Girl on a train

At the Western side of the six-track railway running into Woking station, one line splits away in a gentle curve leading to places like Camberwell and - I think - ultimately Petersfield.

One afternoon, the 15 year-old me was riding on the the lonely line to Camberwell where I was attending a private school in Geology. It look me a few months to realise that geology was not the palaeontology I was expecting it to be, so I waited until we had gone on the fossil-hunting field trip to Lyme Regis before telling the teacher that I had misunderstood and had decided to leave the class.

That day I sat at the window of my carriage, soporifically staring at another slow moving train which was pulling up along side of mine on the next line. The two trains were so close that you could have leaned out of a window and shaken hands with a passenger in the other.

Eventually they were moving at exactly the same speed and I found myself gazing into the eyes of what seemed to me to be the prettiest girl I had ever seen, who was seated a few feet opposite on the other train. She stared back and instantly we both began formulating plans for meeting properly. 

We looked up at our windows and quickly discovered that neither would open. We simultaneously ran through the other hopeless options - no pens, no paper, no steam on the window in which to write... time was fast running out.

Within a few more seconds the trains began to part company, the distance between us increased - painfully slowly - and panic turned into resignation. We waved at each other with sad smiles, wondering if we would ever meet again. We never did.

For years after, I wondered if I we would have married under other circumstances. Stranger things have happened.