Johoringzingzwing Part Two

One of the rabbits being sold at the farm. They were going very cheaply. It looks a bit stunned. Bees hanging around the exit of an artificial hive. A dog sleeping at the doorway of a restaurant where we had dinner. An artificially concocted candy-coloured sky. It's actually just a blue-pink sky during sunset. I twiddled the colour curves separately. The boat that carries tourists off to see fireflies. One adult tourist pays like RM15 I think. So that's like S$100 per boat, just to drive them up and down a river for 15 minutes admiring stuff that's occurs naturally in the first place. It seems a bit of a ripoff. But you can't expect eighty-year-old grannies to go traipsing about in mangrove swamps, so there you are. Just a palm leaf.

I tried to capture the speed and sensation of the boat zooming ahead. But the photo is insufficient. Let me try describing it.

You sit on the boat, wearing a lightweight life-jacket. The boat's cruising along at a normal pace. The lights cut off abruptly, blanketing the area in darkness. All is silent. Even the really young children have ceased to natter. The magic of the moment has all of you in thrall.

The sides of the river offer the faint sodium-yellow light of streetlamps. Ahead, all is murky obsidian. The mangroves are steeped in deepest shadow.

The engine kicks. The motor roars. The watercraft screams with a strange new fury. The side lights blur into a hazy strip of golden ribbon. Angrily, the boat charges forward, as the crisp cool wind streaks past you in ragged, rushing wisps.

The boat charges forward, as if its going to its doom, and knows it. Into the twilight.