The Girl on the Train

By Bhavya Dube

I met a girl on a train...
Her demeanour was serene...
Yet she had a quiet confidence.
She was lissome and svelte,
Yet had an unembellished, large-dialled masculine watch on her delicate wrist.
Her hands were fluid and competent,
Her nails clipped and unladylike,
Her fingers long and graceful.

Her voice was lilting, yet authoritative.
She was quixotic.. full of delicious paradoxes.
She spoke neither more nor less,
Neither was she loquacious nor self-absorbed.
Her silences were nuanced and fragrant..
As if she had imbibed the hues of my thoughts.

I was astonished at myself
For observing her in such scrupulous, circumspect detail.
She was not strikingly beautiful...
Yet I could not take my eyes off her.
As if she were a precious relic I had to learn.

She was witty, forthright, and wise...
With light brown irises you could drown in.
She had the widest smile,
Which lit up her eyes.

Sharing a nondescript compartment with her...
I felt as if some magic had been sprinkled on the ordinariness of it all.
I lay back on my berth,
Listening to the sound of her quiet breathing...
And felt as if a soft, furry quilt had been wrapped around me.
A deep richness, a curious contentment-
As if I had slurped mugs of steamy hot chocolate on cold nights.

What transpired in between is another tale...
Which I will have to tell you at leisure.

But now, twenty years later,
I gaze at my wife.
She still has the same wide smile, serene irises, wistful, knowing gaze.
Her humor and wisdom have enriched me in more ways than I can acknowledge.
Our companionable silences speak a language of their own.
And in one of those silences...
Our eyes lock,
As we listen to the sound of our quiet breathing...
As our dreams pour into each other...
When we think in unison and shudder in awe and wonderment—
"What if we had missed the train?"