On the Tokyo trains we stand close as lovers, while men in white gloves push us closer together. On top of each other, elbows fill empty spaces and faces leave streaks on the windows. We move as one body, sway hard, back again. A man’s back presses firmly against my chest as he reads a book, shoulder blades of sharp bone digging space between my breasts. Through the fabric of our clothes I feel that he is sweating, see the wetness that slicks his neck, colors his collar dark blue. I imagine the sweat will stick us together, molecules will join, make love, reproduce. We are so close I can smell his scent, soy, and lemon, and fish, always fish.
At the stations, people shift. Make way at the platforms. Paths appear as passengers peel sticky limbs off their neighbors. Inside the carriage, he turns the page of his book. Shoulder blades saw at my chest. The train lurches forward and his head jerks back, clatters hard against my teeth. Long after, I spit his salt from my lips, pull one strand of his hair from my tongue, trailing cells along taste buds.
I imagine he has a wife, two plump daughters, a very small dog. But he is mine now. This man who is old enough to be my father. This man, who like so many, pretends I am not here. Who reads his book and imagines the firmness at his back is a brick wall, or the cushions of a comfortable chair. He does not feel the single American lost in his city. Muted by language. Intimidated by culture. Longing to reach out in greeting, skin-to-skin, eye-to-eye. And yet, we are here. Entwined. Intimate.
At the next station he leaves, cold as conditioned air. I imagine he hurries home to a dinner of fried fish, hurries home to play fetch with his very small dog, hurries home to his wife with the small bones and dark eyes who does not gasp when the tiny shovels of his hands fill themselves with her breasts. His wife who smells of soy, and lemon, and onion, who does not know I have felt the bristle of his hair at my lips, have tasted the salt from his skin, have felt the heat when he left my side, warmed by the pulse of his heart.
______
Amy Holwerda is a freelance writer living the dream of traveling the world with a pencil behind her ear. Her work has been noted in The Best American Essays (2013) and has been published in Hobart, The Collagist, Quick Fiction, Flash International, and The Sycamore Review, among others. She currently lives in Berlin, Germany and blogs about her travels at amyholwerda.com.
Photo credit: tokyoform / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND