Her Words

When she returned from visiting the toilet, the woman, who happened to be a stranger, took her seat opposite me, on the other side of the table.

The train continued its twitchy bumping along the rails, while I continued to stare out of the window.

Dreaming away the day, I was vaguely aware of her tapping away on the laptop.

My mind was somewhat journey-lulled, so it took me a moment to appreciate that the tapping was coming from my keyboard; that she had turned around my laptop and was using it.

But who was I to interrupt her, this speculative scribe, returning from the lavatory so inspired.

She didn’t once look up at me; and I, in turn, tried not to watch what she was doing; tried not to stare, more than my darting glances along the window at her busy reflection.

I noticed that something she wrote amused her, a brief smile bothering the corner of her lips.

When she finished, the woman closed my laptop and joined me in looking out of the window at the lazy landscape beyond our vague reflections, where our eyes did not quite meet.

Soon after, she left the train, alighting at the first city on the route.

No one took her place at the table. I continued my journey unaccompanied.

Completely unknowing of what she might have left there, it was not until much later that I read what she had written on my laptop – a feeling rather like anticipating checking the lottery numbers, or waiting to find out a sports result.

But I did read it.

Her words seemed to have been intended as an essay of a kind: a philosophical musing upon travel, literature and love, encapsulating a journey of oneself.

No matter how I looked for something in it of worth, it was absolutely fucking awful.

vss #25