A Smile Across the Train

It's strange that the smallest moments can change everything from time to time. We live our lives, rushing from one place to another, barely notice the room in between. But sometimes, sometimes, something can stop something as simple as a look or a smile and ask us if life is not a regular thing.

When it happened it was one of these ordinary Tuesday afternoons. The type of day I felt like everyone else. As usual, the train was crowded with tired commuters, and tired commuters entertained students through cell phones and family. I had just finished a weekend in town and was on my way home, but my heart was still in memory of the past few days. The train was summed up, and the rhythmic sounds of the truck bothered me, but it also caught my eye from the world around me.

I found my usual seat by the window. As we walked through the sleepy city, the sun threw soft golden light over the landscape. I was wearing headphones, the music wasn't enough to drown the sound of the train. My book was not opened in my lap. My eyes were focused only on the passing landscape, green and brown blur. The gentle loneliness had been on me for weeks, so there was no distraction and it seemed to make it easier.

And I looked up.

It was the second incredible moment when I almost missed it. But then they sat near the window on my other side and were soaked in the fading afternoon light. They stared, giving in to my thoughts, but there was yours that felt deep, as if they were there in the moment.

Our eyes met in a short moment.

It wasn't dramatic. There are no sparks. You will not immediately recognize anything deep. Simple and fleeting connection. And they smiled.

It was the smile I felt at home.

There was nothing great about the exhibition. A soft, warm, knowledgeable smile that seemed to say: I will meet you. It felt like the most natural in the world.

I could look away, go back to the book, put on my headphones, and continue my day just like everyone else. Instead, I caught this smile. This implicit recognition, as if it were a quiet gift.

We didn't talk about the rest of the trip. The unpleasant conversation never began. No introduction. Only two people who share the same room on a busy train capture the intimacy of this smile. I saw you once or twice, and every time you saw me. And every time they smiled, I smiled. It was an implicit language that we didn't need to.

I couldn't help but feel like they were wearing them. The way their eyes sometimes switched to the windows, as if they were looking for something calm they could not find, as if they were looking for something they could not find. You had a quiet peace, a silence that felt like a calmness during the storm. Meanwhile, I got lost in my own mess and got caught up in a storm of thought. But at that moment everything felt calm.

The train continued its journey, which brought new passengers, driving and driving at every station, everyone rushed to someone else somewhere. But not us. It's not you and me. We stayed in this suspended room, as if the world was only slowing down for us. I don't know how long we were there, but we'll silently trade smiles. It may take a few minutes or an hour. I felt that time was irrelevant. The trains competed, but felt like they had moved into another rhythm that was intimate inside.

But like everything, the moment was over. The train began to slow down and began to go to the next train station. My halt approached. I slowly gathered things and didn't want to end the moment, but I knew it had to. I looked at you at the end and hoped you would say something. But everything I got was a different smile. This time it was a bit sad, as if we knew our trip was approaching. I stood up, put my bag down and went to the door. You didn't move. They stayed where they were, still looking out the window and still had coffee. I felt a strange jerk in my chest, a longing that I couldn't put completely.

I came back to you when I left the train. Your face was still surrounded by the window, soft sunlight glowing around you. You locked my gaze in again, and at that moment your smile came back badly.

And the door closed. The train pulled away and took her.

I stood on the platform and saw the train disappear in the distance. The sound of the bike disappeared into the noise at the train station. For some reason, I had the feeling of seeing a fleeting witness of something beautiful, something that had long since the train had disappeared.

In this short encounter, this smile on the train hasn't changed anything in me, not in the world around me. It's a small change that you can't perceive, but it's still there. At that moment I realized that the smallest connections sometimes leave the biggest impression.

I don't know your name. I don't know where I went or where I went. I don't know if you remember me or if our ways of doing things intersect again. But I have this smile with me because I felt that the world wasn't that lonely place.

Perhaps we were two strangers who shared a fleeting moment. Or maybe we were a little more.