The Corner Where She Waits

It’s a wet day and I’m standing on a seemingly random street corner in Singapore, taking photos. The sky’s a uniform white and beneath it the nearby buildings tower imposingly, blocking out the dim sunshine which seeps through the cracks in the clouds. This is my favourite kind of day in Singapore and strangely, this is my favourite place too.

I stare up the wet road, attracting stares of my own from passersby who wonder fleetingly what interests me so much about this particular road. I ignore them, or rather I barely notice, so engrossed am I in staring up the empty street. The truth is that it’s not the current street I am seeing, but that of the past. There are a few changes, buildings where there wasn’t, shops where there were flats, but in essence it is unchanged.

As I let my eyes drink in each detail my mind wanders over my half-faded memories. I see the ghosts of my past self as I wander, run and play over the pavements and road; actions repeated a hundred times, steps taken over and over, they flicker past my present self and I watch, fixated. Slowly, with eyes still fixed disbelievingly on some point in the middle distance, I cross the road and step onto the pavement. Deep inside me something wakes up, yawns and stretches. It’s my five-year-old self. She opens her big blue eyes and looks around her, she is unfazed, she knows this place. The concrete under her feet is familiar; she knows exactly how to balance on the very edge of the curb without falling, she could close her eyes and still find her way perfectly to the front door of the old brown house halfway up the road. In fact she could find her way to the back door of that house, with her eyes closed, and she wouldn’t fall in the storm drain on her way.

I follow her as she leads me unperturbed up to the house where she lives... used to live. The shutters on the front are just as we left them, the gate still rusting, the stone still stained with lichen. I run my fingers over the faded words printed next to the gate ‘No. 7 Wilkie Terrace’. I whisper the name under my breath and a thrill runs through me, a single word: ‘home’.

In my sudden excitement I start forwards, reach my hand to open the gate and... stop. The little girl next to me evaporates and I shiver, back away. I don’t look again at the washing line strung with a strangers clothes. I don’t acknowledge the pain in my chest which tells me this place is no longer mine, instead I retreat, back to the corner, from where I can still pretend...

I squint my eyes till they’re nearly shut and suddenly nothing’s changed. With a twisted smile I turn away. Only to stop again; my smile becomes a genuine grin. I take the little girls hand and we walk together down the steps on the corner that are ours. They sing beneath our feet.

Author's Note

For college. 'My favourite place in Singapore'

Reviews

[Eira Anchor]

love dis. You perfectly tune in to a feeling that's so hard to put a finger on - nostalgia. and i love the way you describe your past self and walk with her and its all just perfect(: singapore sounds lovely, im glad youre having a nice time xxx