Trains of Realities

White tops, blue bottoms. White tops running. The familiar morning chatter of kids heading to school in the morning. I spot the few shirts tucked out, one of the crimes you can commit at this age to earn a place at detention.

I walk past the other shuffling bodies as the the orange morning rays find their way across the grey building; I was taking the morning train to work.

I have done this for so many years of my life,taking the trains at rush hour, to school and later to work though work then was temporary. Sure, now things are slightly different. Now, work is permenant, and it looks to be so for a long, long time. I have done this in New York, I have done this in London. So, by any measure, I should be used to this. Yet, this train journey to work felt foreign.



- a day at work transpires -



I am back on the train. Only this time in the opposite direction towards Jurong East.

A young teenage couple kiss. They smile at each other and kiss again. I smile at them. People on the train are surely more chatty than 12 hours ago.

I have taken the train back home from work before too, both in New York and in London. Yet, somehow it was far more exciting taking the train there. Maybe its because it was all an adventure, working in a foreign land, living on your Own. Your life then was yours to screw up, yours to do as you please. It was solely yours. Now, perhaps not so; try staying out past midnight on a weeknight and see if I will get a text message from mummy asking where I am. No, I'm not whining, but just stating a fact.

So perhaps that is the difference taking the train there and here. These are two different realities, and the reality now is that perhaps it is all less than an adventure, and I must accept this. And I will.

Only problem is, right now, I prefer that other reality more; going home to Brooklyn.

My thoughts get interrupted, 'next station, Yio Chu Kang...'



Uncle T