SELF-AWARENESS

A Train Ride, a Guava, and the Question That Broke Me

Somewhere between mustard fields and tea stalls, I finally cried

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The station wasn’t busy that evening, but it wasn’t quiet either. A soft chaos that only comes from luggage wheels dragging across tired tiles, murmured phone calls, a metallic announcement slicing through the air like a reminder that something is always leaving.

I was one of the last to board. The platform lights cast a sleepy yellow glow on everything — people, bricks, my own uncertainty.

The train began to move. I found my seat. Window side. A girl across the aisle was scribbling something furiously into a journal. A man behind me was already asleep, his mouth slightly open, breathing like he had no reason to stay awake. The wheels groaned against the tracks, and it felt like the train was pulling thoughts out of me.

I pressed my forehead to the cool window. The city blurred past — halos of street lamps, graffiti walls, tea stalls with blue tarpaulin roofs.

There was a strange kind of clarity in the rhythm of the train— like it knew exactly what to take with it, and what to leave behind. I didn’t know what it was yet. But I could feel it. Like the first quiet tug of a knot loosening.