I
glance periodically over the edge of my book and notice he's still
watching me, with a sly intimate smile of annoying familiarity
flitting across his lips. I make my eyes slide downwards again
to the words on the page, but I'm irritated by his good looks,
and the meaning refuses to coalesce. Eventually we're alone in
our end of the car and he uses this opportunity to cross over
and sit beside me.
"Whatcha
reading?" he casually inquires, shooting an inquisitive eye
over my shoulder. I lean pointedly away and silently hold my book
up as a shield.
"Ah,
Plato. You always were the bookish type."
"And
we've known each other for how many seconds now?" I find
myself responding sarcastically.
"Oh,
come on, we've known each other since time immemorial. Surely
you realize this. Don't be playing coy with me now. " He
glances around, looking briefly at the other passengers, bowed
heads nodding in unison to the rhythm of the train, then turns
to me and winks. "Strange we find each other here of all
places. Rather mundane, wouldn't you say?"
The
presence of others in the car reassures me, makes me bold. "Listen.
I do not know you, I have never in any lifetime previous to this
known you, nor do I feel at all inclined to become acquainted
with you at present. Now, shoo! Go away!"
He
leans back slightly, as if to get a better look at me, so that
together we now form a V on the seats. "As always, you come
across like a beautiful woman angrily pulling her hair and shrieking,
'But I'm intelligent TOO, damnit!"
"And
you come across like a salesman swinging insincerity around like
a heavy suitcase. Now shove off!" I move further away on
the seat.
He
moves closer. "Ah, but you mistake insincerity for the refusal
to take seriously all that is trivial. Geez, why are you always
so defensive at first? I forget- it fades so quickly. Come, won't
you dance?" And he suddenly lifts and swings me into the
aisle, assuming standard salsa position.
I push myself
away and glance embarrassed up the length of the car. No one's
watching. Yet.
"Fuck,
what are you DOING?" I hiss, "Go away! Leave me alone!
I gave at the office, I swear!" I resume my seat and gaze
out the window in an effort to shut him down, turn him off.
He
sits back down beside me and begins to soliloquize. "Why
is she being so difficult, the light of my life, the centre of
my soul, the jam in my Poptart? Why this sudden inclination to
play hard to get? Can she truly not remember? It normally doesn't
take so long - the dance usually clinches it. Unless - oh my God,
oh no," He regards me with a new look, his debonair flippancy
dissolving, exposing a rawness that disturbs me.
"Look
at me!" He grabs me by the shoulders. I wrench myself away
and stand up, alarmed. I consider raising my voice, attracting
the attention of the other passengers.
He wipes a
shaky hand across his brow, and then gestures me back towards
the seat as one would with a timid animal. I remain standing.
"Gently
now" he says. "Supposing if, oh fuck God forbid, but
just supposing if the dreaded possibility, the worse case scenario
we always feared has come to pass? What if I've skipped a revolution
and you haven't? That means you would have had to go through it
all alone last time! No wonder you're bitter, no wonder you forget
- don't you see? Can't you even admit the possibility?
"Why
would I WANT to?" I answer, exasperated. "If I've broken
out of a cycle of endless lifetimes with you, all the power to
ME! Right on, sister!
"Oooh,
you ARE angry with me! Just suspend your disbelief for a moment,
think back for a second, honey, try to remember."
The seemingly
genuine light of concern in his eyes begins to make me panic slightly.
Maybe this guy actually thinks he's for real, man. Hooo, boy.
"Look,
please, I'm sorry, but karmic re-encounter lines just don't work
on me. You've chosen the wrong chick to pick on, I'm not interested,
really, just go away and leave me alone."
"But
I'm sure I haven't, I mean, I KNOW it's you, I can't have made
a mistake, come on, try to remember, please! The tree that crashed
through our window that time, the uh, dancing under the full moon
on the banks of the flooded river, think! The children, countless,
infinite, God! Josiah, Hyun Li, David, Gurdeep - remember Marte,
she was a hoot! The, the - those ridiculous fucking wigs you used
to hate, the caravans! Come on, try, you've got to!" He stands,
approaches me, reaching in appeal.
I
back away. "Look - if you don't get the fuck away from me
right now I'll pull this cord and scream rape so fast your ears
will bleed from the shock wave."
Just
then the train begins to slow as it approaches the next stop.
I point towards the door behind him as the train grinds to a halt.
"Out!"
He obeys
slowly, moving backwards as if through the sticky substance of
dream, and eyes me uncertainly, looks at ME with apprehension,
fear.
"Oh
please," he mutters, "let me be wrong, don't make me
live without her, I'm sorry I slept so long, I didn't mean to".
He continues to mumble endless garbage to himself as he turns,
deflated, and moves through the momentarily gaping mouth revealed
in the side of the car. Which swallows me and takes me out of
his reach, as he looks on from the diminishing platform.
I collapse
back down on the padded seat and heave a huge relieved sigh in
my newly regained solitude. I turn to watch the unfolding of the
approaching night. Stars are starting to wink at me from the periphery,
but when I try to focus on them, they fade back into the nondescript
haze of dusk. Why do they always come after me, I wonder. What
indecipherable neon sign is blinking above my head that only the
lunatics of the world can read? But still, despite myself, I feel
a bitter tang of wistfulness. If only it were that easy.
The
moon beats a sharp stacatto between the passing buildings. The
moon. Dancing. The loons screeching over the roof high above our
heads in autumn, cold feet and giggles under the eiderdown and
those eyes fiendishly grinning into mine. Stand me up, why don't
ya, serves you right to get a good scare after that long endless
night time of soul, you big lazy goof and oh my God, it all comes
back in a huge crushing onslaught, or at least I think it does,
it's nothing more than a sudden rush of images impossible to grasp,
and I know that I have to get off at the next station but is there
time? How can I find him in this endless city? Where would he
go? And then I smile. I think I know.
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