The River Between.

"You heard the news didn't you?"

Nurul looked into Chok Loong's eyes.

"I know."

Perhaps its the imminent fact of life that has sunk into their hearts or a true realisation after both parties' long period of denial and pretense that everything was going fine. But at that very instance of time, both of them knew that things were going to change.

For all his intellect, Chok Loong wondered why he had not foreseen this coming. I mean he knew from the beginning it will be a hard journey, but even him of all people could not have predicted that it would have went downhill so fast.

For Nurul, it is different. She thought that she could have made Chok Loong's hard life better by being with him. She thought that she had to be there when Chok Loong's godparents left him.

But things were just not meant to be.

As the night falls, the river's frequency could not have been more soothing than it is as always. Maybe, just maybe this has nothing to do with the period of time when they got together. Maybe it has nothing to do with their transverse relationship at all. Because very fundamentally as Chok Loong now realises, the original harmonic has been upset from the very moment they got together. Hard as it is to accept, they have been on different wavelengths from the very start.

"You know, all my life, my whole adult life, I have believed in this. (pauses) I am really sorry. I really am."

Chok Loong wipes the tears from his eyes and stares into the shore across. Nurul thought for a bit and then she realised-

"We will still be friends right?"

"Friends, yea we can still be friends."

Both of them burst out laughing and for a moment they just glaze into the horizons of the magnificent river that they have come to known so closely.

"The river is beautiful isn't it?"

"Yea, always."

"And it should stay right?"

"Been here for 146 years since 1819, give it another 44 years and it will be 190. (pauses) 1900s, people will remember this time."

"Haha, it's always the river between us isn't it?"

"Yea and I won't forget that we made a pact to share it together. (Chok Loong turns to Nurul) You won't forget that right?"

Nurul just smiles. And as she prepares to let go of the current past and move forward with her um-broiled and no-teworthy life, she knows that eventually it will just be due time before things come full circle again. Just like it is in the animal universe where once everywhile the tiger will cross path with the lion; both of them will definitely meet again.

Afterall, things were always going to change.

Yellow and Green

Yellow comes into the room and takes a seat. She is a demure, sweet, and nice girl. On a side note, she can also speak impeccable Mandarin. Class begins, and she sits there studiously taking down notes. Yellow questions a point made by the teacher, but decides to just keep her opinion to herself, preferring instead to settle comfortably into the background and just giggle.

Green comes into class late, and struts towards her seat beside Yellow purposefully, as if she had a reason to be late. Green is Yellow’s identical twin sister, born merely a minute apart. Barely 5 minutes after she joins the class, she interrupts: “ Excuse me, I think that the point that you just made implicitly assumes that….”

Yellow was impressed. This was the exact point that she saw just now, but was unable to express as succinctly into a sentence as her twin did.

The bell rings. Yellow headed to the washroom with her group of friends. Their favourite activity in school is going to the washroom together to fill up their water bottles. I think the mere act of filling up a plastic flask with like- minded friends around her brings her immeasurable joy.

Obviously Green could not be bothered with menial tasks like filling up a water bottle. She has greater tasks to fulfill, deeper topics to ponder over. And so she leaves, unable to comprehend how her twin can bear being around her classmates.

Such is the difference between Yellow and Green. A pair of identical twins, thrust into 2 extremely distinct systems.

Words in itself.

it⋅self

 [it-self]

–pronoun

1.	a reflexive form of it: The battery recharges itself.

2.	an emphatic appositive of it, which, that, this, or a noun:which itself is also true; Even without flowers, the bowl itself is beautiful.

Its funny that when you look around your life you will notice that the fundamental notion of life itself never deviates from the premise of self. Or if you like, men has always lived with the preconceived notion of the word "self"; depicted commonly in subverbial pronouns like himself, herself, themselves, myself, yourself and of course itself.

And very interestingly, the word "itself" has become a tool for definition and emphasis, for contextualization and abstraction, and of course for the plain sake of itself.

And so as time falls and the earth shakes, as the world revolves and changes occur, it in itself will remain a consistent constant. A constant for us to reflect upon, a constant for us to concretize our thoughts and feelings, a constant for mere expression of words.

Yes.

Words in itself.