on a suburban train
bound
for another corner of nowhere
the boy dressed in white
attracts
my attention
he’s no better looking than most, no more
attractive, i doubt
he is cleverer than they, let alone
eruditer
but
he does have
a style.

the boy dressed in white takes a seat facing mine, one removed down the carriage, he sits on his least white item of clothing, his jacket, making sure that his brilliantwhite trousers don’t get stained with the grime of the train

his shirt is half sheer and somewhere between, in whiteness, the trousers and jacket, it has a pinkish hue, perhaps from the lilac white pink of his skin, his skin is milky and soft to the
touch
i imagine
(i don’t walk up to him to find out, lest he take
umbrage)
his hair is the black of a boy whose hair just isn’t quite black, but
a dark mousy brown, dark enough to seem black though against the white of his
temples. his shoes are white, i don’t see his socks or his
underwear
but chances are they are
white.

the boy dressed in white sits on the train out to nowhere playing a game on his phone. only once or twice does he look up and our eyes meet
on both occasions
without meaning. i interest him less than he me but then i am twice his age and not wearing white, but he’s not
quite
indifferent. nor is he put out, he turns his attention back to his game and if i were to have a guess at what he was feeling i’d say
confident
at having had
some effect. (maybe as
desired)

the boy dressed in white has a future i reckon and i reckon he reckons so too. his phone rings, the one he’s been playing a game on. it’s the wrong kind of phone but he’s ‘good’ and what’s more he’s had some good news. the good news is that a manager, the manager, no less, of mcfly wants to hear his songs. he’s been talking to him in a bar and he’s told him that he has a good look, which he does, his look is what’s caught my attention too and i too, if i were a manager of young pop stars, would take an interest in him
and his songs.

relating his good news to the friend on the phone (not girlfriend not boyfriend nor mum, by the tone of his voice, but a friend) he gets off the train at someplace out nowhere, out in the suburbs, assured
in the knowledge
that though nowhere may be where he’s now
he’s got style he’s got songs he’s got people’s attention: he’s
clearly
got somewhere
to go.

petra, the girl on the train from berlin to dresden, is much put out to miss her connecting regional service (owing, we hear, to a signal failure resulting in a 'twelve minute delay') which would have taken her to the important meeting at the family planning centre. (i don't ask petra why the meeting is important or in what capacity she was meaning to attend it. being a complete stranger to her, i fear such a line of enquiry may be found unwelcome or intrusive, or possibly both.)

using her friend's mobile she phones her brother - at work, apparently - and asks him to google (she uses the verb 'google', in german) the number of the centre and then instructs him to ask sebastian (another sebastian, obviously, not me) to phone a certain man there to tell him that she won't be coming to the meeting because she can't make her train.

she's very cross. in a peculiarly restrained way. she doesn't shout or scream or use expletives. she just says 'this makes me very cross', and suggests she ought to complain. after all, she has made plans. 'when you plan things', she says. there is a righteousness in her voice. and rightly so, one feels: it makes one cross. 

i tell her i live in england where you never make your connecting train and this sort of thing happens all the time and it's best not to make any plans at all but to just build in one or two hours slack and see what happens. this makes her laugh. she is in a much more cheerful mood now and finds this even more peculiar: 'this is peculiar', she says, not to me, to her friend, 'being angry and laughing at the same time'. i think she finds it good peculiar, rather than funny peculiar. or bad peculiar. i'm sure she does.

the elderly lady opposite me who'll be met by somebody at the station to then travel on to somewhere in the country smiles knowingly. she has seen it all, perhaps?

the train gets into dresden twelve minutes behind the original schedule, bang on the new one. petra smiles and wishes me a good time in dresden.