PLATFORM LOVERS

- (TO YOUNG WOMAN)How long have we been standing here?
- (Silence)
- (TO AUDIENCE)Everyday, every week day we get the 8.13 train. The same carriage. We stand side by side here, on the platform, and we get inside, sit apart and ignore each other. Although we are aware of each other. (TO YOUNG WOMAN) Aren’t we?
- (Silence)
- (TO YOUNG WOMAN) I am aware of you. And I know you are of me. You can’t pretend. We have made eye contact several times. I think you disguised a smile once. It was still a smile
- (Silence)
- (TO YOUNG WOMAN)I know you can hear me
- (Silence)
- (TO AUDIENCE) It started awhile back, maybe over a year. A year and a half or more. Two years maximum. I don’t know how it all happened. I would say eye-contact. Not a lingering one, but just a glimpse; enough to register the face and leave trails of recognition. (Pause) Then it happened again. (Pause for thought) Then again and again, again and again until it became part of the week. Each of us daring each other to speak first, neither of us did. Maybe it was just me. Me alone inside my head; wishing for…for…for…well I don’t know, do I? I thought we might have a connection. It seemed like it. It feels like it. There…it is there…it is that look, that closeness. I can sense her, smell her hair, the shampoo mixed with perspiration coming from her scalp. That is how close we were. This was when we got on the same tube. Yes, the tube as well and same carriage too. It was magic. Crazy maybe. I thought or maybe I wished. Anyway, it felt like she was chasing me; stalking perhaps. Nothing dark. I mean stalking in a good way…maybe not stalking. What’s the word? (Pause for thought). Anyway