There wasn’t a whole lot I could see, at first. She was sitting, a few rows down from where I stood watching the population of this tiny, transient community. At first, I took her as one of the deaf ones – white cords descending from her ears in stark contrast to her high-collared black coat. Long brown hair tangled up in a loose-weave scarf. Legs crossed, jeans, and a pair of beat-up black All-Stars tapping to a beat I couldn’t hear, could only watch. This in itself was something of an anomaly; most headphones I observe don’t make any outward movement – no finger-snapping or head-bopping – nothing to betray the fact that they’re listening to music.

This always struck me as… counterproductive? I guess music should make you want to move, if not dance outright. But these people, their placidity; they sit like statues, as if the little devices they’re plugged into aren’t emitting any sounds at all. Actually, I’ve done this myself. I’ve sat with silent buds in my ears, just to see what would happen. It didn’t really go well, though. Once I overheard someone on the train giving a tourist directions on the best way to get down to the lake from the west-end and I just had to chime in with a better route. I couldn’t help it. Still, it’s funny how people will talk and talk, right next to you, when they think you can’t, or don’t want to, hear them.

Needless to say, I watched that foot tapping out its unknown rhythm for a few stops. I was mesmerized – I wonder what she’s listening to. The beat’s pretty steady, is it something I listen to (that’s another thing I’ve always wondered: if two people on the same subway car were each listening to the same song, would they instinctively know? Like, the way identical twins can tell if one of them has been injured over vast distances?)?

My gaze continued to linger on her feet, tapping, crossing and uncrossing her legs. They were long, her legs, jutting out into the aisle; I figured she must be tall, 5’10″, 5’11″? Where was she going? Was she coming back from something? A date, an art exhibit, dinner at some fashionably anonymous Chinese restaurant? I began constructing a little narrative of her life as I watched her feet, the whole while her face shadowed from my view. She had just been on a blind date – something she detests – with an attractive, successful, young businessman. He had been gentlemanly, very polite during dinner, though his conversation had revolved around his work. She indulged him, nodding at the right times, even interjecting with a suppressed murmur when he related the latest merger details, but she hadn’t accepted the second glass of wine. He paid the cheque – unasked – and she gave him her phone number when he asked for it. She even allowed him to kiss her cheek just before getting on the train – she declined his offer of a cab. She knew he’d call and she knew she wasn’t at all interested. So now she was riding home to her cat and a cup of herbal tea, both of which she found infinitely more stimulating than the fellow she had just met.

This little drama was playing itself in my head as the train pulled into Lower Park station and she rose, legs uncrossing a final time, and headed towards an opening door next to where I stood. As she strode purposefully towards me, still slightly bopping to her music, her eyes caught mine.

You know, sometimes, you can tell you have a stupid look on your face. Eyes a bit too wide, mouth slightly open, not sure if you should smile or keep the haughty public mask up? Yeah, that was me as she came towards me and passed through the open subway car door. If I wasn’t such an introvert, if I didn’t live so much inside my own head, if I was more like the fictional guy she just had a fictional date with, I would’ve said something. Anything. I would’ve made up my mind to smile. Instead I just stood there, looking stupid, as she exited the train.

The three chimes went off – DING, DONG, DOONG – and the doors started to close. I shut my eyes, filled with something like a mixture of shame and regret. I was so used to being a watcher I never thought to be a doer. Standing there, next to the closing doors, I hated myself for a split second. Then the feeling passed and I just chalked the whole thing up as another missed connection, the kind of ships-passing-in-the-night bullshit that happens everyday in a big city.

The doors finally shut and there was that pregnant pause just before the train starts rolling again. And in that pause, that glorious moment of redemption, I heard a tap-tap-tap on the window next to my face. I opened my eyes and there she was, standing on the platform, looking right at me, smiling through the glass. That face, framed by her long brown hair, took away whatever breath I had: I felt another bout of stupid coming on. I couldn’t say a damn thing, but it didn’t matter. As I stared back into those green (yes, they were green, like freshly mown grass on a spring morning) eyes I saw, more than heard, her say something and had to look down to her lips to decipher it:

“Same time. Same station. Tomorrow.”

And, as the train started to roll on, as she was about to be lost from my captivated view, she winked. I was quickly plunged back into subterranean darkness but her words, the shape of her lips as she said them, blazed through my head. I checked my phone for the time: 8:37pm.

Lower Park. Tomorrow.