i'll remember u - part 1

Great, I think. Just great.

First some guy snatches my luggage away from me and demands money, and now the train isn't budging. And it has been that way for the last two hours or so. The passenger across me sighs in exasperation, and we continue chatting anyway.

Then it hits me - I'm never gonna reach the train station in time.

"Shucks, I have to make a phone call. I'm so dead," I tell him. And bingo! Turns out I was right, no idiot-proof pick-up service at the train station after 8pm. By the looks of this immobile train, I'll be lucky if I get there at all. But no, there is no way I'll be there before 9pm. I brace myself mentally for all the dangers I'm going to expose myself to, en route to the only safe haven I know in this foreign land. Who knows what lurks in the dark?

Great.
****
Finally. It was a torturous 3 hours. And here I am, weary and crabby, luggage in tow. The floor is glistening from the slight drizzle, the air a cool misty comfort.

I take it all in, and ask around for the directions to the bus-stop. I'm trying hard to make sense of the scribbling on my notebook - which bus to take, which direction, where to stop.

Okay, I can do this.

So I march, determined, and park myself in front of the bus stop. And I wait. The rain hits lightly, and gradually, it stops.

Then my bus arrives. My heart leaps when I recognise the number on the front. Thank you so much, I utter, a silent prayer of thanks to my guardian angel. Phew.

I drag my luggage up the bus, and survey around for the ticket machine I read about in the guidebook.

"Oh there it is," I say to myself, and inch over to the centre. Someone else is trying hard to punch his ticket too, so I guess I'm not the only traveller.

But he isn't very successful, it seems. I try my luck with the machine, too.

The lady at the front interjects this sad scene, telling us that the bus driver has turned the bus engine off and gone for a little break. Or something. At least this is what I think.

But, oh.

This is when I turn around and see him. My heart stops beating for 3 seconds, I think. It is a weird feeling, like a zap up your spine. He isn't drop-dead gorgeous, but he's just.. him. Okay fine, he is cute. I'm trying to place him in my memory. Have we met? I wonder. Obviously not. But it's that feeling, familiar yet foreign, like you know there's something when there's really nothing.

I am thinking too much.

"Where are you going to?" he asks. And I answer. He fishes out a crumpled piece of flyer, and shows it to me. "Yeah, I'm going there too. Which hostel are you staying at?"

Please let it be the same hostel.

And so the conversation continues. Along the way, we discover that we've got some pretty interesting similarities. And I am looking at him the whole time, trying to see him from different angles, wondering how one person can look like so many people at the same time.

*****
Fast-forward a little. That night ended not quite as expected. As it turned out, our hostels weren't quite the same. We walked up the hill, and I reached mine first, but he didn't know where his was. So without knowing his name, I decided to go into mine first, since the door was already open, but not before asking quickly if he would like to let me know where he would be. He asked me how he could do so, and I told him to come back when he found it, cos I'd be waiting. There was a slight drizzle then, I hurried in. I didn't know if he did come back, but I waited, like I said, right after I was done with the paperwork, and I never saw him. Urgh, I thought. I forgot about it, and retreated for a shower.

But it didn't end there.

-end of part 1.