5:30pm

It was almost 5:30pm, time to get ready to go home. The sky was still bright outside her office; the possibilities for dinner and entertainment beckoned like glistening jewels -- which should I choose? Dinner and movie, the classic Singapore date? Badminton at the Community Centre?But it is always fully booked by twits who book three months in advance, this selfish act perpetuated by Resident Committee members who say, brazenly, that they have to allow it because the "RC is profit-making" -- "I ought to write in to forum one day to complain. Profit-making, my foot!

Her thoughts drifted away down a well-trod indignant path. Suddenly she had the terrifying thought -- what if I were to spend the next 60 years of my life griping about the system, flesh against brick, flesh against brick, until the flesh gives way? -- but that thought quickly drifted away.

She was meeting her boyfriend after work. She had a miserable day at work; she counted the minutes to lunch and to the time she could leave again. It was a relatively un-busy period for her department, having tied up a major, significant event successfully just last month. Her colleagues in other departments were jealous of her free time, but she could not understand why they were jealous. She would rather be busy anyday than to cope with the dark, embarrassing alleyways of her mind.

Right now, she had to shake off the old melabcholy so that she could at least be tolerable company later. She tried to think happy thoughts -- thoughts of her dog at home, of her best friend overseas, of brown paper packages tied up with string... But she reached a dead-end. She picked up her things, and walked out of the door. Another day; another forced smile; another day.