Razor bread

Leaving Timor was surreal. Because of how things panned out, I flew from Oecusse to Dili, had a day's errands and layover there, flew to Bali, had a spare day and a work call, and then flew back to Singapore.

It felt like a dream, especially since I was drifting in and out of sleep on all the flights and my mind couldn't really anchor itself on any one thing while I was still awake. The scenery was changing too quickly.

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I looked out the window of the airplane as we approached Singapore, thinking we were over Malaysia but recognising nothing. I frantically checked my cardinal directions as the plane flew big circles and just as I thought that we were definitely in an imaginary place, we flew in over the Singapore harbour.

I looked down to see a fleet of huge oil tankers and massive cargo ships, more than I had ever seen in my life.

That old Talking Heads song jumped into my head: "This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife! How did I get here!?"

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I've hung out a lot with an old friend (one of my oldest) these last few days in Singapore.

We don't see each other very often, but it's always felt easy to be comfortable around each other again.

I used to talk with him about music, girls, food, The Future, you know, when life was perhaps simple. Now we talk about how Singapore is broken and why we're never coming home.

It feels like the final nail in a coffin for my youthful innocence.