Twilight in the desert

I am sitting by the window. My head is leaning on the glass. Every now and then my view is clouded when I exhale. I am tired, I can not sit up straight and I am apathetic about my posture. The train is nearing my stop. I have a few minutes to collect my thoughts. The sun is setting behind us and a golden color is coated on all objects in my view. I see wide open landscape dotted with fenced industrial lots. A line of trees momentarily blurs the outside world and then we emerge to more wasteland. This is the unsightly portion of the trip. I start wondering back to evenings in Samoa as a youth. Ofo and I would always be up to something. We would either be sitting at the top of a high tree pretending we were Tarzan, swimming in the nearby river, shadowing birds with our slingshots or picking fruit from trees. Whatever it was we were doing that evening, it usually involved fun! Evening was playtime in Samoa. All the villages were buzzing with the vigor of their restless youth. Me and Ofo were no exception. I never really knew how to define happiness until I think back.

Evenings today are uneventful and most of all forgetful. I am either sitting in traffic or gazing emptily out into passing objects from the seat of a train. Days begin and end with no fanfare. The reflection I see on the window is that of an increasingly passive man. Not the once adventurous boy. Sometimes I over-wear my emotions on my sleeves. An announcement blares out about our next stop. My stop. I look outside and see a magnificent pine tree and smiled to myself. If that tree had been anywhere near me and Ofo in our prime, we would be sitting on the top branches singing our lungs out.