I am sorry

That day was one I had to go to the office.

After nearly two years of working from home, I was going in again. A cold Melbourne morning. I think it must have rained all through the night before. I walked on, watching my face in the water pooled on the road—each time, a different face appeared. I bought a coffee so warmth could spread into my palm, and got on the train.

In summer, when I take the train, I watch my fellow passengers. I like to imagine that summer produces a small waterfall inside everyone’s heart. I don’t know why that thought comes to me. In winter, I don’t like looking at people. Maybe it’s because most of them are wrapped in the same dull, boring black. But outside, the trees still carry colour. So I prefer a window seat. And because anyone might start talking, I wear headphones without even playing a song.

On that morning ride, two women sat opposite me. One of them, every two minutes, would write incomprehensible words into the air as though she were composing a poem. I don’t know the exact medical term but people who grow slow in their mental age than physical age. And the other woman, as if tearing that poem to shreds, kept saying—very sweetly—“ssh, ssh… silence.”

How can someone tear something apart and still sound so gentle? Maybe I felt it that way because I saw tenderness in her words and sharpness in her eyes.

For about fifteen minutes, that language felt like poetry. Then it began to irritate me. There are moments that remind me I am only human. My irritation was one of those moments.

Should I change seats? Will she take offence? Will she start shouting at me? Will she scold me for something and push me into an awkward scene? Won’t she get off at the next stop? Why is she like this? Has she read too many books? Does she dream at night? Are the people in her dreams kind to her when they speak? What language do they speak? Will she understand? Does she love someone? Does someone love her? What music she will listen when she likes to feed her soul? Does she have a future planned out with a family? What would have she thought about retirement plans? 

So many questions rose in my mind. And yet what rose higher than all of them was anger—anger that she had ruined my morning journey meant to be quietly spent with coffee, a chance that had come to me after two years.

Just then, from somewhere, a man rushed in with a big bag and slammed into me. The coffee cup slipped from my hand and fell to the floor. Whatever the hurry was, he walked away without a word.

And then, once more, she spoke, that poem-language in the air:

“ooh, I..I ..I.. ammm sso sorrhey for what he did”…..

Girl, I felt deeply ashamed for irritated at you. I thought why would someone care to apologise for others mistake. Then I understood, In the world full of people running their own race, innocence has its place. You have opened my world to be an idiot, to be good, to do good and to bring my boyhood innocence to my life again! 

I don’t know your name but I named you after my favourite poet Dickinson.

Emily, truly I am sorry!