Girl I see on the train

Now might be a good time to tell you about this girl I see on the train every morning. I’ve been wanting to write about her for ages, because I find her intriguing in a way that I can’t put my finger on, at least off-paper.

The first time I saw her, I thought she might be drugged. Her head rested against the window, and her face mimicked an expression of sleep (glazed, narrowed eyes; a drowsy, permanent smirk), even when she occasionally sat up straight, or stood to disembark. It worried me a bit, because she was clearly school-aged, maybe fourteen or fifteen, but when I saw her again the following morning, I realised that this was simply her natural expression (at least before 9AM).

Other aspects of her appearance lend themselves to an overall impression of a sleep-walker, such as the blonde tendrils of hair that escape a hastily trussed ponytail and the soft, worn fabric of her leggings and t-shirts, outward-turned feet nested inside slouching UGGs. Her telephone number “in case of loss” is printed in black marker directly onto the cotton of her pink, drawstring rucksack (one of three that she uses – none of the others bear a visible number), and has bled and turned purplish in the wash, or the rain.

And that’s it, really. I’m not sure why this lanky teenaged girl with an odd dress sense and enigmatic fatigue has made such an impression on my imagination, but maybe that’s all it takes. I see her so often now that I almost feel I know her; part of me hopes that she’s somewhere across town in a classroom, sketching her own private portrait of that strange woman who steals glances at her while she time-releases the universe into her consciousness.