This is the doing of it. Our elbows, caked with dirt, prickled by the bougainvilleas, tongues laced with the memory of finding something new to say. He gestures across this great expanse of trimmed bush and planter boxes and says something about lane clearances. I say I can't hear him over the traffic. We embrace, sloppily. The raintrees dance. Petals bloom. A gift voucher is handed to us from a passing car. It's Esso, he says. We laugh. Order begets these rarities. It is the task of the Singaporean lover to collect them all. Soon we'll lose our names like car horns in the night, dashed onto the noise barriers, spread out across the tarmac like pangolins. Octane tastes purple, and love happens fast. He teaches me: The bougainvillea's true flower is the white heart at its core. In the morning they'll tamp down the soil, take names, check cameras; but we were never here. We'll be in different buildings, flowers in our pockets, singing: How wonderful it is to love anything – anything at all!