Red light !

In front of me is a taxi. Usual Bombay yellow and black. Held together with rust a hope and a prayer. There’s a tin trunk on the roof. In the front passenger seat sits a man. On the edge of the seat. He doesn’t seem comfortable in the taxi. In the back seat sits his wife and two children. One of them is standing up and looking out thru the rear window. Suddenly right below her on that panel between back seat headrest and rear window lights up the brake light. It confuses her for a moment. She blows hard at it ,and in a second it’s off, as the driver takes his foot off the brake. And so it goes on. Every time the light comes on, she blows hard at it until it goes off.
The only light she’s ever interacted with on a personal level has been fire light. She’s never thrown a switch to see a distant bulb spring to life. On construction sites and road widening projects food still gets cooked over a wood fire or a kerosene stove. They’re probably headed to VT. To catch a train to those places where the poverty line is more than just a statistic. Far away from this place where if she didn’t blow the fire out her whole family would go up in flames.