private universe...

After a day spent with work visiting Worcester, Malvern and Evesham, I travelled home on the train from Bristol Parkway station.  After a change at Birmingham International, I settled down onto the train that was going to drop me off at Nottingham.

Initially, the carriage wasn't too busy, and I was able to take a table seat diagonally opposite the only other person there, each of us with an empty seat beside us.  She looked like she didn't much want to be disturbed and had her feet stretched right out underneath the seat opposite, so I left her to it.  It was rush hour, and as the train began to fill up, I was forced to ask her to move her feet so that I could scoot across to make some room.

The journey was a little over an hour, so I dug out my iPad and picked up where I'd left off with an episode of the West Wing. Occasionally, my attention would wander and I would look up from my screen at the people around me.  The girl sitting opposite caught my eye because she was reading a book on Lucrezia Borgia, but she held my attention because she was also idly playing with her phone and scrolling through songs on her iPod classic.  She was wearing a Gryffindor quidditch team t-shirt and looked a little awkward, or at least very self-conscious; perhaps a little uncomfortable in her skin. She was also clearly trying to keep herself to herself by hiding behind a big pair of headphones and losing herself in her own happy place.

As she hopped between songs on her iPod, she was bopping along with her head and occasionally mouthing along to the lyrics.  She looked really, really happy and content in her own little world.  It was nice to see.

Did I talk to her?  No.  I didn't.  I left her entirely alone because I'm not an arsehole.