I always try for the window on the side that faces the river. It is a small preference, almost superstition — if I get that seat, the day ends correctly; if I do not, I still get home, just with slightly less grace.
The LRT is not glamorous transit. It squeaks, it sways, it sometimes stops between stations while an announcement apologises in three languages. Yet I love the scale of it — elevated just enough to see into treetops and laundry poles, close enough to wave at a neighbour if you are both in moods for waving, which is rare but memorable.
Window glass fogs where my shoulder rests if the air-conditioning is fierce. I draw a dot with my finger and erase it, childish and soothing. Outside, blocks pass with the regularity of a metronome designed by town planners. Playgrounds empty as dinner hour approaches. Void decks host badminton games that will end when someone's mother calls from a window.
Passengers carry the day's weight differently. Students slump over phones. Delivery riders check routes between stops. An auntie balances a tray of eggs on her lap with the steady hands of someone who has done this for decades. I hold a tote bag of vegetables and a mind full of half-edited sentences. We are all returning to versions of the same idea — a door, a table, someone waiting or no one waiting, both fine.
There is a bend before my station where the track curves and the river appears briefly, brown-green and calm. I look up every time even though I know the exact frame. Repetition does not ruin beauty; it teaches you where to look for it when you are tired.
When the train is crowded I stand and watch reflections instead of scenery — my face layered over estates, doubled and transparent. I think about how many hours I have spent in this carriage over the years since moving to Rivervale. Enough that the announcer's voice feels like a colleague, not a stranger.
Delays happen. Once we paused long enough that a child asked loudly why the train was sleeping. The whole carriage smiled in the restrained way Singapore smiles on public transport. I wrote that line on my phone and used it here — permission granted by anonymity and the kindness of parents who did not shush curiosity.
My stop arrives with a gentle brake. I tap out, descend the stairs, smell dinner from the hawker row, and feel the small click of relief that geography gives when it repeats correctly. The window seat is not magic. It is a ritual — a rectangle of glass between labour and lamp light, and I am grateful every time it is available.
