I have always wondered how it would be to live next to the train tracks. Not romanticizing it, but being a cranky old lady who would invariably be annoyed at the constant chugga choo-ing.

I go home and come back mostly via the same route, one with ripples reflecting the rays from a sunset and indigenous pink blossoms making their way through the tree. It's a sight I've longed to capture but refrain from, worried that the feeling it evokes in me would get lost in digital translation.

I split up my time on a train into sections. One where I read, one where I listen to songs, and one where I sleep, barring the ones where I get a chatty train mate. All of them (except for the last of course) punctuated with prolonged periods of gazing out the window. 

I think about how the lives of the people living next to the tracks are vulnerable. Not those with a celebrated railway track balcony view. I wonder if they do that, similar to exclusive views of a waterbody, any waterbody really. How terrains are exoticized for commercial value. I only think about those with clothing lines fluttering in the wind, one house right next to the other. Unshielded from peeping toms when their front doors are open, I have committed that crime N number of times. I wonder what they think, they must see a thousand people a day, how must it feel to see a fraction of a face for a fraction of a second but for a lifetime with a thousand faces a day? They must have the train timetable etched in their minds. I wonder if they cook up stories for travelers, especially long-distance ones. I remember seeing planes fly above my mother's house, wondering what the passengers thought of the little girl waving at them. I did have a solid logical process thinking as it was so close to the landing strip, they must see a faceless girl prancing about. 

I write this on a train, this is not a first. I've written cards on a train, tweets, one-line reviews, paragraph texts, and content write-ups ( the latter takes the cake). I write as I pass by crossings, people peering into the windows while they wait for us to pass. I pass by a couple burning their waste, grateful that I closed my window. I write as another train passes by, don't worry, I can't see a single thing. The relative speeds make it impossible for my eyes to lock in with a fellow passenger. 

There's a popular adage about how everybody in a traffic block has their own life. NPCs are strictly a video game concept mind you. I think people on either side of a train are better examples. After all, railways are built along homes, makeshift or not.

Artwork: The Railway (1873), Édouard Manet