This Ain't A Scene, It's A Goddamn Arms Race

One would think that getting someplace from home on a Friday afternoon would be a cinch. Ahmad and I were woefully mistaken, leaving my home for Marina Country Club to catch the Ubin ferry. So, thanks to a cabbie from 846th stage of pre-incarnation, the apparent non-existence of Punggol MRT station, the ghost town that Punggol is, and the cheek of Singaporeans to turn their nose at running hitchhikers, we were well late.




The irony of being so stressed to get to our island getaway was not lost on us and gratefully we were allowed to wind down on the ferry. Crossing the island on wheels, the boys getting hurt, soaking in a pool of chlorine, Puaka-climbing and quarry hunting, we passed one bridge many times. This was the bridge where an RJC girl had drowned, back when I was in primary school, the incident that introduced "sluice" to our collective vocabulary and something that must have been branded in the memory of her schoolmates.




So we took time, a few minutes each time at the bridge to remember her, as we would want to be if we had died horribly at a sluice gate a world away from home. Though, truth be told, months away from D-day, if I were to die a world away from home, I'd like it to be in a blaze of glory.



And please remember me.