I could feel the coldness seeping into my bones and a shiver creep up my spine. The rain kept pelting down on the side walk and all I could do was stare at it forlornly through the glass window of the book store.
The little bell above the door rang signalling the last customer of the day leaving with his newly acquired cook books that he was probably never going to use except maybe as door stops once the glossy covers lost their shine and the pages became yellowed and wrinkled, discarded once they lost their value. “Finally it’s closing time !”, Tamlyn hollered from the cash register as she slammed it shut after putting the customer’s money in. “What are your plans for tonight Mila ?”, she asked as if she didn’t know that every night after leaving work at exactly the same time every day I went to the deli round the corner from my apartment, bought a sandwich and an AriZona ice tea, watched one hour of Friends reruns before taking a shower for exactly 15 minutes then going to bed at nine thirty.
Repeating the same process every night religiously with the only exception being my birthday when I went to the only Chinese restaurant in the neighbourhood and had the chef’s special of Kung pao chicken which was the same every day, every year. Tonight however I could feel that something was different, something in the air felt strange and it had nothing to do with the suffocating feeling of being shoved around the side walk heading to the underground subway with the rain pouring down unrelentingly. It had nothing to do with the fact that the train that I always took every morning from home and every night from work was cancelled and I was going to have to take two different trains and a bus just to get back home, no, that wasn’t why the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and I felt goose bumps all over my arms.
No, it had to do with the stranger who had followed me as soon as I stepped out of the book store after locking up and walked closely behind me all the way to the train station and stood three feet away from me on the platform where the conductor was trying to explain to a disgruntled and increasingly frenzied crowd why their train ride home was going to take longer than usual. He stood a foot taller than me, looked at least in his mid thirties and was wearing an ash grey trench coat, black leather gloves, a smart grey suit underneath and a scowl etched on his face. Needless to say he looked as imposing and as threatening as an undertaker. Whilst everyone else started walking away to sit for the next train to come on the benches nearby or walk back up to the surface to try catch a cab or a bus, we remained standing on the platform, neither of us daring to move as if held fast to the floor by some invisible force. “Do I know him ?”, I asked barely above a whisper mostly to myself that I was sure he hadn’t even heard me.
He took two steps towards me and he tilted his face down and looked at me with a questioning glint in his eye and said, “shall we go and sit ?”, and as if something was pulling me and forcing me towards him, we walked to a nearby bench and sat down in silence. “I’ve been watching you, or rather I’ve seen you everyday walking from the subway to the book store early in the morning and walking back every night at the same time every day, every week.” His words left me stunned to say the least, the fact that I had never noticed someone watching me, observing me. “Haven’t you ever just wanted to go away from this place, get away from this life ?”, he asked me with an indescribable tone to his voice.
I slumped further into the seat and realized that I had never thought about it, never considered doing anything out of my routine. Why was he asking me this, what did he want from me, why was this stranger interested in me ? “I always feel like I’m trapped, like nothing ever changes, everything is stagnant, don’t you ever feel like that too ?” I don’t think anyone had ever asked me that before, had ever clearly put what I’d always felt, what I didn’t fully know I felt. However did I really want to change my routine, my entire life for something new and undiscovered. Could I really leave everything behind, start again ? In the distance I could faintly hear the whistle of the train coming to our station, “you can step onto the train and just leave, we could just disappear into the night and never look back.” “Where would we go ?”, I asked feeling rather dazed and in a complete fog over the proposed idea by this stranger who quite honestly was offering me something I wasn’t sure I could accept.
Or even wanted to accept. The blinding lights of the train were getting closer and the whistle louder, “we can go anywhere you choose, any place.” “Okay”, I whispered. “Let’s go”, I said louder now, determination starting to flow through my veins making me sit up and face him now. The train came to a stop and I looked at him and he looked at me, “let’s go then.” We got up and stepped onto the train and found two empty seats towards the back and sat down.
Here I was sitting on a train not headed for home or for work but somewhere else , somewhere where adventure awaited, where a new beginning was waiting. A new life I was going to start with this stranger I had met on the way.