On this day, exactly 10 years ago, a boy and a girl became special friends.
An unusual match really. One, a student leader and quintessential, independent go-getter. The other, a loud ruffian always togged in scruffy surf-wear and flip-flops, fagging in between lectures and tutorials.
Opposites attract? Perhaps. But most friends said it wouldn't last. At least they thought so surreptitiously in their hearts, after the initial
brouhaha of learning that the two were a couple subsided.
However the Unlikely Bedfellows were determined to prove the
Nay-sayers wrong. A President could grow to love an
Ah Beng. And an
Ah Beng could strip away his seemingly crude facade to reveal a quasi-intelligent and sensitive side.
But today the boy wonders, having first met the girl at the most unromantic of places, in the middle of a mucky mangrove swamp during a University field trip, if they are still wading through life as man and wife, waist-high in mud. It sometimes feels laborious and there are plenty of obstacles underfoot, hidden beneath like tangly roots waiting to trip them up.
The past 8 months have also seen the levels reach chest-high proportions at times, threatening to engulf their heads in one big smelly, sticky mess. But lately, it has come down to the knees. At least the boy thinks so.
He surely hopes so.
And when the goo finally comes down to the ankles, they will know that solid ground is but a few paces away.
Just like it was, a decade ago.