She got the letter today. An invitation for the Student Nurse Training interview. She should be excited. She wasn’t. “Why now?” she muttered under her breath, the envelope still crumpled in her hand.
Everything was supposed to be clear finish her final project, graduate, rest. Maybe apply for that placement in the UK, maybe not. But this... this letter felt like someone had shuffled her carefully laid-out path again.
Sister Chew had called her into the office after lunch. No smiles. Just a firm reminder: “You’ll attend the interview, yes?” Nonie had nodded, her voice automatic.
“Yes, Sister.” Inside, she was anything but certain. The double-decker bus screeched to a halt beside the kerb. She climbed in, paid the fare, and made her way to the upper deck her sanctuary. Back row, left side, by the window.
The seat that gave her both distance and sky. The engine hummed below as the bus groaned back into motion. She rested her head on the windowpane, the city blurring past in streaks of concrete and sunlight. Her mind was already elsewhere. She needed the rest.
Tonight, she had plans the Singapore Science Centre. She hadn’t been there in a while. Too caught up with assignments, deadlines, practical hours. But her third project was finally submitted. One more to go.
Then freedom whatever that meant. But tonight, just for a while, she wanted the stars. The comets. The infinite silence of space. It was more than fascination. It was a pull. A kind of longing she couldn’t explain not even to herself. Whenever she stood beneath a rural night sky, far from the city’s noise, a quiet feeling washed over her.
As if the stars knew something she didn’t. As if they were whispering some forgotten truth. Where is the beginning? Where is the end? The universe didn’t answer—but it made the question beautiful. Looking up, you couldn’t help but feel small. And in that smallness, something opened. Awe. Wonder. A gentle kind of surrender.
“Why this interest in the stars and comets?” one of the ladies in the circle had asked her once. She didn’t have an answer then. Still doesn’t. It just… happened.
Like most things in her life. Nursing happened by accident. Meeting Shafie also an accident. Even the stars came by accident. It all began the day she stormed out of that restaurant. She had just argued with Shafie.
It wasn’t their first fight, but something about that one cut deeper. She couldn't even recall the exact words anymore only the heat of it, the silence that followed, and the door she slammed behind her as she left. No tears. Only anger.
She needed to get away far away from the source of that anger. She knew herself well enough. If she stayed, she might say something unforgivable. Might do something she’d regret. As if summoned by her mood, a double-decker bus screeched to a stop in front of her.
Without checking the bus number, she boarded, climbed to the upper deck, and collapsed into the last row. The topmost seat. The furthest place away from anyone else. The bus was nearly empty. Perfect.
“You need to learn to control that anger,” came a familiar voice from memory her silat guru. “It can destroy you. Worse, it can hurt the innocent around you.” She closed her eyes. Let the hum of the engine and the rhythm of the road soften the fire in her chest.
The motion calmed her. The city slipped away. She let it all go—Shafie, the argument, the expectations. She didn’t want to go back. Not yet. Maybe not ever. She had no idea how long the ride was, nor did she notice the people coming and going.
Only when the bus reached its final stop did she stir. Jurong East Interchange. She had never been there before. Without much thought, she got off the bus and began walking. The air was thick and humid, but she welcomed the weight of it on her skin. It reminded her that she was alive, that the day was still hers to reclaim.
Then she saw the sign Singapore Science Centre. She had read about it in the papers once but never paid it any mind. That afternoon, though, something tugged at her. Without knowing why, she walked toward it. Not to learn. Not to escape. Just… to wander. She wasn’t ready to go home.
At the entrance, a poster caught her eye: “OMNI-THEATRE SHOW STARTING IN 10 MINUTES.” She bought a ticket on impulse, not even checking what the show was about. She just wanted to sit in the dark and not think for a while. But what she got was something else entirely.
Inside the Omni-Theatre, beneath the massive domed screen, she was no longer just a girl from Singapore trying to calm her rage. She became a witness to the universe. Stars bloomed across the screen. Comets soared. Black holes spun like cosmic drains, swallowing light and time.
The narration faded into the background what stayed were the images. Suddenly, she was small. So small. And the anger... it vanished. Not because she resolved it, but because it didn’t matter not out there.
There, in the vastness of space, boundaries meant nothing. No arguments. No interviews. No expectations. Just motion. Light. Silence. And beauty. She walked out of the theatre changed. It wasn’t a conversion. It was a recognition of something larger, something sacred in the fabric of the cosmos. That’s how it began. Her love of the stars. Her quiet addiction to wonder. An accident. A turning point.
It had been a long day at work. Her legs ached in that dull, familiar way that only nurses understood the kind of ache that settled deep into the soles of your feet and hummed up your spine. The kind of tiredness that no amount of sitting could fix. She sat by the window of the bus as it wound its way back to Tampines. The sky outside was dimming. Orange light spilled across the buildings like an old memory refusing to fade.
She opened her bag and quietly reached for her wallet. Inside, tucked away behind a layer of used receipts and her EZ-Link card, was a folded slip of paper with a phone number scrawled in faded ink. She unfolded it slowly, carefully as if touching it too roughly might cause the past to vanish.
Then came the photo. Black and white. Edges worn soft. She had carried it with her for years. Always with her. But it had been a long time since she looked at it.
Earlier that day, She was in the ward, unloading the sterile dressing sets from the CSSD trolley, hands moving automatically, her mind already halfway to dinner plans, when the student nurse approached. “Staff Nurse said she’s busy,” the girl said, slightly breathless.
“She asked me to tell you to do the discharge for the NS men. Their officer is waiting for the discharge instruction.” Nonie sighed, wiped her hands, and nodded.
“Okay. I’ll handle it.” She collected the necessary files from the doctor’s office discharge memos for the medical officer, the medical certificates. The usual drill. The three National Servicemen had been admitted two days ago for minor head injuries. Rough training, probably. She approached their corner. One of the young officers was already standing there, speaking to the boys with a casual, easy confidence.
Then he turned. And time… stopped. Her eyes locked on his face. The mole, just below his right cheekbone. The dimple, faint but still there when he smiled. And the eyes. Familiar. Disarming. Him.
She didn’t need to ask. She didn’t need confirmation. The years had added weight to his frame and age to his features, but the memory of his face was seared into her mind like a burn that never quite healed.
She looked down at the photo in her lap again. Same eyes. Same smile. The boy in the picture had grown into the man she saw today. And somehow, across all those years and distances, their paths had crossed again. She looked at the picture again. The memory was still fresh in her mind, like it happened just yesterday.
“Eh! You up there too, with her? Now what are the two of you doing up on the tree?” her father called out, hands on hips, eyes squinting up at the branches.
“I’m here to keep her company,” the boy answered, calm as anything. Her father sighed.
“You, young lady—come down now!”
“No, I won’t!”
“Why not?”
“I want to see mother. I want to go to the hospital.”
“You’re too young,” her father said, trying to sound gentle. “It’s the hospital’s rule, you can’t visit. Only adults allowed.”
“I don’t care. I want to see mother or I’ll sit here forever—until she comes back!”
“You can’t stay there forever,” he reasoned, exasperated.
“We really can’t,” the boy chimed in, half-whispering. “What if I need to go to the toilet?” She shot him a look of pure irritation.
“I don’t care. It’s either mother... or I’ll climb higher and stay there until nighttime!”
“No! Don’t do that—you’ll fall!” her father shouted, now clearly worried. “This daughter of mine... climbing trees like a boy. What am I going to do with her?” “Okay, okay,” he continued, softening. “Father will take you tomorrow evening, after school. I’ll talk to the nurse. We’ll try. But now, please come down.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” Then he turned to the boy. “You. Didn’t you hear your grandmother just now? She’s shouting, looking for you.”
“I heard. Just a while more,” he replied sheepishly.
“Are you both coming down?” her father asked, rubbing his forehead. “I have three daughters, and this one in particular thinks she’s a monkey.” Nonie smiled.
She stood carefully on the branch and whistled once, then twice. “Eh? Why did you whistle?” the boy asked, puzzled.
“To signal the boys lah,” she said, grinning. “That the apek has come back to his guard post.”
“Apek?”
“Over there,” she pointed. “Our boys are helping themselves to the rambutan trees. First whistle means apek gone, two whistles means apek coming back. Standard code.”
The boy leaned forward and saw a bunch of boys scrambling out of the plantation, giggling as they ran. “So tell me,” he laughed. “You’re up here because you miss your mother… or because you're the official signaller for fruit thieves?”
She grinned mischievously. “Both.”
Back on the bus, Nonie nearly laughed out loud. She caught herself just in time, covering her mouth with her left hand. People might think something’s wrong with her, laughing on her own. Oh, those were the good old days…
She looked at the photo again and gently ran her fingers across its surface. A grainy black-and-white snapshot of two children walking side by side, books in hand, laughing mid-step.
Her father had just bought a new camera then and was eager to try it out. When he saw them returning from the library, he snapped it. She had kept that photo tucked away in her wallet ever since.
Almost forgotten.
Until today.
Chpt 3 / 36
