Eight days more or less it has been since the authorities implemented a nationwide circuit-breaker in the country, implementing measures over nearly every industry and every sector as has not been seen in the small city-state for a long, long time.
All at once, workplaces are shut, schools are closed, restaurants are open only for takeaway and delivery, and malls are silent. This is a season of social distancing where everyone is strongly encouraged to be at home as much as possible, and where we remind ourselves (plus each other) to isolate ourselves from others as much as we can. Masks are to be worn at the markets and the supermarkets and on public transport. We are to go out only when we need essential services, like going to buy dinner or ingredients or to the bank or whatever it is that you really, really need to do.
By the end of this season we will all be very, very familiar with the phrases- Stay At Home, Home Based Learning, Work From Home, Lockdown and Circuit Breaker- but that's how the world is- for this season- and that's how I think it has to be.
Notwithstanding the fact, though, that if we have to go out, we can go out, if needs be for whatever essential jobs or stuff that needs to be done.
And because it so happened that I was needing to be in town the other day for something essential, I took a couple of pictures near the City Hall- Clarke Quay area.
No particular reason why; just for the memories.
Because if there is one thing we have to know, it is that this city-state of ours doesn't seem to have been structured for the element of space, or for the element of quiet. I'm not the youngest person here, and as far as I can remember, we have never been as quiet as this. To be honest I don't think it can be described as 'quiet' but instead, maybe it should be called as 'silent'.
There is an emptiness in the roads, the parking lots and the waterways. I cannot remember when it was that the alley behind Peninsula Plaza was devoid of vans and lorries for the guys to make their deliveries. I cannot remember when it was that no car passed by outside the Central Fire Station or the colorful windows of the MCCY. Neither can I ever remember the cafe at Excelsior empty of patrons drinking, eating, or otherwise. I don't even think there was a time when I could see the ripples upon the surface waters of the Singapore River.
But now I can.
And in a very odd way, encouraging a sight it is, because whilst we may be all stuck at home, whilst our travel plans may have gone haywire, and whilst we may have our movements restricted and halted and controlled, there are some elements of the Earth which cannot be halted nor stopped nor controlled.
And as long as we remain peaceful, at ease and comfortable within ourselves, the energy will flow once again.