| The man sits with his pen poised, ready to gently curl his nib across the shuddering paper. He pauses as the train grinds to a halt. Distracted, he searches for his muse as a sea of commuters and students push towards the bursting carriage door. He sits and waits, until she steps gingerly into his realm. The woman awkwardly adjusts her oversized sunglasses as she searches unsuccessfully for a vacant seat. Defeated, she rests against a frozen pole and rummages in her patchwork bag. The man watches the woman silently, intrigued. He studies her body language intently as she shuffles about in slight agitation. She pulls a small mobile phone out of her bag and fiddles with the keys. A blast of light from the setting sun penetrates the carriage and highlights the radiant hues of her cropped hair. She reconsiders her actions, bites her lip and returns the phone to the bag. As she tilts her head slightly, the man notices a tear forming under the sunglasses. He picks up his pen and begins to write periodically. He writes about this woman. This train. This life. He makes assumptions as to where she is from, where she is going and the man who has broken her heart. As he exploits her with this pen, a mobile phone shrieks with an incoming message. He looks up briefly, only to witness the woman scrambling through her bag for the phone in desperation (even though she probably knows that the ring tone isn't her own). He writes about her desperation. Her willingness to forgive a man that keeps her hanging. Probably a man that doesn't even know how important his message is to this woman's existence. The man's pen shudders as he writes about another's ability to make this woman feel dead one moment and alive by controlling her phone. He imagines that she'll never get over it... even when she looks into the eyes of her life mate, she'll think back to the first of so many to break her heart. He's beginning to enjoy writing now. He smiles slightly as he punishes this anonymous woman with his inky words. More obscure tears form under her sunglasses, as though she knows what the man is writing. From glances, she now knows that he is writing about her. For the rest of the journey she feels, powerless and exploited. And when she finally walks away from her author and steps on to the night-filled platform, her phone rings... ...and he has rescued her again.
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