This Endless Green
There is a record store on Coleman Street that has been around since 1962. It was first a shophouse, until it was demolished to widen a road, and when a mall was erected in its place it was invited to set up shop there. When the mall was closed for renovation it took its place in a hole in the wall on the second floor of an obscure, run-down shopping centre, and when the mall was reopened they did not move back.
This short history is articulated to me by the store’s owner who, when I ask him if they have any Björk records, remarks that her album covers are “funny.” He tells this to us after we have put our bags in a cubbyhole and scoured through an elaborate, cramped vinyl collection that dates back to the 50’s but also includes Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters. We take his name card for formality’s sake, and he tells us that he runs this store with his siblings and that it has always faced the red fire station across the street.
Next to this record store is an art gallery that houses fiery paintings of anti-colonial revolt and burgeoning nationalist identity from all across Southeast Asia that date back a few hundred years. In it I watch an enormous painting of tigers escaping a forest fire like it is a motion picture. When we are sitting in a café, we observe men with guns patrolling the building on the other side of the road. Laws are made in this building known as Parliament, and next to Parliament is an endless green.
I swear I’ve seen this field before. Either on the television for the National Day Parade or in a British painting depicting colonial Singapore’s multicultural population. The curator remarked that despite this intended depiction, a subtlety betrayed bias: the British were sitting, either on horses or picnic mats, whereas all the other ethnic groups were standing. Either way, today my friends and I are sitting, later lying down, basking in the sunlight that emanates from the yellow circle above Parliament, reflects off of an office building shrouded in glass, then grazes our skins gently.
We gaze at the skyscrapers and scheme, in mocking voices but perhaps half-seriously, about living in a high-rise apartment in this central business district, or in a landed house somewhere secluded but perhaps not here, in another country but perhaps not America. One of us thinks marriage involves a lot of pressure, another wants to settle down with someone. I joke that the restaurant on the balcony of the art gallery is rather romantic and another reveals he had started a relationship with someone precisely there.
When the sun finds refuge behind Parliament, one of us points out a rainbow on the other side of the field. A few minutes later they point out a second, fainter one made in its likeness. As I lay on my back and spectate the blue canvas above me I see that the clouds are swaying, first obscuring a misplaced moon, later granting me a glimpse.
No longer observed by the sun, I confess that I have a lot of regrets. I reveal that when I told people I wanted to study Aeronautical Engineering and they asked me whimsically what my favourite plane was and I replied “the one that flies.” I wasn’t entirely joking, for I sincerely did not know.
“Why didn’t we do this before?”
“Do what?”
“You know, this. Today.”
Oh, this endless green where intimate histories come to rest. I hope we can meet here once again.
