On the North-East Line between Chinatown and Clarke Quay, the tunnel darkened the carriage for three seconds. Faces reflected in the glass — mine included — looked briefly like portraits hung in a gallery no one visits.
For those seconds nobody checked a phone. The train hummed. A child's shoe lit up with LEDs and then went dark again. I saw my own face softened by the black window and thought: so this is what tired looks like from outside.
Then fluorescent light returned and everyone returned to their screens. The portrait dissolved. Commuting resumed its usual grammar of avoidance.
I tried to hold the portrait version without judging it. Not as better — just as available. We are trained to treat in-between moments as dead time. But dead time is where the mind sometimes catches up with the body.
Got off one stop early and walked the rest. The river smelled of rain even though it was not raining. Clarke Quay at ten in the morning belongs to cleaners and delivery carts, not tourists. I prefer it that way.
Some moments exist only in transit: too short to photograph, long enough to change the texture of the morning. I wrote this on a receipt because I had no notebook. The receipt is in the desk drawer now, folded twice.