It’s my getaway.
My break from reality.
My escape.
Her tone is hushed with almost religious reverence as she explains the significance of the book she always carries in her purse. Rarely the same book for long, often the same genre as its predecessors, but always, there is a book.
We sit beside each other on the 4 o’clock train, but a voice from the front mutters with utmost aridity, “Mind the gap.”
She is a reader too, she says, nay, an out and out bibliophile. She’s never quite liked the new digital formats, but she supposes one day she will give in.
“Why, you can bring a whole library with you,” she gushes, “and is there any better thought in the world?
“To have gateway after gateway,” she sighs, eyes losing focus and staring. “And each one a path that leads away.”
“Away from what?” I ask.
She stares at me, a brief pause of incredulity, I imagine. Then her arms fly out, a grandiose gesture that knocks my tam into my lap and sets my eyeglasses askew.
“Why, all of this!” she cries, and it seems that her arms are very long, catching and wrapping around everything surrounding us – passengers, train, commuters, streets, city, world.
The other passengers stare, some tittering behind a hand, others blinking rapidly before averting their gaze.
“Mind the gap.”
I bring my tam back to the top of my head, eliciting a rushed apology from her that I brush away.
“I didn’t strike your spectacles, did I?”
“No harm, no harm,” I mutter, setting them aright. She deflates with a sigh of relief, and holds her chin in hand, shaking her head in embarrassment.
“You know,” she says, “I should know better. I have a habit of knocking my own glasses from my eyes with my outbursts.
“Why,” she continues, “just yesterday I threw them clear off my face, and they dashed to pieces on the floor.”
“A pity,” I mumble.
“Yes,” she sighs, melodrama heavy in her voice. “Yes, a pity. But I have grown quite used to purchasing replacements, even if my chequebook mourns the habit. Eyeglasses are such a dear expense.”
“My apologies,” I say, rising from my seat. “But I’ve reached my stop. Good day to you.”
Her reply is drowned by my footsteps in the aisle.
Stepping from the rail to the station platform, I heed the dry warning.
Mind the gap, indeed.
