The Sleepy Wakefulness of Singapore Mornings

6.10a.m.

I wash the last fleck of balmy dreams out of my eyes, letting the water ease my sweat-adorned wakefulness. Yet, with my mind still asleep, my hands finger through the routine like a languid Saturday, only pausing innocently to entertain a drag. The empty scent of sleep hangs, lanky and subdued, as I hang my hair up into the quiet morning.

6.28a.m.

Old cracks perfume the way down to the kitchen, too diluted to be ascertained as one scent, but an amalgam of bricked-up histories, cements, and paint. My palms lead blind eyes to a chapped wall who bears the humid weight of too many tongues. I whisper to ask if I could be one.

As I get closer to the bottom of the house, the stairs cool my soles, and the air becomes sharpened to a ubiquitous petrichor (which is a blessing before the afternoon Sun). My feet become tickled with a childlike flourish so unlike myself that I begin to sieve out my sight proper, and the morning begins to take its shape.

6.31a.m.

Animated wisps of steam permeate through the smell of rain, mud, and grass. I turn the boiler off just before it begins to rumble, pouring a stream that melts bags of tea leaves. I smell the red caffeine, and the morning becomes coloured in a familiar, nuanced shade of currant, warming to a sweet brown fragrance that only comes with the addition of evaporated milk.

6.57a.m.

The Sun wakes up plainly this morning, and there is no need to paint it in any other way. It smells of butter and bread, and I breathe in its natural hue. Outside the window, the pavements are littered with yellow flame buds extinguished by last night’s rain, yet retaining an unmistakable pale beauty often mistaken for weakness. One never knows how hardy Singaporean trees can be. A familiar flourish begins to ring.

7a.m.

All at once, the golden hour stirs the neighbourhood to a start, and Morning whisks another day to life while I take in the scent of home.