Aaron. I’m so, so tired.”

“How about your dream of owning a car?”

“Screw my dream.”

Thomas drops out after thirty-four hours, and Aaron after thirty-seven.

The competition is finally won by a relatively unknown Chinese man in a little less than eighty hours.