Miss Maria Seetoh, a teacher of English and Literature in St. Peter’s Secondary School in Singapore, sees herself as a ‘simple soul who only wants to be a good and happy person’, and has a dream to write stories about ‘simple, ordinary people going about their daily lives’. However, God/Providence/Fate/Chance, etc. decrees otherwise. She is thrown into the tumult of a disastrous marriage that begins as strangely as it ends, a failed love affair that ‘hollows her out’, and a controversial teaching career that ends with her abrupt resignation. Most of all, she is caught in a political event as shocking in its causes as in its consequences.