The rain lasted for forty-five minutes. Then, as suddenly as it started, it softened. The roar became a patter. The grey clouds tore open, and a single, blinding shaft of sunlight broke through, turning every droplet of water on every leaf, every car, every window into a tiny, glittering diamond.
“But not you, Ah Ma?”
Lin adjusted her sarong kebaya, a habit born from forty years of watching this city breathe. To the tourist, Singapore was a gleaming, air-conditioned utopia of order. To Lin, it was a living thing that shed its skin twice a year: once with the dry, hazy haze of the Southwest Monsoon, and once with the drenching, relentless fury of the rains that came from the South China Sea. monsoon season singapore