The canal path behind Yishun Street 71 is where I go when sentences knot inside my head. After rain the concrete gleams and the channel carries more voice than usual — not loud, but attentive, as if the water remembers the storm longer than the pavement does.
I walk south toward Khatib with no destination except the bench where the park connector bends. My shoes are old; they have learned the dips and rises of this route. Puddles hold fragments of block facades inverted, precise as photographs until a cyclist disturbs them. I step aside, nod, continue.
Canal walks are how I measure seasons in Singapore without a calendar. Monsoon weeks bring algae smell and faster current; dry spells expose mud banks where herons stand like clerks reviewing paperwork. Between showers — my favourite interval — the air holds both humidity and clarity, a combination that makes edges look newly drawn.
Today belongs to the between category. Clouds stack in the west but the east is pale blue. Laundry on corridor rails is only half dry; someone has pegged a school uniform beside a batik sarong, domestic collage at height. I think about how many stories pass overhead without ground-level witnesses. The canal sees only reflections.
I walk because sitting at the desk has stopped working. Editing requires distance; distance requires motion. The path offers motion without the noise of traffic. MRT rumble is a bass note far off. Closer: mynahs, bicycle bells, the soft impact of joggers on damp ground. I repeat a line aloud to test its rhythm — embarrassment is for indoor rooms.
At the bench I stop and watch a maintenance worker clear drains with a long rake. He works without hurry, knowing the water will rise again. We exchange the minimal greeting strangers share when they recognise each other's need for quiet. I eat a banana I brought, fold the peel into my pocket like a responsible child.
The Chin Swee memory visits uninvited sometimes on this path — not the details, just the temperature of that evening, the way waiting felt physical. I let it pass. Canal walks are not for unresolved nights; they are for moving the body until the mind agrees to follow. By the time I turn back the sky has darkened one shade without my noticing.
Home again I write three sentences that survived the walk. Two will become a log; one will linger in the notebook until it finds company. That ratio satisfies me. Not everything needs publication. Some lines are ballast.
Evening brings kettle steam and the lamp I leave on when work runs late. The canal path is dark now, still audible through the open window — a low continuous note beneath the estate's other sounds. I am grateful for paths that do not close at dusk, for cities that let you walk off a thought without ticket barriers or closing hours.
Tomorrow rain may return. The path will gleam again. I will walk it again, because habit is a form of faith — not that the weather will improve, but that movement will rearrange whatever stuck during the night.