Start a Love Train, Love Train
A retrospective
Today, a Saturday, I made my regular trip into town.
As I waited at the BTS, I looked to my left to see a petite Thai woman who struck me as the most beautiful woman I had seen since I left work.
She wore a pink top that was too small, her mid drift exposed. She turned, perhaps sensing my eyes devouring her, and made eye contact for a confused and horrid moment, quickly darting her eyes away. I saw then that she had fake lips, but they seemed to be designed in the most erotic way possible for lips to look, if such a thing can be said.
We boarded the train, and I admittedly made somewhat of an effort to sit across from her (as it was, after all, the only seat available, and no one else was gunning for it fast enough—sorry old couple, but lust is a delicate game!) I saw then that she was enveloped into her phone—some kind of mobile game. She made pouty little faces and those lips did all sorts of wondrous things. Once or twice, she looked at me, but our eyes never really met.
When we changed trains, she made an effort to go out the opposite exit as me, and I made an effort to enter into the same car as her. Now we were standing across from each other. She had this sort of defeatist, beatific expression.
“Well, this boy thinks I’m hot, but he’s not going to do anything, and he must be crazy. Look at him. Does he even speak Thai? What a farang.”
At the next station, she got off, perhaps to wait for the next train to board that didn’t have a weirdo on it.
I smiled. The Thai man across from me made eye contact with me and smiled as we watched her go off into the distance.
I suppose if I see her again, I can say, “Hey, didn’t I see you on the train before?” And she can look at me like I’m crazy, look down, and then move to the next train car. When I got to my stop, I got some food and a butterfly pea tea with lime. On the second floor, I was alone, until an attractive woman, perhaps Korean, sat down nearby.
Too much sexual tension for one day. I finished my meal, and I departed.
Once back upon the train and heading home, having finished my business in town, I watched the buildings roll by outside the window.
If suddenly, the lights flashed turquoise blue, and the doors then opened, revealing a sort of different world, I wondered then what my reaction would have been.
Out there, giant mushrooms and flying squids pass by. In here, more or less the same thing happens.
I type furiously and look to the walls of my head.
Now, I’m in a Chinese restaurant, talking to a friend, a co-worker. He’s embraced a view of the world quite different than my own, and its lead him to, not surprisingly, different decisions upon his plate.
Outside, thunder roars. The rainfall obscures everything.
I finish my meal, say goodbye to him, and politely depart.
Out on the street, I see the cat from earlier in this tale.
“Story keeps rolling, doesn’t it?” He says.
“I suppose it does.”
He licks his paw.
“I’ll see you again in a few days.” He says.
“I look forward to it.” I say back.
I’ve neglected to bring an umbrella today, but I don’t mind the rainfall. There’s something cleansing about it all. Heading down the road, I can’t help but think of those lips of the girl on the train, and all the things that they could do if she were to press them against my face.
The cat watches me go, darts under a motorbike, and disappears down a Soi somewhere, on the other side of town.
