The Man and the Girl on the Train
My usual route to school involves taking two trains using Singapore's MRT system. Having a concession system that allows me to take trains for an unlimited number of times for the duration of a month leaves my commute to school is free of any financial burden, even though it is merely an illusion. Nevertheless, this metaphorical weight off my shoulders leaves my commute to school every day being quite therapeutic, especially when accompanied by the audiobook I am currently listening to about John Harrison and the invention of the watch to determine longitude in the ocean.
With my body on automatic and my mind free to roam the oceans of the world, my commute to school is also a very lonely one. It is not often so in Singapore that you manage to find yourself in conversation with another individual considering us to be a very conservative society. It was only one day that I managed to have a conversation with someone, and with no words being spoken nonetheless!
The individual in question was a small Japanese girl who was young and small enough to be able to fit on a pram, guided by her mother and father. She was seated on a two-person pram, which was built such that both passengers could face each other, which I supposed was to serve as a form of entertainment for each other. This structure certainly worked, as the girl and her younger brother were certainly enjoying each other's company simply by holding hands or giving pats to each other.
I marveled at the pure joy of the girl, whose focus was purely on the present and of the joy she felt through her brother's laughter as if happiness was contagious. Seeing that I was amused by her actions, she repeated them and looked at me for a response. Just to amuse her, I smiled wider and wider every time she repeated the action that she thought would bring me happiness.
As I smiled at her, I wondered at which point I started to grow up. Instead of seeing her pats to her brother's face as one of pure amusement, I wondered if she knew that dirty palms on one's face could cause pimples, or that touching something else before her brother's face would spread germs. I wondered when the innocence of my youth was stolen from me and when I started to see the world in such a cynical manner. Just as I made a resolution to spend more time to simply be in the present, I arrived at my stop and was delighted to find that the girl and her parents were coming off at the same station as well. However, as she was on the pram, her parents guided the pram towards the elevator while I headed off towards the escalator, which was faster.
I looked out to her to see if she ever looked out for me as well. Sadly, her attentions were on somewhere else, and she turned her focus onto what was her new present: the massive scale of the protruding elevator that stood before her. As I said goodbye to her in my thoughts without any expectation of reciprocation, I wondered if holding such a casual event under such huge scrutiny was the trait of a grown man who has lost his childlike innocence.
With my body on automatic and my mind free to roam the oceans of the world, my commute to school is also a very lonely one. It is not often so in Singapore that you manage to find yourself in conversation with another individual considering us to be a very conservative society. It was only one day that I managed to have a conversation with someone, and with no words being spoken nonetheless!
The individual in question was a small Japanese girl who was young and small enough to be able to fit on a pram, guided by her mother and father. She was seated on a two-person pram, which was built such that both passengers could face each other, which I supposed was to serve as a form of entertainment for each other. This structure certainly worked, as the girl and her younger brother were certainly enjoying each other's company simply by holding hands or giving pats to each other.
I marveled at the pure joy of the girl, whose focus was purely on the present and of the joy she felt through her brother's laughter as if happiness was contagious. Seeing that I was amused by her actions, she repeated them and looked at me for a response. Just to amuse her, I smiled wider and wider every time she repeated the action that she thought would bring me happiness.
As I smiled at her, I wondered at which point I started to grow up. Instead of seeing her pats to her brother's face as one of pure amusement, I wondered if she knew that dirty palms on one's face could cause pimples, or that touching something else before her brother's face would spread germs. I wondered when the innocence of my youth was stolen from me and when I started to see the world in such a cynical manner. Just as I made a resolution to spend more time to simply be in the present, I arrived at my stop and was delighted to find that the girl and her parents were coming off at the same station as well. However, as she was on the pram, her parents guided the pram towards the elevator while I headed off towards the escalator, which was faster.
I looked out to her to see if she ever looked out for me as well. Sadly, her attentions were on somewhere else, and she turned her focus onto what was her new present: the massive scale of the protruding elevator that stood before her. As I said goodbye to her in my thoughts without any expectation of reciprocation, I wondered if holding such a casual event under such huge scrutiny was the trait of a grown man who has lost his childlike innocence.
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