Not too long ago, my dad mentioned to my brother and me that we once nearly drowned while on a family outing to PD. I think my cousin sisters had come with us, because PD outings were fairly common then but it was the first time they had joined us.

I don’t remember much of the incident except I kept sinking into the water. I remember the sensation of going up and down in the water. The uppermost thought in my head was “Why’s daddy doing this? I don’t like the water coming in and out of my mouth.” Then Daddy was bringing me and boy back to the water’s edge. Back to the beach.

I remember holding on to dad’s back, but I can’t remember where bro was. Oddly enough, I think I remember the sky to this day.

It wasn’t windy (not that I knew, being in the sea), but there was no rain either. There was just this coolness in the air while overhead, the ash-grey skies looked down on us, serene. I just realised now, what that scene reminded me of; the quiet calm before the storm. It’s that time when you wish to God it would hold, because otherwise we’d be dead when the storm hit it would be bad.

Hurr. I don’t remember the trip back to grandma’s house. I do remember looking at the crabs my cousin sister had picked up, wondering how long they would live. Two weeks later, we saw on TV3 that there was a lot of garbage on the beaches of Morib and PD.

It would be ten years or so before we went back to PD. Oddly enough, I was never scared of the water, not after then.

Huh.