Being in the Way

Teenagers can be very tiring I noticed when I tried to sleep in my cabin on the ferry. Especially when there are some 20 of them and no adult in sight. I noticed them already in the bar the night before. They were having drinks and became louder and louder. In the night the boys wanted to meet the girls or the other way around,  and I happened to have a cabin right in between theirs.

So I stepped dead-tired on the train the next morning. I was the first in the compartment, so I found myself a very strategic seat, a bit near the door but yet not too near. It was 3-persons bench and opposite me was a 2-person one. I put my backpack next to me, crawled in the corner and tried to get an extra nap on the non-moving train. After some time more people came in, without disturbing me. I wasn’t really asleep but felt like a person that was looking at things almost unaware.

It was all too good to be true: right after there was an announcement on the intercom that this was the train to London, my self-chosen solitude was over. A woman with backpack and two suitcases came over and behind her a man with a lot of luggage. I had never seen a person dragging so much along. They began to make a sort of still-life with their luggage and I put my backpack between my feet. Most of their suitcases were put on the floor too, but it was too much so he put some on the bench and sat next to me while she sat on the opposite one with a backpack. Immediately the train left the station.

They looked like they were even more tired than me;  they must have travelled a long way.  That was proven when he produced a printout.  I could read that it looked like a reservation for a hotel somewhere in London and that this came from a Spanish website. Together they studied the map of the London subway. It seemed they agreed,  my knowledge of Spanish is totally none.  She got the backpack from her bench and put it on top of a suitcase and made a gesture that he should come over to her. She looked quite ravishing to me but he was too tired to feel tempted and shook his head and said something. She shrugged and joined him in yawning.

After a few stations some people had left the compartment and no new people had come in.

She sort of woke up, got up and I thought she would go for the toilet. But she went the other way and called the man. He took a look at her, next to two empty benches, looked at the luggage, shouted something back and sank back on the bench again. She came back and was now totally restless. She couldn’t find a nice way to sit, even took off her shoes and sat on her knees on the bench. Because of this she gave me a generous view on her bottom cleavage. She had this nice coloured skin all over her body. She must have been born this way or taking sunbaths in the nude, I couldn’t help think. But she moved in another position already, a bit like mine and pulled down her sweater.

When I heard the intercom calling my destination being the next station I got up with my back pack and moved to the doors. I heard some rustling behind me.  The train stopped and I got out, but I couldn’t resist having a last look on the couple. She had taken my place and snuggled up against him. He had his arms around her and they kissed.

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