18:49.

I cannot remember at which station they got on, but they rode with me to Woodlands. A pretty lady in her early 30s, I first noticed her and noted her preppy knee length skirt when she walked straight into my line of vision, and a little girl about eight perhaps trailing behind her as they settled against the panel opposite mine.

I noticed the latter's ears first. Imagine if you will ears flipped upside down 180 degrees, with the smaller end on top and the tops were pointed! I first noticed the point and immediately thought, "Elf!" then realised the "inverted-ness" of the ears.

I really don't know why but I thought the mother - I assume that's their relation - was gay. I really don't know why, don't ask.

The little girl was tanned, unlike her fair mother who ignored her most of the journey. She had her chin-length satin-smooth black hair tied back in two knots, showing off her unique ears. She wore striped baby blue and pink socks, and her denin peddalpushers had pink embroidered flowers at the end.

I liked her.

Her voice was soft. I saw her mouth move, her mother ignore her, I never heard what was said. Her eyes too were soft, and also unsure.

You know the little child actress in Homerun?

Yeah, my little Totto Chan on the train had a pensive heart-shaped face like hers.

Her mother stood cross-armed against the door, at times turning to face it full-on to look out, and never spoke to her daughter voluntarily.

Or just once anyway - "Go and sit lah". No, not in a tone laced with concern.

The little girl - her eyes always fixed on her silent mother - rushed to the next available seat when it was vacanted. While many parents would move over to stand near their kid or sit with them, taking their offspring on their laps, this one didn't.

If you had not seen them together during their earlier part of their journey, you won't know that they were together.

The two metres separating them felt long, even to me as a bystander.

All the little Megan-lookalike could do was sit right at the edge of the plastic orange seat - her feet did not even touch the floor yet - and stare, head turned and lifted slightly, at her mother whose head was turned away from her.

We reached Admiralty, and the child - her mom blocked from her line of vision by a happy family (3 kids running around their pony-tailed Dad while he was on the phone) - scrambled to her feet to tiptoe and see her mom.

She thought it was the right stop.

Her mom never looked back, and she sat back down. For a small moment, her downturned mouth twisted slightly and if possible, she looked even more unsure.

Twice, I saw her smile when the other children were scrambling in fun but that unsure, almost sad look reclaimed her fast both times.

It was her almond eyes. They were not particularly big or stunning but they were constantly fixed on her mother. Those eyes kept mine on her throughout the journey. And she never noticed, she only had eyes for one person.

Her mother finally acknowledged her when our train rolled into Woodlands station. I walked behind them, saw them held hands as they approached the elevator, and her develop a skip in her steps and start to chatter to her quiet mother.

At the ticketing rails, she tapped her yellow ez-link card onto the wrong reader. Her mom grabbed her arm over to the right one but the card has been read and the wrong turnstile activated. They didn't notice and kept trying to tap the card onto the "right" reader. I saw her start and look up at her mom. I'm afraid there was fear in her brown eyes.

That's where I lost them. Though I pretended I was waiting for someone and stopped near the ticketing booth to look for them.

How terrible it is for a child to be with an adult in a bad mood, or worse, an adult who's not interested in you.

Maybe some people just shouldn't ever be parents.