The Thoughts Of A Stranger

Next stop: the future

How do people find trains comfortable? The not quite soft seats, phone conversations blaring in your ears. So many people sitting so close to you when you know nothing about them.

For example, the old man next to me. He's reading the paper. Isis again. How do I know his son isn't shooting those men right now?His son could be dead because of those men.

The teen age girl across from me. She's listening to rap music, I can hear it. Her schoolbag is slumped against her feet and her boater is balanced on her lap. Is she late for school? Did her parents just get a divorce? There's no way of knowing.

It's a weird thought. There are so many people around you every day,complete strangers, and you silently make up their lives. Different combinations of reality that could happen to them. Maybe they're on their way to a concert or maybe a court case.

Do we make their lives what we wish our lives were? Or do we make them worse than ours to make us feel better about our lives.

New stop, new people. A clean slate for my imagination. A business woman,a hippy, a drug dealer and a school child? An author, a teacher, a rapist and an athlete? The combinations are endless, anyone could walk through those automatic opening doors.

A girl, around 19 years old walks down into the carriage and she automatically catches my eye. Her long black hair is pulled up into a pony tail, a black leather jacket covers a red Green Day t-shirt,so she likes music. Good. AND she isn't wearing excessive make-up.Perfect.

She looks around, her eyes calculating which seat she should sit in.There are four free seats, one next to an old man who's chewing his own dentures. Another next to the school girl but her bag has moved to the free seat next to her; she must be shy. The next is next to a sleeping woman, a line of drool marks her perfect make up and the last is next to me. Plain, normal me. She sits next to me.

Next stop the newspaper man gets off, he leaves his paper behind so I decide to read it I mean why not? He won't be coming back for it anytime soon. The perfect girl turns to me smiles, then turns back to her book. I'm trying to think of a conversation topic but I just cant think of one. What if I ask her what she just had for lunch but she forgot to eat lunch which then makes her stress out and get pissed off at me? Or I could compliment her on the Green Day t-shirt she'swearing but then she'll think I'm checking her out and that wouldn't end well.

"How's your day going?" her voice sounds like a winters day, not too husky but not too sweet.

"Not too bad, just got a lot on my mind," she nods as if she understands how much is really on my mind but I highly doubt that. "You?" she just shrugs and I can see a tear threatening to spill in the corner of her eye. Maybe she does understand what it feels like to be going through what I'm going through. "It's a hard life isn't it? So much going on and nobody really know what's going on inside your head,"she looks shocked. She probably didn't expect me to notice the tears.

"Yeah,but it has it's rewards," at this she looks straight into my eyes."New friends at every turn."

"My name's Alex," my voice stutters slightly. Why am I so nervous?

"Piper,nice to meet you."