A stranger in a strange train.
It is suffocatingly crowded in here. People jostle and push against each other like water molecules but somehow everyone is quiet at the same time.
He is Caucasian, the only one against a backdrop of Asians but then again he doesn't look too different. He stands alone, gazing absentmindedly around like the average commuter who only wishes for the long ride to end. His skin is sallow and pale, thinly stretched onto his lanky frame, yet not too much that it adds years to his appearance, and there is just enough pinkish tinge under the flesh to declare him healthy. I decided he has a soft appearance, like a completed, Photoshopped picture: airbrushed complexion, deep, feeling eyes looking into a place far away from here, and the marvel of how the background seems to blur off with distance from him. It's like they're not worth looking at. Or maybe it's just me.
I try not to be caught staring, but he turns around and our eyes meet. Once, twice. One second, two. And I look away calmly. As if I was merely casting a bored glance around the train cabin for something to sustain me through the ride. And he looks away as if nothing has happened. (How many times does one wonder if you're amusing someone else?) He is right.
My eyes roam and I feel like a downhearted poet seeing through the eyes of Mnemosyne. Or even Neil Gaiman, who is reputed to complete whole stories on airplanes. Or so my friend tells me. He slouches slightly, his hands gripping the ivory-cream handlebars firmly but with a touch of finely-poised grace that somehow looks completely unintentional, a casual way as he puts his weight on it and yet seems weightless. It looks so easy. He has a nostalgic look (or am I just dreaming?), like a 20th century Romeo with a different personality but unfortunately-Romeo genes. He exudes a calm gentleness that makes my heart lift with a sigh.
He wears grey denim skinny jeans that cuddle his legs and settle into layers of folded fabric at his ankles where they meet his shoes. His feet are covered by grey Everlast cotton sneakers of a darker hue, black laces, the sort I can't wear as I'd put holes in them faster than moths. His shirt is black with coloured splashes of red, pink and electric blue, with a caption I can't make out exactly, but though I will him to just turn around a little more for a glimpse, he doesn't. I am left in quiet suspense.
The lights in the gloomy tunnel flash on and off while the train rumbles to its own bass melody.
Our eyes meet once more as I wonder and I almost --almost-- miss the controlled intensity of his baby blues, shining from their constraints like white dwarfs, or radioactive material at the bottom of a well, radiating mersmerising and unexpected charm despite slightly obscured by straw-coloured locks falling all over his face, and not a bit sheepish. He's like the reticent book nerd in my class whom I never knew plays electric guitar. I think he's like Mikey Way without the glasses.
His eyes say you've yet to know me in a secretive way I'm certain I imagined it. He doesn't grin and I'm relieved: I could list off some people whose faces have been spoiled by their smile. In my opinion, anyway. He simply gazes out into the world with a forgotten, dreamy, detached air. I spent two-point-five minutes admiring his slender fingers, entertaining myself with possibilities of his name (I allocate a name to interesting people) but the train jolts to a stop at Outram Park and he disappears out the open doors without a second look. A gust, a whisper of wind.
He is Caucasian, the only one against a backdrop of Asians but then again he doesn't look too different. He stands alone, gazing absentmindedly around like the average commuter who only wishes for the long ride to end. His skin is sallow and pale, thinly stretched onto his lanky frame, yet not too much that it adds years to his appearance, and there is just enough pinkish tinge under the flesh to declare him healthy. I decided he has a soft appearance, like a completed, Photoshopped picture: airbrushed complexion, deep, feeling eyes looking into a place far away from here, and the marvel of how the background seems to blur off with distance from him. It's like they're not worth looking at. Or maybe it's just me.
I try not to be caught staring, but he turns around and our eyes meet. Once, twice. One second, two. And I look away calmly. As if I was merely casting a bored glance around the train cabin for something to sustain me through the ride. And he looks away as if nothing has happened. (How many times does one wonder if you're amusing someone else?) He is right.
My eyes roam and I feel like a downhearted poet seeing through the eyes of Mnemosyne. Or even Neil Gaiman, who is reputed to complete whole stories on airplanes. Or so my friend tells me. He slouches slightly, his hands gripping the ivory-cream handlebars firmly but with a touch of finely-poised grace that somehow looks completely unintentional, a casual way as he puts his weight on it and yet seems weightless. It looks so easy. He has a nostalgic look (or am I just dreaming?), like a 20th century Romeo with a different personality but unfortunately-Romeo genes. He exudes a calm gentleness that makes my heart lift with a sigh.
He wears grey denim skinny jeans that cuddle his legs and settle into layers of folded fabric at his ankles where they meet his shoes. His feet are covered by grey Everlast cotton sneakers of a darker hue, black laces, the sort I can't wear as I'd put holes in them faster than moths. His shirt is black with coloured splashes of red, pink and electric blue, with a caption I can't make out exactly, but though I will him to just turn around a little more for a glimpse, he doesn't. I am left in quiet suspense.
The lights in the gloomy tunnel flash on and off while the train rumbles to its own bass melody.
Our eyes meet once more as I wonder and I almost --almost-- miss the controlled intensity of his baby blues, shining from their constraints like white dwarfs, or radioactive material at the bottom of a well, radiating mersmerising and unexpected charm despite slightly obscured by straw-coloured locks falling all over his face, and not a bit sheepish. He's like the reticent book nerd in my class whom I never knew plays electric guitar. I think he's like Mikey Way without the glasses.
His eyes say you've yet to know me in a secretive way I'm certain I imagined it. He doesn't grin and I'm relieved: I could list off some people whose faces have been spoiled by their smile. In my opinion, anyway. He simply gazes out into the world with a forgotten, dreamy, detached air. I spent two-point-five minutes admiring his slender fingers, entertaining myself with possibilities of his name (I allocate a name to interesting people) but the train jolts to a stop at Outram Park and he disappears out the open doors without a second look. A gust, a whisper of wind.