the smell of grease from the macdonalds at singapore aiport is clammy, a sweat mark on the back of a t-shirt that you may have forgotten to wash. i am here, in the thick of it, my noise climbing the staircase to salvation. there is a child with a balloon and his grandma, grease on her fingers, open-mouthed and ripping up small circles of "beef". this is a drawn out compromise, the sitting down patient clamour of this place, the cresendo of mutterings and bumbags i can see. one year two months later i am still here, sitting and waiting. one year and two months hasn't really changed any of the things that i thought it would, except the hollow sound i hear now in my chest, the rising tempo of my heart. the uniforms are all the same and the glasses. there was a cool drop of water on a flat veined leaf yesterday, and i saw it, and thought of you. that is the thing that hasn't changed. that is where we are.