This post was originally published on murderiseverywhere.substack.com.
It‘s been getting hazy in Singapore again. Plus the UV is so high some days that the Ministry of Health is giving us warnings to stay indoors, contrary to all the previous attempts to get us out to exercise!
This isn’t just me complaining: Singapore’s 24-hour PSI crossed into the unhealthy range on 4 September, the first time since 2023 and due mostly to smoke from fires in southern and central Sumatra and parts of Kalimantan. And yes, I know it’s probably much, much worse for the poor people living closer to those areas.
We have naturally high UV because we’re practically on the equator, but now that temperatures are set to rise even further, Singapore’s coming up with a ‘National heatwave response plan’. In wonderfully practical Singaporean style, we’re going to get air-conditioned cooling centres island-wide, starting with community clubs and indoor sports halls… and maybe air-conditioned void decks will be next? I know it sounds incredible/ impossible, but sometimes you need the incredible to solve the impossible!
And I like that the initiative some people are showing. A top student admitted in an interview that he studied in the upper level of (air conditioned) double decker buses. He picked the longest routes that passed his home or school and studied there up to the terminus where he would get on another bus (after topping up his water and going to the toilet) and take another bus in the opposite direction.
I thought he was brilliant—and that maybe I should try something like that too! I tend to look for ‘ideal’ writing conditions, but maybe I just need somewhere to enforce periods of focus, rather than the logistics of a writing retreat. Maybe I could work on the upper level of a bus myself?
Like that smart student who used his Student pass, I get a discount for being a ‘Silver’ (ie Senior) that means I get hefty discounts if I use my travel pass during off peak hours.
I haven’t been spending so much time on the upper levels not (just) because of my knees (which I’m working on) but because I don’t move very fast and the bus drivers are so careful about us oldies that he / she won’t start the bus until this Aunty has made her stately ascent to her preferred seat, meaning everyone has to sit and wait.
But up there it’s seldom crowded and totally worth it. I usually get to ‘chope’ the front seat with the huge window and view of all the trees passing and the air conditioning is at its best.
Comfort, temporary confinement like a hermitage only with padded seats…
What else does a writer need?
Maybe the dog who’s always by my side when I’m at home…
Until I get to bring Sophia on the bus with me, I’ll work at home.
Yes, there’s still that smell in the air and the fuzzy fogginess around distant trees. But we’ll get through this like we get through the books we write—one hazy step at a time, even if we can’t see the last chapter or the top of Bukit Timah Hill from where we stand right now.
This is the current haze over SEA.
