Marked by Small Things
The School Bell
Even when I’m home, I can sometimes hear it ring faintly in my ear. It’s robotic and sterile, but it's marked my days for years. It’s the reason why I got up from hurriedly writing an essay in the library, the reason I rushed to shovel food into my mouth, and the reason I left the laughter my lunch table held. In college, time will be measured by clocks or Canvas notifications, not by a three-chime sound I can feel in my bones. I will have to look up and decide for myself when something is over. Time will be loose. I will miss the way the bell structured lives—how it made time feel like it belonged to everyone in the same way.
“Cold” Days Every once in a while, I will wake up and sense a hint of crispness in the air. I’ll feel it in the way my air conditioning feels colder. I’ll see it in the condensation running down my window pane. I’ll hear it in the small drizzles that patter on the wet grass outside. I walk outside and am hit with a breath of cold. My sweater will finally feel necessary, the humidity won’t feel unbearable, and I will feel the soft prickle of 22-degree wind on my face. “Cold” days in Singapore unite the nation. Radio broadcasts rave about the weather, locals flock out of their homes in puffer vests and sweatpants, and everyone feels a reprieve from the scorching sun that usually beats down on the island. There’s something joyous about watching a city built for heat to pretend for a moment that it’s somewhere else. Like maybe today we could need socks, or maybe the jacket you bought for a one-time trip to Tokyo can have its second outing. “Cold” days end as quickly as they begin, but that brief day feels like a borrowed season.
Birds on Orchard Road
They aren’t quiet. They screech—sharp, high-pitched, almost metallic—like the trees themselves are short-circuiting. Every evening around the same time, right when the city lights up and the malls start blasting music, the birds start too. Ironically, by adding to the chaos of the city sounds, they drown it out. Their cacophony has echoed through Orchard outings for as long as I can remember. They are loud enough to make you look up, but you’ll never see them. They sit as indiscernible splotches on a dense treeline, like the shrubbery itself is alive and irritated. Their sound doesn’t just fill the air, it claims it. So much so that the city would feel eerily quiet without their noise slicing through.
The Smell of My Room After School
A mix of air-conditioning, books, and whatever leftover scent my clothes brought in. There’s something about how my room traps time. I leave in the morning before the sun seeps in through my windows, and it’s frozen in place when I return. That after-school smell is my transition space, the shift from “day” me to “home” me. The warm air rises and circulates as I turn on the fan. The slight dust accumulated from the undisturbed room kicks up. Just like that, the smell dissipates.
Post Dance Starbucks
A blaring alarm has shaken me every Saturday since I can remember. I throw on my most colorful top, rinse my face with cold water, brush my teeth with my eyes half closed, and run out the door within ten minutes. At the studio, a pile of girls gathers by the mirror, half-awake but showing up like clockwork. We’re from different schools, with different lives, but we piece the week together through sleepy conversation as we stretch and move. After rehearsal, we are sweaty, happy, and still tired, but we flock to the Starbucks across the street, ready to have our first meals of the day. We talk through mouthfuls of croissants and muffins, which we all wash down with an iced coffee. We order the same drinks every week, claim the same corner table, and linger just long enough to pretend we don’t have somewhere else to be, even though we always do. Some of us rush off to tutoring sessions, family lunches, or even home for a good nap. But for those 30 minutes, we’re not dancers or students with packed schedules, we’re just tired girls hoping the caffeine kicks in fast enough to carry us through the rest of the day. Sometimes I think we want those Starbucks runs to stretch longer, because the day never really feels like it’s started until we’re done with our meals.