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Plates clatter on the table. One is stacked high with onion rotis, another threatens to overflow with curry. Their aromas tantalizingly entwine before mingling with the hundred other smells of the hawker stall. Delon tears off a strip of roti, swabbing the curry before devouring it. Worrying between bites he muses, "So many of us going away. Thomas and Edmund going to NS. Jeiel is going back to Philippines. We going to lose contact man, our friendship how?" Over our favourite meal we mull the question. Over the din of the almost best roti stall. Its too crowded in the best.

“Yah, sometimes wild dogs roam around here”, Edison said gesturing at the road ahead of us. It’s later, on the same night. The road curves around, out of sight and into the shadows. Streetlamps barely light the way ahead. It’s eleven o’clock, the witching hour. We’re trekking through four kilometers of backroads and Delon’s unsure of our sanity. Justin peers into the trees, peeling back the darkness. “Wah, imagine we get ambushed by dogs from the trees”, he quips. “Like Resident Evil like that”. Thomas emerged from behind a dumpster, swinging a makeshift weapon around. “Lets go”, he declares with bravado.

“Eh, wait someones coming”, Edmund cautions. “Sounds like a big group”. Pai kias, we silently dreaded. Chinese gangsters. Thomas grimly tests the heft of the metal rod and we tighten our formation. Semper Fidelis; always faithful. We came around the bend to embrace the unknown fear, to come face to face with our adversaries. They numbered in the twenties, in columns of twos they advanced towards us. Rapidly assessing the situation Thomas hurriedly disposed of his weapon, embarassed. We’re not really sure what the boyscout troop thought about a gang of guys coming at them with a metal rod in hand.

We’re in back in civilisation, we’re safe. Now we walk through urbane wilds. Swigging the last drops of shandy, I consider the bottle’s weight. With abandon I toss it across a concrete chasm. It falls halfway, rippling to a thousand shards. Tipsy, I laugh at the act of rebellion against the country I’m leaving. A signpost says “No Littering”.

A week later, or so. April first is a horrible joke. Heng Boon sends a boyband song. I hate boybands but I cry anyway. A painful farewell to friends both absent and present in Changi airport.

A solitary walk to the plane.