The ending and beginning, somewhere in the middle of the green line. On the edge of the diversion, where the train takes forever to leave with its travellers and heavy luggage. Where both arrivals and departures happen.
On your right is Candy Empire, flourishing with peanut butter-flavoured Kit Kat Chunkys. I was obsessed with them once, never failing to buy at least two bars to eat at the back of class the next day. Wait, you can actually see me paying right there, with a red and black-striped hoodie hanging on my shoulders.
Here is Dunkin Donuts, with its kiddie chairs by the fountain and just three booths. Here was where I drank coffee for the first time, after years of believing in its bitterness and being an 'adult' beverage. That's me in the middle booth actually, sipping on my iced coffee and scrunching up my face in disgust.
You're right, these two places are long gone. A toy store stands in place of the candy shop, while the donuts are gone, replaced with a Chinese cafe that seems to specialise in mango desserts.
But wait; before the Dunkin Donuts vanishes completely, your sixteen-year-old ghost brings it back to life.
I see you, but I can't quite match your real face with the mirror selfies on your Instagram. You finally approach me, without the snark remarks or pick-up lines that would come frequent over the years. You're prettier than I expected, five simple words.
An A4 book is passed over the table; your JAE booklet, very barely missing the ring of water left by my iced coffee. I've misplaced mine, and perhaps that was the only excuse we had to actually meet.
This was our only meeting which you actually remember what I was wearing, head to toe. Sometimes you bring it up yourself, asking if I could wear that striped blouse again. You say I looked cute, but grew prettier over the years. Another one of your lies, but one that I was fortunate and quick enough to see.
In my mind, this first encounter with you still feels like yesterday. This is nothing new. The entire five years that passed since then just happened last night, I swear. Close enough for me to feel every single blast of air-con that hit my face when I enter from the bus interchange, and the heat when I leave.
I know our memory is another one of our differences, that's why I'm taking you on this walk. God knows where you are exactly now? In a Burger King with your new girl, somewhere in the north? In some bar in the city, a reunion with your batchmates? Or perhaps you are right here, after another flight?
God knows if you are even reading this? I might be talking to myself for all we know.
Right next to the long-gone Dunkin Donuts is Starbucks, where a girl from my secondary school used to work. She happened to be on the counter when we visited, somewhere in March 2013. It was strange for her to be the first person from Pasir Ris Crest to meet you; someone unimportant with the one that my life would revolve around forever.
A few feet away is the giant slide that goes down a few storeys. It was the second thing that attracted you that day, after the girl in a beanie. But unfortunately I was just too shy to get on it with you, wanting to keep up my, you know, cool exterior.
Even the lifts are significant here, when we used our reflections to compare heights. Why are you a little taller than me?! you cried. That image and your voice both ring clear, I swear to God. There's the exit to the carpark, where we sat at when things got a little awkward.
And here is a regular door. Where does it go? We don't have the rights to come in, or the chances to ever find out. But when we walked in one evening in October 2013, you blocked the exit with your suitcase and led us to a corner where we could hide. The usual happened, you grabbed my face and kissed me.
After a while you told me that you did it because you genuinely missed me. You said that for once, you didn't feel lust. You just wanted to refill the gap shaped like me when you were away in Bali on a school trip. At the time I didn't admit it, but it was one of my favourite kisses that we shared.
Two and a half years later, we're back here. It's Labour Day 2016 once again, and you're walking with a bag of books in one hand, and mine in the other. We meandre through the crowds that scare me when I don't have you. And then you have a heart attack when you see someone you know: your mother.
Somehow she misses us, but my hand in yours and the holes in my jeans are enough to make you panic. I want to introduce you to my mum, you exclaim, but it contradicts the way you pull me away and quicken your pace.
You only relaxed when we got beverages from one of the old-fashioned coffee places. We sat on the viewing mall and drank, talking about the past when we first met, and the future, that we didn't know would get ten times harder.
That future would come November 2017, when you went on your interview for SilkAir.
You told me what you were planning to say, but I told you to scrap it because it implied you'd only settle for second best instead of fighting for what you want. I wasn't very smart to begin with, not with this interview bullshit, but when you made it through you thanked me for the advice.
I called my mom to see if she was working and if we could visit her; I told her about the chance of you being cabin crew, and I felt a sense of pride from her, just a little. Months later when you sent me a picture of you in your uniform, she was the excited one, showing you off to my aunt and grandma. Introducing you to her colleagues as her 'future...'. She was just obviously more proud of you than she was of me.
Already a contradiction to your mom, at her disdain for me just from what I wear. She doesn't even know you serve alcohol on your flights, and you know she'd be restless if she ever does.
No, scratch that. She doesn't know more about you than your job.
She doesn't know that you sometimes excused your prayers with laziness. She doesn't know about the things we did in your room on weekends. She doesn't know about the occasional drink you down with your cabin crew, or the cigarettes you smoke on a daily. She doesn't know you had a child that you didn't want.
But that's okay, because you're perfect.
When you went for that interview, I already knew you'd get in. A gut instinct? Faith in you? Or just that stupid metaphor I stuck with, that you own the skies? Maybe all of them. But there's also something else that I constantly believed would happen, that you kept telling me to ignore and stop mentioning. That you would die on one of your flights.
I doubt you remember, but we had a fight somewhere here. I left the canteen and ran to the viewing plaza, and you didn't bother chasing after me. I sat there alone, watching the still planes against the sunset, just plain bawling. I took a picture and captioned it can't look at planes the same way now.
There was a gut instinct that the airport would be the last place we'd meet; a closure to our first meeting more than five years ago. That a plane would take you away in all ways possible. It was so silly, I swear, but the god your mother believes in so much made me this way for a reason.
In a way, you did die by becoming someone else. My cousin with a steward for her husband warned me, but I told her you would never. I believed you when you made a face at the other stewardesses, saying their layers of make-up irked you. Trusting you was easier than ignoring my own insecurity.
Little did I know I was building you up for someone else to have you. I've done it both: carrying a child for five months only to kill it, and supporting a boy for years only for another girl to have my sculpture. I genuinely didn't believe I'd still have a heart to break at the thought of either.
I should have been warned with the flashes that came from your friends gushing over you being a steward. You never took me seriously when I called you Flying-type, but I still strongly believe someday you'll be hit by that same lightning you had when you departed. You can run away into the sky all you want, but with just a blink of one of its eyes, you're gone.
Now Dunkin Donuts finally fades away. So do the bus interchange, train station, and all the restaurants and planes in Changi Airport. You found me here at 16, with no muscles or money, and all you had was the trail of girls that rejected you in secondary school. Now here you are again, a finished product, firm enough to not need me anymore. Now those girls will be running after you, and now it will be your turn to pick from them.
On your right is Candy Empire, flourishing with peanut butter-flavoured Kit Kat Chunkys. I was obsessed with them once, never failing to buy at least two bars to eat at the back of class the next day. Wait, you can actually see me paying right there, with a red and black-striped hoodie hanging on my shoulders.
Here is Dunkin Donuts, with its kiddie chairs by the fountain and just three booths. Here was where I drank coffee for the first time, after years of believing in its bitterness and being an 'adult' beverage. That's me in the middle booth actually, sipping on my iced coffee and scrunching up my face in disgust.
You're right, these two places are long gone. A toy store stands in place of the candy shop, while the donuts are gone, replaced with a Chinese cafe that seems to specialise in mango desserts.
But wait; before the Dunkin Donuts vanishes completely, your sixteen-year-old ghost brings it back to life.
I see you, but I can't quite match your real face with the mirror selfies on your Instagram. You finally approach me, without the snark remarks or pick-up lines that would come frequent over the years. You're prettier than I expected, five simple words.
An A4 book is passed over the table; your JAE booklet, very barely missing the ring of water left by my iced coffee. I've misplaced mine, and perhaps that was the only excuse we had to actually meet.
This was our only meeting which you actually remember what I was wearing, head to toe. Sometimes you bring it up yourself, asking if I could wear that striped blouse again. You say I looked cute, but grew prettier over the years. Another one of your lies, but one that I was fortunate and quick enough to see.
In my mind, this first encounter with you still feels like yesterday. This is nothing new. The entire five years that passed since then just happened last night, I swear. Close enough for me to feel every single blast of air-con that hit my face when I enter from the bus interchange, and the heat when I leave.
I know our memory is another one of our differences, that's why I'm taking you on this walk. God knows where you are exactly now? In a Burger King with your new girl, somewhere in the north? In some bar in the city, a reunion with your batchmates? Or perhaps you are right here, after another flight?
God knows if you are even reading this? I might be talking to myself for all we know.
Right next to the long-gone Dunkin Donuts is Starbucks, where a girl from my secondary school used to work. She happened to be on the counter when we visited, somewhere in March 2013. It was strange for her to be the first person from Pasir Ris Crest to meet you; someone unimportant with the one that my life would revolve around forever.
A few feet away is the giant slide that goes down a few storeys. It was the second thing that attracted you that day, after the girl in a beanie. But unfortunately I was just too shy to get on it with you, wanting to keep up my, you know, cool exterior.
Even the lifts are significant here, when we used our reflections to compare heights. Why are you a little taller than me?! you cried. That image and your voice both ring clear, I swear to God. There's the exit to the carpark, where we sat at when things got a little awkward.
And here is a regular door. Where does it go? We don't have the rights to come in, or the chances to ever find out. But when we walked in one evening in October 2013, you blocked the exit with your suitcase and led us to a corner where we could hide. The usual happened, you grabbed my face and kissed me.
After a while you told me that you did it because you genuinely missed me. You said that for once, you didn't feel lust. You just wanted to refill the gap shaped like me when you were away in Bali on a school trip. At the time I didn't admit it, but it was one of my favourite kisses that we shared.
Two and a half years later, we're back here. It's Labour Day 2016 once again, and you're walking with a bag of books in one hand, and mine in the other. We meandre through the crowds that scare me when I don't have you. And then you have a heart attack when you see someone you know: your mother.
Somehow she misses us, but my hand in yours and the holes in my jeans are enough to make you panic. I want to introduce you to my mum, you exclaim, but it contradicts the way you pull me away and quicken your pace.
You only relaxed when we got beverages from one of the old-fashioned coffee places. We sat on the viewing mall and drank, talking about the past when we first met, and the future, that we didn't know would get ten times harder.
That future would come November 2017, when you went on your interview for SilkAir.
You told me what you were planning to say, but I told you to scrap it because it implied you'd only settle for second best instead of fighting for what you want. I wasn't very smart to begin with, not with this interview bullshit, but when you made it through you thanked me for the advice.
I called my mom to see if she was working and if we could visit her; I told her about the chance of you being cabin crew, and I felt a sense of pride from her, just a little. Months later when you sent me a picture of you in your uniform, she was the excited one, showing you off to my aunt and grandma. Introducing you to her colleagues as her 'future...'. She was just obviously more proud of you than she was of me.
Already a contradiction to your mom, at her disdain for me just from what I wear. She doesn't even know you serve alcohol on your flights, and you know she'd be restless if she ever does.
No, scratch that. She doesn't know more about you than your job.
She doesn't know that you sometimes excused your prayers with laziness. She doesn't know about the things we did in your room on weekends. She doesn't know about the occasional drink you down with your cabin crew, or the cigarettes you smoke on a daily. She doesn't know you had a child that you didn't want.
But that's okay, because you're perfect.
When you went for that interview, I already knew you'd get in. A gut instinct? Faith in you? Or just that stupid metaphor I stuck with, that you own the skies? Maybe all of them. But there's also something else that I constantly believed would happen, that you kept telling me to ignore and stop mentioning. That you would die on one of your flights.
I doubt you remember, but we had a fight somewhere here. I left the canteen and ran to the viewing plaza, and you didn't bother chasing after me. I sat there alone, watching the still planes against the sunset, just plain bawling. I took a picture and captioned it can't look at planes the same way now.
There was a gut instinct that the airport would be the last place we'd meet; a closure to our first meeting more than five years ago. That a plane would take you away in all ways possible. It was so silly, I swear, but the god your mother believes in so much made me this way for a reason.
In a way, you did die by becoming someone else. My cousin with a steward for her husband warned me, but I told her you would never. I believed you when you made a face at the other stewardesses, saying their layers of make-up irked you. Trusting you was easier than ignoring my own insecurity.
Little did I know I was building you up for someone else to have you. I've done it both: carrying a child for five months only to kill it, and supporting a boy for years only for another girl to have my sculpture. I genuinely didn't believe I'd still have a heart to break at the thought of either.
I should have been warned with the flashes that came from your friends gushing over you being a steward. You never took me seriously when I called you Flying-type, but I still strongly believe someday you'll be hit by that same lightning you had when you departed. You can run away into the sky all you want, but with just a blink of one of its eyes, you're gone.
Now Dunkin Donuts finally fades away. So do the bus interchange, train station, and all the restaurants and planes in Changi Airport. You found me here at 16, with no muscles or money, and all you had was the trail of girls that rejected you in secondary school. Now here you are again, a finished product, firm enough to not need me anymore. Now those girls will be running after you, and now it will be your turn to pick from them.
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