A slice of sunshine.

Midafternoon. Lazy, lethargic, preceded by a productive morning. The sun is shining for the first time in a week or so.

The winter semester has started. My mind is kept busy with homework and classes. One of my favorite states to be in. Learning.

My mother comes in, feeling a burst of productivity. She suggests we take the dress I bought the other week and take it in so I can wear it. I try it on and she pins it, then takes it upstairs to sew. I follow her, chatting, the way we do when we have free moments.

The sun is still shining. I lay on my mother's bed, wearing only jeans and a black tank top. My hair is messily thrown into a bun on top of my head, and it threatens to fall at any moment. My earrings are a creeping vine of leaves and flowers, dangling from my ears.

She sews, and we chat. We discuss my upcoming birthday. Clothes. Shopping, whales, fashion, doodles, whatever comes to our mind is free game. I find a drawing app on her iPad and start playing with it.

After a few moments we hear my little brother, arriving home from school. I go down to open the gate for him, bare feet walking through the mud as I open the fence. Moments like these make me feel... simple.

A little group of houses in a jungle. Women hanging out their laundry to dry in the sun. Children biking home from school, coming in and out of the houses freely. Moms gathering in the parking lot to talk to each other while their children play, bare feet running on the ground still damp from days of rain.

Music comes from houses as I walk by. The chatter of talking, of cooking and cleaning. A gaggle of adolescent girls passes me, gossiping about whatever they can get their hands on. Several people wave as they see me. The sun is shining. I can hear the yells as boys play in a field behind the houses.

A door slams. I can hear a radio turn on, and the talking intermingles with a mother scolding her child. The grass is soft beneath my bare feet, a welcome change from the tiny rocks in the parking lot. There is a cry as one child unfortunately crashes his bike into his older brother's. However, all is well as he gets back up to go back to riding again.

A car comes through the parking lot, prompting mothers to look for their children to make sure they're not in harm's way. There's a cat curling around my ankles, and I can hear the distant clucks of a family of chicks nearby.

I shake myself out of my daydreaming and shut the fence gate, heading inside. I've still homework to do.