NS5

The name of this station means 'oil pond' in a dialect I've never heard of called Teochew. During the Japanese Occupation the village that once stood here was used to store oil. What is now just HDB flats all around used to bustle with farmers and their ducks and chickens, can you imagine?

They're all gone, replaced with a train station in early February, 1996. Fast forward seventeen years later, with a red and black train slowing down, a girl staring out the window.

We only visited once or twice back in the day, when his school was at the station before this. There was a fight about something so trivial and I stormed off, only stopping at this shelter outside the mall. He appeared smiling, as if already expecting me to stop, as if he knew I would never leave any fight unresolved.

Like nothing happened, he took my hand and brought us to the bank. He had to replace his card, because he lost his wallet for the thousandth time. I still remember the pace of the queue and the teller's face. She told him to key in his new PIN number, which he reached out to do.

It was six months after we got together, after he set these numbers as his phone password too. It meant a lot to him as it did me, because I wouldn't stop counting as each month passed. Our first year together came eventually, as well as another fight over something so unimportant. Enough to break us up two days later.

But we reconciled, and two years later he posted a picture of us on his POP, finally wishing us a 'happy third anniversary'. That swiftly got deleted after the second break-up, and now here we are again, our supposedly fifth anniversary.

It was spent on fights once more, until we both declared that we didn't want to care about anniversaries. No more. The years don't matter anymore.

110113, the numbers keyed in back at Yew Tee, circa June 2013. He changed his phone and lost his wallet again shortly after. Only this time he used another combination and the previous one was never used again. Just the same as how he lost me again and again until this date stopped being ours.