Rain Reliever

The second monsoon season seems to have arrived with a vengeance. The mornings begin with the promise of a hot, muggy day when hair, teased and spritzed for what feels like hours, turns limp by the time you reach the end of your block.

            “I hate this humidity!” Saffy said the other morning as we trudged to the MRT station. “My hair looks like day-old ramen! And I only just washed it and conditioned it and sprayed, like, half a can of hair-spray on it, and now look at it!” She tugged at a lock of hair that, now that she mentioned it, did look exactly like soggy noodles. Even her normally perky bosom looked uncharacteristically deflated.

            The humidity builds through the morning, a heaviness you can almost see in the air, weighing down the thick branches of the mango trees that line the driveway of our condo. Sniff the air, and there is a scent of green beneath the stillness.

            Through the windows of my office, I watch the clouds begin to build over the high-rises, cotton wool puffs that steadily turn a dark, bruised purple. I don’t make any plans for lunch when I see the sky looking like this – just a hurried dash across the road to Lau Pa Sat to da-bao some economy noodles and then back to the office, where I munch and watch the sky turn inky.

            And some time around the mid-afternoon, just when the post-lunch slump hits and I wonder if I should close my office door, turn my chair away from the door and have an upright nap, as if I was sitting in an economy seat on the plane – just about then, the skies start to spit out thick fat pearls of water. And within a minute, it’s as if someone has turned off the lights in the world as curtains of rain sheet down, splashing hard against the windows like a clatter of frozen peas in the sink.

            At moments like this, the horizon disappears behind a misty wall of water, savage in the deluge, scrubbing away the heat and drenching anyone lucky enough to have found shelter in the five-foot ways with a heavy wet mist. And for those unlucky enough not to have remembered to bring an umbrella….well, you hope they had the foresight to have stocked a change of clothes in their desk drawer.

            This afternoon, Saffy rang me. The din from the rain hitting the windows alternated with sharp lightning cracks. We practically had to yell at each other over the phone.

“Seriously, this rain is so loud, I just cannot think!” Saffy shouted.

Then, in the background, came Sharyn’s voice, crystal in its clarity and projection, full of power from years of screaming at her children. “Aiyoh, why you must shout like that, ah?”

“Shut up, Shazz! How are you even able to hear me?”

“Ay, girl! Got tun-der and lightning you know! You should not speak on the phone. Skali, you get electrocuted, ah, I tell you!”

“Oh my God, this morning you told me not to drink cold water first thing in the morning, and now you’re telling me this! How are you even head of our accounting department?”

“Ay! You don’t anyhow say like that, can? I, hor, got honours in management accounting, ok? Lagi, I got…”

            Quietly, I put the phone down and disconnected the call. I remember one conversation, early on in our friendship, when the exact same thing happened when I was on the wrong end of a two-way conversation between Saffy and Sharyn that lasted 45 minutes. Never again.

            Outside, the world was still dark, even though it was just 2.30pm. Tinted by the windows, the rain was now coming down in heavy blankets of slate grey and down on the road, I could see a traffic jam start to build up – the slow moving headlights looked just like the fairy-lights on a Christmas tree.

            Amanda texted to say she had been walking back to her office when the sky opened up. She retreated into the lobby of a building and tried to decide how she was going to get back to her office without getting her Manolo Blahniks wet. For some reason, she felt it necessary to explain that “an umbrella really only protects your top.”

            She cajoled the security guard into giving her two Cold Storage plastic bags, which she then stepped into and tied tightly around her ankles. Duly protected, she walked, or rather, rustled, back to the office.

            “Completely dry shoes!” she texted with a smiling emoji.

            “How is she a Harvard grad?” Saffy said when she heard.

            “It’s genius,” I told her.