Drivers who speed all the way from Jalan Bahar are given fair warning a millisecond before they hit the dead end of the road at Lim Chu Kang. Just beyond the bus stop, a coastguard station watches over the workings of fisherfolk as they load their catch onto the lovely lorries of local retailers. The drivers now probably know better than to park right on the slope that leads to the murky shore lit up by a fringe of sea hibiscus in full bloom.
The mangroves east of the board harbour humongous mud-lobster mounds that buttress the bases of the trees like craggy mountains whose woods have overgrown their peaks. Beachfleas cluster on the foreshore, hopping about with unstoppable frenzy to welcome the sashay of beauties who dipped their feet into the mud this morning for a session of exfoliation and the exhumation of coastal litter. Amidst the swish of sashes and a strange sucking sound, we picked out spare tyres, vinyl seats, car batteries, freezer doors, water pistols, fragments of lost soles, slices of styrofoam, bottles and bags of everlasting strength that covered the swamp in brilliant swatches, standing out like sick jokes from the grey and green of growing things. Tiny crabs scatter before our boot(ied) feet, while their larger and distant kin lie dry or dying in half-buried ghost nets.
Few know and fewer still love this shore that once formed a continuous lung all the way to Sungei Buloh, before prawn farms consumed the levee in between. We gather a sprinkling of beings, cradling them as they crawl and claw their way on our hands, and plead their case in the cause of common interests. But there are, on this island of opportunity costs, too many heads and far too few hearts with the want or will to suffer what the earth will miss.
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