Mr Wong rushed out of his apartment door without even grabbing a slice of bread, locking the doors hurriedly behind him, groaning as he fumbled with his keys. He was late for an early morning meeting, the seemingly endless bills had piled up and his project assignment (including the presentation on the early stages) was nearly due and still woefully incomplete. Too preoccupied to even consider breakfast, he deigned to tie up whatever loose ends he could manage on the train ride to his office. Adjusting his necktie, he half-walked, half-ran to the nearest MRT station, alerting passers-by to his stressed presence with the loud and incessant clopping of his sleek, heeled boots, ringing on the pavement in an excessive manner. He ignored the grumbling looks on the faces of other morning-goers and trotted on.
7:00 am and he was still not on the train, or even the platform. He ran up the escalators, almost barging his way past people, tapped his fare card on the machine, watched the miniature gates open painfully slow, and sped up the second set of escalators, almost dropping his wallet in the process. Hearing the arrival of a train drawing up into the station, he gasped in panic and increased his speed, sprinting wildly. At the last moment, he just managed to jump through the doors of the large impatient contraption before it shut behind him.
He relaxed slightly, and sat himself down on an empty train seat, brushing small beads of sweat off of his forehead. He tugged the zip on his bag, jerking it open and pulling out a large and thick folder. He unclipped it and pulled out several long and lengthy reports on logistics and resources. He read them through again and again, drawing out the important details and placing them in the back of his mind, where he could arrange them properly on paper later. "And the technical team can be reassigned to the drafting of..." he muttered under his breath, calculating the ideal staff size for such a task and cross referencing it to the resource limits whilst simultaneously checking the budget of the project.
7:15 am. Mr Wong scratched his cheek, deep in thought as the train left another station, barely carrying any passengers and allowing him to breathe. He pulled out another piece of paper and looked at the graphs and statistics listed, trying to process them at the speed that he normally could. His clouded mind prevented him from doing so and he looked up in frustration as a young mother's child cried loudly in equal anger. All the preemptive tirades stuck on the edge of his tongue that stopped as his mouth closed.
The Sun was rising.
At that moment, the thought crossed his mind that such a weak description was terribly inadequate, and he tried to find words to place the strange feeling in his chest, and yet could not seem to find any of them inside of his brain.
The small circle, no bigger than a fifty-cent coin, was climbing over the rolling hilltops and small houses before a large and empty field of green. It showered the land in a warm orange glow, whilst closer to it, brilliant mixtures of red, yellow and golden unleashed its glorious fury to the world. Piercing the clouds with sharp pinpricks of light, pouring into every dark crevice and illuminating the train, the very pinpricks of light landing on Mr Wong.
He stopped thinking, and simply stared at the elaborate scene of nature before him, basking in it without a single word, as if he was lodged in an epiphany of universal proportions. A soft feeling spread through his heart that he had not felt for a long time and he relaxed, easing his back into the curves of the train seat, continuing to watch the Sunrise.
The reports lay forgotten in his lap.
