Railway

-She stands on the platform, her hair flowing, sunglasses covering the brown of her eyes. She fusses with a cell-phone but it’s useless and she puts it away. She looks around and walks up past me and waits. The train arrives, yet only her image is present in my mind, the glasses, her shape and her fair complexion.
And they’re the remnants of childhood.
I walk up past the door to the rail car in front of me and make my way in her trail, entering and passing, where she is now seated. She scoots over, toward the aisle, a ‘seat’s taken’ reaction. I smile. I had no intention of sitting next to her, if I was bolder perhaps. But there is something, being on the same car as her. Some very puerile fantasy, as if it is in fact sharing a space that brings us closer to each other, but there’s nothing there, except space. I walk to the opposite end of the car and take a seat, my back to her, but the whole time aware that she evades my gaze, when there is a gaze. I laugh at myself, I feel like I’m nine again and making my way through the class during story time, when everyone else sits on the carpet, to sit in that cute girl’s seat, it’s right next to the carpet. She reacted, much like this girl is reacting now.
It amuses me. We all want to be noticed, but at the same moment, when it happens, we all want to hide. There have been times before, in which I’ve been left wondering, if it’s me, but I think, now, it’s just part of being human. As we wait for the train to leave, people fill the empty seats, filling the space between us. The train begins to move and there’s a little girl sitting with her mom, talking and giggling. I smile. She’s pleased, someone’s noticed, she’s being witty.
Second stop. I grab my bag and exit, looking back and waving at the empty space. She takes off her glasses and turns away; she doesn’t like the attention.