I'm stopping you from falling.

I think I saw love.

I was walking along the river that cuts past Clark Quay, and there was a guy threading long blades of grass into the plaits of a girl's hair. She was sitting perched on the ledge's edge over the river and looking back at his face, long and hard. The odd angle he had to work with, coupled with the thick, black chains of the barrier around the river he had to work around (being as he was behind it) made his work a konky green burst of firework flowers, and laughingly he chidded her for it.

He looked about late 30s to early 40s, your typical, slightly paunchy Man of Singapore. She was a fresh young thing just hitting her stride, and foreign.

As I passed, fumbling and fussing with my bag straps because I was staring, but attempting discretion, she called out to me. Ran over, lithe legs I instantly envied flashing in and out. She handed me rings she'd woven from blades of grass, and gabbled in her foreign tongue.

I understood, of course, nodded my assert, grinning like a fool. She shook her head and yes yes, of course, must be sombre, sorry. I walked over with her, to her curious man, and he looked at me, dubious and expecting. No, my man, no disapproval, here, but see, I'm minister, sharpen up and look pious please. She goes to him, pulls him to his feet and before me. I set my bag down, and looked down at the rings in my hand. In the moist heat, they'd already gone limp at the blade ends, but a jaunty little white flower was set in the middle of both, and they were fresh, dazzling. And there, in the oddly shifting twilight (yes, how romantic, no?) light, I scrounged up what little I remembered of wedding ceremonies from books and movies, and improvised a promise ritual for them in the British style, because really the Chinese have no notion of romance in their countless traditions and ceremonies for weddings. They do family and filial piety best, but this couple had brought none to this lazy river.

I quipped a half smile as I gave them permission to set rings on the other's fingers, but I'm already gone. They are gazing at each other, and it looked, from my spectator view, pretty intense. Their fingers interlocked, and a promise for the ages yelled out louder from that squeeze than those rings.

Then they were gone, strolling off down the same path I was taking before, and her fluttering, flitting head piece turned gorgeous with the bobbing of her head.





Is this truth or invention?