the boy with big eyes.

the girl looked for her window seat.

her window seat.

all the way in the back, with the rickety seat.

there, sat a boy. 

he had darker skin, and big eyes.

big, intelligent eyes.

she was clearly upset.

it was something that inconvenienced her.

nobody had ever inconvenienced her.

or perhaps,

no one had thought of her to be significant enough to inconvenience her.

she did not speak to him, for she did not use her words so lightly.

she sat next to him.
a bag between them.

he glanced at her once or twice, clearly annoyed
 (using a more colloquial term here to signify an innocence not tarnished as of yet.)

she noticed how different he was from her. 

he did not rest against the glass.
he would instead read a book.

a book with no pictures, and even lesser hope.

that day, the train did not stop.

the train took a different turn for the first time.

this was strange.

there was an uncomfortable uncertainty in change.

she liked knowing that the train went nowhere.

nowhere - however vague, was home.

-

the boy with his big eyes boarded the train once in a while.

and on those days, the train would pause its journey to nowhere.

the train would instead steam through stars and a heavy sky.

and if you squinted really hard, you would see the outline of some undiscovered planets.

often, you would see her awaiting the boy's attendance.

often, you would see the seat next to the window empty, and a burly backpack in the middle.

-

the girl never sat alone again.

strangely, this isolation of the self felt barren now.

the journeys were long and tiresome.

sometimes they were dark, and winding.

sometimes, they were quiet, with light whispering through curtains.

sometimes they were sad.

the girl lost herself somewhere on the train tracks.

the minute she got off the train,

it left.

and the boy left.

with someone else,

that resembled her.

i am not fond of the storyline that goes-

passengers on a train never leave their seats.

it sounded hypocritical. and saccharine.

she mocked happenstance.

but for sometime, the girl was okay to read books with that storyline.

-

just like floaters in one's vision,

it is advised not to look forward to things.

in a peculiar way, they tend to run away.

it felt strange how it drifted away the minute she was no longer inconvenienced.

it felt like an odd, unspoken betrayal - to have brought her to the aisle seat.

she promised herself to never let another passenger take her seat.

and the train never swayed from destination again.

the boy with the big eyes,

who made it seem that regularity was monotonous.

-

she looked out the glass pane in contempt,

but she was grateful to have seen the stars.

she looks at you.

it's not your fault.