Downtown Express

I'm in the 4 or 5 downtown express train and I just can't focus anymore on the book I'm reading. It's around 3 in the morning and the train is almost empty and I'm slightly drunk. Just a little bit, really. Mostly, I'm worried.I have to constantly read again whole paragraphs and pages to remind me of who's who and what's going on. So I give up and turn around on the empty plastic bench so that I can lean my shoulder against the train's window. I stretch my arm on the plastic edge and put my mouth on my arm so I can rest my head and watch what's going on in the dark tunnels of New York's dirty belly. We're just a couple of minutes away from Brooklyn Bridge station when a local 6 train pulls up alongside us and the two trains ride together. For some reason the local is catching up on us and behind the glass there are those unknown people living their life in the neon lights of their car. Because of the mellow movement of the train (the trains on the 6 line are kinda new) and the darkness of the tunnel they seem to float in their bubble of bright light. Two different universes exactly the same.

And then the two trains rides along at the same speed and I realize that there's a girl sitting in the other train and we are exactly face to face, riding at the same speed and staring at each other. And it makes me want to smile and I see that the girl is trying hard not to smile too. And she is so cute, trying not to smile but not really succeeding. Then my train slows down and she disappears. 30 seconds later my train is catching up with hers again and here she is again and either her train is slowing down or mine is still accelerating but this time there'll be no face to face so I sit up and give her a 32-tooth smile and wiggle my fingers to say goodbye and this time she has a wild smile.

I couldn't describe her. Brown or dark hair attached. Mid-20s. And she was cute but not (or not only) because of her physical appearance but because she was one of those people whose inner beauty somehow shows to the outside world. Radiates.

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* *

The train stopped shortly after at Brooklyn Bridge and I had to transfer to the J train. I didn't look for her as I exited the 6 train. I didn't hurry, but I didn't stop on the platform to check if it was her stop too. The reason is that this has been a shitty week if there ever was one. Nothing good happened (well, except Chuck Palahniuk's reading) and hopes were killed. I had truly enjoyed this little moment of complicity with that stranger, this was probably reciprocal, so why take the risk to ruin it?

When the J arrived, I sat down and opened my book again and found that the passage I was reading just before I started looking out the window in the 6 train was about marriage.

I sort of believe in the magic of the written word (which doesn't mean I believe in horoscopes) and then I had to admit that maybe I should have looked for her on the platform after all.

This girl was alive and it felt good.