Martin

There was a place a 15 minutes drive from where I live. It was a rather odd place to me. I had looked at the Perth map many times but had never noticed the place. Literally, no one I spoke to seemed to know about the place either.

Since last weekend was the last weekend for a long time that Jen and I could travel during the weekends (my MIL is coming this Sat), we did just that, travel nearby and took a look.

Martin was the name of the place. To Singaporeans, any hill is high. The suburb Martin was on a high hill. It was a semi-rural suburb like Forestdale, only more rural. The houses were placed a lot further to each other than in Forestdale.

I told Jen, "Hey you can see their mailboxes along the road and the long driveway but you can never see their houses!" Jen noted and agreed.

That was the feature of the place. High hill, winding roads, houses exist but you don't see them. Martin reminded me of Malaysia. My uncle used to live on the highest tip of one of the hills in Perak. It felt dangerous to live there. Any stranger could just come into your compound and you will be left defending your own territory. Oddly enough, there must be some kind of paradox of safety where this is concerned. There are way lesser crimes happening in places like that than compact residential regions. I guessed no one wanted to climb hills for hours and risk getting gutted by pet kangeroos or something, it's better to break in that beautiful mansion in Peppermint Grove.

From my experience living a few days on a hill, you get a perfect sleep up there. The air is fresh, you get pitch darkness and sleep inducing music from insects orchestra. In the morning, there are dragonflies to catch. My mum tied a string to the tail of a dragonfly I caught with a net. I had a 'live' kite. It's cruel I know but I remembered I was absolutely delighted that day. I was just a small boy back then.

I missed my mum yet another once more.