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Flinch | Jan 01 2003

There is no one else at their end of the compartment. They take seats directly across from each other. Both pull out books to read. She holds hers in such a way that he can see the title—The Box Man by Kobo Abe—since she thinks he might find this intriguing. She is a woman, she wants him to see, who reads Japanese novels. His book he holds in his lap, so the title isn’t so obvious; however it seems to be a novel: dense writing with few paragraph breaks.

They take turns sneaking glances at each other, then gazing absently about the train. Or first they look about the train, then sneak glances. When the train emerges above ground, she pretends to be interested in the river beyond his shoulder but actually uses this opportunity to check out his eyes, which appear to be hazel.

Her stop is the first stop past the river. When she rises to go, she notices him flinch. Evidently he was imagining that she was about to walk across the aisle and start talking to him—the last thing she or anyone would ever dream of doing.