Waiting

I’d seen him at this stop a thousand times, and that’s probably not even an exaggeration. Every day, Monday to Friday, waiting for the same train to the city centre of the bleak concrete jungle they call Glasgow. It was the brightest part of my day, watching him wait. He did it with a sort of eloquence that I’ve never saw anyone manage before.

I wish I could tell him how beautiful he was, standing there in that moment waiting to travel, where time seems to have no meaning and all the world stands still and glares at it watch, wondering if the 12.15 is 30 seconds late again.
Though I suppose I’d look insane. My phone wallpaper is one of my kittens, so maybe he’d think I’m a crazy cat lady. Maybe he could be my crazy cat man and we could live the rest of our lives together, snuggled under a duvet knitted from tangled tortoise-shell hair.

These are the daydreams that get me through the day. Why can’t I just talk to him? All these days, months and years with a gaping gulf of silence between us that seems to stretch further every day, so it’s impossible to even say hello to him. I imagine there’s a great big fissure in the ground between us, and if I tried to approach him I’d be swallowed by the bottomless darkness of public embarrassment.

My mum says I over think everything, I think she might be right. I think that I think far too much, which ironically makes for more thinking. My head feels like a deep fried Mars Bar. He stands there again, resplendent in an old hoodie, manky jeans and ancient converse, nodding his head to music that I can only imagine coming from his tiny headphones.

The only music I want to hear is his voice; I want it to be the soundtrack to my life. It’d be so much better than a narration by Morgan Freeman. He steps onto the train and I give him a small wave goodbye, with even the train station’s resident weirdo looking at me like I’m a few sandwiches short of a picnic.

The next morning, I take action. I top off my morning coffee with two shots of my roommate’s favourite vodka, and it gets me nicely buzzing. Today, so help me god, I’ll speak to him. He leans against the wall, ignoring the empty benches, more rebellious than James Dean. His eyes stare vacantly at the ceiling, deep in thought, probably pondering unknown wonders from beyond the realms of thought of the average man. I swoon a bit, but it’s probably just as much the vodka as it is him. It just goes straight to my head.

I swallow my pride (being thankful for a smattering of Dutch courage) and I approach him, pushing my long hair out of my face and hoping that I didn’t over do it with the makeup today. I feel confident, I feel sexy, I feel difficulty in walking in heels while slightly tipsy. I stagger towards him like a high class call girl and croon seductively at him (at least that’s how it comes out in my head) “Hello, do you have the time?”

He turns to face me with those dreamy eyes, and his face bursts into a grin. His teeth look like a rotten, uneven wooden fence, and his breath smells like he had road kill basted in garlic and onions for breakfast. He speaks, and as it dawns on me that it’s the first time I’ve ever heard him speak, I realise that his voice is like someone rubbing their nails on a chalkboard while being horribly murdered.

The smile is frozen on my face as I mutter, “Never mind, thanks.” And I quickly make myself scarce. I guess he wasn’t the one, but there is that man in a suit I’ve seen the last few months at the stop. He’s a bit old and grey, but I think glasses are sexy, and I’ve seen him looking at what I’ve got... Maybe in a year or two I’ll ask him the time.