I didn’t see her again until nearly three months later. Our grand plan for the Malaysia trip had been postpone something had happened, though she didn’t want to elaborate. She looked a little thinner, a little quieter, but she brushed it off with her usual half-smile.
We met by chance at Bedok Interchange and decided to have dinner at the nearby hawker centre. It was crowded, the air thick with the smell of fried kway teow and satay smoke, but somehow the noise gave us a sense of privacy.
Over plates of nasi goreng and kopi, we went through the plans in detail. Nurhayati had officially withdrawn no leave, she said. Her wedding was coming up and every day she had was being saved for the big event. “Maybe next time,” she promised, though we all knew how that usually went.
Junita and Cheng Mun, though, were still in. “We’ll go along with whatever you two decide,” they said, easy-going as always.
“We’ll all meet at Rochor Road, where the Johor–Singapore bus and taxis are,” she explained, pulling out a small notepad she’d scribbled on. “From there, we’ll head to JB, then another taxi to Senai Airport. We can collect our tickets there. I just got a call from my friend in Pengerang he’ll have the guest house ready for us. Said we can stay as long as we want, free of charge. Of course, I told him no free business. We’ll pay our share, and he finally agreed. He promised to make our stay memorable. And you know what? He says Pengerang is very popular with cyclists.”
The word lit me up instantly. “Cycling? Ah, fantastic! I love to cycle, especially in places like that.” Just imagining the open coastal roads, the salty breeze, the kampong scenery unfolding at the pace of a pedal made me grin. “Do they have kiosks there where we can rent?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Yes, that’s what I heard. Nothing fancy, but enough to take us exploring.”
For a moment, the fatigue of the last few months lifted. Plans were forming again, and with them, that quiet excitement of stepping out of Singapore, of discovery waiting just across the water.
“Yeap… this guy said not to worry he’s got plenty of mountain bikes for us.”
“Lovely,” I grinned. “I’m really looking forward to this trip.”
After dinner, I’d planned to head over to Bedok Library to pick up a few books, but she changed my mind when she said she wanted to stop by the stadium instead.
“At this hour? It’s almost eight. Who would even be at the stadium now?” I asked.
“Exactly,” she replied with a faint smile. “Nobody. It’s the most peaceful place just to sit around, do nothing, and gaze at the stars. No one will disturb you there.”
That piqued my curiosity. Something in her tone, the way she said it, made it sound like more than just stargazing. I decided to try my luck.
“Would you mind if I join you?” She hesitated for half a breath, then nodded.
“Well, I guess it should be okay.”
So we walked. It was about thirty minutes from Bedok Interchange to the stadium. The night air was humid but gentle, the streets quieter now, footsteps echoing in rhythm.
Somewhere along the way she turned to me.
“How’s Suresh?” she asked softly. “He should be back in a few months’ time, right?”
“Yeah… three months to be exact,” I said. Then I tilted my head at her. “He still contacts you?”
She smiled faintly, as though recalling something private. “I got a postcard from him last month. Just the usual message: Thank you”
“Thank you?” I echoed, puzzled.“For bringing you both back together again,” she said simply. “I don’t think I had any part in it, but every anniversary I get a card like that from him. Always the same two words: Thank you.”
She paused, eyes lifting toward the night sky. “He really adores you, you know that.”
I remained silent. Until now I hadn’t spoken to anyone about my relationship with Suresh not even to my family. But with her, it felt different. Suresh was right: she was the one who brought us together in the first place, and somehow again after that. I often wondered how she knew what had happened between us.
I never told anyone about that day, except my ward nursing officers. Hostility was something I had grown used to. My father’s friends and their sons made their disapproval clear enough, but it was worse among some of the Malay nurses in my ward.
One evening, after seeing me with Suresh, one of them confronted me outright, demanding to know how “serious” we were. I brushed it off. It was my life. Why should I let myself be intimidated by their opposition?
But the whispers never stopped. One night, over dinner in the staff room, a senior Malay nurse finally asked the question out loud: “I heard you’re going out with an Indian guy. Is he going to convert?”
The room went quiet. I could feel eyes on me, waiting for my reaction. I kept my tone calm, refusing to let their judgment provoke me.
“He is a good friend who has helped me with my studies when many of my own Malay friends mocked me and made my life difficult. I’m simply helping him in return. Is that wrong? Why does it suddenly become a problem? Must he be a convert just so I can repay his kindness?”
“Oh, no, we were just curious, that’s all. After all… what’s wrong with Malay guys? Surely we’re not short of them,” she replied, trying to cover her embarrassment.
I smiled faintly, but my voice was steady. “I have no problem with Malay guys. Yes, there are plenty of them. But let me tell you my situation. This so-called ‘ugly Indian,’ as you all call him, because his skin is so dark I remember the nickname too, "intan terpilih, right?”
I paused, watching their faces. “Well, that intan terpilih was the one who stood by me when I was struggling with my studies.”
Their eyes flickered, but I pressed on. “And what did the Malay guys do? They told me not to bother. ‘Why study so high? Waste of time. In the end you’ll be a homemaker. Homemakers don’t need education.’ That was their motivation.”
I leaned back slightly, letting the weight of the words sink in. “Meanwhile, this so-called ‘intan terpilih’ told me: ‘Don’t drop out. Complete your studies. Tell me what you need books, notes I’ll ask my officers in camp and get them for you.’ Now tell me who truly believed in me? Do you see the difference?”
Not long after, another staff asked me the same question. My answer didn’t change.
“I am a staff in this ward,” I told her evenly. “I do my part as part of this team. But what I do outside my personal life is mine alone. I don’t want anyone interfering in it.”
The message spread quickly enough. After that, they left me alone. The invitations stopped no more Malay staff weddings, no Hari Raya gatherings. And that was fine by me. I had never depended on them for my happiness.In the ward, I found myself aligning more with the Chinese nurses. Not because they were Chinese, but because they were tolerant, less of busybodies. They didn’t probe into my private life.
As long as I carried my weight at work, they cared little about what I did outside. It was simpler that way.
As for the health attendants the ward Amahs, as we usually called them they were the easiest group to get along with. Most were Indian, a few Malay, and we maintained cordial ties across the board.
It was practical as much as anything: I needed them to handle dispatches and the endless non-nursing chores, and they needed me to cover for them when they strolled in late. It was a symbiosis, and it worked.
After all, I was one of the “Gang of Four” a nickname the student nurses gave us. You didn’t mess with the Gang of Four. The students and even the housemen learned that quickly. If you wanted your posting in our ward to pass without drama, you’d better be on our good side. We weren’t malicious, but we had clout. Having spent longer in the ward than most staff nurses, we held more sway with the nursing officers than anyone realized.
“He called me one evening, so sad. He told me everything… I just listened. I promised him I’d try to reach you. But before I could, your wedding invitation arrived.”
“I had no choice. I did warn him about my parents, but he laughed it off, always treating it lightly. I was serious. I was waiting for a commitment, but all I got were jokes. I was hurt, so I ran. I realized then… I must have been nothing more than a joke to him.”
“You were never a joke. He really cared for you. But you didn’t give him the chance to explain. You just shut him out.”
“What else could I do? When I got back, my parents were waiting and Sharil’s mother too. They pressed for an answer right there and then. And my father… he reminded me of the promise he had made with Sharil’s late father, that our families would be joined. That marriage would seal it.”
“Oh…”
“I couldn’t bear to hurt my father. He has always trusted me, never restricted my movements, always let me make my own choices. How could I betray that trust? So I said yes. I told them I would go along with whatever they planned.”
“I had a strange dream that night,” she began softly. “Suddenly, I was back in Pangkor Island. You and Suresh were on a fish trawler… waving at me. Both of you looked so happy, so radiant. When I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t shake it off. It felt more like a sign than a dream.”
She paused, her eyes narrowing as if reliving it. “I looked at your wedding card again. Exactly two weeks before the date. And I thought to myself why them? Why am I seeing you and Suresh together, not you and Sharil?”
I leaned in, hardly breathing.“That’s when I realized,” she continued, her voice firm now, “I hadn’t spoken to your mother in a long while. So I called her. She was crying on the phone. After that, I reached out to your sister because I knew she would know where you were. And then, it just seemed inevitable… I had to call Suresh.”
My heart clenched. “What did you tell him?”
She gave a faint smile. “When I finally got through, he was in camp, at the medical center. His first reaction was shock. He went silent… frozen. He didn’t know what to do. He was terrified you wouldn’t want to see him again.”
She leaned closer, her gaze steady, piercing. “So he asked me ‘What should I do?’”
I swallowed, whispering: “And what you said?”
Her smile widened, but her tone was resolute, almost commanding.
“I told him, Suresh… I have only two words for you: Find her!.”
It was almost 8:30 p.m. when we reached the stadium. The gates were shut, the whole place deserted.
“How are we going to get in?” I asked.
“Climb over the gate, lah!” she replied without hesitation "Let me show you how"
In one swift move, she was over and on the other side. I hesitated only a second before following.
“You see? Not that difficult,” she said with a grin. “Nobody will disturb us here.”
“Do you do this all the time? Gosh… I never imagined myself doing something like this. I hope we don’t get caught.”
“Caught by who? It’s not illegal. The signboard doesn’t say we can’t enter after 8 p.m. We’re just going to sit quietly and enjoy the night. That’s no crime, right? Look up there—full moon. Isn’t she a beauty?”
We climbed to the very top of the spectator seats. She sat cross-legged, silent, staring at the track below as though something invisible lingered there.
I broke the silence.“You come here often?”
“I used to run here at night,” she said. “Then I got tired. I can’t stand going in circles it drives me nuts. In the day, I’d run one lap, then head out toward East Coast and back here again. This was always my starting point… and my ending point.”
“Where did you get all that stamina to run such a distance?” I asked, half in awe.
She turned the question back on me. “Well, you swim. Where do you get the strength to swim thirty laps?”
I smiled faintly. “I guess we all do it for our own reasons. When I swim, I forget about everything. Even if it’s just for a moment… it feels good to be lost. Just me, in my own world.”
She nodded. “Same with running. Maybe that’s why they say long-distance runners are loners. It’s your own world. And nobody can take it away from you.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Fire away” she replied
“Who and what are you running away from”
She went silent for a while then replied "not sure…maybe from myself,” she answered softly. Then her voice wavered, gentler than usual.
“I heard about your mother. The girls in Tan Tock Seng Emergency told me about it. It was a shock to me”
I didn’t know what else to say. I went to the funeral, but she never spoke a word. She remained silent, her face a mask, even when her mother was carried away for burial. No tears, not even then. Her three brothers were there. One was still missing, and she was the only daughter in sight. The other two lived abroad one in Brunei, the other in the USA and they could not return in time. She stood alone, as though the weight of the family’s grief had been placed squarely on her shoulders.
“The Nursing Officer at A&E was very kind,” she murmured. “She told me normally they don’t keep a body there long. But since I’m a nurse myself, and because so many of them knew me, they waited until I arrived.”
She stopped, then added in a whisper, “My mother used to say, ‘I will end up dying alone one day, no one at home with me.’ I never took her seriously. And now… I wish I had been more patient. More attentive.”
A month after our meeting at Compass Ross and after her mother’s funeral, I had spoken to her over the phone to catch up, wanting to know how is she coping. Normally she kept family matters locked away, but that evening she let a little slip. She was angry — calling some people hypocrites, jerks, worse. I simply listened.
Suddenly she gave a strangled cry. “Damn it! Why can’t I get over it? Damn!” Her voice cracked, and tears spilled down her cheeks. She pressed her hands to her face as if she could block it all out.
To me, she had always been the picture of control. Angry, yes sharp words, flaring temper, I’d seen that many times. But tears? Never. Not like this. The only other times I’d heard her cry were in her sleep, back in our hostel days at Toa Payoh and later at the School of Nursing.
I never woke her, never asked. I’d just sit quietly, waiting until her sobs faded. Once, I tried to ask her about her dreams, but she brushed it aside. I learned not to press. Some things are better left untouched. Even then, I had a nagging sense those cries were hers — echoing from the fifth floor of the hostel.
"Sometimes these things just happen,” I said softly. “You can never really know… especially death.”
I had met her mother before a few times, when she came looking for her at the hostel. A fragile, restless woman with sharp eyes.
“I was so tired that morning,” she whispered. “Coming home from work. Two deaths in one night on the ward. How can anyone take that? I only wanted to sleep. But she was there cranky, agitated, accusing. Depressed, neurotic. She said horrible things about my father, and then… about me. Things I never thought I’d hear from her.” She paused, swallowing hard.
“I tried to stay patient, I really did. But I was exhausted. Hurt. I snapped. We argued. I went to bed angry. And she went out… to Johor, to see my second brother. That was the last time I saw her alive.”
“Ouch,” I murmured, because what else could I say?
“I got up at 5 p.m., changed, and went to the British Council to catch up on the latest Nursing Journals. Reported for work just before 9. Then the call came. My father’s voice, flat and heavy: ‘Come to Tan Tock Seng immediately. It’s about your mother… she’s dead.’It was a Saturday night in Orchard Road. I tried to flag a taxi, but none would stop. I ran to Far East Plaza the queue at the stand was already long. I sprinted to the next stand, but the line there was even longer. Breathless, I stumbled back to the Plaza and stood at the end of the queue, crying uncontrollably, still in my uniform.
A passerby, a Caucasian man, stopped when he saw me. I told him. Without hesitation, he took my hand, led me to the front of the line, and announced to the waiting crowd: ‘This nurse has just been told her mother passed away. The next taxi goes to her. Does anyone have a problem with that?’Nobody objected.
When I finally reached Tan Tock Seng, I went straight to the Brought-In-Dead room. My two brothers and my father were already there, waiting. The police inspector was waiting too.I did what I had to do briefed him on my mother’s medical history, handed over her appointment cards and the medications she always carried in her bag.
He studied them, then looked at me. ‘You’re a registered nurse, aren’t you? Then you know the legalities. All BID cases are police cases, and all police cases require post-mortem.’I nodded. I knew. But he was kind. Sympathetic.
He said, ‘If you can get her private physician to certify, we can release the body to you.’ I tried called the doctor, again and again but she was out of town.
In the end, I had to make the hardest choice: to leave my mother’s body at the mortuary.”
“Come back tomorrow morning,” the inspector told me. “Bring her X-rays, referral letters, her medications. We’ll appeal to the coroner for no post-mortem.”
My second brother never forgave me for that. “How could you leave our mother in the mortuary?” he spat. But what choice did I have, Nithya? What good would a quarrel with the inspector have done? It would not bring her back. It would only bring more shame to us.
She paused, her voice low, then tightened as though gripping something sharp inside. “And still… every night, I sit here replaying it. Her words. Asking myself why? Why did she say those things to me?”
Her eyes lifted to mine, and the hardness there startled me.
“She called me a whore, Nithya. My own mother. Said I kept young boys for my pleasure. Filthy, degrading things I never thought I’d hear from her lips. From any mother’s lips.”
I didn’t know what to say. My breath caught even the cicadas outside the stadium seemed to still. She had always struck me as unshakable controlled, confident, sharp as a blade.
But now, the mask slipped. Her voice cracked on the word whore, and her hands trembled as she pressed them to her face.
“You told me once,” I ventured softly, “sometimes she wasn’t well. Like our patients in Woodbridge. They say things they don’t mean… things they don’t even understand.”
“Maybe,” she whispered through her palms. Her shoulders quivered, and tears leaked between her fingers. “But it cut me, because it wasn’t true. She could have said anything else. Anything. But why that? Why would a mother call her daughter such a thing?”
I sat in silence, watching this woman this fortress of composure unravel just enough to let me glimpse the wound inside. And in that moment, I felt the weight of her trust, heavier than any confidence I had carried before.
“It took me a long time to piece it together,” she said at last, her voice low. “Now I see it. How could I have missed it all along?”
“See what?” I asked.“She accused me because she never knew what I was really doing. I never told her about my hospice work… or that I was a VPO.”
“VPO?”“Volunteer Probation Officer. I trained with the Ministry of Community Development. My first case was a 14-year-old Indian boy who lived in our estate. As VPOs, we befriend, counsel, supervise cases, and run activities for parents and probationers. Confidential work. Work that stays quiet.”
Her eyes clouded. “But she only saw the surface. She saw me late at night, sitting at the basketball court surrounded by boys — 12, 13, 15 years old. She heard whispers that I visited strangers’ homes. People told her they saw me coming out of hotels sometimes with women, sometimes with men. She saw me alighting from different cars at odd hours. And she drew her own conclusions.”
“Oh…” The pieces slid into place.“I never told her, because I couldn’t. Confidentiality clause. And because I knew my mother once she had a story, she would spread it like fire. How could I tell her that those ‘boys’ were probationers, juvenile delinquents I was trying to keep out of jail?
That the ‘men and women’ were family members of my hospice patients, dropping me home after visits? People think cruelty is strangers but sometimes it’s families. I’ve seen sons leave their dying fathers in cheap hotels because they didn’t want death in their living rooms. I followed one man, a hotel owner, through his last days. His family abandoned him, so his room became his ward. I sat with him every night until he died.”
Her voice faltered. “And all my mother saw was scandal. She never knew. She judged me wrongly. And I let her. Because I thought silence was safer.”
I shifted slightly, reaching out to touch her arm, but she drew her hands into her lap, staring hard at the empty track below. Her eyes burned, glistening in the moonlight.
“It still hurts, Nithya,” she whispered. “I tell myself I was only doing my duty, but I keep asking if I had told her, would it have been different? Would she have understood? Or would she have twisted it, spread it like gossip? I thought I knew her better than anyone. But that night, I lost it. I said things I shouldn’t have. I let my anger win. And then… she was gone.”
I remembered that night months ago, when I had come back to the hostel after the doctor’s appointment about my mother’s breast cancer eyes swollen, heart raw and she had wrapped her arms around me without a word. She hadn’t asked, hadn’t judged, hadn’t offered empty reassurances. She had simply held me while I fell apart.
I slid closer, wrapping my arm gently around her shoulders, pulling her against me. For a moment she resisted, stiff and unyielding then she exhaled shakily and leaned into me.
“You’re not alone,” I whispered, my voice barely carrying in the quiet. “You don’t have to carry this by yourself.”
She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. I felt the tension in her slowly dissolve, the weight she’d been holding pressing between us instead of inside her. We sat like that for a long while, our breaths syncing under the silver wash of moonlight, the silence saying everything neither of us could.
Then she adjusted herself, slowly sitting upright, as though pulling herself out of some hidden depth. Her arms folded loosely over her knees, shoulders squared, and she stared straight ahead unblinking, fixed on the darkened field below.
There was something in her gaze that unsettled me. It wasn’t just sadness anymore it was heavier, deeper like she was looking beyond the empty track, beyond the night itself.
I hesitated, watching her profile, the faint silver of moonlight tracing her cheek. Finally, I found my voice. I thought of starting a conversation, but no words came. I wasn’t ready to go home either. The house would be empty my parents off in Penang with their tour group, my brother and sister rarely around.
The thought of returning to silence made me stay.
“Is there something out there I’m not seeing?” I asked quietly. She didn’t answer right away. Her jaw tensed, her lips parted slightly as if to speak and then she closed them again. The silence stretched thin between us, thick with something unnamed.
“Nothing. Just an empty field…” she said softly. Then, after a pause: “I remembered one morning, coming back from work. I sat waiting for the bus. In front of me was a small empty field. And then I saw them a group of dogs playing. Three bigger ones, maybe their parents, and six small cubs tumbling after them. One of the big dogs carried a stick in its mouth, racing across the field, while the little ones chased it. They kept passing the stick between the adults, running in circles, while the cubs scrambled behind. It went on and on. A beautiful sight.”
She turned her face slightly, as though replaying the memory in her mind. “It struck me then how complete nature is, how it opens itself to us if we let it. These dogs were teaching their little ones, playing with them, loving them. That’s all. A simple truth. Why search for meaning elsewhere when it’s already here before us? All we need is to be aware.”
And yet, even as I dismissed her words, I couldn’t shake the way she said them calm, certain, as if she saw things hidden from ordinary eyes. Part of me admired that. Another part… felt uneasy.
“I remember one late evening, after badminton in camp… with him,” she said. I knew instantly who she meant the Indian guy with the moustache. I had laughed so hard back at Compass Ross when she told the others she was going out with him, because that night at the party they’d avoided each other completely. Who would have thought they’d end up together?
“We were walking toward the officers’ mess,” she continued. “He decided to take a shortcut across the field. The moon was full, just like tonight. Halfway across, he stopped. ‘Do you feel anything?’ he asked. I closed my eyes, breathed in deeply. ‘The air feels different,’ I told him. ‘Colder… sharper.’ He pressed me: ‘Tell me more about it.’I thought for a moment. ‘It feels fresh,’ I said. ‘Like Ophir. Early morning air at Mount Ophir sharp, pure.’”
Her voice softened, almost wistful.“Oh, you went to Mount Ophir too?” I asked.
“Yes. Just the two of us. A beautiful experience,” she smiled faintly.
“And then?”
“We continued walking toward the officers’ mess. But as I sat later on the bench, gazing back at the field, I noticed something strange. The exact spot where we had stopped the grass was greener, lusher than the rest.”
“What did he tell you about it?”
She held my eyes. “Mass grave. A Chinese mass grave… from the Japanese occupation.”
A chill ran down my spine.“The wounds of war,” she said quietly. “They may have healed… but the scar is always there.”
“But some wounds never really heal.”
“Maybe,” she said softly. “You know, I used to be obsessed with wounds. Dressings were my passion more than meds, more than procedures. I didn’t mind staying back after my shift just to do them. The dirtier the wound, the more fascinated I became… almost to the point of excitement. And when it began to close, when fresh skin pushed its way over what was once raw and bleeding the satisfaction was… indescribable. Almost an ecstasy.”
“Why do you think that is?” She gave a rueful smile. “I’ve asked myself the same thing: whose wound am I really dressing the patient’s, or mine?”
“And have you found the answer?”
“I think so. A wound can’t heal unless you clear away what’s rotting inside it the debris, the dirt, the infection. Only then can you clean, pack, and create the right environment. The body itself wants to heal it carries the mechanism within. But it needs help… someone to trigger the process, to protect it long enough for healing to begin. It’s the same with us, don’t you think? People carry invisible wounds grief, betrayal, shame.
Families too, whole communities even. You can’t just cover them up and pretend they aren’t there. If you don’t clean out the poison, the wound festers. But if you face it, strip it bare, and let air, light, and touch reach it… healing begins. That’s why I think I love dressings. It’s not just bandages and gauze. It’s a reminder: even the ugliest wound holds the possibility of becoming whole again. But only if we’re willing to do the hard, messy work of uncovering what lies beneath. In those moments, I realize healing isn’t only physical. It’s energy, too. The wound teaches you: pain transforms, if you dare to meet it.”
“Okay,” I managed, though I couldn’t quite share her fascination. I never liked dressings — especially the dirty, smelly ones. I still remember the first time I assisted a staff nurse at Toa Payoh Hospital. It was in the orthopedic ward an elderly, overweight patient with a gaping wound across her thigh. The flesh was torn wide open, the bone visible, the smell unbearable. I nearly gagged. After that, I turned vegetarian for a whole week. Couldn’t bring myself to touch meat, especially mutton
“So what’s this Sharil up to this time? I thought he was already out of the picture. Why suddenly come back now?”
“I don’t know. He just appeared out of nowhere. I was at Orchard Road, Swenson’s as usual, reading, scribbling in my journal. Then there he was before I could even process it, he’d sat down in front of me. And suddenly we were talking as if nothing had ever happened between us… as if we were back in those old days. The first time I met him in Negeri Sembilan, all over again. There was just… so much to talk about.”
“How can I forget? You two agreed on almost everything except for President Carter.”
We both laughed, a laugh that eased the weight for a moment.
“I welcomed his presence, at first. It was a break from the loneliness. But that’s all it was. Between us, there’s nothing left now. He’s just another old friend. Someone I once knew.”
I hesitated, then leaned forward. “But there’s something I need to tell you.”
“What about?”
“About Sharil. And whatever he’s gotten himself into.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What is he up to this time?”
“He’s been telling me things…”
“What things?”
“This group… or rather, some people Sharil is involved with. I’ve written everything down. Whatever he told me, it’s all in here. If anything happens to me, I want you to have this journal.”
“What would happen to you?”
“I don’t know. But I need to be sure this information goes to someone I can trust. And you’re the only one I can think of.”
“Why me? That’s my problem I don’t even trust myself. How can anyone else trust me?”
“I trust you. Whatever the case, it has to be you. Listen… I’ve met these people before. They’re not just anyone. They’re rich, influential. Not just in Singapore in Malaysia too, especially in Kuala Lumpur.”
“Okay… go on. I’m listening.”
“Sharil once invited me up to KL for one of their meetings. At first I refused, but curiosity got the better of me. So I went. Alone. Just to see for myself.”
“And?”
“They gather in five-star hotels, always in KL. On the surface, they look like ordinary business associates in town for meetings. But underneath they have an agenda of their own.”
“Hmmm. Sounds like a scene from a Robert Ludlum novel.”
“I’m not joking. I’m serious.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll stop. Go on.”
“They’re anti-monarchy.”
“Like me then!” she interrupted.
I shot her a glare.“Okay, sorry,” she muttered.
“Why anti-monarchy?”
“They don’t trust it. To them, the Sultan betrayed the Malays when he sold us to the British. It’s a wound they’ve never forgiven. So for them no Sultan, no Sultana. They talk of democracy instead.”
“Okay…another wound that refuse to heal” she murmured softly.
“They never forgave Tunku for letting Singapore go,” I said quietly, repeating Sharil’s words. “To them, it wasn’t a political compromise it was betrayal. They believe he severed a limb from the body of the nation. In their eyes, Singapore isn’t an independent state. It’s a runaway child. And one day, they want that child dragged back into the Federation.”
She gave a short, sharp laugh. “That’s an illusion. It will never happen.”
“Never say never,” I murmured, hearing Sharil’s warning echoing in my head. “He told me to look at the Berlin Wall. For decades, it stood solid, dividing families and nations. Everyone believed it would last forever. Then one day, it crumbled. Germany reunited. That’s how they see it history corrected, wounds healed, Singapore returning to where it ‘belongs.’”
Her smile faded, the weight of my words settling between us. “But this isn’t Germany,” she said softly.
“I know,” I replied. “And yet… they’re patient. They think in decades, not years. They believe time is on their side. And if creating instability is what it takes to make Singapore vulnerable, they’ll do it slowly, quietly, beneath everyone’s radar.”
Her smile faded. She leaned back, thoughtful now. “So this group isn’t just dreaming. They’re imagining a crisis big enough to tip the balance.”
“That’s what frightens me,” I whispered. “Sharil made it sound as if they don’t plan to wait for history to turn they want to create the conditions. Something that would make Singapore look weak, divided… ripe for a so-called ‘reunion.’”
For a long moment, she said nothing, just drummed her fingers against her knee. Then finally: “If that’s true, then this isn’t just political talk. It’s dangerous. Very dangerous.”
“I have their names, and the places of their meetings, all in my journal. They don’t always meet at the same hotel they rotate. But there’s a pattern. I’ve been tracking them for some time.”
“What am I supposed to do with all this information?”
“Observe them.”
“And then?”
“You’ll know what to do.”
“I will?”
“Oh yes. You will. Especially if I’m gone. When the time comes, there’ll be a contact number. A person you’ll need to meet.” she frowned.
“And all this… it comes back to Sharil?”
“Yes. He’s the one who dragged me into it. But he won’t be the person you contact. And he won’t be the one contacting you.” I hesitated.
“I hope you or he or whoever this contact is, aren’t tied to some… dangerous outfit.”
I shook my head firmly. “No. They’re not nasty. They’re educated, business-minded people. Non-violent. Their methods are economic first, political next. A so-called peaceful struggle to gain control of the island they still believe belongs to them. To the Malays.”
She paused, her eyes steady on me. “That’s their project: the return. The Malays already here are told to stay put, not to migrate. To reproduce. To grow their numbers. And the ones who left the exiles, the disillusioned, people like Sharil — they’re encouraged to come back. To rebuild the base.”
I let out a long breath. “I don’t know. Honestly, it sounds like a scene out of a Robert Ludlum novel. You’re sure about this?”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “Why would I make this up? What do I gain by spinning you a tale? Believe me or don’t it’s up to you. But this isn’t fiction. It’s already in motion.”
“But I don’t even know how Sharil looks like now. You talk so much about him… but after all these years, I’ve never seen his face.”
“You will, eventually… I’ve got a stack of newspaper cuttings about him. Every time his photo appears in the Malaysian papers, he sends me the clipping.”
“He does that? Why on earth?”
“To keep me updated about his activities… to prove he isn’t making things up.”
“Oh! When did all this start? I mean… the newspaper cuttings?”
“After the wedding was called off. I knew where he went. He disappeared and silence for about a year, and then, out of nowhere, the cuttings began arriving in the mail. I didn’t throw them away I kept them somewhere. I thought that was the end of it… until one day, at SGH, he appeared right in front of me. Out of the blue. He said he was in Singapore for an international internal auditors’ conference at a hotel. Somehow, he knew where I liked to hang out.”
“And you…?”
“I didn’t hold any grudges. I accepted his presence, talked to him as usual. Then just as suddenly he disappeared again. The next thing I know, his mother came over to my house to speak with my parents. I was shocked. He had told both mothers that we’d been meeting secretly and that I had agreed to a second proposal. None of that was true. We always met in public. I was furious because he never even brought up marriage during those days we talked mostly about other things, especially his involvement with that group. That got me interesting to find out about his role with this group and what’s their agenda. I know he’s not in Singapore because of me. All this talk about attending the Internal Auditor’s conference is just a cover up. So when he mention about the KL meeting this journalistic mindset of mine got activated. I need to find out”
“Oh! You went to KL, you said… at his invitation?”
“Not exactly at his invitation. I went on my own. He only gave me the meeting place. You cannot just walk in to these meetings. You need to be referred by somebody inside” She paused, lowering her voice.So whenever I'm in KL to attend this meet up, I will send a note to Sharil. I know his address. I will never allow him to come up to my hotel room.
“Why is that so” she asked curiosly. “Because I don’t want to be caught in a khalwat with him. You know how things are in Malaysia. You never know who’s watching, and you never know when it could be a trap.”
“Smart girl!” A wry smile crossed her friend’s face. “Those busybodies are more interested in peeping into hotel rooms than minding their own business.”
“Exactly. So we always meet in the hotel conference room. Neutral ground. That’s where he introduced me to the others. At first, I thought it was some MLM thing you know, the way they presented themselves. But the more I listened, the more I realised… it’s not about business. Not at all. They’re an organization, and they have… an agenda.”
“What kind of agenda?” She hesitated, her fingers taping on the cement.
“the one I just told you. Singapore rejoining the federation. I call this Project Nusantara”
“This is the name they give?”
“nope, this is the name I give to this group and their agenda”
“When was the last time you attended one of their meetings?”
“A few weeks ago. Remember my trip to Pangkor? I made a stopover in KL.” I leaned in, almost whispering now. “I left my luggage at Pudu Raya’s left-baggage counter, took a taxi straight to their hotel, attended the meeting, and then caught the last bus back to Singapore.”
“That’s insane. All that… just for a meeting?”
“Listen, somebody’s very interested in these people,” I said simply. “All I have to do is submit a report after every meeting what I saw, who attended, who the new members are, what was discussed.”
“Wait… what do you mean, ‘submit a report’? Who are you working for?”
“It’s a legitimate department. At the right time, you will know it” I explained to her “I just post the reports to a P.O. Box in Orchard Road. The number’s in the journal.”
“there must be a person as your point of contact right”
“yes there is but its not important for you to know all this now”
“How did you even get yourself tangled up in all this?”
I gave a small, humourless laugh. “That’s a long story. Maybe one day I’ll tell you… when I figure out how to explain it.”
“And you want me to help you?”
“I need someone I can trust.” I gaze held steady towards her now, serious and searching. “Will you?”
There was a pause.“Where is all this supposed to lead us, anyway?”
I exhaled slowly, shaking my head. “I don’t know.”
The memories drifted in like soft echoes from a life I wasn’t sure belonged to me anymore.
“I still remember the first time I saw you,” she said suddenly, as if reading my thoughts.
“First day at the School of Nursing. You walked into the auditorium in that pale blue baju kurung, hijab pinned neatly under your chin. You looked so small, so… timid. The only Malay-Muslim girl in the entire intake.”
She smiled faintly, eyes distant with memory. “I made a bet with Junita, you know. Either you’d quit… or the baju kurung would.”
I laughed softly, shaking my head. “You really said that?”
“I did.” She grinned sheepishly. “Junita thought you wouldn’t last the first semester. I thought maybe you’d stay but that hijab wouldn’t.”
“You know,” I began carefully, “I never liked you when I first came across you. Especially during the PTS. You were so bossy like you had to show off.”
“I did?” She turned her head to look at me for the first time since we’d sat down.
“Yeah… maybe I was. I never really thought of it that way.”
“That’s why I kept my distance. And then, at Toa Payoh, when I found out we’d be roommates, it felt like a nightmare. I even asked for a change, but the supervisor said no. Truth is, nobody wanted to be in the same room with you.”
“Serious?” She burst out laughing. “I must’ve been that bad, eh?”
“I’d heard so much about you especially what happened at Alexandra Hostel. Gave me the impression you were really nasty.”
She looked amused. “I know who spread those stories… the leeches.”
“Hey, it’s not nice to call them that.”
“They are leeches. Anyway you stayed with me for almost four months. Did any of those stories turn out to be true?”
“Nope.”
“Nurhayati stayed with me at Changi Hostel too. Did you ask her?”
“Yes. She told me the same thing no issues.”
“Thank you,” she said with a satisfied grin. “I rest my case.”
For a moment, we sat in silence, the past hanging between us like a suspended thread.
“And yet here you are,” she said softly, studying my face. “Changed. Different. It’s like you’ve… shed something. But I can’t tell what. So tell me, Nithya. What happened?”
I stared at her, unsure where to begin. The weight of old secrets pressed against the edges of my thoughts, like waves lapping at a locked chest.
“It wasn’t one thing,” I said finally. “It was… everything. All at once. Little moments, little questions that kept piling up. Things I saw, things I felt. And one day, I woke up and realised the person I thought I was… wasn’t me anymore.”
She leaned in closer. “Give me one moment. Just one story.”
I hesitated, fingers tracing the rim of my glass, searching for the right fragment to offer her. So many memories buried, hidden, locked away not because they were shameful, but because they were mine alone.Then one surfaced, unbidden, like a shard of light breaking through water. I took a breath.
“Alright,” I said quietly. “There was a day… during PTS… when I thought I had everything figured out. And then something happened that cracked the ground under me. It wasn’t dramatic, not really. But it changed everything.”
She said nothing, just waited patient, steady, the kind of silence that draws words out rather than smothers them. And so, I began.
“It was a Saturday night, I’d heard about a religious discourse being held at one of the mosques in Geylang. I hadn’t attended one in years ever since I started nursing school, I stopped going. But that evening, I wasn’t working, had nowhere to be, and for some reason… I decided to go.” I paused, as if measuring my words.
“I went alone. The mosque was full, and there were several speakers lined up that night mostly locals, and one from Malaysia. I sat there for almost an hour, listening quietly, waiting to hear something… meaningful. But all I heard,” I said, shaking my head slowly, “were the same things, over and over. Male and female religious teachers alike, talking about infidels. About hating the Jews. About life after death and the punishments waiting for us if we strayed. Fire, torment, eternal suffering.”
I stopped, looking down at my hands. “And suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
“Why?” she asked gently.
I gave a sighed. “Because in that moment, all I could think was… why? Why are we talking so much about death when we haven’t figured out how to live yet? Why are we obsessed with the afterlife while our own people are struggling to make sense of the present? Just look around us the problems our community faces, the poverty, the fractured families, the quiet despair. Shouldn’t we be talking about improving ourselves? Building something better? Why aren’t we talking about life?”
She nodded slowly. “Good point. Why talk about death when we haven’t yet grasped the meaning of living?”
I gave a faint, sad smile. “And it didn’t stop there. There was this constant condemnation of the ‘idol worshippers.’ Over and over, the same words: infidels, curses, punishment.”
My voice grew softer. “If you bring it to the current context… who are they talking about, really? Isn’t it the Chinese, the Hindus, the Buddhists? My friends?” I hesitated, my brows knitting together. “Why should I hate them? What have they done to us? These are the same people who’ve sat with me through exams, who’ve shared their food with me, who’ve stood by me when I needed help. And yet, sitting there, I was being told to see them as enemies. To fear them. To resent them.”
My voice faltered for a moment. “I didn’t like what I felt that night. I didn’t like the bitterness they were trying to plant inside me. I didn’t like the darkness of it this endless purging of hatred towards people who’d done me no harm.”
I let out a breath and didn’t realise that I was holding. “That was the moment something cracked in me. I walked out of the mosque that night… and I never went back.”
“It’s a good story,” she said thoughtfully. “And you’re right… you shouldn’t go back if you don’t feel comfortable with it.”
I nodded slightly, then hesitated before speaking. “You know… I once had an argument about this with someone.”
Her eyes lit up with curiosity. “About what?”I leaned forward, my voice quieter now. “I asked a fellow Muslim girl to imagine this scenario: You’re in the hospital. Two patients collapse at the same time. One’s a Muslim, the other isn’t. Both need urgent help. Who would you save first?”
She frowned, leaning back in her chair. “What did she say?”
“She didn’t even hesitate,” I said softly. “She said she would choose the Muslim patient.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.” I paused, letting the weight of it settle between us.
“So I asked her, ‘Why? Why choose the Muslim, when you know based on everything we’ve been trained for the other patient actually needs immediate attention first?’”
She hook her head slowly, the memory still raw. “That’s when it hit me how deeply we’ve been conditioned to draw lines where there shouldn’t be any. Shouldn’t our decisions, especially when it comes to human life, go beyond race and religion? Shouldn’t compassion come first?”
The silence that followed was thick, but not uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence where both of us were turning over the same thought: what it really means to be human, beyond labels and divisions.
“You see,” she began softly, her gaze thoughtful, “I often ask myself the same questions too. If I were thrown into that same scenario two patients collapse at the same time, one Muslim and one not which patient would I choose first?”
I tilted my head. “And who would you choose?”
She gave a small, weary smile. “That’s the thing… I don’t know. I honestly don’t. And I wonder what my actions would reveal about me in that moment.”
She paused, then added quietly, “But I do know this as long as I carry my religion inside me, I will always be subject to its conditions. Sometimes I ask myself: will these conditions become walls? Will they limit my view of what’s right? Can I truly be open with myself, and with the people under my care?” She exhaled slowly, as though releasing something heavy.
“That’s why I avoid discussing belief or religion,” she continued. “Everyone’s relationship with God is private and personal. I’ve come to think… why should religion matter in our nursing practice at all, especially if it risks compromising our duty of care? When I put on this uniform, I leave myself behind. I don’t exist as me anymore I exist as what I represent: a nurse. And that makes it easier to make the hard decisions.”
Her voice dropped lower, tinged with something deeper not regret, but transformation.
“Everything I’ve seen, everything I’ve experienced… it’s changed me. I don’t see people, religion, or even God the same way anymore.”
She glanced at me, her expression softening.“That’s why, when I put on this uniform, I leave myself behind. I become… nobody. No religion. No politics. No affiliations. Just what I represent. And you know what? It feels good. Nobody can touch you when you’re nobody.”
She smiled faintly, a quiet light in her eyes.“
After a while,” she said, “this identity takes over. You don’t just wear the uniform you become it. Like a dancer who becomes the dance, or a painter who becomes the painting. And to me… that’s what life is all about. Losing yourself in what you do. Becoming it.”
Her words hung in the air between us, soft but powerful a philosophy born not from books or sermons, but from lived experience.“
In HDU, I’ve seen many things,” I began softly, my voice low, steady, but carrying a weight beneath it. “Perhaps the same things you’ve seen in ICU. I cleaned patients, suctioned them, turned their bodies to prevent bedsores. I performed passive exercises on comatose patients, trying to stop their muscles from stiffening into contractures. I did all of it because that’s what we’re trained to do. Sometimes, I think it helps. Sometimes, I’m not so sure. And I can’t help asking myself… am I also one of the culprits? Inflicting pain on people while trying to care for them, trying to keep them alive.”
My voice dropped even lower. “Just the other day, I did last offices on a man. Forty years old. I’ve done last offices many times before, but… this one affected me so much.”
“Why?” She asked gently.
I drew in a slow breath, to steadying myself. “He was admitted for a gastrectomy. I was the one who admitted him to the ward. I oriented him, prepared him for surgery, sent him to the operating theatre. I fetched him back from OT, nursed him in HDU… and in the end, I was the one who performed the last offices on him.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and my voice faltering. “For a while, I wanted to pretend I didn’t feel anything. To detach. To tell myself he was just another patient, just a name on a file. But when I saw his young wife and children standing there…”
My words trailed off and swallowed hard before continuing. “It broke something in me. I went home, locked myself in my room, and cried the whole evening.”
She reached out and touched my hand lightly. “I understand what you mean.” Her gaze drifted, unfocused, somewhere far beyond us.
“I thought maybe going back to the religious discourses would help. Maybe I’d find comfort, answers, anything. But every time I sat there, all I heard was vengeance, hatred, and this endless obsession with life after death. Punishments. Judgments. Fire and brimstone.”
I turned back to her, my voice quiet but heavy. “Why don’t they talk about living instead? Why don’t they talk about how to make this lifetime more meaningful without all those stories of punishment and fear? Why can’t we talk about life before death?”
“Well,” she began softly, her tone calm but deliberate, “you see… we’re living or rather, we’ve been brought up in a culture of fear. From young, our minds are carefully shaped with it, constructed layer by layer. And all these stories about life after death?”
She gave a faint shrug. “In my opinion, they’re designed to invoke that fear. To make us act, to make us obey, to make us become something we never questioned.” She paused, her gaze drifting somewhere distant. “The thing is, unless we acknowledge and reconcile this fear, we’ll never be free from it. It’s been woven so deeply into us that it becomes invisible. We start doing everything even the good things because of fear.”
She glanced at me briefly, then continued, her voice quiet but steady. “And sometimes, we’re so terrified of our own fear that we numb ourselves to it. We deaden our hearts. We deaden our minds. We build these walls inside our heads walls made of familiar thoughts, safe ideas, unquestioned beliefs. We hide behind them, thinking nothing can touch us.”
She drew in a slow breath, her expression thoughtful. “It’s like hiding in our personal caves and jungles, keeping the doors bolted shut. We don’t let any light in. And until something inside us shifts until we begin longing for openness, yearning for something beyond the echoes of our own thoughts no light will ever enter.”
I turned to look at her. She looked serious, her expression distant, her gaze fixed on the empty field ahead. There was a stillness about her, as though she were speaking from somewhere deep inside herself.
“Care to tell me more about what you just said?”
She nodded slowly. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About?”
“The fear factor,” she said softly. “I keep wondering why we carry so much fear inside us. And I think… it’s because our minds are never free from the weight of our past. Everything we do our actions, our choices, even the way we see the world is coloured by our past experiences. That’s what creates our conditioning.”
I tilted my head. “So… you’re asking if we can escape it?”
She looked at me steadily. “Exactly. Can we ever free the mind from its conditioning?”
I smiled faintly. “Hmm… you tell me. Can we?”
She leaned back, thoughtful, before speaking again. “Imagine the mind as a vessel a jar, a bowl, whatever you like holding everything we’ve ever experienced. To be truly free, we’d need to empty it completely. Only when the vessel is truly empty can we receive something fresh, something pure.”
She paused, her hands gesturing lightly as though shaping the idea in the air. “It’s like milk. If you collect fresh milk in a vessel that still holds stale milk, the new milk will spoil. No matter how pure it was to begin with, the remnants of the old will pollute it. And it’s the same with the mind as long as we hold onto the leftovers of the past, the new can never stay pure.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So… can it be done?”
She turned to me, her voice quiet, almost a whisper. “That’s the question, isn’t it? I don’t know. I’ve been searching for the answer… but I haven’t found it yet.”
I studied her for a moment, seeing the weight of her thoughts reflected in her eyes.
“Oh,” I said softly, because there was nothing else to say. She leaned back, staring at the open field ahead, her voice softer now but edged with clarity.
“But then again,” she said slowly, “do I even want my mind to be like a vessel? Always having this need to empty itself just to make space for something new? A vessel is, after all, limited. It can only hold so much before it overflows.”
She turned to look at me briefly before letting her gaze drift again. “Knowledge isn’t like that. It’s not something you can collect and store away. Knowledge is… abundance. It’s like the flow of a river continuous, ever-changing, never-ending.”
Her fingers traced patterns on the table absentmindedly as she spoke, her words gaining quiet conviction.“
So maybe the real problem isn’t what we put into the vessel… maybe it’s the vessel itself. We keep trying to contain life, to control it, to hold it still but we can’t. We shouldn’t. If the mind is like a vessel, it will always be limited. But if the mind is like the river flowing, open, unbound only then can we truly experience the wonders of the world. Only then can we grasp the beauty of the nature of knowledge.”
She fell silent after that, as though her words were still rippling through her own thoughts. The quiet around us deepened, carrying the weight of her reflection.
I just stared at her, blinking slowly. Her words were still hanging in the air : fear, conditioning, the vessel, smashing the vessel, becoming the river all swirling together like a whirlpool in my head. My brain was working overtime, trying to piece everything together, but the more I tried, the more tangled it felt. It was as if every new idea collided with the next, sparking little flashes of thought until I could almost hear a faint buzzing in my ears.
“A river,” I repeated softly under my breath, as though testing the word. The image was beautiful, but also dizzying. How could I be a river when I still felt trapped inside my own vessel?
I forced a small laugh, shaking my head slightly.
“You know,” I said finally, “I think my brain is… short-circuiting.”
She smiled knowingly but said nothing, letting the silence do its work. And in that silence, I realised something I couldn’t yet put into words that maybe, just maybe, this confusion was the beginning of something new.
“You know what I feel like doing?” she said suddenly, breaking the silence.
I turned to look at her, suspicious.
“What?”
“Sing.” I blinked.
“Huh?” She grinned.
“Come on, let’s sing. Any particular song you like? I’ll sing it for you.”
I stared at her as though she’d lost her mind. “You’re out of your mind. What will people think if they hear us singing?”
“What’s wrong with it?” she shot back, feigning innocence. “Nothing on the signboard says we can’t sing. It’s a public space. Besides…” She waved a hand around the empty grounds. “Look around. There’s nobody here. This whole stadium is deserted except for the two of us.”
I tilted my head towards the left and pointed. “Yeah, but look over there.” A few HDB blocks rose in the distance, windows glowing faintly in the night. “People can see us from there. Somebody’s going to grab a pair of binoculars and wonder what the two of us are up to.”
She leaned closer, mischief dancing in her eyes. “Oh, they’ll assume we’re two lesbians having or about to have a jolly good time. Shall we give them a show? Let’s give them what they want to see.”
I gasped, half laughing, half scandalised. “You’re mad, you know that?”
She laughed loudly, the sound echoing faintly through the empty stadium, then gave me a playful punch on the arm. “Come on, forget about them. If they want to peep, let them. We’re not doing anything illegal. So…”
She straightened up, brushing imaginary dust off her lap. “…if you can’t think of a song, I’ll sing one of my favourites. I don’t even know the singer’s name, but I love it.”
She sat upright, inhaled deeply, and then, in the quiet of the deserted stadium, began to sing softly. Her voice floated gently into the night air, fragile and tender, as though the song belonged only to the two of us.
Her voice rose softly, clear against the still night:
“Once upon a time, there was a tavern… Where we used to raise a glass or two… Remember how we laughed away the hours… Think of all the great things we would do…”
I smiled as recognition washed over me.
“Ah! Of course I know this song!” I whispered, though I didn’t know all the lyrics. I’d heard her sing it so many times back at the SGH hostel. I waited for the part I knew, then joined her, both of us swaying slightly:
“Di di di di di di… Di di di di di di… Di di di di di di di di di di…”
She leaned back, eyes half-closed, and continued:
“Those were the days, my friend… We thought they'd never end… We'd sing and dance forever and a day… We'd live the life we’d choose… We’d fight and never lose… For we were young and sure to have our way…”
The lyrics drifted into the night like a bittersweet memory. The empty stadium around us seemed to hold its breath as her voice carried on:
“Then, the busy years went rushing by us… We lost our starry notions on the way… If, by chance, I'd see you in the tavern… We’d smile at one another and we’d say…”
And again, we slipped into the chorus together, our voices mingling with laughter:
“Those were the days, my friend… We thought they'd never end… We'd sing and dance forever and a day…”
By the final verse, neither of us cared if we were off-key or if anyone could hear us. It wasn’t about the song anymore it was about the moment. Two friends, young and untethered, clinging to the fragments of dreams and possibilities.
And that’s how we ended the night — two girls, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, climbing over the stadium gate like a pair of delinquents escaping curfew.
The metal was cold beneath our hands, and our laughter echoed through the deserted space, louder than the creak of the fence. We didn’t care if our skirts caught or if someone saw us. We didn’t care about rules, or fear, or what anyone thought.
We were singing: “Di di di di di di… Di di di di di di… Di di di di di di di di di di…”
We walked together until we reached the bus stop, where she turned towards home just around the corner while I waited for the feeder bus to Tampines. She waved, blowing me a playful flying kiss before continuing down the street, still humming, unconcerned about the people staring as she passed them.
I watched her until she disappeared from view, her voice lingering faintly in the night air.
