I thrust my arm and shoulder into the path of the closing doors, forcing them open and squeezing through. I can hear the conductor shouting from a few cars down, but I'm already inside. I double over and stare at my feet, drawing deep breaths after having sprinted several blocks and flights of stairs to make the train. My one shoe is covered in a white crust and has a tear right down the middle of it.
Damn.
After a few moments to catch my breath, the train lurches forward, nearly sending me tumbling into an elderly woman's metal pushcart. I apologize profusely, and scan for an empty seat. The air in the car is slightly moist, like the inside of a recently vacated gym locker. I scrunch my nose up, trying not to think of the army of bacteria rushing into and out of my lungs, and instead focus on finding a seat for the long ride home.
I walk to the other end of the car and find one right at the end by the window. I sit down heavily on it, the worries of the day pulling my shoulders down, slouching me down, and leaning my head down to rest my chin on my chest . I am not sleepy, but almost immediately I close my eyes, hoping to vanish from this day.
I can hear the train clicking beneath me. The gentle hum of the engines as we speed along in dark tunnels deep within the city. It rhythmically jostles left and right, almost like a baby's cradle. Even though my eyes are already shut, I feel a deeper darkness wash over my eyes. I crack open an eye to see a figure approaching, taking a seat beside me, but cannot make out any other details. I shut my eye again.
On another day, maybe I would open my eyes, and even acknowledge their existence with a nod. On another day maybe I would even strike up a conversation. But not today.
But I realize just as quickly that I am at the end of the car, at almost exactly the same time I can feel them sit down beside me. I feel a plastic bag swing into my shin lightly, but solidly enough to have woken a sleeping person. A hand touches my shoulder immediately, probably as an apology. The hand is just as quickly retracted: they have probably just noticed they have disturbed a sleeping man. They are probably reassessing the situation, trying to determine if I am homeless or not. I definitely look the part. I haven't been shaven in a month, haven't had a haircut in even longer, my shoes are a mess and my clothes unkempt.
It must not have mattered, because I can feel them shift to get more comfortable, probably also readying for a long ride home.
Curiosity and bashfulness crash together in my mind. One trying to pry my eyes open, to at least get a glimpse of who this person may be. Bashfulness holding them shut, scared of having to strike up conversation for the length of an altogether too-long train ride. It's a very close game of who might win.
Eyes Shut Tight: Bashfulness
Cooler heads prevail. I know I wouldn't have been able to take a good look at this person without also acknowledging their existence. The thought is immediately shelved as the train makes another jolt, and then begins a turn. My head rolls from my chest to my shoulder. My thick winter jacket has a very padded collar, which acts as a half decent pillow, propping up my head into a manageable position. Almost comfortable. My mind thinks back to the stresses of the day, but quickly they become smaller thoughts, and then fragments, and then nothing.
The train gently rocks me as I drift into sleep.
I begin to dream. Of course, its about work again, and I replay all the trials and arguments of the day. My unconcious mind languishes on how things could have turned out at each moment of the day. But soon I can feel the dream give way to a new theme. Suddenly I am on a street in the spring. Walking along a cobblestone road, with a woman walking shoulder to shoulder with me. She is resting her head on my own shoulder, and her fingertips are grazing the back of my hand. It's a slightly awkward way to walk, but nice all the same. I try to look down to see her face, but it is shrouded by her dark hair; black with flecks of dark red. It smells of... I'm not even sure. A flower I am unfamiliar with, but exudes femininity. Of fragility.
I begin to realize that the sensations are a bit to real. Another jolt of the train brings me back to reality, and I become aware of the sensations that have not dissipated with the dream. Still there are fingertips touched gently against the back of my hand. Still there is a person leaning against my side. Still there is a head resting heavily on my shoulder. A head likely full of sleep as well. A head covered in hair that smells of a flower I am unfamiliar with. My eyes are still closed. I cannot see her, but I am convinced it must be a woman. I peek out a bit, convinced she could not possible be awake. I see a small pale white hand outstretched beside mine. Her coat is a dark grey and woollen. It looks rather comfortable. Her face is shrowded by her dark hair, but the gentle swell of her breasts under her heavy jacket on her petite frame betray her sex.
I close my eyes again. My heart picks up its pace and solidly drives the sleep and cobwebs from my mind. I begin to imagine fantastical realities of this mysterious woman beside me. I am smitten. I haven't yet even seen her face, and yet here I am. It's probably just the smell of her hair that has done this to me. I want to do something about this. But she is asleep.
And then a thought sprouts in my mind. The delirium of a waking mind has not yet completely left me. With the courage of a sleeping man, I reach my hand out to hers, and grasp hers within mine, knitting my fingers between her own. I can feel her hand tense, her head lift up just a bit. I shut my eyes just a little tighter, as I feel her lean forward. Her gaze warms my face, leaving behind a tan of embarassment, but still my eyes stay close feigning sleep. Still my hand is within hers.
I anticipate her hand withdrawing from mine. But it doesn't. I can feel her thumb gently caressing my own. I'm not sure if its a unconcious gesture on her part, or one to gently wake me up, but I remain asleep, enjoying the touch of her hand.
A few long moments later, I can feel her head return to my shoulder. Again my nose is met with her scent. I feel her other hand come up and over mine to cover it, to enclose my hand in both of hers. I smile in spite of my self, sure that she could not possibly be watching my face.
I drift, finally, to sleep.
We remain like this for a long while until finally the train comes to a stop. She rouses slowly, both hands withdrawing from mine as her head also comes off my shoulder. She squeezes my hand once, perhaps to wake me, but still I remain asleep. Still, I am too scared to talk to this woman, even if I had spent the last few hours holding her hand. But it's not just that. There is no way she could live up to the angelic personality I have built up in my mind. The beautiful, calm, serene person I had been fantasizing her to be in my dreams with her hand in mine.
She gets up. I can feel her looking at me again. Perhaps trying to figure out if she should pursue this. Again I can feel her hand on my shoulder, gently nudging. But I don't acknowledge her.
I feel her hand retreat. Her soft steps walking away and out of the train.
I would never see her again. I wouldn't even know it if I did see her. But that was okay. We had our perfect moment on a trainride home. Like passing ships in the night.
I could not have been happier.
Eyes Flutter Open: Curiosity
I open my eyes, squinting at the sudden brightness. I turn to look at the figure sitting beside me. She is seated but facing away from me, a hand to her ear and whispering softtly. Probably on the phone. Her jacket looks soft and fibrous, like a tightly knit warm woollen blanket. A bright sort of grey that somehow doesn't appear drab. Her hair flows down from her head, a sheen that is usually reserved for aquatic birds gliding along the water.
It is subtle, but it becomes immediately obvious that she is gently heaving. Although this end of the car is empty save for the two of us, I can notice a man halfway down that is staring at her with a look of concern on his face.
She puts the phone back into her pocket and turns to face me. For only a moment I see the expression on her face: eyes red, tears streaming down her face, mouth curled downward. But only for a moment, before she realizes the sleeping man beside her is now staring directly at her.
She laughs once, apologizes, and wipes away the tears from her eyes. I reach into my pocket and pull out a small packet of tissue for her. She thanks me, and blows her nose once.
"Rough day?"
"Oh no, not so bad. Don't worry"
"I'm not so sure, seems like you had a bad phone call"
"No no, it was nothing."
"Oh... okay then"
With a bout of embarrassment I turn away to stare out the window. The gray of the concrete tunnel walls rush past us. But the embers of my curiosity are now fanned by empathy for this weeping woman.
"Well, look, you don't know who I am, and I don't know who you are. For all we know we will never see each other again. If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine and I completely understand, but if you do want to, I can't promise to have good advice or even know what to say, but I could at least listen to you."
She looks at me with hesitation, weighing the option in her mind.
"Fine. But it's a long story."
"That's fine, I'm on here till the end of the line. You?"
"Me too."
Again she looks me over. Perhaps she still thinks I am a vagrant of some sort. It must not have mattered.
She begins her tale, but it is far shorter than she had advertised, and pretty predictable. She had been with her (now ex) boyfriend since she had started university. She had lived a relatively repressed childhood in her parents home and as soon as she could move away, she did. Her boyfriend was a senior when she met him in her freshman year, and she fell madly in love with his long untamed hair and chiseled good looks, and rebellious streak.
"He was just... perfect. He was anyways. He even was caring enough to wait for me until I was... ready. You know? Most of my friends weren't virgins anymore and always told me their boyfriends were just rushing to get them into bed, but he wasn't like that at all."
Her honesty was incredibly disarming. Almost intimidating. She explained in vivid detail the nature of their more amorous moments, of how alive she had felt. Of how loved she felt every time. Of the care he showed for her happiness and comfort. Of every move, every sensation, every look he gave her as they made love in the beginning. Brutal truth like this you would only expect to hear on someone's deathbed, and perhaps not even then.
"But then he graduated, and got a job outside of the city. It wasn't so bad at first, we saw each other whenever we could. But suddenly the schoolwork piled up for me and the late nights at the office for him. Gradually he had less patience for me. Just less time for me in general"
But still they kept up their relationship. What had started as a dive into the deep end of the ocean for her into the great unknown of love had become a shallow pool and was quickly drying up. But of course she held on. How could she not, she loved him so much, even if he didn't show it back as often. And then, she graduated.
Four years they had weathered a relationship strained by differing schedules. But she changed that, she got a job in the same company as him. Suddenly she felt the fire of their love again. They had lunch dates, they travelled to and from work together. She had been scared that he would grow tired of her, but he didn't seem to mind.
But a month after having started, she began to hear stories from some of the other women at work. Stories of a man who was the singularly most passionate man they had ever been with. A man whom many of the women at work had stories of. Of late night romps in different hotels, and even of surprise encounters in bathrooms and offices around the building. She refused to believe they could all be talking about him, until today.
Today she had run into a group of women giggling near a closed door. As she approached, she could hear whispering coming from inside. A man and a woman. A man who's whisper she could recognize anywhere. She left the building without another word, and boarded the train.
I had been listening to her story intently, but unsure what to say. As predictable as it had been, I was at a loss of how to respond.
She reached into her bag and withdrew a plastic bottle. The label had been torn off, but as she unscrewed it, the smell that assaulted my nose told me instantly what it was. I held back a gag as she took a swig of what must have been the hardest liquor I had ever smelt in recent history.
Wordlessly, she gestured it towards me. Still not knowing how to respond to her story, I instead took a sip as well, cringing at the taste, and shuddering as it slipped down my throat, leaving a burning path behind it. My whole belly warmed instantly.
She took it back and took another swig almost instantly, and passed it back to me. I tried to remember if open containers were legal on trains, or public intoxication. The thought was interrupted by a second shot of her alcohol.
We passed back and forth two more times before I decided that this had to stop, lest I find myself in a ditch somewhere tomorrow morning. But again she thrust the drink towards me. The fire in her eyes betrayed an anger that must have been boiling up for several hours now. I didn't want to become a victim to it, so drink I did.
I'm not sure how long it took, but eventually the sizeable bottle was empty, and the car was no longer as stable as it once was. I was trying desperately to hang onto reality as I heard her sobbing into my jacket shoulder. I'm not sure why, but this made me angry.
"Shut the fuck up! What the fuck is wrong with you!? This is your FIRST boyfriend! He was obviously an asshole, and you hung into a dead relationship years after it had died. You should have dumped his ass YEARS ago, and you didn't, and you're just as guilty of this relationship ending as he is."
I tiraded for a good while more. Even as I said it, I didn't agree with all of it. Some of it I knew I had said for dramatic effect, and some of it felt more like drunken rambling than actual lecture. But it was all enough to shock her out of her sadness. At least momentarily. I finally came to an end.
"You're hurting my hand."
At some point, I'm not sure when, I had taken her hand into mine. And now I was squeezing it so hard that her pale skin was now an angry red. I tried to withdraw my hand immediately in surprise, but she held on.
Again, she wiped away her tears with her other hand, smiling, and she looked out the window away from me. The train had left the underground and was now racing along at night amongst trees and sleeping houses. She turned back to face me, her eyes and cheeks both red, likely from a combination of too much drinking and sadness, and she smiled again. But this smile, looked much more genuine and shy. Her eyes twinkled just a bit.
She turned away again, but then put her head on my shoulder, hand still within mine. Her thumb softly caressing my own. I wrapped my other hand around hers, and leant my head against hers. Emboldened by alcohol, I kissed the top of her head once. Through both my thick jacket and hers, I could feel her breath quicken. She squeezed my hand once more, then looked up to me, still smiling, staring directly into my own eyes. She drew in a bit closer to me, close enough that I could feel her warm breath on my own lips. She closed her eyes, and then closed the gap completely. She pushed just a little too hard, her aim slightly off, and poked her nose into my own. Her eyes flew open in embarrassment, perhaps realizing that not only had she just tried to kiss a stranger on a train, but she had also missed. But I smiled back at her, and went in myself.
The alcohol rushing through my body quickly quieted the sensations that were no longer relevant. The train became silent to me, the rocking of the train went unfelt. All I could feel was her hand trembling within my own. The urgency building in her lips. The smell of her hair filled my mind. I put one hand behind the small of her back, but the other kept her hand clasped tight. Her other hand cupped my cheek gently. She lifted her legs up and over my own, almost half sitting across my lap, wrapping an arm around my neck, never once her lips breaking contact with my own, her tongue reaching out to twist around my own.
I don't know how long we kept it up for, the alcohol's effect growing stronger and stronger within me, fighting my conscious to try and fall asleep, to pass out. Eventually it won, and everything went black.
I woke in the middle of falling forward, throwing my hands in front of me just in time to prevent injury. I felt a hand hook under my armpit and pull me upwards.
"You're kind of a lightweight aren't you" I could feel the humour dripping in her voice. I turned towards her, grinning in as dumb a fashion as I could, and gave her the sloppiest kiss I could muster. She laughed and pushed me away, her voice sounding like the clinking of champagne glasses.
"Come on, you need some coffee and a meal"
