Let Me Paint You a Picture

The air is thick with humidity. The sun is setting, and the light fades from natural sunshine through to a glow of city-light. It's warm. Warm enough, and humid enough, that as soon as you start walking, you bead in sweat.

The smell in the air is vegetative. Lush and thick. Sweet. As I leave the open air restuarant on the river bank, the streets are filling with pedestrian traffic. It's eight in the evening, and the professional quarter around Raffles Place is emptying. Young Professionals, suited and i-podded and busy-ing themselves on their handphones walk briskly through the square to converge on the MRT platforms. Escalators fill. The unspoken, automatic movement of those-who-stand on the left, and those-who-walk take the right.

The clunk of the gates through the MRT stations. More escaltor traffic. The silence of the platform, broken by the muffled whoosh of the train as it arrives behind the glass barrier. The very Singaporean clip-ness of the PA announcements. On the train, the effecient hum, punctuated by more PA voice-over announcing the arrivals at stations.

I get off at Bugis. Familiar territory, but I half thought about getting off at City Hall and walking around the equally familiar Raffles Plaza. Decide against it - more of Bugis will do. The clunk of the MRT gate as it opens for me and deducts another 70 cents of my ezi-card. More escalators, more automatic riding.

The basement of what was Seiyu. Smarter and more commercial now than it was before. Jolliebee. Bread Talk. Cedelle. Delifrance. The Coffee Bean. Cold Storage is still there, but the old food court has moved up to the second floor of Bugis Junction. I take the escalator up and walk into Seiyu/BHG through the TopShop entrance. Hand Bags, shoes, costume jewellery, watches and fragrances. Make a purchase, served by an eager young assistant, who moves quickly and snaps my purchase into a bag, hands it to me, along with the credit card and receipt, all in a well rehearsed action.

Into the sweet humid outside. Cross the square, past Starbucks and the fountain, and through into the glass, air conn'ed bubble of Bugis. Wander nonchantly through the carts of Random Stuff on the ground floor. Make my way up through the escalator maze to the Watsons on the third floor. Walk straight to the back of the store, right up to where I left off, pick up four boxes of kids Panadol and made my way to the counter.

Slowly wind my way back, down to the ground floor, and come back into the hotel through the doors from the mall. The bustle and busy-ness give way to muted civility. In the lounge, the piano tinkles a background tune. Guests chatter. Hostesses float. Memories flood.

The bingbong of the lift. The quiet of the hotel corridor, the softness of the carpet. The bridge over the mall, a last gasp of sweet humidity before a night of artificial cold.

Pause to take in the shutters and the blend of the old Peranakan shophouses and the sleek modern glass and steel of the mall.

The whoosh-click-click.

Love, I missed you tonight.