Bishan Park by the Long Way Round

There is a short route and a long route, and I almost always choose wrong on purpose.

The short route cuts past the playground and the dog-run gate and gets you to the pond in twelve minutes if you don't stop. The long route follows the park connector where the canopy thickens and the path dips near the canal, and it adds twenty minutes I pretend I don't have. I take it on Sunday afternoons when the week has left me feeling like a compressed file — still functional, slightly unreadable.

Yesterday the ground was soft from an earlier shower. My trainers picked up mud in the treads within the first hundred metres. I didn't mind. The air held that green smell particular to Singapore after rain — not fresh exactly, but alive, like the plants had been reminded they were allowed to breathe. Cyclists passed with polite bells. A couple walked a terrier that stopped every three metres to investigate a leaf as if it were evidence.

On the bridge I looked for the heron. It was there — grey, upright, occupying the railing with the confidence of a landlord. I've seen it often enough that I treat its presence like a bus number I expect on schedule: not guaranteed, but likely. A boy on the far bank skipped stones badly. The heron didn't flinch. I stood longer than I needed to, watching the water carry leaves toward the outlet pipe.

Further along, the park opens to a lawn where families spread mats and uncles fly kites that wobble like uncertain thoughts. I sat on a bench with a split slat that pinched if you shifted wrong. An elderly woman walked past in full sun protection — sleeves, hat, umbrella — marching with the discipline of someone who treats a walk as accounting. I admired her without saying so.

The long way round returns you to the same pond the short route reaches, which should feel redundant but never does. Arriving after the extra distance makes the water look different — wider, or maybe I'm the one who's changed pace. I checked my phone and discovered I'd been out nearly an hour. No messages that couldn't wait. The park path had done what I came for: moved my body forward without asking my head to perform anything.

I walked home along the canal, mud drying in specks on my shoes, already planning which bench I'd use next time.