Marsling MRT

“Do you think you’ll have kids?”

“Ugh and potentially turn into my mom? Probably, nah.”

“I mean, you turned out pretty okay.”

“That’s still TBD. The effects of forced piano lessons, tutoring, and the deprivation of a social life remain to be seen,” Monica said flatly, accepting her fate.

Her mother’s strict control over her life was one of the reasons they were here at Marsling MRT station where Monica could conceivably be perennially “on her way home.”

“Okay, don’t judge.”

“What?”

Sandy’s tone turned confessional, “Once I had a thought that I would have five kids.”

“Five?!”

“Yeah,” Sandy confirmed with all the confidence of a young woman who had yet to wrap her head around the process of child birthing and rearing. “So, like, the eldest is always in their own category, pseudo-parent and such, kind of close but not close to everyone. And then the younger siblings can pair off so that everyone has a friend in the family.”

Monica guffawed, and Sandy smiled back good-naturedly.

“That’s bullshit,” Monica countered before softening. “More siblings does not equal less loneliness.”

“Coming from someone with no siblings.”

“And see?” Nudging Sandy’s arm, Monica smiled, “not lonely.”

Sandy smiled too as another train came and left the station. The sun was beginning its descent, turning the sky into a deep orange canvas with the purple of night seeping in at the edges. From her view on the elevated platform, she could see the hawker center across the street start to fill up with the dinner crowd. Men and women claimed tables with little packets of tissue before going to stand in line at their favorite stalls. Drink vendors made their rounds, gripping three to four steins in a single hand without spilling a drop of Tiger Beer.

The platform slowly repopulated. Like lemmings, students in uniforms and corporate workers in suits filed neatly off the escalator and into the waiting lines painted onto the floor of the platform. When one line became full, people obediently sought another. There was never a line a person couldn’t join. There was never a wait more than six minutes. Singapore’s orderliness and efficiency could not be beat, and nowhere was that more clear than the mass rapid transit system. 

Sandy had watched these lines fill and empty, fill and empty like clockwork for the better part of the last hour, dreading the moment when she would join them. Her school uniform would ensure she blended in seamlessly, just another cog in the machine.

“I don’t want to go home yet,” Monica said beside Sandy. They sat on the minimalist block placed in the center of the platform. Whether the block was for sitting or decoration, the girls couldn’t say, but it had become their spot every week when they walked from school to the station. 

“Yeah,” Sandy agreed. “But the homework! When will it ever be done?” She melodramatically threw her hands up in the air.

“What good is homework anyway? Like, is writing an essay about chapters 12-18 of Moby Dick really going to help me get a job in the future?” Monica, barely out of high school, was already a cynic.

“I don’t know, dude. If you ever find yourself on a whaling excursion in the 19th century, you’ll regret not doing your lit homework.” 

“Ha. ha. We both know half the class is just going to spark notes the chapter and end up with the same essay anyway.”

Sandy grimaced. It was an accurate description of their peers and perhaps that frustrated her more than the educational shortcut itself. Their peers at the international prep school were all ladder climbers and box checkers. Take at least 5 AP classes your junior year? Check. Participate in extracurricular activities? Check? Ensure at least one is a sport, one is an art, one is academic, and one is a charity? Check, check, check, check. Do it all while maintaining a 4.0 grade point average? Check, and thank Spark Notes for the last one. 

All the requirements cut them into perfect puzzle pieces, shaped with just the right knobs and sockets to fit in the larger picture of hyper competitive, achievement driven, elite college bound 17 year olds. 

It was exhausting. And friends like Monica—practical, naturally intelligent—gnawed at the edges of Sandy’s spirit. For Monica, school was easy.

“Ah, yes, the masses who simply regurgitate the thoughts of other people versus the few who strive for original thought.” Which do you want to be? Sandy didn’t ask. Instead, she deflected to her classmate. “Try-hards like Sarah who you know is going to bring up some obscure line in class and completely derail the whole discussion.”

Monica laughed, “Exactly! What a suck up!”

Sandy laughed too, masking a deep envy of Sarah whose try-hard tendencies had carried her to intellectual success.

“Though I’ll give her credit where it’s due,” Monica mused, unknowingly affirming Sandy’s envy, “her point last week really changed my opinion of the chapter.”

“Right! Wasn’t it just profound?” Sandy agreed. 

Pursing her lips, Monica looked at her sideways. “Sarcasm?”

“No, totally serious! I wish I had caught it myself.”

The confession hung in the air between the two girls, an admission of effort and failure. The machine of their schooling tolerated neither. Caring was not cool; failure was rare. 

But at Marsling MRT station, a place between places, caught between the puzzle of school and the weight of familial responsibilities, caring could be given room to breathe. Sandy and Monica could indulge in girlish crushes, hypothesize about the future, and exchange critiques of everything from their teachers to anime. Here, they allowed themselves to want and demand of the world. Over slurped ramen noodles and crispy pandan waffles, Sandy and Monica passed time as if it were limitless. Mountains of homework ignored, chores forgotten, they chatted as the trains came and went. Each time a train pulled up to the station, the girls’ eyes would meet. In two looks, a question was asked and answered amidst a steady stream of free dialogue.

A train approached on Monica’s side of the tracks. The sky had melted from orange to purple, and the street lamps flickered on. The universe was telling them to go home, that their sojourn at the station was bordering irresponsible, that their moms would call soon, worried about them missing dinner. 

Sandy’s brain began to list all the homework assignments she had and how long it would take to complete them. 60 pages of history reading, two hours. French exercises, forty-five minutes. Moby Dick essay…

“I kind of want another cup noodle,” Monica said.

Her invitation tempted Sandy out of her thoughts. “We could get tom yum flavor this time.”

“But what about Melville! Who will write essays of his work now?” Monica melodramatically threw her hands up in the air. 

Sandy laughed. Monica’s train doors closed and left without her. A new train, Sandy’s train home, approached the station. 

Grinning mischievously at Monica, Sandy hedged, “We do have a free period tomorrow.”

“And there’s always lunch,” Monica added.

They grabbed their bags and descended the escalators for their second pre-dinner dinner. Giggling and giddy, the girls relished in their small act of rebellion, rejoiced in their irresponsibility though they both knew they’d pay for it later exchanging texts at 3am about Melville, the Civil Rights Movement, and the physics problem set due tomorrow. 

On the platform above them, the trains came and went.