Kodak Gold 200 35 mm
Andijian, Uzbekistan, 2019

I was on the bus bound for Osh, the East-end border to Kyrgystan.
The bus was packed. It stopped at several bus stops down the way.
Quite a few passengers boarded the bus with huge sacks of items.
The dazzling sun light of the mid-summer
though the dusty windows left me sweaty.
Patience was the only option for all of us equally.

Everyone remained oddly quiet.
I can hardly remember what time it was.
It was when the sun was about to set,
and the sunset-red started to let the profoundly dark blue take its place.

I remained standing, unaware of my surroundings other than the blue hour.
Then, a pair of the last passengers got on the bus.
An elderly lady with seemingly her grandson squeezed through passengers, and sat right in front of me.

Her grandson could barely stay standing on his own, and in a while,
he sat on the floor with his head resting over her thigh.
He looked sickly since he was staring off into the space
with his eyes half-opened.

At some point, the elderly lady pointed at my jacket tied around my waist.
It took me no moment to understand her intention without any verbal comunications.

I untied the jacket and handed it over to her.
She folded it neatly and placed it
right on her thigh and right underneath the boy’s head as a pillow.

She glanced at me and smiled.
She turned around to the dusty window and dozed off.
The boy finally fell asleep calmly with his eyes fully closed.

It might sound like an inconsequential event.
However, it struck me as nostalgic.
It evokes a sense of nostalgia
when you come to the realization that
you have longed for a long-lost piece of the past
that hangs on to you for some reason,
and yet you cannot re-experience it.