Spray Censors

People always say Singapore’s this horribly strict city. Gasp! You can’t even chew gum?! And it’s true that sometimes living in the clean green dot does shelter us from the varied wonderful terrifying ways the world can be run.

Like how I always forget how amazed and in awe sometimes I get at the art on walls, on park benches, in alleyways, streaked there in surreptitious defiance in other cities. And the bare washed surfaces of Singapore have never seemed odd to me the way bats never question the absence of light.

Then one day, a candle in the cave is lit. The small flame accentuated by its singularity. You realise there is such a vast emptiness around. But the candle will die out, or will be snuffed out. And you might just forget that moment of brilliance as you settle back into darkness, or that light might sear its way into your retinas and haunt you forever.

I feel as though the afterglow is fading, the burn in my mind’s eye slowly healing away. I wonder if anyone else will light another candle.