Condo-Rondo Once More

Another attempt at a condo, Sunny Springs this time, which sat opposite The Waterina and Versailles. For a number of years one had walked past the Guillermard side there evenings on the Long Marches observing the comings and goings. Young Sichuan Amber came down to the security gate to fetch the visitor. (After the inspection she needed to come down again in order to swipe for exit. Rounding the car barriers on the driveway was prohibited.) Amber and her young partner lovely as expected; one could tell immediately from the texts. It was the indoor dogs, the sports-bags, the small crowded gym one would need to pass daily that presented difficulties. Beside the gym a function room Amber called it, with aluminum tables and chairs squeezed. Visitors or inter-apartment socializing possibly took place there. How to convey the scene? The patterned tiled walkways through picture-book garden beds; the tired dark faces at the security guardhouse. A film-set for a splatter movie—one understood the impulse in that Scandinavian genre. Exceedingly odd were the fishing rods returning at the gate. The river that ran along-side Sunny Springs was a feature of these estates, granted, murky and dark as it was. None of the inhabitants from these towers would dare eat any catch from there; for one thing there had been some hospitalizations recently and even a death from the consumption of fish. These young lads made the unlikeliest fishermen. They were all wrong in that leisure wear. Slowly, slowly the penny dropped. Ah! Ya. This was what you called recreational fishing. This was sport like tennis and golf. Difference being in this instance fine young lads of good Buddhist stock coming downstairs evenings after dinner for some release before hitting the pillow. Expensive collapsible sticks and reels from the catalogues. The fishing one saw off the bridges and along the rivers in Singapore was usually conducted by foreign workers hopeful of something for the plate. One particular sports-bag was unidentifiable, a metre long and rather ungainly; an uncomfortable shape. Long and rectangular, about 8-9 inches at its broadest, it took a little curve up top. Soft vinyl; an oar possibly. Definitely not a musical instrument. Pogo-stick of some kind?... There were always novelty items in these lines visible on the streets. How to tell Amber? One needed to convey the warning, drop the hint to these fine youngsters far from home. (The mainland accent had been picked in a trice.) Certainly they needed reassurance there was nothing whatever against themselves personally.