NS2

Remember the aspiring pilot I was talking about, way back in Marina South Pier? We played this game where he would name a random MRT station and I'd tell a memory. The objective was to find one that I didn't have any in. He named this one so confidently, thinking that I hadn't been here before.

He's right, I hadn't, but I still had one thing to say. I told him about way back in 2013, when the wind and I separated at the station prior to this: when he called me immediately after, saying he alighted because he let out a loud fart and everyone was looking at him.

Soon after this memory I fell for the red line. More specifically, the tracks leaving the first North-South station. It felt like a new beginning every single time, whether I'm staring at them from bus 52 to school, or watching the way we intertwine from a train.

My only attachment here is the anticipation for the station before: my favourite of all. Southbound, a new beginning; northbound, back in time. Back home, if you would, even if I have never worked or lived here.

So in 2013 the only memory we had here revolves around farts. We were so young and innocent, laughing about it even long after. In 2016 we passed by whenever we had to go Woodlands, pressed up against each other because of the peak hour crowds. He would have his arms around my waist and mine around his neck.

July 2017 came, and we were back to passing by. It was only our third time meeting again after three months of not seeing each other. He was in an argument with the flower over text and I was there, feeding him answers when he didn't know what to reply.

The both of us were on our way to somewhere in the middle of the green line to fool around in a hotel room. Where we got drinks that tasted like shit, where we ate pizza and smoked on the balcony, where he slept with someone he loved more than anything and I, someone I couldn't anymore.

Bukit Batok. We ignored the announcement, continuing our conversation in 2016; reading the replies on his phone in 2017. Bukit Batok, it went again. Neither of us ever looks up or out the window here, because it's so insignificant. I come to attention only when it goes Next station,...