Metro conundrum

A boy aligns his little feet with the metro footsteps, as if the bigger ones would help him go faster. But they don’t, instead they turn him into a snail. I try to mimic him because I have nowhere to be. 

Have you ever played that game where you cup fingers of one hand, leaving only the tips visible and you have to find the missing finger? I want to be that lost finger. Hidden. Unseen. I don’t want to be recognised among the sea of black heads. I want to swim alone. Unbothered. Unconsumed. 

Boredom hits the boy like a bouncing ball. He then holds the railing, and races towards the end. But I still follow the footsteps like an obedient student because I’d rather be here than with my thoughts echoing inside my pseudo-home. 

Sometimes I run on autopilot and wonder what if I stood still like a stone in the middle of the escalator and didn’t move. Would someone have the courage to ask me why, or would everyone just slide past, clicking pictures as if I were part of a wax museum? 

The boy now jumps onto the metro, as if crossing a deep puddle. I stay, watching him merry-go-round every pole, syncing his steps with the moving train, and then…he is gone.

I sit on one of the benches, waiting for the next metro to arrive. But I don’t board the next six. I let the humid air saturate my lungs. I try to memorise the faces of the people, just to feel familiar the next time we happen to be at the same station. 

An unknown smile drifts towards me like a sudden blissful breeze. And I think maybe I’m the face she remembered from somewhere.

I don’t want to get on the seventh one. It’s not time yet.