Sharing a commute with the same people everyday is weirdly intimate; here you all are,  strangers even though the faces are familiar, traveling on the same train / bus / tram / plane / ferry / spaceship *delete as appropriate.

There’s carpet-hair lady, who surely shops at Carpetright to buy shampoo products. Her whole body seems weighed down by the unruly rug of hair on her head, hobbling along in her high heel shoes, her ankles threatening to snap at any given moment.

The rest of her body is swamped by a sensible rain coat. She looks like someone high up in a shortbread factory, someone who has the only set of keys to a tall grey filing cabinet, full of crumbs and dust and forgotten memories.

There’s vampire-man, with skin so pale and unhealthy-looking that he must be a walking corpse. He looks like he works in a windowless room, hunched over a computer, sipping mugs of human blood to sustain himself. He has dark rings around his eyes, and I have never seen him eat.

There’s the pair of lovestruck teenagers on their way to school, always gazing into each other’s eyes and giggling, their hearts full of optimism and bags full of school books. They look as if their hearts are going to burst right through their school blazers, and leave a bloody mess everywhere; a permanent love stain on the station platform.

Then there’s me, waiting impatiently for the train, my head always buried in a book, willing the time away and making unfair judgements about the people all around me. I don’t know their names but I would definitely recognise them in a police line up. Question is, would they recognise me?