***

Bright splashes of natural colour. The lavender hue of flowers that flitter on trees. Such becoming shades are fast becoming a rarity in Singapore. We used to have a rainflower tree next to my block, pale pink and green. The ground was sprinkled with those beautiful pink sparkles after a rain. They cut it down in my childhood. I forget when. A pang in my heart when I remember how those wet pink flowers looked on dark wet concrete.

***

"Come down and sit in the dust: a virgin, daughter Babel, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, Tendre and delicate."

Geneva Bible, Isaiah 47:1

Temperance, calm and chaste. Oh lady Temperance from whose center I call upon seated in the eye of the tempest. I shall not fail in my quest. I will not succumb to the soporific music of the storm. I will not be tempted by the glittering shards of the tossed sand that slice my eyes and render me blind.

***

It is jasmine season again. On the delicate waftings brought by the breeze, that ruffles my hair in greeting, I scent it and recall the tea Hamlet made from the jasmine that grows outside The Lost One's room. The Lost One and the bouts of anime we endured in his small, stuffy room. The trek to get pizza.

***

What I will miss most is the scent of Spring. Singapore is too dusty. A graying pall settles over everything. The heat is oppressive. The atmosphere stifling. When I walk to my room, there is the faint scent of jasmine, there is [the blue is solid, the texture liquid gold, the heavy scents of gardenia, the breeze brings little gifts of honey drenched roses, musky lilies, and the rich powdery prize that is jasmine].

***

I vaguely miss the Capt. But it no longer hurts, coated as it is by the exhaustion that accompanies work.

***

How much of my life is due to convention and the need to flout it?