Love On A Train

I know, it reads like an iPod commercial. That's how I got it, that's how I had to write it.


Happens all the time-you're sitting in a public bus, standing in a queue at the mall, waiting for a dentist appointment, and someone starts to sing your song. Your head snaps around- your song, y'know? That song? The theme song to your sorry life, the one you drop everything for when it comes on the radio, the one you lean back and close your eyes to drink in? They're singing it.
She was singing it.
His head started around instinctively before he could compute who those moving lips at the blurred end of his vision belonged to. He'd noticed her, of course- who could fail to notice her?- slouched in the corner of the train compartment, reading The Maltese Falcon while nodding to the beat from her iPod. She had that song on her iPod. What were the odds of that?
He sat back, casually following the strand of fantasy swimming behind his starry eyes. Meeting, attraction, courtship, marriage all flashed by like the trees out the window...
He caught himself halfway through the chorus.
"La-a-a-lala, la-la-la...."
She was staring at him.
That hadn't been part of the script for the daydream. In the fantasy, they wound up in each others arms as they wound up the song. The harmony fluted into the rose-strewn carriage as the loving couple stared deeply into each others eyes; streamers flew, bystanders cheered...
Still staring.
He'd started singing again when he slipped back into the dream.
Look away, for Christ's sake.
She had the clearest hazel eyes he'd ever seen. Or maybe it was just the light, the angle. Nah, it was all her.
They'd look beautiful on their kids.
Dammit- he'd slipped and turned his head all the way, looked full into her face. Exotic cheekbones framed by raven locks.
He tore his head away like a second before his tongue would have lolled out of his head, his behind grown a tail to wag.
She smiled. Not really smiled, 'cause that would've been murder. He'd have died of shame and confusion. She did even better; she stifled a smile. You could see it straining, in the trembling corners of her pink, pink lips.
That was fucking it.
He leaned forward, buried his face in his hands, exhaled slowly and audibly- who gave a damn when the world was falling around your ears?
Lord Almighty up in friggin' Heaven, what to do.
He wasn't that surprised when he felt a hand on his shoulder, the worst was past. No danger of shock-related loss of life, so he raised his head. Still, very cautiously.
It was her, of course.
Sitting down as he was, his eyes were on a level with her navel. This he could clearly see, along with its adorning gold stud, because of the midriff puff shirt she had on beneath the jean jacket. Sort of old school punk.
She was holding out an earphone.
"Y'like this song too?"
Her tongue peeked out between her teeth when she smiled.
Mating, attraction: surreality perfected; courtship flashed by like the trees out the window, with marriage in the pipeline.
Dreams do come true.