Eleven stops along the coast road
The bus was half empty at four o’clock, which is the hour when school has released its grip but offices have not yet loosened theirs.
I boarded without a destination beyond wanting to see the coast from a moving frame. The seat I chose faced the window — always the window on days like this. The glass was warm from sun stored all afternoon. Outside, blocks slid past in the orderly way Singapore arranges itself for passengers: bus stop, coffee shop, bus stop, school gate, then a stretch of trees that meant we were getting closer to the water even before we could see it.
Two rows ahead, a schoolgirl practiced counting stops under her breath. One, she whispered at the first halt. Two, at the next. Her mother half-listened, phone in hand, thumb moving without looking. By six the girl’s voice grew louder, as if volume could guarantee accuracy. Seven. Eight. I found myself counting silently with her, not from boredom but from a wish to keep someone company without speaking. Nine. The bus sighed at a light. Ten.
At eleven she said the number aloud and pointed — not at the stop bell, but at a slice of sea visible between two blocks, a bright gap like a door left ajar. Her mother looked up then, really looked, and smiled the distracted smile of a person pulled back into the present. The girl laughed and pressed her palm to the glass as if she could hold the water still. I looked too. The sea was ordinary that day, the same sea I could have walked to, yet the window made it feel delivered — a parcel handed through the frame of a moving room.
The uncle driving did not turn around. He knew the route the way people know recipes — muscle and repetition. At each stop the doors opened with a hydraulic exhale. An old man climbed on with a bag of oranges that smelled sharp and sweet. A teenager with headphones stared at his reflection superimposed on passing shopfronts. Nobody spoke except the girl, who restarted her count at one when a auntie asked where she learned to count so well. School, she said. Maths. The auntie nodded as if mathematics and buses were close relatives.
I watched the coast road unroll: railings, jogging paths, the occasional cyclist keeping pace until the bus pulled ahead. Palm shadows crossed the aisle like slow punctuation. The girl’s counting became a rhythm for the ride — not precise, because she missed a halt when distracted by a dog on the pavement, but honest. She was learning that rides are measured in more than numbers. Stops are also stories: who gets on, who gets off, who looks out and who looks down.
Somewhere near the tenth or eleventh halt — I had stopped tracking for myself and followed her instead — the light turned gold. Buildings caught it on their upper floors first, then the lower windows, then the sea itself, which stopped being grey and became a sheet of coins. The girl pressed her forehead to the glass briefly, leaving a small fog circle. Her mother wiped it with a tissue without scolding. That gesture stayed with me: care expressed as a quick circle on glass, nothing more required.
I got off two stops later, nearer home than I had planned, because the afternoon was thinning and I wanted to walk the last part on foot. The air outside the bus was cooler, tinged with exhaust and salt. The girl waved without targeting anyone in particular — a wave thrown into the aisle like confetti. I waved back from the pavement. She seemed pleased, though I may have imagined that. Buses leave whether or not farewells land.
Walking home I thought about how often we ride without counting — stops as background noise until someone small decides they matter. Eleven halts along the coast road. A window. A slice of sea between blocks. None of it belonged to me, yet I kept it on the clothesline because other people appeared inside the frame and made the ordinary route feel briefly shared. The uncle driving, the girl counting, the mother looking up at the right moment: a bus full of strangers arranged into a short story by afternoon light.
I have taken the same service since, always choosing the window seat when I can. I do not count aloud. I listen instead for whoever might be counting near me, and I look for the gap between buildings where the sea shows itself like a reward for paying attention. Eleven stops is not a magic number. It was simply the one that day when someone young decided the route was worth measuring, and the rest of us benefited from the measure without asking for it.